What Are Your Options When New Dental Patient Enquiries Start To Fall?

Tackling the effects of current economic constraints

With inflation currently at 9% and predicted to hit 11% soon, it’s unsurprising that the effects are starting to bite in the dental industry. Put bluntly, folk who would have stretched to afford Invisalign for straighter teeth or perhaps an implant to fix a gappy smile not so long ago, are now more concerned about how to pay their power bills and feed their family.

Coupled with this, we are seeing dentists increasing prices to compensate for increasing costs, not just to cover increases in things like utilities, but also to offer the types of salaries needed to attract and maintain suitable staff. To be honest, some of the price increases we’ve applied for clients are significantly ahead of inflation and it does make you wonder how sustainable that actually is.

Undoubtedly, the dental cycle has moved again and harder times are ahead. We are seeing this in the marketing data we produce for clients and even where website and landing page visits from interested patients remain buoyant, the general level of actual enquiries is down. So folk are still looking for services but fewer are choosing not to make the final step, particularly for treatments where a significant investment is required.

To help put it into context, we analysed several Facebook and Instagram paid ads accounts and compared the number of landing page views and enquiries from the second half of last year (following the removal of all Covid restrictions) with the same campaigns for the first half of this year. Landing page views were down 26% and actual enquiries from those views were down 47%. There was no change in the way that the campaigns were being managed and it’s reasonable to conclude that the reduction is solely due to external factors.

What are your options when new patient acquisition gets tougher?

This is a tricky question and one where the answer will depend on your financial situation and what you’ve budgeted. There will be some things that all dental teams can do to up their game to face the challenge, whereas other initiatives will depend on how much cash can be reallocated to areas such as enhanced marketing and advertising to ensure that your business is number one choice in a smaller pond of patients who still have the means to proceed.

Let’s take a look at some of the initiatives you can introduce; some of them free, some of them requiring additional investment.

Internal Marketing

It’s debatable what the term ‘internal marketing’ actually means but for the purposes of this blog we’ll use it to refer to all of those ‘promotional’ activities which are managed within the practice. For example this includes ensuring that the activities of the team are focused on great patient outcomes which will lead to consistent word-of-mouth referrals. It might also encompass activities such as seeking good reviews from satisfied patients to help with social “proof” and local search ranking.

These types of activities should always be maintained at a high level, however when times are tough, renewed effort will be required. It’s not rocket science and there is lots of useful material available from dental and ethical selling coaches that will help to refocus your efforts.

Maintain and enhance your Google ranking positions

When Covid first hit, a number of our clients ceased their search engine optimisation programmes to rein in costs. This is understandable, however perhaps not the best move for those dentists who could afford to keep it going. With our guidance and working on temporarily reduced fees, some of our web “savvy” clients seized on the opportunity to boost their Google positions whilst their competitors eased off. This allowed them to steal a considerable lead and left them in great shape for when the bounce-back happened.

The same principle applies now – whilst it may be tempting to row back on SEO now, this would be a poor choice in my opinion. Where you can afford it, actually increasing your programmes and optimisation at this stage will pay considerable dividends in future. Of course this will depend on your ability to pay for this type of work and it will be more manageable for some than others.

Cast a wider net with social media advertising

Whilst it is undeniably harder to get new enquiries via social media at the moment, it is still achievable and payback can still be very good. However you will need to speculate to accumulate and casting a wider net to a bigger audience may well be required. Unfortunately there is a cost to this and so data and payback calculations will be more important than ever.

Make sure your website is top-grade to encourage conversions

It’s the incremental things which will make all the difference in the coming months; for example if your website is just that bit better than your local competitor’s site, there’s a good chance that you will get the enquiry first. So if you’ve been content plodding along with a mediocre website over the last year or so and not worrying too much about it, now is the time to really up your game. Ensure that you utilise all of the trusted engagement mechanisms within your content such as reviews, case studies, personalised images, life-changing treatment examples etc. These are key differentiators.

Investment of this nature is not insignificant but must be viewed in the context of the enquiries that great dental web assets generate. To put it in context, a handful of good ortho or implants cases will pay for a complete website redevelopment.

Summary

With tougher times already with us, the dental teams which will win out are those which focus on operational excellence and optimisation of critical business assets which help them to stand above the competition. This ranges from the way they conduct day-to-day business, to how well their websites and marketing campaigns work. In many cases, targeted investment will be required to cast a wider net to an audience which has different priorities to those of a year ago.

If you would like to discuss any aspects of your website or digital marketing and to ensure that they are working for and not against you, please call the team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 for a no-obligation discussion.