By Bullseye Media |
Thriving dental offices all have one important thing in common: a reliable method of generating leads.
In the dental industry, this translates to measurable strategies that consistently bring new patients to your practice so that you experience steady growth.
We’ve helped more than 375 dental clients grow their practices with digital marketing and lead generation strategies. When we establish a new relationship with a client, one of the first things we do is determine their practice’s growth goals. We then use our practice growth calculator to determine the number of leads they need to generate per month to hit their goal. (If you’re interested in learning more about this process, let’s chat!)
Once our clients invest in lead generation strategies with us, they all have the same burning questions. Here are our dental practitioner client’s top four questions about generating leads:
1. How many leads do I have?
Your digital marketing efforts are bringing new patients in the door, but can we prove it? Absolutely! But first, let’s define what a “lead” is to you.
A lead can be anyone who shows interest in your practice. To some marketing companies, your mom’s “heart reaction” to your practice’s Instagram photo is considered a lead. (And if your mom is anything like ours, she’s our biggest fan, but she’s definitely not in the market for what we’re selling. Bless.).
A better question is, “how many qualified leads do I have?”
A qualified lead has gone through “qualifying criteria,” such as filling out a form on your website, requesting a consultation, downloading a brochure or case study, or taking some kind of action to learn about your practice or services. That’s pretty easy to measure, and it’s a better gauge of serious interest and intent.
2. Where did my leads come from?
Every patient started out as a lead. With digital marketing, we can determine the path that a patient followed to find you (and through our wide array of services, we can help them find you more easily).
Whether a patient came to you via a Google search, paid ad, online review, social media page, event, or third party website, we have methods to track and report on the discovery process.
3. What did my leads cost me?
Your cost per lead (CPL) will change depending on what method you use (like organic search vs. paid search or social media ads). When you look at the big picture, it’s wise to consider the cost of leads in relation to the overall return on your marketing investment (ROI).
For example, imagine that you spend $100 on a digital ad campaign that brings in 10 leads, and you convert one of those leads into a patient. It may seem like $100 is a lot to spend on just one patient, but if you run a DSM practice, that one patient could represent $5,000 in revenue. Now that’s a great overall return on ad spend.
To sum it up, the CPL and ROI will differ based on your campaign as well as your practice or specialty. We can work within your budget to meet your specific growth goals.
4. How can I get more leads?
The key to maintaining a steady flow of new patients is to have several marketing tactics going at the same time. You’ll eventually reach a cap on leads in one category (for example, there are only so many people searching for your keywords per day), so it’s smart to invest in generating leads across multiple platforms simultaneously.
From search engine optimization (SEO) to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and online reviews to social media engagement, we can create a plan that includes a variety of services to help you easily convert qualified leads into patients.
BONUS TIP: HOW TO LEVERAGE YOUR FRONT DESK STAFF
Sometimes, moving a lead into the “qualified” category is as simple as training your front desk staff to recognize that every phone call or message can be an opportunity to educate someone about your services.
For example, if you run a dental sleep medicine (DSM) practice and you often get calls from people asking about CPAP machines or parts, your staff shouldn’t consider those calls as a misdial.
Instead, they should engage these callers and find out if they have heard of DSM or want to schedule a consultation to find out if they are a candidate. These potential DSM patients might not be aware that they could ditch their cumbersome CPAP machine for a more portable (and equally effective) oral appliance.
