Managing your Online Advertising
by Melody on 09/03/10 at 4:12 pm
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The world of online advertising can be a scary place for dentists. Many choose to take matters into their own hands. They fail to realize that there is a science to online advertising, and using the right tactics can help make a campaign more effective. I personally don’t like search engine ad campaigns, but many dentists use them. If you are going to use them, use them correctly.
Most dentists start out with Google Adword campaigns. These campaigns are usually pay-per-click or pay-per-impression. Pay-per-click advertising will charge you a variable rate when someone clicks on your ad. Pay-per-impression advertising will charge you every time the ad is shown. Each type will require you to place a maximum bid. The maximum bid is the maximum price you will be charged for a single click or impression. The price may be less on a single click, but it will never be more. The maximum bid will determine the placement of the ad on the page. The higher the bid, the higher the placement on the page. The ads will appear under the heading “sponsored links.” (more…)
The Skinny on What’s Out There in Social Media
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Every once in a while a dentist will ask me about other social media sites besides the big three, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Although I do suggest working with the big three first, there are some secondary social media sites that can increase visibility. Many of these sites are built to share with others, but some social media sites can also help the SEO of your primary website.
A big social media site that dentists overlook is Flickr. Flickr.com is one of the largest photo sharing sites around. Many of its other features also make it a viable social networking site. Posting photos from one’s practice has the obvious benefit of adding some nice visuals to reference and can also help with Search Engine Optimization efforts. (more…)
Bad Reviews…What Can I do?
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Oh no! You have a bad review on Google! What do you do now? The first thing to do is to not overreact. Many people feel that a bad review is a personal attack. Most bad reviews are posted by individuals that feel like they have been mistreated or that they did not receive the quality of service they expected. Bad reviews can be an opportunity to address a patient’s issues, and at the same time let others reading the reviews see that you are making an honest effort to address any problems.
How important is it to monitor local reviews? Very important. In a recent report by Nielsen, Google said that 82% of the population uses local search and reviews and Yahoo says that there are over 100 million local searches performed monthly. Most prospective patients when searching for a new dentists in their area will perform a search with the name of the city and the word dentist. A typical search in Google would look like this:
“Richmond dentist.” Google instantly will return a list of dentists, with other information such as location, phone number and reviews. (more…)
The Fortune’s In Your Follow Up
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When was the last time your patients heard from you? While many dentists realize the value of referrals, few communicate with their patients on a regular basis. This results in lost referral opportunities, and also affects case acceptance.
Many of your patients are regularly receiving generic postcard offers from neighboring dental practices, each promoting a new special service, new technology, or better location. The best way to ensure your patients are loyal, motivated for treatment and actively referring is to keep in touch with them. Once or twice per year during office visits is not enough. Here are a few effective ways to follow up throughout the year:
- Email – Hopefully you are collecting email addresses and using them. While not every patient will elect to receive email from you, many will and this will allow you to communicate with patients inexpensively and quickly. (more…)
Your Patients’ Online Expectations of Your Practice are Rising
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The web is changing your patients' expectations of you and your practice.
Consumer expectations will drive dentists to change the way they market online. Patients shopping for a dentist will not only expect you to have a website, they will also want to see what other information is available about you. In fact they may even want to know what their friends, and the friends of their friends, also think of you.
Consider for a moment how important ratings and details have become in the book and travel markets. People now not only want to see photos of the hotel they are considering, they may also want to see video, comments from recent travelers and they may search out several other travel sites to compare information.
This high level of research is not only being done by those “seeking out the best deal”, MarketTools recently revealed a study indicating affluent visitors (with annual incomes of more than $75K) are most likely to research products online before buying (43%). While the power of personal testimonials will live on, consumers will want to view as much information as possible before making decisions about buying everything from hotel rooms to healthcare. (more…)
Jumping into Social Media is Like Your First Amalgam Filling
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I think every dentist can tell you a story about their first amalgam. Mine was in dental school of course. The whole restoration was probably about 1.5 mm, but it took the whole three hours. I have heard this story a million times. In fact it took half the time to put the rubber dam in place, and by the time it was perfect, the fire alarm would go off and we would all have to evacuate. The fire alarm seems to go off at least once a week at our school. But that simple filling that took hours at first now only takes a couple of minutes. Not that I do any occlusal amalgams anymore! I have learned the processes of placing a restoration, and I have practiced it thousands of times by now, so it is second nature. Often times we as dentists don’t want to try new things, but we forget that our great successes often come from taking risks. Sometimes calculated risks like letting a 23-year-old newbie place a restoration. (more…)
Marketing has Changed. But Some Things Stay the Same.
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Use Social Media to enhance your Relationship Marketing for your practice.
Traditional marketing is dead. It died in 2009. Yellow pages were listed in Wired magazine’s article, “100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About”. Traditional marketing budgets for direct mail, newspapers, magazines, and television are being moved into online interactive segments, such as search, email and social media marketing (source: Forrester, March/April 2009).
While many tactics may never work again, several traditional marketing techniques will continue to live strong—those being word of mouth, relationship, and referral marketing. (more…)
