practice marketing
Five Ways Facebook
Converts Local
Prospects to Patients
by Marc Fowler
If your ideal patient is a 32-year-old, educated, working mom
with two kids who is active in her community, your marketing
persona may be someone like Sarah. How does Facebook
Here are five ways Facebook is shaping up to be a tailor-made
online marketing platform for dentists.
1
target Sarah with advertising and how will Sarah interact with
your practice?
Sarah keeps up with her friends, her family, local events and
news by using Facebook. Facebook uses its algorithm to show
Sarah this relevant content and ads from local businesses.
All of this is based on Sarah’s interests, browsing history
and demographics.
Reaching Sarah might look something like this: As she scrolls
through photos of her friends’ children and news articles,
Sarah comes across an ad for a family dental practice she’s
never heard of that’s just a few blocks from her house. She
remembers that it’s been more than six months since her boys’
last cleaning and their usual dentist just retired. She clicks on
the ad. It takes her to the practice’s website and she scans the
Home and Meet the Doctor pages.
A few days later, Sarah is looking through her Facebook feed
Facebook Users Are Dental Decision Makers
Facebook has 2 billion unique users per month, with its largest
demographic being women, ages 25-50. For most dental
practices this is the demographic that is booking appointments
for themselves or their families – someone like Sarah.
2
Facebook Offers Precise Targeting
Even though Facebook has billions of monthly users, only a
small percentage of them are ideal prospects for you.
Fortunately, dental practices can keep costs low and target the
prospects they want to reach in the following ways:
and she sees an ad for the same dental practice she checked
out a few days ago. However, this time, the ad is offering a new
Neighborhoods
patient special. Sarah clicks the ad and it takes her to the
practice’s Facebook page. She reads through reviews and
checks out their Facebook photos.She clicks on the “book an
appointment” link on their Facebook page and books
appointments for all four members of her family – all within
the Facebook app.
Sarah is relieved that she can check that off her list and the
practice has four new patients.
18 HOUSTON DENTISTRY | www.houstondentistrymagazine.com
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