Dental Office Giveaway Ideas—And How To Run a Contest

Are you searching for dental office giveaway ideas and other on-trend social media branding and marketing techniques that will help your dental practice grow and prosper? If so, you’re in the right place.

In this post, our Weave team explains what you need to know about sponsoring a successful dental office giveaway, including potential benefits, best practices, and plenty of marketing ideas you can use to grow your brand.

The Benefits of Running a Giveaway

So why should you invest time and money into a dental giveaway for your social media followers and patients? As a local business, strengthening your presence and credibility within the community is critical to help you drive growth and entice new patients. Sponsoring a contest or giveaway is one effective marketing strategy to help you achieve that goal, and it offers far more benefits than just expanding awareness of your practice.   

Marketing and Social Boosts

Sponsoring a giveaway or patient contest isn’t just a way to attract prospective patients; it’s also a highly effective dental marketing idea. In today’s digital world, using local SEO (search engine optimization) techniques like social media marketing is far more beneficial and important than many dentists realize. By using a social media platform like Facebook or Instagram to promote your giveaway contest, you’re also promoting your brand, boosting visibility, and building trust and credibility.

In addition to the digital marketing benefits you’ll gain by running the contest on social media, you’ll get even more brand awareness by giving away dental promotional items. Not only do people love getting (free) promotional products, but it’s also one of the most effective marketing ideas. Consider these statistics from a Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) study:

• 88% of consumers who received promotional products could remember the advertiser’s name or brand.

• 53% of consumers use promotional products they’ve received at least once a week.

• 85% of consumers have patronized a business after receiving a promotional item from it.

As you can see, offering your patients free giveaways with promotional products as prizes can be a powerful dental marketing tool for your practice!

Happier Patients and Better Reviews for Your Practice

Every dentist knows that a critical key to success is ensuring that every patient is happy and satisfied. Of course, many variables influence patient satisfaction, but holding a social media contest and free giveaways is an effective way to keep your dental patients happy. It’s a fact that people love to get free products! Whether they receive dental floss, pens, t-shirts, or a new tooth stress reliever sample, every patient at your dental office will be thrilled to win a giveaway contest and get free items. Plus, all those promotional products are tried-and-true dental marketing strategies that increase brand awareness.

Satisfied Patients Leave Positive Reviews

A happy and satisfied patient is much more likely to leave a positive review about your dental practice than a dissatisfied one. After all, who doesn’t want to have a terrific dentist that sponsors a giveaway contest where patients can win free gifts? Don’t underestimate the power of reviews. Your digital reputation significantly impacts the overall success of your dental practice.

In fact, that’s why review management should be a fundamental aspect of your marketing strategies. Nearly nine out of ten consumers agree that reviews influence their decisions when researching local businesses. Also, Google is the most popular online review platform, with 59% of consumers consulting it first when reading reviews. Don’t forget to claim your Google My Business Page before you launch your giveaway contest on social media so that new visitors can find your dental office quickly and easily.

How To Run a Giveaway for Your Practice on Social Media

Next, we’ll dig deeper into the best methods for running a giveaway that will ensure maximum exposure.  

Coming up with fun contest ideas and offering the best promotional products for your dental giveaway is only half the battle. You need to develop a contest with clear and simple rules and then use social media effectively to promote your giveaway and encourage followers to share your content, boosting visibility for your dental practice.

When sponsoring a social media giveaway contest, always make it simple and easy for people to enter. Even if you’re offering excellent prizes, people won’t bother if it’s too complicated. The best practice is to publish an announcement post with clear instructions for page visitors. Here’s an example:

1. Like our Facebook page and this post.
2. Comment on this post with your favorite dental care items.
3. Share this post on your other social media pages and tag a friend for an extra entry!

Encourage Engagement

The next critical piece to a successful giveaway contest is encouraging engagement from your followers and the public. In addition to the entry example we used above, you could also try uploading a quick video explaining the rules of your giveaway contest and how to enter. Then, publish a related post and ask your followers to comment: Have them suggest their own contest ideas or share what new product or any dental or tooth care items they want as a prize. Finally, don’t forget to respond to anyone who publishes comments on your posts, pictures, or videos.

You can also go outside the box and hold a big-ticket contest. For example, a cosmetic dentist could offer a free consultation for one lucky follower on National Dentists Day or a free tooth whitening or Invisalign session. Come up with unique and fun dental marketing ideas to encourage engagement and promote brand awareness. 

Utilize Effective Marketing Ideas

Effective marketing is critical for every type of practice in the dental industry, from a standard dentist or dental hygienist to professionals in cosmetic dentistry and even surgeons. While social media is a powerful marketing platform, don’t forget to utilize other resources to promote your giveaway contest.

For example, you could create a Google Ad or Facebook Ad with a landing page that leads to your website or social media profile, with the primary content relating to your contest. Google Ads (formerly called Google Adwords) and Facebook Ads Manager make it easy to manage your ads and dental practice marketing, even if you don’t have experience. Plus, don’t forget to mention your giveaway contest to every patient that visits your practice for an appointment!

Dental Office Giveaway Ideas

Contest Ideas

When thinking of contest ideas, always choose something fun and unique. While everyone likes to win free prizes, they also love to have fun while they’re doing it. Here are some cool ideas you can use for your next giveaway:

Smile Photo Contest: A smile photo contest is an excellent choice for a social media giveaway. Have people send in pictures of their “before” smiles and have them win a free tooth whitening session. Or go smaller and offer free tooth care items, like dental floss or toothbrushes.

Holiday Contests: Holiday contests are always popular. Whether it’s Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween, Fourth of July, or another holiday, make it memorable for your followers by sponsoring a giveaway. You may want to go with smaller prizes, which means you can hold the contests more frequently and gain the biggest benefits for marketing and brand awareness.

Followers Milestone: Hold a social media contest that will award one lucky person with a big-ticket item (such as a free tooth-whitening session or cleaning) once you reach a certain number of followers. It promotes your practice and strengthens your online presence as you gain more followers, every one of which is a potential patient.

Prize Guidelines

When sponsoring a giveaway contest, find a balance between offering an attractive prize that will increase participation yet still be cost-efficient enough that you’re not losing money. Consider holding big-ticket giveaways once or twice annually and running small contests monthly. 

Large Prizes

Large prizes can include items like:

• Electric toothbrushes

• Gift card for your practice or local restaurant

• Event show tickets

• Free tooth whitenings

• Earbuds

• MP3 players

Smaller Prizes

Small prizes are ideal for monthly contests and are extra beneficial because you can choose more winners when you give out items that aren’t as expensive. Don’t forget those small-ticket items like dental floss, tooth care products, or key chains need to have the name and location of your dental office on them. Don’t let any marketing or branding opportunity pass you by! Here are some ideas for smaller prizes:

• Dental floss

• Toothpaste

• Tooth-safe or sugar-free candy

• Travel pouches

• Totes

• T-shirts or hoodies

• Pedometers

• Water bottles

• Lip balms

• Retainer or denture cases

• Hand sanitizer

• Toothpaste tube squeezers

• Stress balls

Invest in Your Dental Practice with Giveaway Contests and Marketing Solutions From Weave

At Weave, we know that marketing can be a challenge for any dental practice, especially if you don’t have industry experience. However, we can help. In addition to the dental office giveaway ideas and tips we’ve listed above, our team offers advanced products and marketing services for dentists, including dental software, digital solutions, review management, and so much more. Call our team at Weave now at 833-572-2139 to learn more about our marketing and customer engagement solutions and schedule a demo.