Dental Marketing Direct

Digital Marketing for Dental Offices

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5 Google Adwords Ad Extensions Every Dentist Should Try

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Google Adwords text ads are limited to just 25 characters in the headline and 2 lines of 35 characters for the description. It is impossible for a dental practice to convey all the important information in such a short character limit. This is where ad extensions come in and help extend your ad with more useful information. These ad extensions are absolutely free and help improve your ad’s visibility in search results because an extended ad covers a larger area. Ad extensions can also improve your ad’s CTR, leading to higher quality score, lower cost per click and thus a better ROI on your ppc advertising spend.

Screenshot of Adwords Ad Extension

Google has introduced many ad extensions to help business enhance their ads with more information. In this post we look at 5 adwords ad extensions that you can use to improve your dental adwords campaign performance.

Location Extension

Location Extension

This extension ads your dental office address below your ad so patients can quickly see where your office is located without having to click your ad to find out. This helps to save you money as only people near your office will click your ad for further information and somebody who is to far away from your office will ignore your ad. You can use this extension by connecting your Google My Business account with your Google Adwords account. Location extensions are very useful and every dentist must take advantage of this feature.

Sitelink Extension

sitelink extension Sitelink extension expand your ad with links to different pages of your website specified by you. These site-links only appear under your ad, if your ad shows above or below the organic listings. Site-links do not show on ads appearing on the side even if you have added them through your account. These extensions have to be manually added as you must specify the links you want to show under your ad and the anchor text for each link. You can also specify 2 description lines of 25 characters each for every sitelink.

Site-links extension helps you direct patients quickly to the most important pages of your website, such as the about page, contact or request appointment page, testimonials page, discount offers page, before and after photos page etc. This allows a person to click on the contact page directly from your ad and request an appointment.

Call Extension

call extensionCall extensions extend your ad with a phone number allowing patients to dial your number without clicking your ad if they are on a desktop or clicking the ad to dial your number if they see your ad on a mobile device. In most cases calls are more valuable than clicks and therefore, your dental ppc campaign is incomplete without call extensions. Call extensions will continue to become more important as more and more people use mobile devices and smartphones to look for local dentists. Google also provides free tracking numbers to track the performance of your call extensions.

Callout Extension

callout extensionCallout extensions help expand your ad with more information about your dental office and treatment procedures. You can use callout extensions to add unique information that distinguishes your dental practice from the competitors in the area. Note that callout extensions only appear if your ad shows above or below the organic listings and do not appear for right side ads.

Structured Snippets

structured snippet extensionStructured snippets are similar callout extensions except that you can only use structured snippets within a category or header. Google will only show snippets of one category at a time. Again, structured snippets only appear on ads showing above or below organic listings and do not appear on right side ads. Here’s a list of available headers:

  • Amenities
  • Brands
  • Courses
  • Degree programs
  • Destinations
  • Featured hotels
  • Insurance coverage
  • Neighborhoods
  • Service catalog
  • Shows
  • Styles
  • Types

Immediately you can see that amenities and insurance coverage are relevant to any dental adwords campaign.

Now that you know what ad extensions to use, why not try them out on your dental adwords campaigns. You can learn more about all the Google Adwords ad extensions here. If you need any help with Adwords ad extensions or anything to do with PPC advertising, please request a free. consultation.

11 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Dental Office Name

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One of the first challenges any dentist faces when starting their own private dental practice is finding a suitable name. While using your surname to brand your dental office may be a good idea for some, most dentists would be better off choosing a unique name for their dental office. In this post we go over some important points you should consider when choosing a name for your dental practice.

naming a dental office

Is it too long?

The first thing you need to be wary of is the length of your dental office name. Ideally you should keep the name up to 3 words long and anything above 5 words is far too long. In case you have to use 5 or more words, then you can develop an acronym for your practice name and use that as your logo mark. Think KFC for Kentucky Fried Chicken and IBM for International Business Machines.

Is it meaningful?

Another important aspect of a good dental office name is that it must immediately convey what you offer i.e. dentistry services. Avoid using ambiguous words that may be used to refer to something else or whose meaning is not immediately apparent. Your practice name must also distinguish your dental office from other dental related businesses like dental insurance companies and dental labs.

What does it look like?

Write the name down on a piece of paper in lower case and upper case and see if it looks okay and reads well. Show it to a few others as well and make sure you are not setting yourself up for an embarrassment like these guys.

Is it easy to spell?

Another point to consider is the spelling of your office name. When you are on the phone and tell a patient or anyone your office name, they should be able to write it down without much trouble. Stick to commonly used words and avoid fancy words unless you want to spell your practice name out to everyone for the next 10 years.

What does it sound like?

In addition an easy spelling your practice name should also be easy to pronounce. Ask a few people with different accents to ready your practice name aloud. Carefully listen to how the name sounds. Can you make out each word? How fast can people say it? Are there too many syllables?

Does it reflect your positioning?

Another important consideration when naming your dental practice is your positioning in the market. Are you alone or a group of associates? Are you a cosmetic, orthodontic, periodontics, pediatric specialist or a general dental office? Are you affordable of expensive? Your name should be able to convey exactly where you stand.

Is a tagline needed?

If you can’t find a name to fully convey your positioning then try using a tagline. The tagline will support  your office name with more information to distinguish your dental practice from the rest. Ideally, however taglines should be avoided because they have become redundant over the years.

Can the City or Location Name be Added?

Since most dentists will only be operating a single city, it makes sense to add the city/town/metro name. This will provide your office a local feel which is important to many patients who wish to support local businesses over national franchises. It will also benefit you with SEO.

unique memorable namesIs it unique and memorable?

Another important aspect of a good dental office name is its uniqueness. You want your dental practice name to be different from everyone else in the city so people do not confuse your office with another dentistry. It should also be something memorable to develop better brand recall. This will help you get a better advertising performance.

Is the name still available?

Off course the last step before finalizing an office name is to check it is available. As soon as you have a short list of names, you must check which ones are available for registration with your state and federal authorities.

Is the .com domain name available?

Now that you have finalized a name, you should confirm that it’s domain name is available and register the .com immediately. Do not register any office name where at least the .com domain name not available.

If you have answered all the above questions, then congratulate yourself because you have landed a great name for your dental office. If your shortlisted names are already taken or you are having trouble coming up with dental practice name ideas try our dental office name generator tool.

Monitor the Online Reputation of Your Dental Office FREE

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Online reputation management has become increasingly important as a growing number of patient now read online reviews before calling or visiting a dental office. As a dentist, it is satisfying to see that your patients are happy with  your services when you find positive feedback left by patients on your local business listings. Local residents also rely on these reviews to form opinions about your practice. Therefore it is important that you regularly monitor and improve your online reputation.

In this post I will tell you how to track mentions of your name, practice name and other brand mentions on the web absolutely free. You can do this by setting up Google Alerts. Google Alerts Settings

Make sure you add very specific search queries and select the appropriate channel, otherwise you will end up receiving too many irrelevant alerts in your email inbox. Given below are some example queries I use to setup Google Alerts.

  • dental marketing direct
  • dentalmarketingdirect.com
  • rafay
  • rafay marketing
  • info@dentalmarketingdirect.com
  • dental marketing direct reviews
  • dental marketing direct scam
  • rafay scam
  • dental marketing direct refund
  • dental marketing direct rip off

You can also search your name and practice name in google and note down what search suggestions google shows. Then setup google alerts on those search terms. The main thing you want to track is negative feedback and mentions so you can respond to them quickly and manage any issues before things get out of hand.

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.

5 Proven Ways to Improve Dental PPC Campaign ROI

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PPC advertising is a great way to generate new dental patients online. However, if done wrong, your ppc campaign can become a nightmare and burn through your marketing budget quickly. Therefore, it is important to achieve a good ROI for your PPC campaign before scaling it further. In this post we have identified 5 proven tactics to improve the ROI of your PPC advertising campaigns.

Dental PPC ROI

Add Negative Keywords

Negative keywords help prevent clicks from irrelevant and low quality searches. If your dental office is open from Monday – Friday, you don’t want your ad to appear for searches like “dentists open on Saturday” or “dentists open on Sunday”. In this case adding negative keywords like saturday, sunday and weekend will prevent your ad from showing up on such irrelevant searches.

A/B Split Test Ads to Improve CTR

CTR (click-through rate) is the most important component of quality score. A higher CTR means a higher quality score. Ads with a high quality score will have a lower cost per click and a better ad position than other ads bidding on the same keywords. Therefore, improving CTR will directly reduce the cost of your PPC campaign and thus improve its ROI. The easiest way to improve CTR is to create multiple (2 to 4) ads in the same adgroup and rotate them evenly. Then every week revise ads with the lowest CTR with new verbiage and offers until you can beat the highest CTR ad (called the control).  When that happens, you revise the previous comtrol until you can beat the new control. This procedure of testing one ad against the other is called split-testing. Using split tests, you can  improve the average CTR of your campaign over time.

Use conversion optimizer or CPA bidding

In adwords, if you get more than 15 conversions in past 30 days, you can enable conversion optimizer. Doing so will help you optimize the campaign for a target or max CPA (cost per acquisition of a new patient lead). For e.g. if you need 50 leads at $70 each to meet your ROI target and your campaign has an average CPA of $80 with more than 15 conversions in past 30 days, you can enable conversion optimizer with a target CPA of $70. Google Adwords will then automatically adjust your CPC bids on each keyword taking into account the expected conversion rate for a click from each keyword. Thus achieving a maximum number of conversions at your target CPA of $70.

A/B Split Test Landing Pages to Improve Conversion Rate

Landing pages are a vital component of any successful PPC campaign. Once a searcher clicks your ad, all the work you did in optimizing the campaign is over and the conversion now depends on your landing page. A lot of dentists do not use dedicated landing pages for PPC advertising which can kill their campaign ROI and they end up shutting down the campaign. One of the quickest ways to improve the ROI of your PPC campaign is to improve your landing page conversion rate. This can be done through A/B testing of landing pages similar to ad split tests described above. However, with landing page split tests our goal is to improve conversion rate of clicks into leads (form submissions or calls).

Improve Call Handling Performance

The purpose of any PPC campaign is to generate leads in the form of calls and appointment request form submissions. However, you need to convert these leads into confirmed appointments and office visits to earn a profit from the PPC campaign. This is where call handling skills of your front desk come in. Often ignored by most dentists your staff’s call handling performance can make or break your PPC campaign ROI. Therefore you need to ensure that your receptionist is giving due attention each inquiry generated by the PPC campaign. The more leads they can close, the higher will be the ROI of your PPC campaigns.

In order to improve call answering performance, you need to record all inbound and outbound calls so that you or a sales expert can listen to these recordings and identify any shortcomings. These issues can then be addressed with some training sessions so that the a better closing rate can be achieved in the future.

As you can see from the discussion above, you must optimize a PPC marketing campaign through all stages of dental patient sales cycle – from the ad impressions to clicks, from clicks to leads (calls or form submission) and from leads to confirmed appointments. This will give you a high ROI after which you can increase your PPC campaign budget to generate even more dental patients for your dental office.

The Truth About Social Media Marketing for Dentists

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Dental Patients from Social NetworksSocial media marketing is a the most challenging way to get dental patients online. Many dentists who jump on the social media bandwagon, trying to find new patients learn this fact the hard way. They invest in a great page/profile, post a few updates, run some ads and then wonder why nobody is listening to what they have to sell. Well let me break it down for you –  nobody logs on to twitter, facebook, youtube or any other social network site to buy stuff. Social media is like this big party where everybody is invited to have fun, gossip around, stalk others and maybe relax after a busy workday. I mean you could setup shop on a table in the corner of the ballroom but dont be surprised if everybody ignores you. Social media marketing is all about joining in the fun, making new friends, sharing stories, discussing problems and then maybe giving out a business card to people who need help. However, before you get the opportunity to give away your business card to interested individuals, you need to start a conversation. 

There are many ways of getting people talking to you but some are more effective than others. You just have to ensure that you offer something of value that will distract people enough to take you seriously. Below I discuss 5 ways how your dental office can draw people’s attention on the various social media networks.

Social Proof

Facebook Marketing for DentistsWhether it’s facebook, twitter or youtube, the first thing people notice when visiting any page or profile is the number of likes, followers, subscribers  and comments activity you have. This is second nature to all social media users because we quickly want to assess the social value of the page or profile. You need to get a high number of likes, followers, subscribers and comment activity to grab people’s attention. The greater the followers count and activity level of your page, the easier it will be to attract more patients.
This is why it can be incredibly difficult to get a new page or profile going. Why would anyone like a page that nobody has liked before or commented on? Therefore, you should invite all your friends, family, relatives and patients to like or follow your dental office page when it is first launched. You can even offer a small discount or free whitening in return. You can also advertise your page to generate likes. But the point is that you need social proof to get new dental patients from social media.

Create Useful Engaging Content

Now that you have a decent number of likes and followers, you need to leverage that following to promote your dental office in their friends and social network. This is where you need to produce content that will grab the attention of your fans and followers and compel them to engage with your page and profile. Let’s be honest, nobody on social media will participate in anything that is boring so you have to make extra effort to make your content fun, original and interesting specially since dentistry is such a dry subject. But you can still post some jokes, memes, quizzes, surveys, studies, animations, videos, success stories and social experiments about dental related topics.

When your fans and followers like the content you produce, they will share it with their friends and social circle and thus take your office name further. The content will want people to visit your page and for more cool stuff you have to share.

Discount Offers

Discount offers specially limited lime offers work very well in a social media setting. The main reason for it is limited time – people believe they stand to lose something if they don’t act and this leads then to claim the offer. For e.g. If somebody who has not visited the dentist for over 6 months, sees an offer for a $49 exam + xray, they would be happy to give it a shot.

However, you do not want to overdo this stuff because then people will be turned off by the number of offers you are sending out every month. Your promotions to content ratio should be very low around 1 promotional post for every 20 educational/informational/fun posts.

Reviews and Testimonials

This is again connected to social proof because most people do not want to risk going to a new dental office. Reviews and testimonials help people convince people that your dental office is the real deal and that you have several satisfied patients who recommend your services. This conviction then helps patients make the decision to contact you for professional help or claim one of your discount offers. Without some positive reviews you will have a hard time convincing people on social media to visit your dental office.

Before and After Photos

These photos act as proof that your services work and are powerful in grabbing attention of prospective patients. They help prospective patients see the transformation in black and white. Social media loves these kind of photos since a many the users suffer from the same or similar dental problems. and these before and after photos offer people something they can relate to. Seeing someone else overcome the same dental problem that you are suffering from is a very effective in attracting new patients.