In my book, “Dental Entrepreneur’s Guide to Profitable eMarketing Strategy,” I discuss traditional and nontraditional marketing strategies, including taking advantage of the Internet as a low-cost marketing tool. However, “If you don’t have the necessary digital knowledge to guide your Internet marketing efforts, you can lose out on the financial opportunity that the Internet promises to deliver.” That is why it is important to surround yourself with persons with the know how to help you market your dental practice.

Marketing your dental practice requires you thinking outside of the box. You also have to see a Virtual Assistant as an assistant who happens to be in another physical location away from you. With the advent of technology, a VA can be in Timbuktu and take messages for you, book a flight/hotel accommodation for a conference, book your dental appointments, manage your calendar, and so much more. The key is to develop a system whereby you can effectively utilize your VA’s skills, and manage time wisely.

Remember the old computer meme: Garbage in, garbage out. So ensure you give your VA clear and precise instructions on the tasks at hand, and also ensure the correct tools and equipment are in place to get the job done.

So what are some ways to use a Virtual Assistant to market your dental practice?

First, you have to determine how you plan to market your dental practice. Once you’ve chosen a method, then you will need to know what steps to take to implement said method. Finally, you will need to know what aspects of this method will prevent you from concentrating on the business at hand—i.e. practicing dentistry.

So for instance, if you decide to do eMarketing, a preferred marketing strategy these days, you will need to have a strong online presence. This means having a website for starters. Even if you are proficient in website development, you will not have the time to run a dental practice and run an online marketing campaign. This is where your VA comes in.

Here, then, are some ways a VA can help you to market your dental practice:

• Maintain a blog on your website
• Proofread and/or write your articles for your blog
• Contact blog owners concerning reciprocal link-building
• Proofread and/or write articles for guest blogs
• Moderate comments on your website
• Do research for the material to use in your articles, e.g. find statistics
• Do research on your competitors
• Do email marketing by sending out emails to your prospective clients
• Write video scripts for your landing pages
• Use SEO to optimize your website

For some of these tasks, your VA will need to know online tools like Mailchimp, aWeber, Basecamp, Mingle, WordPress, to name a few.

Finally, your VA can reach out to social media to help promote your dental practice.  Facebook, Google/YouTube, and Twitter are the three biggest media to utilize in your online marketing strategy. In this instance you will need a VA who is versed in social media marketing. With over one billion users, Facebook is arguably the number one social media site to target in promoting your dental practice.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg as to the value a Virtual Assistant brings to your dental practice marketing campaign. Did I miss anything? Can you think of other ways a VA can help to market your dental practice? Let us know in the comments box below.