In today’s annoyingly fast-paced and ever evolving digital landscape, where search engines are super-smart and social media reigns supreme, paid marketing is an absolute must if you’re a dental practice looking to stand out amidst fierce competition.
When done right, paid marketing can do some serious magic for your online presence, helping to attract new patients and giving your dental practice the boost it needs to grow.
In this blog, we’ll look at seven awesome paid marketing tips to add to your arsenal. Think of them as your trusty little allies in spreading the word about your dental practice, all while attracting new patients and ultimately boosting revenue.
Tip #1: Get Your Website In Order
Now, I know this isn’t strictly a paid marketing tip, but it’s definitely one of the most important factors for the success of your paid marketing campaigns, or any marketing campaign that drives people to your website.
So, before you start pouring money into online advertising, your website needs to be on point. You don’t want to blow your budget by driving traffic to a website that isn’t optimised for lead generation. Your dental website should be super user-friendly and look great on all devices. It should be simple, but still pack a punch with information that’s easy for anyone to understand. And don’t forget to include those all important calls to action – like web forms, live chat, a click-to-call button, or even an online appointment booking system.
Trust us, it’s not a good idea to get started until you’ve got your website in order, otherwise your marketing efforts could be futile and your budget will be wasted.
Tip #2: Know Your Audience
Before revving up any new paid marketing campaign, it’s crucial to know your target audience, inside and out.
Get to grips with their demographics, interests, and what makes them tick. This knowledge will strengthen your marketing efforts and ensure you’re reaching the right people. Better targeting means a better return on investment (ROI).
Take Dental Implants for example, typically, this treatment piques the interest of an older crowd. So, it’s only logical to factor this in when finetuning your target audience. Analyse trends, past campaign data, harness nifty tools like Google Trends, Google Analytics and Search Console, or tap into info you’ve already collected from your own patients. This will help you uncover patterns in age, interests, and search habits, steering your campaign toward success!
Also, location will be very important for dental practices. Make sure you’re only casting a net around a radius you’re willing to service. Don’t cast it too wide though, as users are not always willing to travel and will often opt for a dentist closer to their location.
Tip #3: Diversify & Don’t Rely On One Paid Advertising Channel
Dental practices tend to rely on Facebook to attract new patients. This is probably because it’s the platform they’re most familiar with. They often use it to share latest news, promotions and glowing patient testimonials. Plus, they often find themselves chatting away with new, current, and potential patients through Facebook Messenger. So, it’s no surprise that when they decide to give paid advertising a whirl, Facebook is their first choice.
Don’t get me wrong – Facebook Ads is a fantastic tool for lead generation. Its visually striking ads and its versatile campaign options make it a great fit for dental practices, no matter their marketing strategy. Even if you’re not up to the task of creating professional ad campaigns, just hitting that “boost” button on your Facebook posts can really expand your reach and help to generate leads like magic.
However, Facebook Ads can sometimes be more like a random flyer distribution. Of course, the goal is to get the word out about your services, ideally to people who are genuinely interested. But unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that everyone seeing your ads is interested, in fact, many of them won’t be. So, isn’t it a no-brainer to also put ads in front of those who are actively searching for what you’ve got to offer?
In most cases, when people are looking for a new dentist or seeking information about a specific dental treatment, they turn to trusty search engines like Google or Bing. You can capitalise on this by setting up a Search campaign on Google Ads, targeting commonly searched keywords relating to your services (try Keyword Planner for some keyword research magic). If your ads align with what users are looking for and what they’re expecting to see, they’ll be more likely to engage and make contact.
So, while Facebook Ads can be excellent, don’t miss out on possibly a better opportunity by investing in paid search campaigns on platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads (Bing). It might cost a little more per lead compared to Facebook Ads, but the quality of leads you’ll get will be far superior. So, go ahead, diversify and broaden your horizons – it’s worth it!
Tip #4: Retarget with Social Media Ads
Yes, it’s true that platforms like Facebook and Instagram come armed with interest-based targeting capabilities, which can sometimes enhance the precision of your dental campaigns. But, these platforms become way more powerful when used to target users who have already shown an interest in your treatments by visiting your website.
Yes, I’m of course talking about Retargeting, and this approach allows for a much smarter use of your budget, resulting in a more effective marketing strategy for your dental practice.
This is how it works – When you’ve got that trusty Facebook Pixel in place, it tracks the footsteps of users who visit your website. Then, like magic, it pairs them up with Facebook and Instagram accounts, transforming them into a super-exclusive audience ready to engage with your attention-grabbing ad creatives.
When you retarget these users with some seriously captivating ads (that are all about the treatments they’ve already checked out), guess what? They’re gonna be super focused and tuned in compared to the regular run-of-the-mill users who get targeted based on interests.
But wait, there’s more! You can really supercharge your retargeting strategy by teaming it up with an “On-Facebook Lead Form” campaign. This is awesome for lead generation because not only does it zero in on an audience that’s ready to engage, but it allows them to fill out a form and register their interest without ever leaving Facebook. Even better still, the cost of these leads can be surprisingly low too! Just remember, don’t make your forms too easy to fill in. Instead of collecting the usual pre-filled fields like name, email address, and phone number, throw in some custom pre-qualifying questions to really level up the quality of those leads.
Tip #5: Stay Positive to Avoid Ad Rejections
If you’ve ever dipped your toes into the world of Facebook Advertising, chances are you’ve encountered those irritating ad rejections and disapprovals. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us! These hiccups are often triggered by Facebook’s automated flagging system and are usually related to specific wording in your ads.
Facebook takes a pretty strict stance on using messaging that might hint at any negative traits about their users. For example, including things like “Are you unhappy with your smile?”, or “Are you sick of having yellow teeth? both highlight negatives about the user. Not only can this lead to your ads getting rejected, but in some cases, it might even result in a suspended ad account – and trust me, that’s not a place you want to be. To steer clear of this problem, try to keep the spotlight on the positive aspects of your treatments. Avoid shining a light on any negatives related to a user’s appearance, condition or situation.
Google Ads can throw a similar curveball, but the consequences are less severe. Instead of flat-out rejecting ads, Google often restricts them, meaning that certain users won’t get to see your ads, but everyone else will. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to resolve this when it happens on Google, and in some cases it’s completely unavoidable. But ultimately, it won’t be as much of a headache as Facebook and won’t have a dramatic impact on reach.
Besides crafting messaging that simply appeases Google and Facebook’s ad policies, you can also get strategic with your messaging to level up the quality of your leads. For instance, if you’re drowning in inquiries solely relating to price, you can work your magic by including a starting price in your messaging. This little trick not only stops users from inquiring simply to ask about the cost, but also filters out those who might not be able to afford the treatment in the first place. Experimenting with strategic messaging like this can work wonders for your campaign performance and the overall quality of your leads. So, let your creativity flow!
Tip #6: Give Performance Max A Chance:
Don’t be afraid to play around with different campaign types on Google Ads to figure out what really works for you. You’ve got choices like search, display, and discover – so dive in and see which one does the job.
But, before you decide, it’s definitely worth mentioning that there’s a new kid on the block called ‘Performance Max,’ or ‘Pmax’ for short. This one’s a game-changer because it taps into the power of A.I and machine learning across all of Google’s advertising networks and channels. Reducing the need to create multiple campaign types. Plus, it’s super user-friendly, a breeze to set up, and often delivers more conversions for a lot less ad spend. It’s like getting a bigger bang for your buck, stretching your budget further than those less exciting campaign types.
Just a friendly tip before you dive in though. If you give Pmax a shot, make sure to connect only your top-priority conversion goals to make sure it is optimising itself to achieve them and them only. And don’t forget to add some negative keywords to keep out any unwanted traffic. PMax tends to cast a pretty wide net and can sometimes get a tad carried away, so go in with your eyes open and be cautious.
Tip #7: Test, Learn and Optimise
Don’t just set it and forget it! Always keep a watchful eye on your paid marketing campaigns – it’s the only way to spot areas for improvement.
Start by setting clear goals, and then hone in on those key metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per lead. For lead generation campaigns, these are your campaign’s vital signs, telling you how healthy the campaign is. When you spot areas that could use a boost, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get creative.
This is where the fun begins! Try A/B testing – You can experiment with different versions of your ads to see what resonates best with your audience. Tweak the messaging, play around with imagery, or even test out different landing pages that your ads point to. You’re aiming for that perfect harmony that makes your ads perform at their absolute best.
Make sure that any claims or statements used in your messaging are realistic, this goes for images of treatment results too, stay away from airbrushed stock photos and try to use real patient images if possible (don’t forget to ask for their permission). These will be more believable and will resonate better with users.
It’s also a pretty good idea to monitor your keywords and sieve through search terms with a fine tooth comb to make sure your budget is being used wisely, and not being wasted on keywords that lead to irrelevant clicks.
Finally, remember that campaign type I was praising earlier? Performance Max. Well, the good news is that PMax does a lot of the tweaking for you. It’s constantly testing and learning what works best, so you can spend more time focusing on providing top quality assets, whilst PMax figures out which one’s achieve optimal performance.
To Summarise…
Paid marketing can be an absolute game-changer for dental practices. In many ways it’s essential and pretty much impossible to grow without it. You can try, but we wouldn’t recommend it.
When you put these tips into play, you’ll be unleashing the full potential of your paid marketing efforts and giving your dental practice the boost it deserves. Just remember, paid advertising is an ongoing adventure, so keep a close eye on your strategies. Adapt to the ever-changing trends and fine-tune your campaigns to squeeze out the best results.
If you’re all about growing your dental practice and could use a hand with your marketing game plan, we’ve got you covered. Reach out to us today, and tap into the expertise of our seasoned team of marketing professionals. We’re here to supercharge your SEO, PPC, Social Media, and more. Let’s take your dental practice to the next level!
