choosing who to reach. You can ensure your ads show to the
people most likely to respond by targeting patients based on
factors like age, salary, relationship status, life events and even
their interests.
Let’s say you’ve decided you want more teeth whitening cases,
you can target ads to the people most likely to want the service.
For example, you can specify that ads be shown only to women
who recently updated their status to “engaged”. You know they
want to look good for the big day.
Pay attention to the habits and trends of your ideal patients. You
can use that information to reach more people like them
on Facebook.
3. You can try different types of ads to see what works.
If you use Facebook regularly yourself, then you’ve probably
noticed that ads can show in many different formats. The most
obvious are the visual ads you see along the side of your news
feed. Increasingly you’ll see posts shared by brands that have
paid to boost them so they show up for more people. These
include sponsored videos, photos, updates and recommended
brand pages based on what their friends like. These posts all
appear in the main feed.
Even if you have a Facebook page with a large number of likes,
the number of people likely to see your posts and updates is limited without some advertising spend.
Features like boost a post and lookalike audiences give your
content more exposure. Based on the extensive data Facebook
maintains, your posts will be shown to the friends of those who
like your page or people that Facebook considers similar to
those who like you.
4. Cost-per-click is lower than Google Adwords (with
better targeting).
Google’s the other big player in targeted online advertising and,
while many dental practices have dipped their toes into Google
Adwords without a second thought because of how prominent
the search engine is, Facebook is actually a better deal in
many cases.
They charge less for the click-throughs you receive on your ads
and their more sophisticated targeting options mean that more
of those clicks will be the patients you most want to reach.
5. It provides a solid ROI (if you do it well).
As in all things marketing, the ROI isn’t guaranteed. You still
have to use Facebook’s advertising features effectively and optimize as you go for better results, but many businesses have
achieved a solid return-on-investment for their efforts.
Tips to Get the Most Out of
Facebook Advertising
To achieve ROI on the platform yourself, you should implement a few best practices:
Think carefully about who you want seeing your
ads. Showing your ads to the wrong audience is the fastest
way to lose money on Facebook (or any other type of marketing for that matter).
Take advantage of the targeting features. They’re one
of the biggest benefits of the service.
Pay attention to what works as you start to gather
data. You may find a slightly different strategy or audience
serves you better than the ones you assumed.
Don’t let Facebook do your bidding. Smart advertisers
use the advanced pricing model so they have more control.
Use Facebook Power Editor (instead of Ads
Manager) to create your campaign. It gives you more
flexibility with audience targeting.
Stick to your budget, but don’t be too stingy. You
have to pay to get seen, but you don’t want to go overboard
and spend more than you can afford.
Don’t forget about search retargeting. You can either
target your ads to prior visitors to your website, or target
users based on searches they’ve conducted on Google
or Bing.
Whether you love using Facebook in your personal life or don’t
really get the appeal, it can become an important marketing tool
for your business if you take advantage of the opportunities it
presents. A little risk can take you a long way.
As always, let us know if we can answer any questions.
Marc Fowler is President of Bullseye Media
in McKinney, Texas. Since 2007, they have
helped hundreds of dental practices across
the U.S. and Canada leverage the internet to
achieve their practice growth goals.
Marc can be reached by phone at
(214) 592-9393 or send an email to:
[email protected]
or visit OnlineDentalMarketing.com for
a complimentary customized Online Marketing
and Reputation X-Ray Analysis.
www.northtexasdentistry.com
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