With digital marketing now highly developed, dental clinics face a growing choice of platforms for brand promotion and patient acquisition. Meituan and Douyin, the two traffic giants, each have different users and operating logic, and how to choose sensibly between them has become a key question for the dental industry.
The problem: how Meituan and Douyin are positioned differently
First, we need to be clear about how Meituan and Douyin differ in function. Meituan is built around local services, covering restaurants, beauty, medical care and other fields, and its users are mostly "search-driven" consumers who actively look for information when they have a need. Douyin is a content-driven short-video platform whose users lean towards "passive reception", receiving content through algorithmic recommendation and more easily drawn in by content that is interesting and useful.
For dental clinics, Meituan is better suited to "precise conversion": when a user already needs to see a dentist, coupons and packages can quickly turn that need into a purchase. Douyin is better suited to "brand content seeding": building brand awareness and user loyalty through content.
For example, a dental clinic in Beijing ran a "full-mouth check-up for RMB 9.9" offer on Meituan, attracting a large number of users with dental problems to come in for consultations and achieving short-term growth in visits. A dental clinic in Shanghai, meanwhile, published content on Douyin such as "before and after orthodontic treatment" and "a day in the life of an orthodontist", successfully building a professional and approachable brand image and increasing users' trust.
The solution: set strategy by business stage and goals
Dental clinics at different stages of development should take different platform strategies.
- Start-up / brand-building stage: we suggest prioritising Douyin. Build a professional image and widen brand influence by producing good content such as health education videos, dentist interviews and patient case stories. Douyin's live-streaming sales features can also be used for online consultations and coupon giveaways to bring in initial traffic.
- Development / patient growth stage: add Meituan alongside, using its local strengths for targeted promotion. For example, launch campaigns such as "new patients only" and "limited-time discounts" to raise conversion. Meituan's review system can also be used to collect user feedback and improve service quality.
- Mature / brand consolidation stage: we suggest a "two platforms working together" model. Keep producing content on Douyin to strengthen brand loyalty, and maintain user relationships on Meituan to raise repeat purchases and word of mouth. Data from both can also be linked to analyse user behaviour for more fine-grained operations.
Summary and recommendations
For dental clinics, Meituan and Douyin are not an either-or choice but two complementary channels. The key is to set a suitable marketing strategy based on your stage of development, target audience and the resources you can commit.
We suggest dental clinics start with the following:
- Be clear about goals: is the aim to raise brand awareness or to drive direct sales?
- Content first: on any platform, good content is the core of attracting users.
- Be data-driven: regularly analyse key metrics such as conversion rate and ROI (return on investment) on each platform, and adjust strategy promptly.
- Integrate resources: connect online and offline resources to form a closed marketing loop.
In short, in today's highly competitive market, dental clinics can only get ahead and achieve sustainable growth by making flexible use of multiple platforms such as Meituan and Douyin.