Once my dental website is up and running, what steps do you take to market it and how much does the marketing cost?
Websites have a number of different uses. They can be used for education, online stores, new business, and a host of other things. If one of your main goals is to bring in new dental patients, then you need to start marketing your site. I could spend days and write a book on this subject alone so what I’ll try to do is summarize the different ways to market your site and give a brief description of each method.
Internal Marketing and Dental Practice Management
Internally, you can put your website address on everything- forms, bills, business cards, brochures, etc… You can encourage people to go online to schedule an appointment or learn more about the services you offer. Add monthly specials to your website and tell patients to go online every month to see the different specials you offer.
Cost for Internal Marketing: Time. You are already paying for business cards, forms, etc… You just need to add the website. The real cost is time and it takes very little time to tell people “you can now schedule online!”
Organic Website Marketing (Search Engine Optimization)
Most people do not use phone books anymore- certainly young families that the majority of dentists target. Once you get your website ranked at the top of the search engines, people will find you for free. Imagine always having the first, most prominent ad in the phonebook but on the internet… for free!
Cost for Organic Marketing: Free
Cost to make it to the top of the search engines: This totally varies based on the search terms and the practice location. $395 for standard search optimization is a great start.
Paid Website Marketing
Google Adwords, Yahoo, and MSN are all great companies to use while you are getting your website ranked at the top of search engines. Though it may cost you money for each click, it’s the easiest (and only) way to get ranked at the top immediately. Once you have perfected the search engine optimization on your site and rank organically, you can stop the paid website marketing.
Additionally, you can run ads on other websites. Costs vary greatly and you should make sure that your target audience is visiting those websites.
Cost for Paid Website Marketing: Pricing starts at 7 cents a click but will generally be more. You can decide how much yhou want to spend each month and Google/Yahoo/MSN will make sure you do not cross that amount.
Direct-Mail Campaigns
While online campaigns and email campaigns seem very cost effective, direct-mail campaigns are still very strong marketing campaigns for dentists. By sending mailers out once every month for a year, you establish yourself as a household name. 10 patients each month out of 2,500 mailers will still pay for itself. Those patients will, in-turn, bring new patients to your practice.
Cost for 2,500 Direct-Mail Campaigns: $1,789 ($270 for a list of 2,500 residents (unlimited use for one year) within your chosen radius and demographic, $299 for a professional postcard design, $720 for postage and mailing services, $500 for double-sided printing on quality, glossy postcard.)
There are a number of other effective ways to attract new patients. To learn more, visit www.newdentalweb.com or call 888-937-5552.
