How Dentists Use Facebook Ads for New Patients
“That’s crazy talk; Dentists advertising on Facebook? Social media for dentists is a waste of time.”
Nowadays dental social media should be a proven prerequisite to any digital dental marketing plan worth it’s salt, and a clearly identifiable complement to every internal referral system.
“My dental website company handles that.”
Hopefully they have a handle on your organic SEO; but that doesn’t mean Google+ Local, online review management, authorship, or citation building are part of the plan…if you don’t ask, you’ll never know.
In 2013 and beyond, if you aren’t maximizing local efforts (and we don’t mean with direct mail at $10K a pop), you are missing out on a large segment of people actively searching for a dentist.
Doesn’t everyone deserve to experience your special brand of dentistry?
Mobile marketing for dentists seemingly equates to appointment reminders by text (which you probably overpay for, bundled in your software) and “my [10 year old] website is mobile-friendly.”
No it’s not; don’t get pigeon-holed with semantics!
Most of us will soon be accessing the internet from a tablet or mobile device more often than via the desktop computer. A responsive mobile dental website or custom mobile dental app can offer a more seamless user experience for anyone say…searching locally on Google…with their phone…for a dentist.
Dentists do dentistry, and most don’t have time to study Facebook advertising, local seo, or mobile dental websites & apps.
But new patients are the lifeblood of most dental practices, and today’s dentists need to effectively apply the right digital dental marketing tools to the job of cost-effective & sustainable new patient acquisition.
3 Simple Ways Dentists Can Force Multiply New Patient Acquisition with Facebook Advertising
1. Page Likes
2. Content & Events
3. New Patients
Advertise for Page Likes
Sure, the only people that are going to Like your page are that small cross section of your existing patient base who’re tuned in to your practice already.
Yes and no.
If so, so hit up their friends with newsfeed and sidebar ads to scare up some new page Likes – you can target them directly. Their click to Like is the first step toward your front door…that you nurture with unobtrusive reminders of what your patients say, how much money your offers save, and how great of a team you have.
On the other hand, aside from emailing invites to your existing patients, blogging, and using dental social media tools like Fan Gates on your Facebook page to drive new Likes to eventual new patients, you can also target people on Facebook in your immediate area with an offer to Like your page.
You can drill down to things like age, location, interests, and more with advanced targeting.
Advertise Content & Events
Maybe you have a Free Whitening Day, or a Wounded Warrior donation drive; whatever your event is, socially savvy dentist can use Facebook advertising to build awareness and increase attendance.
If it’s content you have, it’s content you offer. What you’ll get are more Likes.
What better way to showcase that sterling local news write up, or the Top Dentist in All of the Land award you just purchased?
Advertise for New Patients
Here’s where the real force multiplication of new dental patient acquisition comes into play.
The competitively cunning dentists out there can employ a dynamic strategy of retargeting and piggyback tactics to broadcast new patient offers and their digital word of mouth through the roof with smart-bomb precision.
This means more referrals; from a random local (and silent) website visitor now being served up your ads on Facebook, to a long-time loyal patient that is well connected with the local PTA…
Dentists going all in with social media advertising watch their new patient acquisition numbers go BOOM!
Facebook Advertising for Dentists
In my experience, word of mouth is one of the primary new patient acquisition vectors local dental practices rely on to continually increase their gross production.
Word of mouth is beyond digital, it’s local & mobile – now dentists advertising on Facebook can actually target (and re-target) specific segments of your surrounding local communities with your special brand of dental practice evangelism.
With Facebook’s Graph Search, people can actually look up what restaurants their friends like, what movies, who their dentists are…
Whether it’s a teeth whitening offer, a local charity drive, or just a simple blog post, Facebook advertising for dentists could provide you with piles of the new social currency that is cost-effective & sustainable new patient acquisition.
A look into the future reveals an ever-expanding social graph on Facebook combined with a shrinking (free) real estate market on the first page of Google search results…dentists better start thinking seriously about advertising on Facebook and deploying Google Adwords as part of their new patient acquisition arsenal.
It’s a pay to play world baby!
Embrace it; just make it work for you and your practice – not them.
Check out this infographic then envision how your dental practice can identify patients by email address, mobile phone number, or profile ID…then serve up some digital word of mouth amplification.
Infographic by MDG Advertising