As summer comes to an end, it’s time to gear up for the exciting back-to-school season. Students are getting ready to hit the books, parents are preparing for new routines, and dental practices are seizing the opportunity to offer promotions and products tailored for this time of year.
Marketing plays a crucial role in growing and improving dental practices. Packing your marketing backpack with the right tools is essential to ensure your dental practice reaches the right audience and finds quality new patients. This proven checklist explores three essential components of your dental marketing strategies: PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, social media ads, and mailers/postcards. By incorporating these strategies, you can maximize your reach, attract new patients, and strengthen your dental practice’s success.
Preparation is Key
Before packing your dental marketing backpack, you must prioritize a few key essentials. These fundamental items will set the foundation for your overall marketing success. First and foremost, define your marketing goals. Identify what you want to achieve through your marketing efforts, whether it’s attracting new patients, increasing brand awareness, or promoting specific dental services. Next, ensure you have a user-friendly website. Your website is the face of your practice in the digital world, so it should be professionally designed, easy to navigate, and optimized for mobile devices. It should provide comprehensive information about your services, team members, and contact details. Lastly, have a good SEO strategy in place. Implementing effective search engine optimization techniques will enhance your website’s visibility and help potential patients find you online. Conduct keyword research, optimize your website’s content, and focus on local SEO to target patients in your area. By prioritizing these three elements, you’ll be well-prepared to fill the rest of your dental marketing backpack with additional strategies and tools.
Pack Your Backpack with Efficient Strategies
When it comes to dental marketing, efficiency is the key to achieving successful results. Just like packing a backpack for back-to-school, filling it with efficient strategies is crucial to help your dental practice thrive.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising
PPC ads can be a game-changer for dental practices as they move into the second half of the year, setting the stage for success. Pay-Per-Click advertising allows dental practices to target specific keywords and demographics, ensuring their ads reach individuals actively seeking dental services. By strategically investing in PPC campaigns, dental practices can increase visibility, attract more qualified leads, and drive more appointments and revenue.
Statistics reveal that Google Ads generate twice the number of visitors compared to organic search engine optimization (SEO), highlighting the impact of PPC in driving website traffic. Moreover, when it comes to making purchase decisions, 65% of people click on ads, indicating the importance of having a strong PPC presence to capture potential customers at the right moment. Additionally, the top three paid ads in search results receive a significant 46% of clicks, emphasizing the need for strategic PPC campaigns to secure prime visibility and drive click-through rates.
With the back-to-school and holiday season approaching, it’s essential to leverage PPC ads to promote any seasonal offers, discounts, or specialized treatments. By optimizing ad copy and landing pages and monitoring campaign performance, dental practices can maximize their return on investment and position themselves for a successful rest of the year, capturing the attention and trust of potential patients needing dental care.
PPC advertising is a powerful tool for dental practices to connect with potential patients actively searching for dental services. Here’s what to consider:
Keyword Research: Identify relevant dental-related keywords to target patients seeking specific treatments or services. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to discover high-performing keywords.
Ad Copy Optimization: Craft compelling ad copy that highlights your dental practice’s unique selling points, such as advanced technology, experienced staff, or specialized services. Include clear calls to action and emphasize the benefits of choosing your practice. Here is an example of ad copy for our client, Lakeland Family Dentistry:
We offer a wide range of dental services to meet the needs for you and your family.
Experience a different approach to your dental needs. Call to schedule your appointment.
Trust the reviews, and let us maintain you & your family’s smiles. We do it all. Call now.
Need a new dentist? See why our patients rate us 5 stars.
Landing Page Optimization: Create dedicated landing pages that align with your PPC ads. Optimize them for conversion by providing informative content, testimonials, before-and-after images, and easy appointment scheduling options. Here are a few examples of some landing pages we have built for our Google Ads clients:
Monitoring and Optimization: Regularly monitor your PPC campaign’s performance, adjusting bids, refining keywords, and testing ad variations. Optimize your campaigns to improve click-through rates (CTR) and maximize return on investment (ROI). Here are some results from our client Lakeland Family Dentistry’s ad campaign:
Budget: $1,000
Spend: $924.39
Clicks: 313
CTR: 8.84%
Conversions: 33
Monthly Optimization: Edited the call extension and adjusted a call ad in the Dentist Geo campaign. Added a new description to a call ad in Dental Implants Near Me. Added unrelated search terms and competitors to the negative keywords list. Removed non-performing keywords in Dentist Geo.
Social Media Ads
Social media has become an integral part of the lives of over 4.74 billion individuals worldwide, with a notable 4.2% increase in the number of users in 2022. When it comes to maximizing your marketing efforts, packing your social media ads in your backpack is a strategic move that can set you up for success, especially as you approach back to school. Leveraging social media ads allows you to reach a vast audience and drive targeted engagement.
By carefully crafting and deploying well-designed and compelling ads, you can effectively promote your dental practice, services, and special offers during the peak fall season. Social media ads offer precise targeting options, allowing you to reach specific demographics, interests, and geographical locations. This level of customization enables you to connect with potential patients who are most likely to be interested in your offerings, increasing the chances of conversion and driving growth for your practice. So, pack your social media ads in your marketing backpack and prepare for a successful fall with increased brand visibility, engagement, and patient acquisition.
Consider the following when planning your social media ad strategy:
Platform Selection: Identify which social media platforms your target audience frequents most, such as Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Allocate resources accordingly to reach the right people effectively.
Visual Appeal: Use visually appealing images or videos to showcase your dental practice’s clean and welcoming environment, state-of-the-art equipment, friendly staff, and satisfied patients. Highlight any unique services or promotions to capture attention. Here are a few examples:
Ad Targeting: Leverage social media ad targeting options to narrow down your audience based on location, age, interests, and behaviors. Target individuals likely to require dental services or specific treatments.
Ad Testing and Optimization: Conduct A/B tests to experiment with different ad formats, copy variations, and CTAs. Analyze the results and optimize your ads accordingly to improve click-through and conversion rates.
Mailers/Postcards
In today’s digital era, where digital marketing dominates, it’s important not to overlook the power of traditional strategies like postcards and mailers. These offline marketing tools offer unique advantages that digital channels can’t fully replicate. By incorporating postcards and mailers into your marketing backpack, you tap into a personal approach that resonates with customers. According to DentalMarketing.net, direct mail attracts 70% of customers due to its tangible and personalized nature. Furthermore, 54% of respondents state that they prefer receiving direct mail from companies they trust the most. This preference demonstrates the trust and credibility that physical mail can establish.
Additionally, direct mail boasts an impressive 62% chance of encouraging a customer to purchase. This high conversion rate emphasizes the effectiveness of this strategy in driving
tangible results. By including postcards and mailers in your marketing backpack, you leverage the power of personalization, trust-building, and increased purchase intent that these offline channels offer, giving your dental practice a competitive edge in reaching and engaging with your target audience.
Here’s how to make the most of them:
Premium Mailing Lists: Purchase/build a mailing list that includes post office monthly updated names and addresses for the households within your local area. A quality mailing list can perform 30-50% better than an outdated list and substantially increase your ROI.
Compelling Design: Invest in professional and visually appealing designs for your mailers or postcards. Use colors, images, and fonts that align with your dental practice’s branding and create a positive impression. Here are a few design examples from DentalMarketing.net:
Clear and Proven Messaging: Craft concise and persuasive copy that communicates the importance of oral health, highlights your dental services and offers any special promotions or discounts. Include contact information and encourage recipients to schedule appointments. Try to find offers and ad copy that have been proven effective in the past. Direct mail is not inexpensive, so find offers or messaging that has worked before on a dental direct mail card.
Tracking and Follow-up: Implement tracking mechanisms, such as unique promotional codes or custom landing pages, to monitor the response to your mailers. Always include a tracking number to allow follow-up on all missed calls and listening options for staff training and tracking down stray leads. Follow up with recipients through personalized emails or targeted digital ads to maximize conversion opportunities.
Your Dental Marketing Checklist for Growth
As a dental practice owner, packing your marketing backpack with the right tools is crucial to improving your practice’s success. By incorporating valuable dental marketing strategies like PPC advertising, social media ads, and mailers/postcards, you can effectively reach your target audience, attract new patients, and build a thriving dental practice. By following this proven checklist, you will be well-equipped to enhance your marketing efforts, increase patient engagement, and provide exceptional dental care to your community.
Our Marketing Specialists Ensure Your Backpack Holds the Right Tools to Find Regular, Quality, New Patients Fast!
When it comes to complex marketing strategies that have proven effective, seeking expert help can make a significant difference, particularly in areas like Google ads and social ads.
That’s where Gargle can step in to assist you. At Gargle, we specialize in marketing just for dentists, and our team of dedicated professionals understands the unique challenges and opportunities that dental practices face. We have helped thousands of dentists nationwide since
2009, and we have many serious dental marketing experts on our staff of forty-three professionals.
With our expertise in Google Ads and other digital marketing channels, we can help set your dental practice up for success for the rest of this year with some highly valuable dental marketing strategies. Our dental marketing specialists will work closely with you to develop customized strategies that align with your new patient and retention goals and target the right audience. From optimizing your ad campaigns to maximizing your return on investment, Gargle is here to provide the support and guidance you need to thrive in the competitive landscape of dental marketing.
Schedule a demo today, and let us do a free in-depth analysis of your digital and website footprint. Make sure each marketing dollar you spend is measurable and results in quality new patients coming your way!