Dental Marketing Direct

Digital Marketing for Dental Offices

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5 Online Advertising Ratios Every Dentist Should Know

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Most dentists outsource their online advertising campaigns to a dental marketing firm which then reports to them the results of the campaign. This is where your knowledge of marketing will be tested because these reports are full of technical terms and abbreviations. You must understand the meaning of each of those metrics to evaluate the performance of any marketing campaign. In this post we explain 5 ppc advertising KPI’s that every dentist must understand.

dentist advertising KPIs

Click-through Rate (CTR)

CTR is the ratio of clicks on your advert to the number of impressions it has received. This metric is very important for pay per click advertising specially Google Adwords. Google Adwords uses quality score in its ad ranking methodology and CTR is the main factor in quality score. A higher CTR means that your ad will get a better placement and cost less per click. Thus you will get more traffic in your budget.

Cost per Lead

The cost per conversion or cost per lead is simply the total cost of the campaign divided by the number of leads. This metric is very important to understand the efficiency of your campaign in terms of driving calls, form submits and other actions. A cost per lead that is too high would result in an unprofitable campaign. Therefore you must keep an eye on this number and make sure it meets your agreed targets.

Click to Lead Conversion Rate

As the name suggests this ratio gives the number of leads per click and is often expresses as a percentage. This metric helps gauge the effectiveness of the website or landing page used in the campaign in converting traffic to leads. In order to produce a low cost per lead, a high click to lead conversion rate is crucial specially for competitive dental procedures like cosmetic dentistry.

Lead to Appointment Conversion Rate

Similar to the click to lead ratio, this one gives the number of appointments resulting from each lead. Since this ratio is less than 1, it is usually expressed as a percentage. Your marketing campaign will be unprofitable if you cannot close enough leads and convert them into dental appointments. This KPI will help you gauge the quality of the leads as well as the phone skills of your receptionist.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

This KPI represents the gross profit resulting from a campaign to all the cost associated with running and managing the campaign. It is similar to the ratio return on investment (ROI) used to compare different investments. ROAS helps you evaluate the overall efficiency of your marketing campaign. A negative ROAS means you lost money whereas an ROAS of 100% means you made a gross profit equal to your marketing campaign cost. For any marketing campaign you should aim to hit at least 100% ROAS.

If you are struggling to make sense of your advertising results, or you need to improve your dental marketing campaigns, please request a free consultation.

How Long Does Dental SEO Take to Produce Results

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Many dentists have unrealistic expectations from SEO which often leaves them disappointed when they do not see immediate improvement in their website traffic. This is partly down to lack of SEO knowledge and partly due to false advertising by some SEO companies that guarantee to rank your website in X days. In this post we attempt to answer one of the most common SEO questions posed by dentists – How long will it take to see results from SEO?
Realistic SEO Results

Unrealistic SEO Results

SEO produces a nonlinear improvement in search traffic over time as illustrated in the diagram above. It is unrealistic to expect continuous improvement in website traffic starting from day 1 of your SEO campaign. SEO is a long term investment into your website and therefore you must set your expectations accordingly. If you need new patients quickly, SEO is the wrong choice and you should look into PPC advertising.

Why are SEO Results Nonlinear

It is important for dentists to understand how a typical SEO campaign progresses and why it produces nonlinear results.

SEO Work Takes Effect Only After Google Updates its Index

Any onsite changes, new pages published, inbound links built do not improve your website’s ranking till Google has crawled those pages and updated their index. Nobody can control the crawl rate, depth and frequency of their website and back-links pointing to it as Google explains on their search console help

“Our crawl process is algorithmic; computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site.”

This means that after making SEO improvements you have to wait until those changes have been indexed before you see any improvement in ranking and traffic. This is why it takes 1-3 months of SEO work before you can see any improvement traffic.

Click Through Rate of Organic Listings is Nonlinear

Most people who search on google do not go past the first page and click a result or ad on the first page. In fact majority of traffic goes to the top 5 spots. A 2014 study done by Advanced Web Ranking revealed that on average, 71.33% of searches result in a page one organic click. Page two and three get only 5.59% of the clicks. On the first page alone, the first 5 results account for 67.60% of all the clicks and the results from 6 to 10 account for only 3.73%.

Google Organic CTR

This means that improving your website ranking from page 10 to page 2 will not give any traffic increase even though it takes up a lot of SEO work and sweat. At the same time, just moving your website from 3rd spot to 1st spot in organic results will triple your traffic from that keywords. This explains why SEO traffic improves very slowly (as your website moves up to page 1) and then experience a sudden increase (as your website moves up from bottom of page 1 to the top).

Conclusion

I hope this post has helped you understand the dynamics of SEO and why you cannot expect immediate, continuous improvement in organic search traffic. If you have any questions or want to discuss SEO for your dental office, please request a free consultation.

5 Reasons Why Every Dentist Should Use Call Tracking

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Most patients who want to book an appointment or request more information end up calling the dentist even if they have already visited their website or read their brochure. Talking over the phone gives patients more reliable information quickly, making phone calls the primary source of patients for dental offices. In short, calls from prospective and existing patients is what keeps a dental practice running. Therefore, finding out how these callers are learning about your services is vitally important to the success and growth of your dental practice. In this post we present five more reasons to track calls to your dental office.

call tracking for dentists

Track Campaign Performance

Since calls are the primary source of patients and appointment bookings, you can use the volume and quality of calls to assess campaign performance. By tracking the number of calls you can objectively determine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns in terms of attracting dental patients. A good advertising campaign would drive a high volume of calls at a low cost per call. Without call tracking there would be no way to know if an advertising campaign is meeting your marketing goals.

Compare Different Marketing Campaigns

dental marketing call trackingBy tracking and recording inbound calls you can compare the performance of different advertising campaigns, discount offers and marketing channels. This information will help you make better use of your marketing budget by cutting spend on low performers and increasing spend of high performing campaigns.

 

e.g. A dentist spent $1000 on a radio ad that brought in 5 calls and $4000 on a direct mail that brought in 40 calls using the same promotional offer. With this information, we can see that direct mail is more effective than the radio ad. Therefore, next month this dentist can save the money on the radio ad continue with the direct mail campaign.

Optimize Campaign

Another benefit of call tracking is the ability to modify your ads, positing, promotional offers and marketing message to optimize the campaign performance. This way you can improve your campaign results over time through trial and error.

e.g. A dentist spent $1000 on a radio ad that brought in 5 calls and $4000 on a direct mail that brought in 40 calls using the same promotional offer. Next month he tries a different message and promotional offer on the radio ad which results in 10 calls for the $1000 radio ad.

Improve Call Handling

Call recording is one of the most overlooked aspects of call tracking. Call recording helps you identify issues in phone answering, which can then be corrected through training. Better call handling, will increase the production of your dental practice drastically.

e.g. A dental office gets 100 calls per month and which results in 30 patients per month. This means the receptions are able to convert 30% of all calls or in other words 70% of callers do not convert! Now imagine if this office improves call handling to convert 40% of all inbound calls. This would give them an extra 10 patients per month without any increase in their marketing budget.

Call Volume is Set to Increase

The volume of calls received by dental offices are set to increase several folds in the coming years. This is because mobile devices are replacing desktops and laptops very quickly. As a result, a growing number of consumers are now researching local businesses on their mobile phones which naturally favors calling over filling out contact forms. Therefore, call tracking will become even more important in the future.

Owning vs Leasing Your Dental Practice Website

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A modern dental website can cost upwards of $2500. However, while most dental web design companies charge a one time fee, some firms offer websites for a nominal monthly fee. They put you on a 12 months contract that includes the website development, hosting and maintenance fee billed every month. Both these pricing structures have their advantages, but the key difference is control and ownership of the website.

lease vs buy website

Domain Name Ownership

You should always retain ownership and control of the domain name of your dental practice. Your domain is part of your branding and you have mentioned it in your advertising and marketing campaigns. Losing your domain name would render a lot of your printed marketing materials useless. All SEO work done on your domain will also be lost. If you have emails setup on your domain then you lose them as well if you lose your domain.

Therefore, in order to avoid any problems, you should always register the domain yourself and retain full control of your domain at all times. You never know when your web design firm goes out of business or you have a dispute with them or your contract is over and you want to switch to a new company. By retaining control of your domain you can simply direct it to a new web host and have a new website up and running within hours.

Website Code and Design Ownership

Your website uses some programming code to render the website layout, images and content to users accessing your domain name. You must own the rights to the entire website code so that you can edit the website as needed. This will allow you to edit your website design and code, use the same design for another office location and basically use your website as you wish without needing permission from anyone.

When you lease a website for a monthly fee, you do not have any ownership of the website design and code until you have paid the entire amount of the contract. This can be a problem in certain cases where you want to end the contract with your web design company.

Website Content Copyright Ownership

The content of your website includes all text, images and videos on your website. Make sure that you own the copyright of all your website content so that nobody else can use your office images or your website copy. This will also allow you to edit the content as needed.

In conclusion then, it is always better to get ownership of your dental website even if it requires a substantial upfront cost. You can always hire a company to maintain your website and manage SEO.

Dental Practice Marketing: DIY vs Professional Help

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As a dentist you need new patients to grow your practice and to get new patients you have to promote your dental services to the local residents. You can manage your marketing campaigns in-house or hire a dental marketing company. You can also manage only some aspects of the campaign yourself and outsource other aspects to freelance designers and marketing consultants. All 3 approaches have their benefits and drawbacks so lets discuss each of the 3 in detail.

DIY dental marketing

Do-It-Yourself

This is the most straight forward method and also the cheapest if you know what you are doing. Most dentists do not have any formal marketing education so there is an issue of lack of expertise as well. If you want to market your dental office yourself, the first thing you should do is take some courses on dental marketing and practice management. This will help you avoid rookie advertising and sales mistakes and so you can make better use of your marketing budget to grow your dental practice.

The main advantage of doing your own marketing is that you are in control of all aspects of your campaign. Nobody knows your patients and treatment procedures better than yourself and therefore you have a distinct advantage over marketing companies and consultants. However, most DIY marketing are still not very successful because dentists are too busy with their patients to give due time and attention to their marketing campaigns. Another major reason for failure is the lack of marketing education and expertise among dentists. Consequently they fail to track, analyze and optimize the ROI of their advertising and promotional campaigns like a professional agency would.

Hiring a Dental Marketing Company

Since most dentists do not have the time or expertise to handle their own marketing, they usually turn to dental marketing firms for help. There many dental marketing companies out there offering a range of different service including, online, SEO, direct mail, billboard and full service marketing. It is better to hire a marketing company that specializes in a particular type of marketing like dental SEO or dental post card as they will be able to offer better rates and usually a better marketing ROI than a do-it-all agency.

The benefit of having a marketing company promote your dental office, is that you save time and have experts handling your marketing. You just have to monitor their ROI, and if the company doesn’t provide satisfactory ROI you just fire them and find a better one. Make sure you do not sign a long term contract with any agency until they have proven mettle by providing consistently good results over several months.

Using Freelance Consultants

You can look at this option as a combination of the 2 options above. As a dentist running your own practice you meet and talk to patients every day. You know their issues, fears and desires better than any marketing person. Therefore, you are in the best position to create and manage an effective marketing campaign. However, you don’t have the time nor the technical expertise to execute your marketing strategy. This is where freelance designers, developers, copywriters, videographers and SEOs come in. Let’s say you have researched and shortlisted 10 keywords you want to rank for. You find an SEO to do it for you and monitor their progress. Or you have surveyed your patients and come up with a special discount on dental implants. You hire a freelance designer and copywriter to design a postcard for this offer. Then you simple get them printed in the required quantity and use Fedex to deliver these postcards in your target zip codes.

In short, you create your in-house marketing department comprised of contract based workers who provide on demand services if and when you need them. You can even hire a marketing consultant to discuss various marketing strategies and create a marketing plan for you dental office. You can then review it every few months to make sure you are executing the plan correctly and improve it if necessary.

Depending on your budget, marketing expertise and time availability, you can select one of the above approaches to promote your dental office. In case you decide to hire a dental marketing company, please do not hesitate to contact us for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Dental Office Branding: Dentist Name vs. Practice Name

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Before launching your dental office, you need to decide what to call it. Whether you are a start-up practice or buying an established office, you have to brand your dental office with a suitable name. Unfortunately they don’t teach you that in dental school which is why we are here to help.

One of the main sticking points dentists face when naming their office is to decide whether to use their own/family name or to come up with a unique practice name. There are pros and cons to both approaches and in this post we look at some of the points you should consider in this regard.

Dental Branding and Naming

Do you have family history in the same town?

Perhaps one of your parents or grandparents practised dentistry in the town where you are setting up your office. Maybe your family ran a successful local business in the same town. Basically if you have an established and respected family name in the community, you can leverage that to benefit your dental office. If you find yourself in such a fortunate situation it makes complete sense to use your name as the practice name. It will give you a distinct advantage other dentists in the area. A creative, non-family name may sound and appear more attractive but if nobody in your town can relate to it then all that creativity is of no use.

Do you plan to take on associates?

Another point to ponder is how you plan to run the office not just in the present but in the future. Do you have any plans for adding associates? How many will there be? If you have such plans, then it is better to avoid using your name for your dental practice. This will avoid unnecessary confusion in the future and will make transition a breeze when you eventually take on associates to share the workload.

Do you belong to a minority group?

This one may sound controversial but as humans we tend to trust one of our own more than others – specially with personal things like oral health and hygiene. If you are an Asian dentist practicing in a predominantly Asian community, it may be beneficial to use your real name to brand your dental practice. This will help Asians in your town identify with your ethnic background and prefer your office over non-Asian dentists. However, please note that this can also work against you as well because dental patients from other ethnic backgrounds may be turned off by your Asian name. Therefore, dentists from minority groups need to account for the current and future demographic make-up of their town before using their actual name to represent their dental office.

Do you plan to sell your dental office in the future?

Another important consideration for using your actual name is the marketability of your practice to potential buyers. Off course this only applies if you plan to sell your dental office in the future like many dentists do. If your exist strategy in the next 5 years involves selling your dental office then you may want to avoid using your personal name to brand your office. This will make all your branding including, logos, bill boards, marketing materials, brochures, website, patient reviews, stationary, staff uniforms etc. transferable to the new owner making your dental practice a turnkey solution for potential buyers. This is a very attractive proposition for any dentist wanting to buy an established practice in your town.

If you are facing trouble coming up with a catchy name for your dental office, please try our practice name generator tool.