How To Generate 7 New Leads This Week For Your Dental Practice Using Facebook Ads

If you own or manage a dental practice, then one of your most pressing concerns is getting a consistent flow of new patients every month. This is no small task and you better have a thorough marketing strategy in place, one that helps you stand out from your competition and attract a steady stream of new leads to your business.

Although there are many marketing tactics that you must incorporate in your plan to drive prospective patients to your office, none is as effective and swift as Facebook Ads. It works wonders without draining your marketing budget and helps to increase your dental practice’s brand awareness.

If you are not familiar with Facebook Ads or haven’t tried them yet because you don't know how to properly set them up, are not sure whether you can actually reach your ideal patients and generate leads, or simply are afraid your costs will far outweigh your revenue, then read on, because in this article you will learn what you need to do to set up a winning facebook ad campaign that can generate more leads for you.

Why Should You Use Facebook Ads?

There are a host of reasons you should consider using Facebook Ads in you marketing arsenal, but here we’ll just mention a couple of them.

It will be easier for you to find your target audience on Facebook. Around 80% of the adult population in the US and Canada are Facebook users who spend on average 40 minutes a day on the platform. This means your message has the most chances of reaching your target audience on Facebook than anywhere else.

Facebook Ads work like a charm. Since you have the ability to laser target your ideal customer, reaching out to them with an offer they can’t resist, your chances of converting prospects into highly qualified leads are magnified. To top if off, your ROI will be significant, when you factor in the lifetime value of the customer.

The key to start generating a steady stream of new dental leads almost immediately with Facebook ads involves two basic components: an irresistible offer, and a dental funnel. So let’s go through what you need to get started.

An Irresistible Offer To Generate Dental Leads

Catching your prospective patient’s attention is easier when you can offer them something of value, something that will prompt them to take action the moment they see your ad. However, people have all sorts of interests and not everyone will act to a generic offer that’s meant to appeal to all.

This is why the first thing you need to do is define who your ideal client is. Once you know who you are targeting, you can build an offer that is attractive to them. A free teeth whitening session is probably the best alternative you have to entice your target audience to come to your office. This is the first step your patients take to develop trust in you and it opens the door for you to start a relationship with them and upsell them into paid services such as deep cleaning or cavity repair, among others.

Now, what kind of an audience would be most likely to be attracted to this type of offer? You’d be right to say women who are older than 18 years, who also happen to have an important event coming up soon, such as a wedding or an anniversary.

Facebook allows you to target your ads based on events like these and more. And while a free teeth whitening session is something that could attract other types of potential customers, it is best to focus on one demographic at a time. Remember, the offer might be the same, but the message will differ.

Your Dental Funnel

Now that you have defined the irresistible offer you’ll place in front of your target audience, all you have to do is set up your dental funnel. A funnel is any series of steps designed to guide potential customers toward a buying decision.

Going back to the offer we mentioned earlier, a free teeth whitening session, it could erroneously be interpreted as the buying decision. It’s really another step in the dental funnel you’ve put up, leading to the buying decision which will likely be one that will have your new found lead become a regular patient, ideally requiring several services over the long term.

This particular dental funnel of yours needs four elements:

1. Facebook Ad
2. Landing Page
3. Thank You Page
4. Follow Up

Each step must lead seamlessly into the next, making it easy to go from beginning to end, so that the prospect experiences no disconnect, feels well taken care of, and increases their trust in you, the advertiser.

Let’s dive in and see what each step entails.

1. Your Facebook Ad

This is where it all begins and that probably makes it the most important step in the funnel. Not only does it have to catch the attention of your target audience but also has to prompt them to click on it. Thus, the offer and the message that you use in your ad are of paramount importance.

The best ad type available to set up a lead generation funnel for your dental practice is a Consideration ad that will send Traffic to your website.

After you choose your ad objective, you must define your targeting. This is where you tell Facebook what segment of the audience you want your ad to be shown to. You will be able to target based on several criteria such as: life events, behaviors, and interests.

The following four targeting options are what we recommend you to start with, to attract local prospects with the free teeth whitening offer.

• Location: up to 25 miles around your city
• Women between 18 and 45 years old
• Newly engaged (1 year)
• Upcoming anniversary in 31-60 days

There are other targeting options that you can test, but only until after you feel comfortable with the initial setup suggested here, and you have seen a constant flux of leads coming to your practice. These four targeting options are definitely a solid foundation for you to work on.

The next step entails creating the ad itself. At this point, you’re not selling them anything, just enticing them to click on the offer, so that they enter your dental funnel, sign up on your offer and opt in to your email list. This will allow you to follow up with them to schedule appointments and offer them your main services.

Right after they click on the ad, they must be taken to a landing page, also known as an opt-in page, where they will enter their contact details (name, mobile phone number, and email) to be a part of your email list.

2. Your Landing Page

This has to be a page created specifically to receive all incoming traffic generated by the ad. It can be a page on your website or on a third-party service provider. Just keep in mind that for analytical purposes it is best to have access to tools that allow you to test your landing page and show you key performance indicators such as traffic sent, click-through-rate and conversion rate, to name a few.

To successfully collect leads, your landing page must be congruent with the the ad. You achieve this by presenting them with the same information that they saw in the ad, so as not to modify or suppress their expectations, and avoiding to put any information that may distract them from the objective at hand, which is to get access to the offer they were promised in the ad. 

So they arrived at your landing page and submitted their details. What’s next?

3. Your Thank You Page

Now that they’ve entered their contact info and clicked on the Yes! button, they get added to your email list and are instantly redirected to the Thank You Page. This is the page where they are given further details about how to claim their offer. It should also be consistent with the previous steps in the funnel, the ad and the landing page, so as to increase trust in your lead.

There are a few things you should keep in mind when creating your thank you page: 

• You need to encourage your leads to act fast upon the offer that they just signed up for. You achieve this by stating that the offer will be valid for a few days only and asking them to call your office asap.
• You must publish a trackable phone number. You can do this with Twilio.com, where you can set up a unique phone number that will forward all incoming calls to your office, allowing you to track the effectiveness of the campaign, since you know exactly which leads is your facebook ad sending you.
• To increase your brand exposure, we also suggest you give your leads a chance to connect with you on social media. This is an opportunity to promote your brand for free on social media and get new leads as a result.

4. The Follow Up

As crucial as the ad, which is where your dental funnel began, is the follow up, which is where it ends. It’s strange, but some people don’t bother calling to claim the offer, even after they’ve shown interest by submitting their contact info. Which is why it is of utmost importance that you touch base with them both by email and by phone.

First of all, you should set up a welcome email in your autoresponder service that is sent immediately after they sign up for your offer. This is a simple message, very similar to what they found on the thank you page, where you thank them for signing up on your offer and encourage them to call your office asap. 

Second, you should contact them on their phones. This is something that should be incorporated into your office’s daily routine. You know the drill. You call them to remind them about the offer they signed up for and invite them to come to your office. If someone is not easy to get a hold of, keep trying until you do. Remember. They want to be contacted. They filled out the form.

Your Takeaway

There are quite a few marketing strategies that you can implement to grow your dental practice. Facebook Ads stands out among them for many reasons. It doesn’t take long to set up and produces results right away.

If you want to implement what you just learned after reading this article, you should expect a learning curve. After all, you have dedicated your life to mastering the science of dentistry. Taking on a new challenge will require focus and time away from your practice. 

If Facebook Ads is something that you are seriously considering, but are afraid you might not have enough time to run them properly, then we might come in handy. At Dentixtry, we are a boutique digital marketing agency for dental practices and we specialize in SEO and Facebook ads.

We offer a two-week 100% risk-free trial marketing campaign for new clients, that will allow you to see powerful results and take a peek into what it would be like for your practice to have a steady stream of new patients coming in. Learn more here.