This is the year to embrace PPC
28 January 2014
The Game Has Changed – Marketing Dentistry 2014
18 August 2014
50% of website visitors leave a typical website within 8 seconds!
how do you make sure you can pass the 8 second test?
The nature of how people surf the internet, together with the ever-decreasing attention span of the public, means you only have a few seconds to answer some fundamental and often subconscious questions:
By Carl Burroughs
For the past decade or so, I have been helping dental practices create the physical environment they would like to work from. Some of you may know me from my work at Elite Fitout Solutions, where I held the role of Director, Marketing and Business Development and Board member. During my time at Elite Fitout Solutions, I assisted with the creation of some of the finest dental practices in Australia, I came to realise that no matter how well-appointed a practice is, without a steady flow of new patients, the ROI would be limited. With this as a backdrop, when I was presented with the opportunity to use my Marketing and Business Development skills to make a material difference to the success of Australian and New Zealand dental practices, I grabbed it with both hands. Now in my role as Sales Director for Integrated Dental Marketing, I get to assist practices with their strategies and marketing that justifies the stunning fitout or new equipment.
Clearly, one strategy that every dental practice needs to have, is a solid online presence. There are many elements to this, but at the core of all your online activities is your website and if that does not ‘cut the muster’ then money spent on Google Ads, Facebook Ads and SEO will not be maximised.
The nature of how people surf the internet, together with the ever-decreasing attention span of the public, means you only have a few seconds to answer some fundamental and often subconscious questions:-
Am I in the right place?
What can I do here?
Why should I do it here?
So, how do you make sure you can pass the 8 second test?
Firstly, you need your website to be designed in a ‘mobile first’ fashion. Well over 70% of all search traffic now originates from handheld devices and statistics show that the public are brutal when a website does not render well on their smartphone of choice. Even today, some web designers, design websites using giant monitors and then try and adapt the website for the mobile view. The opposite should be true as what appears first on those few square millimetres of screen will have a major effect on whether a potential patient interacts with your website or instantly leaves in search of a site more to their liking.
The next thing to ensure to gain maximum interaction is to ensure everything you want a potential new patient to know about you is ‘Above the Fold’, which simply means the viewer does not need to scroll, either on a laptop or a smartphone. You may want to consider using a professional photo of you and your team in the main banner, this injects personality and differentiates you from all the sites that rely on stock images. If you have a particular promotion, such as a fixed price for an Exam, Scale and Clean, this should be prominent as should the ‘book an appointment’ and ‘call now’ buttons. Clearly, different practices have different core messages that they need to get across and these should be professionally crafted for maximum effect.
The use of video is another excellent way of engaging a viewer, however, it needs to be succinct, rememberable and if possible, a bit different. With the amount of video content now consumed by the public, you need to stand out. A five-minute video telling people how gentle you are will no longer cut it, your video needs to resonate quickly and again, there is no one size fits all approach, promoting a Specialist Orthodontic practice needs a different approach to a suburban family practice or city-based cosmetic practice. There are some highly creative people who specialise in high impact short videos and seeking their help is a great first step.
I will endeavour to make these articles as useful as possible with practical advice you can implement however, if you have any questions about any of your marketing needs, please do not hesitate to book a Zoom meeting with me as I am always happy to share strategies and insights.
To book a Zoom meeting with Ian Shapland simply call Sonia Kingman on 02 9211 1477 or e-mail ian@idm.com.au.
The average Australian will watch approximately one hour of on-line video content per day. Not only engaged by on-line video content but they respond to it.
Good video content can significantly increase the number of enquiries you receive from your website. In-fact, our statistics show increases of between 40 to 60 per cent when good video content is added to a website. These figures are supported by large scale studies out of the UK and the US, all of which all state video is the fastest growing trend on the internet today. This trend is likely to continue as internet speeds improve and the take-up of devices that support video such as iPads continue to increase.
When you think about video rationally it makes perfect sense that great video content will attract new patients. We all know there is no better marketing than personal referrals, but in this competitive era there is a strong chance that you are not attracting enough new patients through referrals to keep you and your team as busy as you would like.
The essence of a referral is comment on your personality, skill, customer service and pricing structure – a well scripted video can get across all of these things in a succinct and compelling way.
If you think about the impact a ‘good’ 30 second TV commercial can make on you, just think what we can convey in a couple of minutes.
The argument for compelling video gets even stronger the more sophisticated you become with your marketing. Have a look at your most recent Google Analytics Report and study the new traffic you attracted to your website in the past four weeks. Now compare this to the number of new patients who stated they found you via the Internet over the same period, this will give you a rough idea of how your site is converting.
For instance, if you attracted 200 new visitors to your website in the past four weeks and your front desk tells you that 10 new patients over this same time stated that they found you via the Internet then your conversion rate is 5 per cent. So, by adding compelling video to the home page of your site you could expect this to rise to 7or 8 per cent and therefore attract 14 to 16 new patients per month.
A few notes here. If you do not have Google Analytics set-up on your website, you really need to do this straight away. Having a website without seeing how it is performing is undermines your efforts as you cannot make any informed decisions without the statistics. Google Analytics is free and easy to set-up – plus if you have any difficulties organising this or you don’t have time simply call me and I will organise it for you at zero cost.
If you are doing any Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising on Google, Facebook or You Tube Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), then video content really starts to stack up even more as the improved conversion rate video brings makes these mediums work harder and improves your ROI (return on investment) significantly.
So, hopefully by now you can see the value of great video content. But what material should you include in your video?
Well, this is where the generic advice, which applies to most practices stops. Your video should be planned and scripted specifically for your individual needs. Of cause there are some overall marketing principles that can be applied, such as your video should project your personality and that of the practice and team.
The video needs to be compelling and talk about the unique aspects of the service you provide. It should be informative, so no viewer is left in any doubt about what services you offer and it needs to have a coherent narrative that takes the viewer along a journey to a specific conclusion.
The costs associated with creating high quality video content have come down in recent year as the technology needed to both shoot and edit video has become more accessible. However, filmmaking is still an art and needs talented people involved to get the best result so a reasonable budget should be allocated.
Although, the use of video content is on the rise, the percentage of dental practices using video is still a minority, so by producing compelling video content now you will not only see an increase in the ‘viewer to patient’ conversion rate on your website, but you will gain a disproportional advantage over competing practices – something that is becoming more important than ever before.
