Marketing strategy for new start private Dental Practice in London (Instagram vs Google ads)

[Pracho]

Hi there,

I setup a new cosmetic dental business a couple of years ago in Central London. We are no longer a startup, but more a growing business and thankfully we have grown well over the past few years - thanks to Google Ads. Google ads however are super expensive for dentists - especially for cosmetic treatments like Invisalign and Composite Bonding.

I want to try and move our marketing strategy more towards Instagram as opposed to Google ads (I refer to google ads specifically, not google SEO). Some of the pro/cons I believe are as follows -

Instagram -
1. Creates a relatively stable captured follower base.
2. Any new offers/promotions can easily be shared with the follower base.
3. Takes a long time for the follower base to build up.
4. Follower base usually provides luke warm leads

Google Ads
1. No captured follower base. Once a link is clicked, lead either converts or is lost.
2. High cost per click - often in the region on £6/click
3. Provides hot leads.

I am keen to get some advise on -
1. Should I pursue an instragram first marketing strategy for my business - which is a cosmetic business primarily - Instagram is exactly that - beauty / cosmetics.
2. If Instagram first, how do I get more leads from Instagram - I get followers, engagement (2.5k followers, mostly London based) - however, 3-4 leads a month. Can anyone advise a strategy for Instagram? Do i need to work more with Influencers?
3. What can I expect with Instagram - say 2 years down the line? Type and quality of leads vs say Google ads.

Thoughts welcome.

Thanks
P

 

[gpietersz]

How many Instagram follower can you get who are in your target market? Suppose you do a lot of posts about cosmetic denstistry that people like - it might appeal to people from The US or India who are not ever going to use your services. I live a quick train journey from central London and I would still never go there to see a dentist! You will needa huge fullowing to have a significant number of people in your target market.

As you said, Google leads are hot. Set up right, your ads will be targetted at people in your area and doing searches related to your serivces. You need to be careful about targetting though - Google now defaults to matching similar words and phrases which can be far too wide.

If its too expensive you could try advertising on other search engines.

 

[Pracho]

Yes, that's a good point. I suppose the reason I think instagram can work for cosmetic treatments is because of the anecdotal evidence I am picking up in regard to cosmetic businesses around me.

 

[Pracho]

A local skin clinic in central london (facial aesthetics) gets new patients only from instagram (they have some 10k followers). Two big cosmetic dentists I know have massive instagram followings and I have never seen their ads on google or facebook, so sort of concluding that instagram works for them as well.

 

[Pracho]

I understand Google ads very well - and know what to expect from it. I dont understand instagram very well at all, but my gut feel tells me that for a long term marketing strategy perspective (e.g. similar to google SEO), Instagram is what I need to build as grow so that in a few years time my marketing budget for google ads comes down to minimal levels. Any thoughts on this welcome

 

[ethical PR]

Who is your target market? How many engaged followers do you have on Instagram ?

Your error is in thinking your marketing strategy should be centred around focussing on Instagram or Google ads. They are simply two out of a wide range of marketing channels.

Your initial focus should be on having a detailed understanding of your target market, why people should buy from you (rather than your competitors) and developing a marketing plan to reach your target market.

 

[WaveJumper]

Maybe also think about targeting other dentists who do not offer your level of services and set up a referral system my own dentist seems to have a lot of contacts with other specialist Practitioners who I occasionally have to pop off and see, at I have to say a considerable cost.

 

[Pracho]

Who is your target market? How many engaged followers do you have on Instagram ?

Your error is in thinking your marketing strategy should be centred around focussing on Instagram or Google ads. They are simply two out of a wide range of marketing channels.

Your initial focus should be on having a detailed understanding of your target market, why people should buy from you (rather than your competitors) and developing a marketing plan to reach your target market.

Yes correct. I understand my target market reasonably well. Demographic is 25-40 year old professional/semi professionals working in central/southeast london, 60% women, making between 30-100k pa. You could group the market into two buckets broadly - office goers and shop workers - each having their own motivations for purchase.

Although I appreciate your thoughts above around marketing plan/why buy from me - I have all this already, very basic stuff (I have an MBA from London Business School) - what I need is detailed context of Instragram from a dental/skin care perspective. As with every industry, cosmetic dentistry marketing has niches, which is what I need to understand better.

 

[Pracho]

Maybe also think about targeting other dentists who do not offer your level of services and set up a referral system my own dentist seems to have a lot of contacts with other specialist Practitioners who I occasionally have to pop off and see, at I have to say a considerable cost.

Yes have tried that. Most dentists dont refer for Invisalign and composite bonding as most dentists can offer this themselves as well - even though they may not be experts in them

 

[WaveJumper]

Yes have tried that. Most dentists dont refer for Invisalign and composite bonding as most dentists can offer this themselves as well - even though they may not be experts in them

I need to look up invisalign and composite bonding now whilst tackling my lunch ?

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

Video production here. Maybe my customers' data could be interesting. I shot 93 vids (94, including the blooper reel) for a company selling a healthcare solution around £400 - £500 price point. They deal with peripheral issues related to chronic pain and tinnitus as well as some post-op stuff. All their stuff is 'nice to have,' not essential.

Interestingly, their advertising is the other way around. They started on FB and Insta and then moved to YouTube (Google Ads, essentially). This means the bulk of their customers come from FB / Insta advertising but because this is so limiting, they want to extend this to other platforms.

On FB and Insta, what worked was three, different types of ad. Firstly, text and photo-based, secondly a carousel and finally video. Video-based advertising is about 50% of their revenues from this source. Some viewers respond better to video than they do photos and text so mixing it up increases their revenues.

They are also super-targeted. So we created different vids for them targeting different segments of their customer base meaning they are more effective. This increases the number of customers and reduces wasted ad spend. E.g. If someone is interested in chronic pain, then they are targeted with those ads. If someone has tinnitus, then they are targeted with the tinnitus stuff etc...

However, although FB / Insta have worked, they're moving to Google because FB and Insta are all over the place at the moment. They also ask for an email address which gives them remarketing ability and most importantly, super-targeted marketing.

When they use Google ads (on YouTube), they also go for an email so create a sales / marketing funnel which gets prospects to give up their email address. The way they do this is to create a series of vids, each one taking the viewer forward on their buying journey. For example, they start with a straight-out advert which appears on YT (one on Tinnitus, another on Chronic pain etc...). If someone watches one on say, Chronic pain or tinnitus, for more than 4 seconds, they are then re-targeted with additional advertising geared up for chronic pain or tinnitus sufferers.

Again, it allows them to be super-targeted and keep their cost of acquisition keen because their focus is on people who have watched their adverts and are interested in their products.

After this, there is a further video (a lead magnet vid), at the end of which is a request for an email address. What's also worked is to retarget prospects with customer testimonials after the lead magnet vid. The theory has been that there are people who are interested in giving their email address to get more info but they aren't trusting. So the way to generate trust is to hit someone with customer testimonials.

I also want to touch on the question of the balance of reach / frequency. i.e. How many times individual prospects need to be touched before they take a buying decision. The reason is media planners always talk about 30% / 3+ but all the data demonstrates this is completely untrue. Rather, it's completely dependent on your type of business. So Simon Broadbent's book 'When to Advertise' shows this doesn't work for TV audiences and the numbers are hugely variable. (Sorry, just had to throw that in because this is always a critical question when it comes to advertising spend).

So this has been my customer's experience. If you want to know more, just DM me and happy to fill you in on additional details.

And if you want to share your Google Ads info, I'd love to hear about your data on that.

 

[ethical PR]

Yes correct. I understand my target market reasonably well. Demographic is 25-40 year old professional/semi professionals working in central/southeast london, 60% women, making between 30-100k pa. You could group the market into two buckets broadly - office goers and shop workers - each having their own motivations for purchase.

Although I appreciate your thoughts above around marketing plan/why buy from me - I have all this already, very basic stuff (I have an MBA from London Business School) - what I need is detailed context of Instragram from a dental/skin care perspective. As with every industry, cosmetic dentistry marketing has niches, which is what I need to understand better.

In which case I would employ an agency or freelance which specialises in Instagram (preferably with experience in the cosmetic dental field) to give you the insight you need.

(By the way having an MBA doesn't mean you know how to research and write marketing plans ).

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Instagram ads will work wonders. Also you make no mention of Google My Business (now Google Business Pages) this in my experience with cosmetic surgery/ dentists etc is a huge monumental cornerstone.

Are you making use of the Google Business pages platform?

 

[Pracho]

In which case I would employ an agency or freelance which specialises in Instagram (preferably with experience in the cosmetic dental field) to give you the insight you need.

(By the way having an MBA doesn't mean you know how to research and write marketing plans ).

Thanks Ethical. I do have an agency that do Instagram work for me - but as with stuff like this, unless I myself understand the market well, I dont know what I am told is accurate or just ambition.

A good MBA school usually provides detailed tutorials, lessons, research and practical assignments on marketing. Quite core to the MBA really. Can't imagine an MBA grad not having quite an indepth understanding of marketing.

 

[Pracho]

Instagram ads will work wonders. Also you make no mention of Google My Business (now Google Business Pages) this in my experience with cosmetic surgery/ dentists etc is a huge monumental cornerstone.

Are you making use of the Google Business pages platform?

Yes very much using GMB. Very central - as is google SEO. Clearly need to get google SEO/GMB right. However, after that - instead of going Google ads route, want to make Instragram do what google seo does - build up something similar on Instragram.

 

[Salifuj]

I would think seriously about building an email list if i were in shoes. Having an email list beats both traffic generation methods.
So the best strategy is to identify what kind of service or product you can offer for free or trial in exchange for the prospective client's email.

You can then use both google ads and Instagram to drive traffic to the offer. You would reach a stage where you don't need to pay for either google or Instagram ads because you have a stable email address that is responsive to your message.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Yes very much using GMB. Very central - as is google SEO. Clearly need to get google SEO/GMB right. However, after that - instead of going Google ads route, want to make Instragram do what google seo does - build up something similar on Instragram.

Ideally then run a few competitions to build your following, insta is great but it also is covered by the Facebook ethos of no before and after images as they class it as body shaming?

 

[Tomas Tovey]

Hi there,

I setup a new cosmetic dental business a couple of years ago in Central London. We are no longer a startup, but more a growing business and thankfully we have grown well over the past few years - thanks to Google Ads. Google ads however are super expensive for dentists - especially for cosmetic treatments like Invisalign and Composite Bonding.

I want to try and move our marketing strategy more towards Instagram as opposed to Google ads (I refer to google ads specifically, not google SEO). Some of the pro/cons I believe are as follows -

Instagram -
1. Creates a relatively stable captured follower base.
2. Any new offers/promotions can easily be shared with the follower base.
3. Takes a long time for the follower base to build up.
4. Follower base usually provides luke warm leads

Google Ads
1. No captured follower base. Once a link is clicked, lead either converts or is lost.
2. High cost per click - often in the region on £6/click
3. Provides hot leads.

I am keen to get some advise on -
1. Should I pursue an instragram first marketing strategy for my business - which is a cosmetic business primarily - Instagram is exactly that - beauty / cosmetics.
2. If Instagram first, how do I get more leads from Instagram - I get followers, engagement (2.5k followers, mostly London based) - however, 3-4 leads a month. Can anyone advise a strategy for Instagram? Do i need to work more with Influencers?
3. What can I expect with Instagram - say 2 years down the line? Type and quality of leads vs say Google ads.

Thoughts welcome.

Thanks
P

So the cost per click, £6 in your instance, isn’t very relevant without any other dater points.

You also need to know the following:

• Click to Conversion Rate
• Profit per average sale

This will allow you to correctly calculate wether your ads are profitable or not!

For example…

• You earn £500 profit per sale on average
• Each click costs you £6
• Let’s say 10% of your Google Ads Clicks end up purchasing
• You get 100 clicks a month (-£600 ad spend)
• 10% of your clicks is 10 Customers

In one month you gained 10 customers
= £5000 profit
You got 100 clicks at £6 a click
= -£600
Total profit after ad spend = £4400

In this scenario I’d say £6 per lead is very cheap!
And any ad yielding these result, I’d consider is as a scalable ad.
Meaning increase your ad spend!

On the flip side, feel free to test Instagram.
I’d suggest influencers!
However, don’t fix what isn’t broken.

 

[Pracho]

I would think seriously about building an email list if i were in shoes. Having an email list beats both traffic generation methods.
So the best strategy is to identify what kind of service or product you can offer for free or trial in exchange for the prospective client's email.

You can then use both google ads and Instagram to drive traffic to the offer. You would reach a stage where you don't need to pay for either google or Instagram ads because you have a stable email address that is responsive to your message.

Hmm - yes, food for thought.. Thank you

 

[Pracho]

So the cost per click, £6 in your instance, isn’t very relevant without any other dater points.

You also need to know the following:

• Click to Conversion Rate
• Profit per average sale

This will allow you to correctly calculate wether your ads are profitable or not!

For example…

• You earn £500 profit per sale on average
• Each click costs you £6
• Let’s say 10% of your Google Ads Clicks end up purchasing
• You get 100 clicks a month (-£600 ad spend)
• 10% of your clicks is 10 Customers

In one month you gained 10 customers
= £5000 profit
You got 100 clicks at £6 a click
= -£600
Total profit after ad spend = £4400

In this scenario I’d say £6 per lead is very cheap!
And any ad yielding these result, I’d consider is as a scalable ad.
Meaning increase your ad spend!

On the flip side, feel free to test Instagram.
I’d suggest influencers!
However, don’t fix what isn’t broken.

Yes, have done this calculation. Google ads are definitely profitable. The issue is, our ad spend is c10k a month. I dont know any dentist who spends such a big amount on ads for like for like revenue. So the intent here is to get ad spend down for similar/if not more leads/revenue generation. I am hoping that's instagram.

 

[makeusvisible]

I've done a lot of work with Dentists in the past. Specifically with brands such as Invisalign, so am all too familiar with the challenge you have.

My advice would be to not consider a single platform. Don't have all your eggs in one basket. In particular, in the case of Google Ads and Facebook, advertising any form of medical service/product is volatile, and campaigns can dive as quickly as they can rise.

Go multi-channel. But before you do anything....anything at all, you need to have serious look at your conversion funnel. There's a couple of things you can do which I'll almost guarantee will improve your cost per conversion;

1. Get an employed live chat system onto your website. You'll need this setup properly, and to feed the agents with the right questions/answers, but after doing this, we saw an exponential rise in conversion rates. People having invisible braces fit, or prospecting suppliers ALWAYS have questions. If your website doesn't answer those questions, no matter how user friendly you believe it is, they will leave and visit another website. Managed minimises the chances of them dropping off.

2. You are in an industry which is mega-competitive. We worked across a half dozen practices in London over 10 years, and over those 10 years, I saw it get more and more competitive almost weekly, to the extent it is now cut-throat. I will bet a pound to a penny that you have invalid clicks on your ad campaigns. Introduce some click protection software, set it up properly, and you'll see that CPC come down.

Lost more you could be doing, but as above, get that cost per conversion down by making the user journey as slick as possible, before looking at getting more traffic. And in terms of channels, split your traffic across multiple channels.....eggs in multiple baskets.

 

[Pracho]

I've done a lot of work with Dentists in the past. Specifically with brands such as Invisalign, so am all too familiar with the challenge you have.

My advice would be to not consider a single platform. Don't have all your eggs in one basket. In particular, in the case of Google Ads and Facebook, advertising any form of medical service/product is volatile, and campaigns can dive as quickly as they can rise.

Go multi-channel. But before you do anything....anything at all, you need to have serious look at your conversion funnel. There's a couple of things you can do which I'll almost guarantee will improve your cost per conversion;

1. Get an employed live chat system onto your website. You'll need this setup properly, and to feed the agents with the right questions/answers, but after doing this, we saw an exponential rise in conversion rates. People having invisible braces fit, or prospecting suppliers ALWAYS have questions. If your website doesn't answer those questions, no matter how user friendly you believe it is, they will leave and visit another website. Managed minimises the chances of them dropping off.

2. You are in an industry which is mega-competitive. We worked across a half dozen practices in London over 10 years, and over those 10 years, I saw it get more and more competitive almost weekly, to the extent it is now cut-throat. I will bet a pound to a penny that you have invalid clicks on your ad campaigns. Introduce some click protection software, set it up properly, and you'll see that CPC come down.

Lost more you could be doing, but as above, get that cost per conversion down by making the user journey as slick as possible, before looking at getting more traffic. And in terms of channels, split your traffic across multiple channels.....eggs in multiple baskets.

Thank you!! Very much appreciated!

1. Can you recommend any live chat systems? What about automated chat bots - can you recommend a few?
2. Any click protection software you could recommend?
3. Any thoughts in instagram? How i can use that better to get more leads? (what instagram strategy should a cosmetic dentist employ to get it to work in a way similar to Google SEO (built up over the years and then yields dividends as your ranking increases with time)

 

[makeusvisible]

Thank you!! Very much appreciated!

1. Can you recommend any live chat systems? What about automated chat bots - can you recommend a few?
2. Any click protection software you could recommend?
3. Any thoughts in instagram? How i can use that better to get more leads? (what instagram strategy should a cosmetic dentist employ to get it to work in a way similar to Google SEO (built up over the years and then yields dividends as your ranking increases with time)

In terms of the live chat system, I wouldn't really like to recommend one in particular. When we put one in place for the chain of practices, it was very much a learning curve (for the provider as well as us). It probably took 3 months to have a really good knowledge base in place, which meant they could properly handle any questions a potential customer might ask. I imagine most of the providers work in much the same way, that until they have a solid understanding of your services, it needs to be kept quite simple, and expanded out as their knowledge grows.

Click protection.... ClickCease for us, across a number of clients, has never let us down. Again, it does all come down to the configuration, but once setup properly it should save money and clicks.

In terms of Instagram. There are a few basics to start with. Make sure you have retargeting audiences setup across Facebook and IG. Anyone visiting your website should continue to see ads on IG and FB. The decision-making process with products like Invisalign can be several months, so a 90 audience is worthwhile. Depending on your website visitor volumes, you might want to segment it further. For example, people who engaged with the live chat, or people who filled in an enquiry form.

Driving organic traffic from Instagram that is going to a strategy developed around your offering, your brand, location, USPS etc. I couldn't really give you a boilerplate solution as to what would work on IG organic....other than the items above.

Best of luck.

Regards
David
MUV

 

[Pracho]

In terms of the live chat system, I wouldn't really like to recommend one in particular. When we put one in place for the chain of practices, it was very much a learning curve (for the provider as well as us). It probably took 3 months to have a really good knowledge base in place, which meant they could properly handle any questions a potential customer might ask. I imagine most of the providers work in much the same way, that until they have a solid understanding of your services, it needs to be kept quite simple, and expanded out as their knowledge grows.

Click protection.... ClickCease for us, across a number of clients, has never let us down. Again, it does all come down to the configuration, but once setup properly it should save money and clicks.

In terms of Instagram. There are a few basics to start with. Make sure you have retargeting audiences setup across Facebook and IG. Anyone visiting your website should continue to see ads on IG and FB. The decision-making process with products like Invisalign can be several months, so a 90 audience is worthwhile. Depending on your website visitor volumes, you might want to segment it further. For example, people who engaged with the live chat, or people who filled in an enquiry form.

Driving organic traffic from Instagram that is going to a strategy developed around your offering, your brand, location, USPS etc. I couldn't really give you a boilerplate solution as to what would work on IG organic....other than the items above.

Best of luck.

Regards
David
MUV

Thank you David. Very helpful - thank you

 

[SEODEV#338055]

1. Can you recommend any live chat systems?

The features and customer service at LiveChat.com are excellent. You can try out the services for free to evaluate whether or not this is the right solution for your business. I couldn't find a dentist listed amongst the clients however you may be interested to read the Green Retreats case study which is a UK wellness and education business using LiveChat.

 

[Marilynn Haigh]

In terms of the live chat system, I wouldn't really like to recommend one in particular. When we put one in place for the chain of practices, it was very much a learning curve (for the provider as well as us). It probably took 3 months to have a really good knowledge base in place, which meant they could properly handle any questions a potential customer might ask. I imagine most of the providers work in much the same way, that until they have a solid understanding of your services, it needs to be kept quite simple, and expanded out as their knowledge grows.

Click protection.... ClickCease for us, across a number of clients, has never let us down. Again, it does all come down to the configuration, but once setup properly it should save money and clicks.

In terms of Instagram. There are a few basics to start with. Make sure you have retargeting audiences setup across Facebook and IG. Anyone visiting your website should continue to see ads on IG and FB. The decision-making process with products like Invisalign can be several months, so a 90 audience is worthwhile. Depending on your website visitor volumes, you might want to segment it further. For example, people who engaged with the live chat, or people who filled in an enquiry form.

Driving organic traffic from Instagram that is going to a strategy developed around your offering, your brand, location, USPS etc. I couldn't really give you a boilerplate solution as to what would work on IG organic....other than the items above.

Best of luck.

Regards
David
MUV

David, Re the 3 month period.
Are you talking about pre-populated answers or having a live person take the call?

 

[makeusvisible]

David, Re the 3 month period.
Are you talking about pre-populated answers or having a live person take the call?

A live person. Most of the providers who use live-chat work on the basis of building up a knowledge-base, so that they have solid answers to the more common questions, which improves over time.

 

[Adam Le Grand]

I find it interesting that a print campaign is not even being considered in the equation. We run campaigns for multiple dental practices and due to the nature of the business, some of their most successful ongoing campaigns are print based.

One of them prints and distributes 250,000 leaflets every 3 months and they have done for the past 5 years or so. It's a formula that works and produces a strong uptake every time.

Considering that less than 50% of your desired demographic is even on Instagram, why would you willingly exclude all of those potential customers. 100% of people in your locality have a letterbox.

Why do you think huge companies such as Virgin, Dominos and Spec Savers still do maildrops? They realise that going purely Digital with their marketing excludes a high volume of potential customers.

Another thought is, why would you limit yourself to just one channel? Surely a strong campaign, comes from the constant drip feed of information. Most campaigns that we run are a mix of Media Ads, Social Media and Print.