Out of all promotional content, video is by far the most engaging. It adds personality, voice, and face(s) to your business, thus building trust before you even speak to a potential patient.

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Unfortunately, a significant number of dental offices miss out on video’s business growth potential for a couple of valid reasons. Often, practices shy away from video marketing because they aren’t sure how to approach producing them or, even, what they would talk about in them.

The good news is video production doesn’t have to be complicated, and practices have a lot of agency over the final product. 

The first step a dental office should take is deciding which type of promotional videos it wants to make and gathering the basic tools to make it happen. 

This blog will cover the different types of video content you could create for your practice and where it could (and should) live online. 

6 Kinds of Videos You Should Use in Your Marketing

Let’s look at the types of promotional videos we recommend for marketing your dental office. 

Behind the Scenes

BTS videos use unedited or raw footage that looks into a regular day in your office. It shows how you work and communicate with your patients and team members. 

Brands often use these videos to connect with their audience on a different level. They tend to be more impactful than scripted content because they humanize your business and offer an authentic look at your operations. 

Take your audience behind the scenes of what it takes to prepare for a procedure or everything you do to thoughtfully prepare for a new patient visit. This type of content is memorable and builds trust with the viewing audience quickly. 

Staff Profiles

Staff profile videos are a great way to introduce your team members or employees to your prospective patients. It’s like a living, moving version of your “About Us” page. Whether it’s a video of an employee talking about their experience in the field or what it’s like to work in your dental office, staff profiles are great for spotlighting your team.

This approach is also an excellent way to attract new talent, allow your employees to become brand advocates, and bring you closer to your patients. 

Patient Testimonials

As most dentist offices know, one of the most impactful forms of advertising is word-of-mouth. Patient testimonial videos are a great way to capture real customers advocating for your practice while also having some control over the content. The content should focus on the aspects of your practice that matter the most to your current and future patients. 

Not sure how to incentivize your patients to give their testimonials? If you have a loyalty program in place, give them the opportunity to score some points.

Educational/Explainers

Explainers are videos that — as the name suggests — explain and give an overview of a specific topic. In the case of your practice, these topics could be what to expect from procedures you offer or technologies you use that improve the care they receive.

You can also use an explainer to give your patients tips and best practices. Educate your patients about dental hygiene. For example, you could create a video about the “top 5 things you can do to improve your dental hygiene” or “3 myths about flossing.”

These videos are inherently more engaging since they allow users to learn about subjects that are of interest to them. They should be short, easy to understand, and attention-grabbing. To that end, it helps to make them consistently and address timely topics to help build thought leadership and trust. 

Finally, explainers are a great opportunity to use a call-to-action (CTA)  and convert leads to prospective patients. For example, if you explain a procedure you offer, throw in a CTA at the end that directs the viewer to “sign up for a consultation.” The video grabs their attention, and the CTA nurtures them to the logical next step. 

Community Outreach

Building trust and healthy brand growth require you to act as a responsible member of your community. Supporting and participating in meaningful community initiatives helps you establish an image of trust and resonate with your current and future patients. 

Creating a community outreach video means documenting your involvement in the cause and calling other members of the community to join too. These videos are good for raising awareness for local current events or persistent issues, as well as increasing engagement on social media.  

Partner Video Shares

Lastly, a good practice for creating a healthy B2B community is sharing videos your business partners have produced. Posting on social media can be challenging to do consistently. One easy way to fill out your posting schedule is to share content developed by partners to engage your audience. Try to build a relationship with these brands in the hopes that they will share and promote your original content to their audience in the future. 

Social Channels You Should Use to Share Your Video Content

Here are four essential channels you should utilize to share your video content, plus a bonus channel for the adventurous:

1. Facebook 

Your practice’s Facebook page is a good place for you to share any of the video content we’ve covered. With Facebook, you have the option of posting content to your main feed, as well as your story. Both channels serve a different purpose. Your main feed is ideal for content that generates general brand awareness or introduces your practice to prospective patients. For example, a staff profile gives viewers a glance at who they’ll interact with at your practice. 

Facebook’s “story” feature is a great channel to post any content you want to share but don’t want living on your page forever. This content is often more ad-hoc and engaging than a stagnate post. For example, if you have a deal for teeth whitening, you should post a short promo video to your story because it’s time-sensitive and won’t be relevant past a certain point.

2. Instagram

The same rules for Facebook apply here. However, make sure not to post the same content to both platforms simultaneously. Space out your content and mix it up to add variety to your different platforms. 

3. Website

You should embed most of your evergreen video content to your website, such as staff profiles, explainers, and testimonials. Evergreen content is cornerstone content that, in general, shouldn’t need changes over time. Unlike event promotion or community outreach videos, evergreen content remains relevant over time and thus can occupy precious real estate on your site like the homepage or “About Us” page. 

We recommend publishing video on relevant sections and pages so they don’t seem forced or out of place. Avoid posting too many videos on your site, as they can negatively impact its loading time. 

4. YouTube

Your YouTube channel should be your main repository for your video content. All of your videos should live on your YouTube channel in organized playlists so your patients can peruse at their convenience. 

5. Bonus Channel: TikTok

While we wouldn’t consider TikTok an essential social channel for your practice, it is one of the most popular video platforms in 2021, boasting 80 million monthly active users in the US alone. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, TikTok was largely seen as an app for Gen Z users. Now, however, almost 46 percent of TikTok users are between the ages of 20 and 39 — an ideal demographic for most practices. Plus, wellness accounts are on the rise, from chiropractors to mental health. 

Similar to Facebook and Instagram stories, TikTok is a good platform for less curated, more carefree content. Here are some things you should keep in mind when creating TikTok videos:

• Choose and focus on one topic (dentistry): Focusing on one topic will help you create consistent content that will eventually build a community. 
• Be authentic: You should focus less on the aesthetics and more on your message. Viewers want to get to know you and your personality above all else. 
• Utilize trends, hashtags, and popular sounds: Challenges, hashtags, and sounds are a great way to get eyes on your content. If you see a trend that fits your topic, join in the conversation! Whether you jump on the white teeth trend or warn against this dangerous teeth shaving trend, there is a place for you.

The app does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you tackle the basics you’re ready to go! 

And Action!

Producing video content doesn’t have to be daunting or expensive. If you have a vision and follow the basic filming guidelines, you can produce quality content that connects you to your audience. 

If you have time, we recommend checking out how other small businesses use video for advertising to see the standard in your industry and get ideas for your own content. Above all else, remember that your videos don’t need to be perfect the first time around. Shooting and editing take time and practice, but they will pay off in the long run.