I just checked my Facebook page and found an ad for a Dentist with the copy:
“Have you been looking for a good dentist but didn’t know where to look? Well
look no further, our practice is the ideal place for you!”
Here’s the problem, I live in Nevada, and this dentist is in Tampa, FL.
I wonder if there will be a return on this advertising investment? There must be a return, but I don’t think they return has anything to do with new patients it has to do with search engine optimization(SEO) and showing a customer great search results. According to the search engine’s paid placement isn’t supposed to help with Organic search performance, but I am in agreement with Mark Jackson at Search Engine Watch and his article: There’s No Shortcut to Good SEO…Or Is There?
It appears that for some this type of paid link placement helps with organic search results. The real question remains, how many people will find a new dentist with a Google search or a Facebook ad? Anyone have some experiences to share?
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Comments
Just found your bloggity-blog – and I heart marketing efforts so I have an idea for you. Keep in mind, I know nothing about the dental industry per se, but I like relationship building and marketing concepts. Have you tried partnering with other small businesses in your area in unrelated fields? For example, you could approach a salon, offer the owner free cleanings in exchange for their address list. Send out invitations to all their clients for a discount on new services with you – as a special thank you from the salon. The salon looks good, like they are doing something special for their patrons, and hopefully you get new business. They probably won’t want to just hand over the list, so ask if they would be willing to have you drop off the invitations and postage. Make sure you have some kind of control in place to ensure the invitations really get mailed out. And make them classy looking. You could hit up this type of effort with any number of different types of businesses – the Harley dealership, the florist, and certainly every orthodontist in town. It’s a numbers game – the more people you ask, the more will say yes. Just an idea – discuss amongst yourselves… =)
Hi Liz,
thanks for your comments and that is a really good idea, fortunately I’m not at the point of needing to embark down that road, were holding our own for now, but always looking for opportunities…. Giving away free services in our industry is tricky and can often lead nowhere… It would probably better to provide gift certificates or something to the salon owner… I think we as dentists have greater opportunities sharing our services using the internet in better ways… YouTube, Twitter, are all untapped, it really isn’t about just a website it’s about building a community around your practice… that’s the direction I am going right now….
I think if the dentist makes good and targeted ads with some good information about there service then they can get good number of patients to them through facebook.
The dentist probably didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t filter the placement based on city-neighborhood. He would have blown his monthly budget in a hurry and irritated people like yourself who were actually interested.
Joe Bulger DDS
Toronto Dentist in Etobicoke
(also a little too far for you)
You are right. I’m working on my client’s site right now (getting it ranked first) – then I will be using targeted facebook ads as well so the Dentist can get leads from fb as well 🙂
thanks for stopping by… and I’m gonna guess that in January of 2009, FB didn’t have as many options to filter your ad placement…
Well, I would have to agree with everyone here. It’s very easy to think you know what you are doing with advertising online but, at least take time to understand the process.
Figuring out the online advertising is one things, making sure your people answering phone understand the process is another… 🙂
facebook is an excellent place to advertise your business – providing you select the correct geo targeted areas that apply for business. If a dentist in tampa is targeting people in nevada, he’s done it wrong and is wasting money.