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The Benefits of Digital Signage for Dentists

Like most businesses in the healthcare industry, dental practices face a lot of competition. For that reason, dental clinics must take advantage of the most effective technologies and marketing techniques to differentiate themselves from the crowd and outshine competitors.

One of the best marketing tools available to dental offices is digital signage. There are so many benefits of digital signage for dentists, including increased customer engagement, optimized patient experiences, higher sales, and better brand recognition, just to name a few.

This article will cover some of the most significant benefits of using digital signage solutions in your dental office, along with some use cases to illustrate how you can get these benefits.

However, we will first give a quick introduction to what digital signage is. Then, after discussing the benefits, we will end the article by telling you all you need to know about acquiring digital signage hardware and software for your business.

What is Digital Signage?

Digital signage refers to the use of digital signage software and digital signage hardware (such as media players), to display content on digital screens. Most high-quality digital signage solutions, like Loop TV, will give you templates so that you can display your content in a visually pleasing way without having to have a deep background in design.

Digital signage is highly dynamic. Firstly, there are tons of different types of digital signage displays that you can use to show off your digital content. These can include consumer-grade televisions, commercial-grade screens, LED walls, interactive touchscreens, tablets, and even billboards.

Secondly, there is seemingly no end to the type of content that can be displayed. Just to name a few, you can display videos, images, text, animation, social media feeds, television programming, interactive apps, wayfinding instructions, digital menu boards, special practice offers, patient testimonials, staff bios, and so much more!

Now that we have a bit of a background as to what digital signage is and can do, let's move on to the benefits you can expect for your dentistry practice when you integrate digital signage outside your store, in your waiting rooms, at the receptionist desk, and throughout your offices!

The Benefits of Dental Digital Signage

1. Increase foot traffic and new patients

People are so used to seeing traditional signs that they hardly ever draw the attention of a passerby. It isn’t just that the signs are static that these signs no longer cut it. It's also because they are extremely limited to the type of content that they can display.

With digital signage, you can create eye-catching visuals that get the attention of those who walk by or drive by your dental office. Of course, this does not mean that you have to ditch your traditional sign if you do not want to. Digital signage outside of your dental office can focus on things other than what is achieved by your traditional sign. For example, you can display promotions that your practice is offering to new customers, or even dive tips on dental hygiene.

This kind of content does a much better job of drawing the attention of potential customers, and beyond simply drawing their attention, it also increases the amount of memory retention about your business. Even if someone is not making an appointment the same day as they see your digital sign, they will be more likely to think of your practice when setting up their next appointment.

You can think of the digital signage outside your dental office as the first impression you make on new patients. And just as first impressions are important in relationships between people, they also play a huge role in how people perceive a business. That is why it is so important to make sure that the signs outside of your office are visually pleasing and engaging!

2. Upsell with Dental Digital Menu Board

When you hear the term “digital menu board” your mind probably associates it with cafes, restaurants, and bakeries. However, tons of businesses can benefit from using a digital menu board. These can be on digital screens in the waiting area or by the receptionist's desk.

With dental digital menu boards, you can list all of the services that your clinic offers to patients. A lot of the time, people do not really know what they need or what kinds of dental services they could benefit from. For example, many people associate the dentist with occasional teeth cleaning and fixing cavities. But often, dentist offices offer much more than that, from dental surgery to more cosmetic services.

The digital menu board is a great place to highlight all of your services. You will get many more patients enquiring about services that they may not have thought about otherwise. Moreover, it helps keep customers informed about the prices for each service, which is always welcome for patients when they visit any business in the health industry.

3. Keep Patients Entertained with Waiting Room TVs

It's no secret that people do not enjoy waiting for things. This is especially the case with dental visits because people are usually anxious about their appointment. Going to the dentist can be stressful, and dental clinics can do their patients a great favor by keeping them entertained.

One way to keep customers entertained in dental office waiting areas is to play interesting content on the waiting room TVs. With Loop TV, you have access to tons of different kinds of videos, from extreme sports to music videos.

This can greatly increase the patient experience because not only can it help people deal with the stress of wait times, but it can also decrease perceived wait times. Wait times are the actual amount of time spent waiting, while perceived wait times are how long it feels like someone has been waiting.

When people are entertained, perceived wait time tends to decrease significantly, which is why getting the best content on your waiting room TVs is so important.

4. Increase Customer Engagement with Social Media

Getting customers engaged with your business is a great way to increase customer loyalty, as well as expand your brand’s reach. It is no secret that social media is integral to the success of most businesses these days, and dentists are no exception.

With digital signage, you can showcase social media feeds. These might include people who have posted about your business. In this case, patients will see that other people are involved with your business on social media and it may encourage them to do the same.

Moreover, simply highlighting your own business social media feed will inform patients about the existence of your social media presence, and they will be more likely to follow your business profiles. This opens up a whole new pathway for marketing and engagement with customers.

This can be especially effective if you use your social media in a fun and engaging way. For example, you can post polls about people’s favorite toothpaste brand, and then hand out a tube of toothpaste from the winning brand for the next 10 people that make an appointment.

This, of course, is just a single example. But there are many ways that using digital signage and social media together can create a much more engaged and receptive customer base.

5. Increase Patient Familiarity with Your Business

In the digital age, a lot of transactions can feel like they lack the human element. That's why it can make a huge difference when a business makes an effort to familiarize its customer base with the business. People who feel some sort of connection to a business are far more likely to become loyal customers.

One great way that digital signage can help familiarize people with your dental practice is by displaying employee and staff bios on the digital signs around the clinic. These staff bios might talk about the education of the staff, or something unrelated to the business, which helps the patient get to know the staff better.

Maybe they can list a member of the staff’s favorite topics of conversation or hobbies. Displaying employee bios is a great example of how you can utilize digital technology to fill in the gaps left by an increasingly digital-based society.

6. Let Your Patients Do the Marketing for You

One incredibly powerful method of in-store marketing is including customer testimonials in your digital signage playlist. Often customers are much more willing to accept the words of other patients than those from a business.

Customer testimonials show that some customers were so pleased with their experience at your establishment that they were willing to have their words shared with other customers.

This goes far in creating a sense of trust among patients, and digital signage is perfectly suited for showing patient testimonials because you can show multiple testimonials on one screen instead of being stuck with the same testimonial on a static sign.

7. Create an Alternative Revenue Stream

While digital signage can be an incredible way to boost the number of new patients and foster customer loyalty, as well as function as a great marketing tool that generates more sales, the benefits do not stop there.

Digital signage can actually be a way for your business to generate an alternative revenue stream. How? Well, many companies are looking for places to feature their advertisements, and a dentist's office can take advantage of this by agreeing to let some advertisements play on their digital screens. This can be a serious alternative stream of revenue.

Of course, some business owners may feel like finding companies and businesses that want to advertise in their office might be more trouble than it is worth. In some cases, this can be true.

However, Loop TV offers the perfect solution to this with their digital signage solution. Not only is Loop TV free, but they also provide pre-downloaded advertisements that can make your business money when they play on your digital screens. So you get all of the benefits of digital signage with the additional revenue stream included!

What is Needed for Digital Signage?

Now that we have gone over some of the wonderful benefits your business can get from employing digital signage, let's go over what you will need for your new digital signage system.

1. Screens

One of the first steps in getting digital signage set up in your workplace is to purchase the digital signs on which you will display your content. Luckily, you will have a ton of options. You can display digital signage on many types of screens. Inside you can potentially get away with consumer-grade televisions, though you can also get commercial-grade screens.

If you are planning on displaying digital signage outside of your office, it is certainly recommended that you go with a weatherproofed commercial-grade screen that has the ability to get very bright. Still, you have a lot of freedom when it comes to choosing the type of screen you want to use!

2. Wall Mounts

For indoor digital signage, you will typically want to mount your screens on the wall. This not only looks more professional but also takes up less floor space. There are many types of wall mounts available with varying levels of functionality.

3. Digital Signage Solution

The final piece is choosing the digital signage solution you want to use. The digital signage solution should come with digital signage software, with which you can do content management, content creation, and playlist scheduling, and it should also come with a media player that you can hook up to your screen to display content.

Once you have purchased these three things, you should be all set to start creating great content that your patients will enjoy.

Digital Signage: An Essential Part of the Dentist’s Toolkit

Digital signage has the potential to revolutionize the way that your dentist's office interacts with and markets to and interacts with patients. There are tons of benefits that can be a serious boost to your bottom line. If you want your business to stand out from the crowd, then digital signage is definitely the way to go.