Budgeting for your dental marketing in 2013

Ensuring sensible return on investment for marketing spend

With competition in dentistry increasing year on year, progressive dentists are evaluating the best ways to market their services to ensure that they hang on to existing clients and continue to attract new ones. With financial pressures also increasing, diligent practice managers and principals are also scrutinising marketing costs to ensure that all aspects are targeted correctly and delivering good return on investment.

So what are the main areas to examine and what level of budget should be allocated for each of the key elements?

Print, web or both?

Whilst print marketing still has a place, it is now widely acknowledged and easy enough to prove that web based techniques offer the best reach and much better return on investment. So outside of a set of professional practice stationery and perhaps a simple brochure or treatment pack to illustrate your services, investing in lots of additional glossy leaflets and pamphlets is not going to deliver much other than a whack to your cost budget.

There are one or two exceptions to this that do deliver results – for example a targeted local leaflet drop can be useful to announce the opening of a new practice or to broadcast an offer. Similarly, adverts in the local press or in publications that are popular with your demographic target can also yield results. However, spend on print marketing outside of carefully considered niches is not a great strategy.

So having established that the web should be your priority, we can identify the main components needed for a successful dental web marketing strategy as follows:

• a professionally designed website configured to display correctly on all devices – desk-top, tablet and mobile. Check that your web design partner is up-to-speed with latest techniques like “responsive” design to ensure that your website reaches across all platforms.
• a practice blog – this is particularly useful to support search-engine optimisation as well as for bringing regular updates to your clients.
• active social media channels, as a minimum incorporating Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Like it or not, “social” is starting to play a huge part in your Google ranking as well as the obvious benefits of client engagement.
• professional video incorporating an overview of your facilities and services and the all-important patient video testimonials.
• e-newlsetter marketing – essential for staying in touch with existing clients to ensure you are number one on their list when they’re making buying decisions for dental work. Remember that your competitors are already actively marketing to your patients and offering them alternatives to your services – so you need to be proactive.
• an effective search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy to ensure your website is prominent in Google. With over 60% of all search queries resulting in clicks for the top three positions in Google, it’s pointless investing in a great looking website that doesn’t rank well. Please take a look at this earlier post to see how the Google search landscape has changed dramatically in 2012 and why you need the services of an expert SEO agency to stay ahead.

A word on costs and some easy savings

One of the biggest misconceptions in the dental community is that excellent web marketing necessitates a huge spend – this is simply not true. A fully-featured, bespoke designed dental website can be provided for less than £2k. A customised blog and all of the required social media channels can be integrated for less than £500 and a comprehensive video suite added for just over £1k. Paying more than this may give you a misguided sense that you are “reassuringly expensive” but it won’t get you any additional clients. It also won’t put you on top of Google irrespective of what you’re told.

The same goes for ongoing costs. Too many dental professionals are advised that they need expensive monthly maintenance packages to keep their website in order – this is simply not true and only results in unnecessary expenditure for work that you almost certainly don’t need and probably isn’t happening anyway. Unless you have a particulalry complex requirement, all website updates and other maintenance can be handled with a pay-as-you-go service. No contracts, no monthly outlay and huge savings – guaranteed. Please ask us for some case studies to see how we’ve helped numerous dental professionals reduce their web marketing costs and get better results in the process.

Summary

Competition for dental patients in 2013 will be more competitive than ever. Through necessity, dentists are becoming more sophisticated with their dental marketing strategies in order to stay ahead of the pack. As financial pressures also increase, it is essential to identify the marketing channels that deliver the best results and ROI, coupled with the most cost-effective deployment. Web continues to beat print marketing every time – a professional dental website supported by blogging and the use of social media is the recommended foundation on which to build your web presence.

Cost control is paramount. Dental professionals are realising that paying over the odds for their web properties and ongoing maintenance is unnecessary, does not increase new patient acquisition and hits costs hard. Cheaper and more effective services are available.

Although you may well have finalised your 2013 budget, it’s still possible to make some great savings – start by digging into your marketing budget and re-evaluating. If you are looking for a new website to boost your profile, check what is available and don’t be suckered into paying over the odds. If you’re looking to save money on existing services, check what you are actually getting for your monthly outlay and compare this to what is available on a pay-as-you-go service.

For no-obligation advice on any of the topics discussed above please call Dental Media on 01332 672548. We’ll be pleased to illustrate how we can save you money and improve your marketing results.