Identity Dental Marketing

Many desperate salespeople like to offer “free” audits to their prospective clients. It’s a way for them to establish themselves as an authority without having to look at the actual rankings and performance of a campaign. 

Why is this “free” audit problematic? 

1. Its motive is to create fear/doubt in your current strategy so that they can sell you. 

2. They often point out “strategies” that are not accurate

3. They often speak over your head, again… to sound smart and sell you things. 

Why is this audit useless? 

If you are ranking in the top 3 for your main search terms, most marketing companies want to work with you. They’ll want to take our stellar foundation and attempt to maintain the rankings we’ve helped you to establish. They also target our clients, knowing we’re one of the only marketing agencies without 12-month, auto-renewing contracts. 

What are some of the false/inaccurate claims they may make: 

1. They may claim the site structure is not to their liking. 

This one is interesting. If the site is ranking, then Google must have no issues with its structure. Also, a non-developer would have a very hard time confirming or denying this statement. It’s also extremely subjective. We have a tried and true method for website development for SEO. If they’ve said this to you, feel free to send us their report, and we can show you why any “red” scores on their “audit” are necessary for functionality and/or rankings. 

2. They may claim content is “stolen”

We are very smart about how we conduct business. We have leveraged over a hundred pages of content (that we have written and have rights to leverage to give you an advantage on Google. Remember, rankings are the proof of our strategies’ effectiveness, not sales audits. 

Some of these lovely salespeople like to use words like “plagiarized” or “bootlegged”. We could honestly sue them for this deceitful representation of our work, but we’re too busy helping our clients beat out their clients on Google with real strategy (on-site and off-site SEO). 

3. They may audit backlink quantity

SEO can always be stronger, which is why you invest monthly. The longer you invest, the stronger the rankings. Not all backlinks show up on reports. 

The real way to gauge if your SEO is “working” 

1. Watch the progress of website stats. Set up a meeting with your internet marketing strategist on our team to review your dashboard to evaluate traffic and other stats that show progress. 

2. Do a Google Search. Are you moving up? If yes, the SEO is working. 

3. How are your new patient numbers? Are they increasing from patients who found you on Google? 

4. It usually takes about 6 months to see a significant change in rankings and new patient numbers, but we love to see progress sooner. 

How do we come up with an SEO strategy? 

We have ongoing strategies as well as a variety of strategies that are systematically executed. We’re also constantly discovering and adding new strategies on a regular basis. 

Is there anything we can do to boost rankings faster? 

Yes, you can increase your number of Google reviews and consider sponsoring a widely distributed press release ($500) to accelerate results and show positive news about your business to your community. 

If you’re considering purchasing a custom press release, it’s a great idea for many situations, and it can be very beneficial to any business owner. 
 
It is most commonly used in the following situations: 

• Introducing a new service, technology, or expanding services to a new demographic.
• For the purpose of improving Google rankings and expanding keyword reach.
• The introduction of a new doctor, hygienist, associate, or partner.
• Building a positive online reputation, especially when people search for you on Google or other search engines.
• Promoting an event or special offer.

What to expect:

As soon as you have approved your proposal and authorized payment, the Identity Dental team will send you a questionnaire to understand the purpose of your press release. We will present you with a press release for your approval or revision once we have received your submission. The press release will be distributed as soon as you provide your approval. The article will be published live on at least 30 platforms, creating a powerful push of backlinks and a presence in Google’s news section. 
 
Press release marketing is the biggest missed opportunity in dental marketing as a whole. Reputation building and brand recognition are excellent benefits of this strategy. Most major influencers and business owners leverage public relations techniques such as press release distribution.
 
To maintain a constant flow of positive news about your practice, we strongly recommend using a monthly press release strategy. Additionally, you may purchase them as needed for the purpose of making announcements.

Direct mail is helpful when announcing a new business or new service offerings. It tends to “work” to generate about 3 new patients per 5,000 pieces until it tapers off and stops working after about 5-6 mailers.

Direct mail works best when paired with aggressive offers. This is because the potential patient isn’t actively seeking your service offerings when they encounter your message. This is the opposite with a method such as Google ads, which will allow you to show value at the exact moment when a patient is searching for a dentist or dental specialist like you.

What direct mail lacks in its ability to target the right people at the right time (affordably), it can make up in brand recognition. If you’re going into a direct mail campaign with the hopes that you’ll get the most bang for your marketing buck, you’ll likely be disappointed in it, even with the strongest message and the most appropriate targeting. Most of our clients agree that the predictable and longstanding ROI from digital marketing is more powerful than direct mail, however some still choose to run this type of campaign to enhance brand recognition and to have a diversified marketing approach – both of which have an intangible value.

When it comes time to print your marketing, you can mention us to postcard mania for special pricing or work with a local printer who is EDDM certified. Every Door Direct Mail by the United States Postal Service will get you the best value and allow you to blanket your community with your message.

If you’re wanting to run a highly targeted direct mail campaign (i.e. only show my message to families with children under 10 years of age), you’re going to spend more on the list and printing than you would to “hit” the whole community through EDDM. Financially, extremely targeted lists don’t make sense because the cost to attain and leverage them is higher than the cost to bulk print and hit all homes.

Why are my ads not working?

Like ALL marketing methods, paid digital advertising takes time to work.

Usually in the third month, the campaign has matured past its learning phase and will begin to produce the expected results.

As time goes on, personalized tweaks will be implemented to the campaign allowing our team to best utilize your marketing ad spend.

Remember in medium level competition markets, it costs about $200 to bring in a new patient without a low cost/ cheap offer. A budget of $1000 for a general new patient after 3 months may bring in 5 new patients per month, and that’s with competence in conversion with the front office team members.

These are only estimates. In higher competition areas or for higher competition keywords (cosmetics/implants/Invisalign), these expectations don’t apply.

Verbal skills are imperative for converting a lead to a long lasting, loyal patient. Conversion for patients who came in from ads are a little more challenging than those who came in referred by their mom, sister or colleague. We recommend always having someone listen to and give feedback on calls. Let us know if you’d like support with this. We can refer a trusted colleague.

If you’re in month 1 or 2, it’s too soon to be critiquing the ads. If your budget is below $1000/month or you expect more than 5 new patients from a $1000 budget, you may not have fair expectations for how this marketing works.

Ads are too expensive for me, what else can I do?

SEO is the most cost effective marketing solution in most towns, costing under $1,000 / month in most cases and once in top 3 for main search terms, bringing in 10+ new patients. It does take at least 6 months and a competitive number of reviews.