AADOM PODcast – Economy Proof Dental Marketing
Maximizing Your Marketing Budget: Tips for Dentists
First, let me say that marketing should be viewed as an investment in your dental practice, not an expense. Remember that.
But, just like investing for financial security, you need a solid strategy when promoting your dental practice. Knowing how much to spend – and how to spend it – can be the difference between marketing rags and riches.
How much should you budget for marketing?
I’ve seen dentists make all kinds of mistakes when it comes to spending money to promote their businesses. Essentially, however, there are basically three different traps you can fall into when it comes to budgeting for your marketing…
You budget too little. Many accountants and practice management consultants have recommended 1-2% for a marketing budget, but for a million-dollar practice, that’s only $1,666 per month! That amount may get you basic search engine optimization (SEO) and some internal marketing, but if you need to fill your schedule with more new patients, these are not the only tools you need.
You budget too much. Spending a huge amount of money on marketing isn’t always necessary either. Doctors often spend freely on various tactics without measuring ROI, essentially wasting their money.
You don’t budget at all. This is the worst. It happens when a dentist sees holes in their schedule and panics, suddenly spending money on whatever he or she thinks will generate a fast response. In reality, it’s just a quick way to burn money.
What should you spend your marketing budget on?
Choosing the right marketing channels ultimately depends on your goals. If you need brand awareness to build a reputation for your office or a key service, then you need tactics like reviews, SEO, local marketing, referral programs, social media, and even traditional advertising such as billboards or TV. If, on the other hand, you need interruption marketing to attract new leads, you would want to use channels like Google Ads, social ads, and direct mail. Keep in mind that interruption marketing almost always requires an offer to move the prospect into action. If you’re not ready to dangle a carrot in front of the new patient, focus on long-term branding.
Digging deeper, here’s how to get the most bang for your buck from various types of dental marketing…
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing evolves constantly. You don’t have to know how to do it, but you do need to know the options and work with a reputable marketing agency that presents new ideas regularly.
When outsourcing your digital marketing to an agency, your costs will pour into three buckets:
- Development and Setup – This includes things like the development of a new website, a photo shoot, or the creation of a landing page for your Google Ads campaign. Typically, these are one-time costs and won’t need to be repeated for a particular strategy or campaign. This is the bucket where you want to weigh cost versus quality.
- Advertising – Platforms like Google and Meta also need money to push your ads in front of your targeted audience – just like TV stations, newspapers, and billboard companies. Once you get past the development and setup costs, about 65-75% of your budget will get spent here. These expenses are primarily passed directly through to you by the agency.
- Agency Services — The final bucket contains the recurring costs for the agency to manage your SEO, Google Ads campaign, social media, or website. Having them keep a watchful eye on everything can be helpful; just be sure you have a good understanding of what, exactly, you’re paying them for.
Search Engine Optimization
Out of all the digital marketing strategies, dental SEO is hands-down the best investment you can make – it’s the gift that keeps on giving. I find that it can take 6 to 12 months to really climb the Google ladder to page one, but once you get there, the ROI is impossible to match. Most practices see at least a 10:1 ROI after year one, and many of our own clients have reached an ROI as high as 150:1 after 10 years. That’s because their SEO-driven leads from 10 years ago were of a higher quality, and stayed with the practice as long-term, loyal patients.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an effective way to keep you top of mind with your patients. I recommend that dental offices send out a monthly e-newsletter just to keep in touch. If you’re looking for engaging content ideas, you can feature a new smile of the month, a team member profile, healthy recipes, technology and service highlights, and more. Email can also be used to remarket specific treatments or services to patients. For example, create a list of all your patients who expressed interest in an Implant or Invisalign but have not yet scheduled treatment. Then create a drip campaign that addresses their pain points, objections, and FAQ’s. Also, provide an enticing incentive to move forward if they schedule treatment by a certain date. (Don’t stretch that date out too far. Urgency creates action!)
Social Media
Social media is the current darling of digital marketing, but be careful not to rely on this as your only marketing channel. Social media is less about generating leads, and more about helping to convert them. Prospective patients who are considering your practice often visit your social pages to get an idea of who you are before they commit to an appointment. That’s why this type of digital marketing is always most successful when managed by people inside your practice who can project some personality and authenticity to engage your audience. It’s helpful to use a social media content calendar to ensure you’re posting consistently and with enough variety.
Local Marketing
If you really want to increase your word-of-mouth referrals, you need to be “seen” in your local community. Get yourself out there by hosting a table at local fairs and festivals, joining the Lions Club and Chamber of Commerce, or visiting small businesses in the area to network your in-house membership plan.
Patient Referrals
Patient referrals are the least expensive – yet most valuable – marketing you will ever have. Requesting referrals from your patients may feel awkward, but it can help if you have a semi-rehearsed “script” to use at the completion of a big procedure. Do the same for your front desk to use at checkout. I’m not suggesting bribery, but tried and true strategies such as recognizing and rewarding your referring patients will always work. In the end, if you can get roughly one-third of your new patients from referrals, give yourself a pat on the back.
Online Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews and testimonials can seem almost as difficult as referrals to squeeze out of patients. This is a case where paying for an automated patient review platform (such as Swell or Birdeye) could be a worthwhile investment. The personal approach is always best, but your team has a lot to remember (not to mention a lot of responsibilities to juggle), so it’s far too common for this opportunity to slip through the cracks. If you’re the outgoing type, ask your most loyal patients to sit with you for a minute or two and film a short testimonial on your phone. Since you already know what they are most happy about, “interview” them with a few simple questions that will allow them to gush about you and your practice.
Patient Experience
Obviously, exceptional patient experience is the foundation for those referrals, reviews, and testimonials. In addition to doing what you “should” do (like staying on schedule and not forcing them to thumb through every magazine in the waiting room), go out of your way to find thoughtful things you “can” do. Giving flowers on Mother’s Day (or for no reason at all), remembering their birthdays, or just chatting about common interests while they’re in the chair can show them that you are kind, warm, and authentic. Dentistry is a business, but people do business with people they like.
How do you know if you need to spend more… or less?
Tracking your marketing metrics is essential and should be measured quarterly to prevent making knee-jerk reactions to a bad month. The most important numbers for you to look at include:
- Number of leads – Use tracking numbers to determine how often the phone rings or how many people click on your scheduling link.
- Number of conversions – How many leads convert into appointments?
- New patient first-year value – What is the return on investment for each new patient you bring in?
- No show/cancellation rate – How many of your marketing leads are not showing up for their appointments?
If you want to really dig in, there are also unique metrics for each interruption strategy. SEO, Google Ads, social ads, and others all have their own targets for things like time on page, top-of-page impression share, and click-through rate. Expect your agency to carefully monitor those metrics and present them to you with full transparency.
After all, it is your money.
Episode Summary
This podcast is intended for dentists who are searching for ways to maximize their marketing budget during a tough economy.
Episode Notes
AADOM Radio & GPM Present:
Xana Winans-CEO & Founder
Here is the link to GPM’s next webinar, “Your Perfect Patient Match: Attract your ideal patients by discovering YOUR Dental Marketing DNA,” and ultimately, that is the heart of what makes your brand sticky, resulting in economy-proof marketing.
Learning Objectives:
- How the economy changes consumer buying behavior
- Practical marketing solutions that work
- How to engage your audience
More About Xana:
Xaña Winans is Golden Proportions Marketing’s CEO, founder, visionary, and lead strategist. As one of the industry’s most sought-after dental marketing consultants, she collaborates with our team on a diverse group of clients to create strategic marketing solutions with measurable results. Her passion for dentistry is evident in the work that she does, and in the award-winning products GPM produces to help your practice thrive.
Around the office, we all know that Xaña’s knowledge and drive extend well beyond GPM’s walls. She holds the marketing seat on the board of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and has been awarded Fellowship in the International Academy of Dental Facial Aesthetics. You’ll often find her lecturing at some of dentistry’s biggest conventions and study groups as a recognized expert and international speaker on dental marketing. Couple that with over 30 years of experience marketing dentistry, and it’s easy to say that she’s pretty much seen it all.
Learn More About GPM:
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