Managing Dental Social Media Advertising Campaigns

What’s involved in managing Facebook and Instagram paid ad campaigns for dentists?

Over the last couple of months we’ve noticed that the amount of time required to maintain successful social media campaigns for dentists has increased. The input required was never trivial but the management input now has stepped up quite considerably due to two main issues:

• Increasing competition – more and more dentists are leveraging social media to promote treatments such as implants and Invisalign
• The economic climate has worsened – this means that even more effort is required to target the decreasing number of people who can still afford “high end” treatments

The upshot of this is that we are now typically spending two or three hours more per campaign per week than we were say 18 months ago. In turn this has resulted in an increase in pricing to cover the associated costs.

The response from clients has been mixed which is understandable as they battle a large range of increasing costs. However, when explained carefully along with a demonstration of the ongoing return-on-investment, the vast majority of clients have continued with their campaigns.

With the above in mind, I thought it would be useful to detail what typically goes into setting up and managing a successful social media ads campaign for a dentist. This will hopefully serve as a handy reference for anyone wanting more detail about how their money is being spent and also useful for those who fancy trying some DIY ad management.

The initial set up of the campaign

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram is not trivial and not just a case of creating a couple of ads, launching them and then hoping for lots of enquiries. At the Facebook side, the advertising account has to be set up carefully including some technical issues e.g. domain verification to ensure that ads are actually working across a variety of the most useful platforms. Often a new client will present an ad account with historical violations where we have to step in to resolve the problem(s) before advertising can commence – this can be time consuming.

Structuring the ads is also quite time-consuming, from the selection of the correct text and images through to ensuring that the ad text is well-written and compelling. A large part of this involves competitor analysis to make sure that the client’s service offer is competitive and presents a solid reason for a potential new patient to get in touch.

The landing page

Discrete landing pages work much better than website pages when it comes to converting traffic from paid ads. So a landing page has to be designed and built reflecting the practice’s branding and offer. It will also include key element to encourage the enquiry e.g. use of patient testimonials, Google reviews, past cases, FAQs and more. This is similar to designing a mini website and a lot of work goes in to ensure the landing page is effective. A bespoke page designed like this will also tend to work better than some of the DIY landing page builders you can subscribe to on-line.

Maintenance of the ads

To avoid the phenomenon of “ad blindness” ads must be kept fresh and so should be updated every few weeks in what the industry calls “ad refreshes”. Without this, when an ad has been viewed several times the viewer effectively blocks it out and the effectiveness quickly wanes. Completing ad refreshes is quite involved and typically takes at least a few hours per campaign each month.

Any changes will also need to be reflected across to the landing page(s).

Reporting

Like any marketing initiative for dentists, it’s essential to monitor the effectiveness of campaigns and make changes accordingly. Fortunately there are a number of tools which can be used to do this, however they are not trivial and an experienced eye is needed to interpret the data. This all needs to be compiled into a user-friendly report to be discussed with the client each month. Campaigns can then be changed, paused or extended accordingly.

Summary

The set-up, management and reporting of social media advertising campaigns for dentists is time-consuming and not trivial when done professionally. The ad environment is dynamic and campaigns need regular intervention to keep them effective. Without this, the campaigns typically don’t get off the ground, or where they do, soon degrade and fail.

It should therefore be expected that a sensible management budget must be allocated if you are serious about acquiring new patients using social media advertising for dentists.

If you would like help with managing your own Facebook and Instagram campaigns or would just like a no-obligation discussion about the options, why not call our team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 to get started?