Digital Advertising

What Is Digital Advertising?

Digital advertising is one of the most effective ways to get patients in your door quickly and economically. Using platforms like Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and even TikTok, can put you in front of a very targeted audience in a short period of time. Our experts work with you to ensure your digital advertising not only converts to new patients but the right kind of new patients for your practice.

What Is The Difference Between Advertising on Facebook and Instagram vs Google and Other Search Engines?

Search Engine Advertising: Show Up At The Top Quickly and Within Budget

When someone is searching for the services, you provide on Google or Bing, you want to show up as high on the search results page as possible. The best way to do that is with search advertising. Search ads are the first thing a person will see when searching. Ads show up above the organic results and even above the map pack. If you aren’t spending at least some budget on this type of digital advertising, you are missing out.

SEO also takes time. It can take months before a new website shows up for search terms organically. Search advertising can put you on the top of the page almost instantly. This works well if you add a new service that you would like to be found for. Add your page, add the keywords related to that service and start being found today!

Social Media and Display Advertising: Introduce Your Service or Brand To Your Local Market

In contrast to search engine advertising, platforms like Facebook and Instagram show your ads to people who are not actively looking for your service but may have in the recent past or will be in the near future.

This type of ad interrupts people while they are looking at their newsfeed and usually need to be seen 2 or 3 times before they take action and click through to your landing page. Their brains are not engaged in searching so it is important to use images, videos and text that stop the scroll and engage them in thinking about your service.

How Much Should You Spend on Digital Advertising?

The great thing about digital advertising is the control you have over your budget. Each platform allows you to set the amount you are willing to spend each day and turns off your ads once that threshold is reached. This means you don’t have to fit your specific budget into the pricing of some expensive publication or media.

How much you should spend depends on several factors. The first is how much are your competitors spending. A platform like Google operates as an auction so the more competition you have and the more they spend the higher you have to bid to show up.

The second is your choice of keywords. Often some of the top keywords are way too expensive. Go after some of the lower priced keywords instead and make the most of your budget. You may also find some long tail search terms that will get you found for the same service as the expensive keywords but at a fraction of the cost.

Third is how many new patients you can handle. There is no point in spending a bunch on digital ads if you have nowhere to put the new patients. Once you hit your maximum number of new patients from your ads there is no point in spending more unless you have plans to add staff or expand hours to accommodate.

Keep in mind that your campaigns should become more efficient over time if they are managed properly. Set it and forget it is never a good idea.

Our recommendation is to start with an amount you feel comfortable with. Run your ads for 2 – 3 weeks and track the results. If you can show a return on investment, then bump your budget up. You will eventually hit a point of diminishing returns where spending more doesn’t translate into as many new patients as it was in the beginning. This is where you can back off knowing you are not leaving money on the table.

To learn more about how Dental Growth Strategies can help you fill your schedule with digital advertising book your free one hour strategy session today.

At H-Cube Marketing, we take your marketing campaign seriously. If you want to learn more, be sure to sign up for a FREE strategy planning session.