When it comes to dental marketing avenues, there is a lot to choose from, from marketing your location in Google Maps and various paid avenues to actually doing social media for your practice. Let’s break down each one individually and discuss their place in your dental marketing portfolio.
Google Maps
If you can, getting into the map section of a Google Search Results Page will certainly help grow your business. A group of people will simply skip the paid section at the top of their phone and scroll down to the map section simply because of ease of use regarding calling a practice or getting directions. Now, there are some rules to this, though.
First, unless you’re close to the center city of your town, it will be very difficult to rank naturally in the Map Pack. This means if you're in a city like Charlotte and someone Google’s “Dentist Charlotte NC,” unless you’re close to uptown, you probably won’t rank. However, don’t be discouraged, there is another way to take advantage of Google Maps as a dental marketing avenue. Within Google Ads, a function allows you to pay for a top spot in Google Maps. The post will say sponsored like you see here:
This does allow you though to rank #1 in Google Maps for several locations, not just the city you are in. Think about your surrounding towns; based on the rules above, you won’t rank in Google Maps because of location, but you can show up and have an opportunity for someone to come to your practice. This leads us to the next service we can take advantage of in our dental marketing avenues: Google Ads
Google Ads
Google Ads will be powerful in the sense that the first 2 or 3 links a person sees on their phone will come from Google Ads. A percentage of people still click on these ads even though many people say they don’t. You want to use this dental marketing avenue to help get people in the moment. Your website can’t be everything to everyone. So take advantage of being able to target specific terms such as “How Much Are Veneers” to allow your ad to come up and assist that person in making a decision moving forward.
Certainly, make sure the experience from start to finish is great. Ensure that the ad copy matches the search term and that wherever the person lands on your site matches what is to be expected. You don’t Google “Fine Dining Restaurants Near Me” expecting to see McDonald’s, so keep the journey in mind.
Google Ads is great for what we call the bottom of the funnel, meaning people who are ready to take action now. The limit here is how many people are interested in the services you want on any given month. People may look for teeth whitening 120 times in May and only 20 times in September. You will really be at the whim of the consumer at that point once they have gotten to Google Ads.
Google Local Service Ads
This should not be confused with Google ads regarding your dental marketing avenues; this is a separate division. Google Local Service Ads merges Google Maps and its reviews with Google Ads and its paid aspect. The caveat is you pay per lead, not click like you would on Google Ads. The dentists we’ve worked with on this platform have been very happy with the results because the cost per lead is around $100, with some leads becoming several $1000 in production.
Another great thing about Google Local Service Ads is they sit above Google Ads depending on the search. Important searches like “Dentist Near Me” Google Local Service Ads will show first, as you can see here:
Google goes a step further by letting the patient know that each of these dental practices is verified by Google, which is true you have to go through a vetting process to even advertise on this platform.
While setup time will take longer, 1 to 2 weeks, vs. Google Ads, less than a day, we think the time invested is worth it in the long run based on the sheer number of leads we gain in Google Local Service Ads over Google Ads. We’ve seen as high as 6:1 regarding the number of Google Local Service Ads we get over Google Ads.
SEO
We can already hear the moans regarding search engine optimization as a dental marketing avenue. I’m sure you’ve worked with someone in the past to help get you ranked with minimal results and certainly a poor return on investment. SEO is important, though because it can pay dividends for your business. The previously mentioned sections of Google Maps, Google Ads, and Google Local Service Ads still only makeup about 35% combined of all clicks from a search result. The remaining 65% of clicks still go under the map pack and click on an organic link. We even broke down an example of who was getting the most percentage of those clicks here:
I hope you have noticed a trend of being limited by search volume on a monthly basis. Don’t fret; there are ways around this, and I’m sure you’re already building a brand! If someone searches for your practice, we’re willing to bet you show up first, and they will likely work with you since they are looking for you specifically. We don’t shop for Nikes hoping to see Pumas. There are 2 dental marketing avenues to help with brand awareness, one paid with money and one paid with time.
Paid Social
Unfortunately, social media has become a pay-to-play model, from boosting content to creating ads. We highly recommend focusing on Meta ads, which combine Facebook and Instagram, showing ads on both platforms. There are some distinct advantages of this digital marketing avenue:
Numerous potential patients
Large brand exposure
Ability to target your core audience immediately, like Google Ads
We’ve seen some excellent results for specific items such as Invisalign. We spent about $500 on a Meta Ads campaign to generate 20 new patients during Invisalign day, whereas the client was getting about 5 prior. If we had taken that money to Google Ads, we might have gotten similar results, but we doubt it. It is excellent to let patients know what’s happening at your practice right now without waiting for them to search for it!
Organic Social
We don’t want anyone to feel you must pay to win on social media. You can certainly build a community within Instagram and Facebook. We’d stick with these. Just understand this will take time. Creating a following can take months, if not years, without any paid aspect. The great thing is the loyalty of these individuals is awesome! You find a group of 50 people to be your raving fans. You have something great to work with because they will share your content, tell others about their great experience with you, etc. Word-of-mouth advertising will always win over everything we touched on here regarding dental marketing avenues.
Conclusion
Everything we touched on here was digital. To be fair, we’re a digital agency but don’t forget about traditional advertising. You can come up with some very creative ways to pay for traditional and digital marketing. For instance, you pair a flyer campaign with some paid social media targeting the same people. This is a great way to have more impact.
We’re also not saying you must do all these dental marketing avenues. Will you perhaps have more success, we would confidently say yes. Even choosing 2 or 3 of these to do simultaneously will undoubtedly bring you decent success.
Wherever you choose to do, always measure how things are going. We have a great article on calculating MER to ensure you get a great bang for your buck!
If you have any questions about any of these dental marketing avenues or perhaps would like to discuss how to create a strategy that makes the most sense for your business right now, feel free to reach out, and we’ll be happy to get on a call.
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