Here at Dental Media our social media advertising team looks after the set up and management of hundreds of ad campaigns for dentists across the UK \u2013 many of them targeting Invisalign or implants. This work gives us clear insights into what is required for campaigns of this type to be successful and today we\u2019ll share some of that information to help with your own campaigns.<\/p>\n
With social media advertising there is a fine balance between campaigns which don\u2019t deliver on expectations and those which are really successful \u2013 so let\u2019s jump in and take a look at what differentiates the good from the bad and where mistakes are often made.<\/p>\n
As with any type of marketing and advertising for dentists<\/a>, you need to have a clear picture of what your competitors are doing. If you go-ahead and launch campaigns which are not as good as your competitors, it doesn\u2019t take much insight to understand what might happen next.<\/p>\n With Invisalign particularly, competition is quite fierce and it\u2019s usual to find several dentists in any town or city using social media ads to reach the local audience. So before you launch your own campaigns, be sure to check what everyone else is doing. There are online tools to help with this and any experienced marketing team will also be able to help.<\/p>\n This is essential if your campaigns are going to be effective and also to avoid wasting budget on random clicks. Whilst Facebook is reducing the range of targeting options available, particularly with dentistry, it is still possible to place ads in front of those people who are most likely to click and also who are likely to have a genuine interest in the service you are offering.<\/p>\n In your targeting assessment you need to evaluate where you want your ads to appear, for example a pre-determined radius around the practice or more specifically to particular areas. For example, you may wish to target \u201caffluent\u201d areas where you consider that more disposable income is available for certain types of dental treatment.<\/p>\n You also need to be aware of just how big the \u201cpond\u201d actually is and also how far you think people might travel for your services. For example, a small town with a limited urban conurbation and not too many surrounding villages, won\u2019t yield as many enquiries as a city location. This may sound obvious but still get quite a number of enquiries where the dentist has unrealistic expectations on the number of cases these types of campaigns will generate. There are only so many folk within a particular population at any given time who will be interested in treatment. That said, even small-scale campaigns with moderate yields can still be very lucrative.<\/p>\n We also use re-targeting techniques where we can show new ads to people who have already shown some interest in dental services; for example where they have visited dental websites searching for specific treatments. This type of follow-up is essential to maximise the return from a particular area.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We see a lot of commentary regarding dental ads which stresses the need to avoid pushing treatment prices down and avoiding a race to the bottom. This is all well and good but we are also acutely aware that a lot of people still shop based on price and are looking for an \u201coffer\u201d. It\u2019s also very clear from our data that where dentists are reluctant to work on a suitable value proposition, their campaigns won\u2019t do very well \u2013 it\u2019s critical to understand that folk are shopping around, particularly where they are making significant investments.<\/p>\n So how do you generate an attractive offer without eroding the base price of treatment? The typical way to do this is to calculate the value of ancillary items that come \u201cfree\u201d with the treatment, for example whitening, retainers, the consultation, scan etc. We regularly see dentists suggesting that these \u201cfree\u201d items give a combined saving in excess of \u00a32000 \u2013 and it\u2019s this figure which is used to develop the value proposition without eroding the base treatment price too much.<\/p>\n All of that said, the campaigns which work best are the ones which can demonstrate the best value proposition across the broad \u2013 including savings on treatment. So please keep that in mind.<\/p>\nGet the targeting right<\/h3>\n
Get the offer right<\/h3>\n
Keep the campaigns fresh<\/h3>\n