A dental practice these days is not as successful without a dental marketing strategy to further enhance the practice’ brand. Even though your dental practice may be a welcome place for patients to visit, your competitors may disagree. Long-term sustainability is vital for dental practices, and an effective marketing strategy will leave your practice streets ahead of the competition.
New and existing patients can easily determine the reputation of a dental practice online instead of word-of-mouth. Online exposure is judged by the feedback that is received from users. Therefore, a dental marketing strategy has never been more necessary than it is today. We take a look at how to determine an appropriate budget for a digital marketing strategy.
Put Down The Budget Marker
Setting a budget helps you to track return-on-investment (ROI) as this portrays accuracies on how much you’ve spent compared to how much earned. When setting a budget, goals play a vital part in factoring in this amount. It’s ok for dental practices to continuously grow, but the danger of overspending comes into it if no budget is set. An example recommendation is to set your marketing budget at 20% or 30% of your total gross revenue. Start with a small budget if your marketing strategy is being built for the first time and increase the budget when the strategy is established. Here is an example of a calculated budget:
Gross Revenue |
% of Budget Revenue |
Budget |
|
$200,000 |
20% |
$40,000 |
|
TOTAL BUDGET OF $40,000 (annually) or 3,300 (monthly) |
||
Once your marketing budget is established, you’ll need to factor in other components that make up the amount you spend.
Professional Brand Strategists – An effective marketing strategy stems from investing in the right people who understand your practice, the brand and its values whilst working out the content your strategy needs. This is expected to set you back at least 10% of your annual budget. As part of the marketing strategy, the following areas will be fundamental to a strong strategy.
- Online Exposure – To be recognised, your dental practice needs to be exposed to popular online platforms. For example on the popular social media platforms, Google Ads, strong web content including good SEO and backlinks and email campaigns to promote dental services to your existing and new patients. Expect this to take up to 20% to 30% of your annual budget. Do not spend cheaply as strong online exposure is key to success. Spend wisely on the microscope detail that will make your dental practice popular online.
- Website Design – With strong exposure online comes excellent web content to convert those visitors into sales leads. When visitors open your dental website, they want to see eye-catching content that makes this feel welcomed. The content needs to be editable, SEO-rich and maps the patient journey.
- Up-To-Date Technology – Invest in the most up-to-date dental equipment that matches the service that you’re providing. Also, ensure that new and existing patients can contact a dentist for oral advice and book appointments online. The service patients require is instant, fast and efficient. Therefore, regularly update your dental and marketing technology.
A New Dental Practice – How Do I Start?
Large spending with little to no experience is not the best idea. Therefore, start from the bottom by understanding the basic actions you can take to build your dental practice online. This is known as minimum viable marketing.
- Write regular weekly blogs based around patient concerns and most-asked questions.
- Serve local communities through local advertising and email campaigns.
- Begin building your social media pages and share your services.
Be mindful that starting small is building the foundation for long-term success. Therefore, keep your budget small for the first year.
Are you seeking support for your marketing strategy? Contact Smile and Grow and we’re happy to help. Contact us here and let’s get started.
