Successfully reach your audience through digital marketing
If you’re not engaged in digital marketing you are missing a huge opportunity to reach your target audience. Digital marketing can include many categories like google AdWords, and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. I’ve covered many ways you can DIY your marketing in the other categories, this is one area where I highly recommend a trusted professional assist you. Too many times an orthodontist has come to me and shared the ridiculously high fees that they are paying an agency to handle their online marketing. We’ve saved doctors thousands of dollars on their online marketing while improving the traffic to their website and increasing the amount of new patients that call their office and state the “internet” as the referral source.
If you are not handling your own online marketing there are a few questions you should ask your agency. You need to know how much their fee is to manage your ads in comparison to the actual budget that is designated to the ads. This is a gray area where a lot of doctors don’t realize they are paying too much for the management service. You should also inquire about the difference in display ad on various websites versus the amount of ads that pop up with a listing to your website when someone is searching for braces related key words. I don’t know about you – but if I’ve googled the weather or a recipe, I don’t often click on the picture ads. I do click on ads when I see something directly related to what I’m looking for. Digital marketing and online ads can be confusing and complex. This is one of the areas where a trusted provider can help you significantly!
Social media marketing falls under the digital marketing category and one that shouldn’t be overlooked. If I can give you any advice it is to invest in video content to share on social sites. People come to social media to engage with photos and videos and the analytics show us time and time again that more people engage with this type of content.
If you’re looking for an easy way to engage with people but don’t want to invest in the time to create content, branded Snapchat filters in your office is an excellent investment! I can give you examples where the cost per impression is pennies and for some office, it is less than a penny per impression. Most of the time it costs less that $500 per year to have a snapchat filter active in your office. When kids (and some adults) are in the office they can take a picture and overlay your filter on their picture. Now when they share it with their friends they see your name and logo. If you aren’t familiar with snapchat this can be hard to understand. I’ve created a video training on utilizing snapchat in your marketing and would be happy to share it with you. The great thing about the filters is you can change them as frequently as you like. Many of our offices change them for the seasons or holidays throughout the year. You may not find a more affordable or easier way to get your name in front of your target audience, teens!