Wondering if you know what you need to know about Facebook Ads for dental practices?
If you’ve sat in on any marketing conferences or conversations lately, you’ve probably heard people talking about Facebook Ads. This amazing social media platform has one of the best ad options for advertisers to date. The cost per clicks are reasonable, the audience is there, and you can get started fairly easily. So, why isn’t everyone doing them?
As dentists, you may have considered doing Facebook Ads, or have even tried them a time or two and felt like you just didn’t maximize them to their fullest potential. But, let’s face it: there are a million other things going on in a day that need your attention and Facebook ads feel a little overwhelming.
We’ve worked with practitioners just like you, and we know you didn’t go through all that schooling just to run your own Facebook Ads. You want to help patients. But, if you’re the decision maker, you also have to know a little bit to make the right decisions for your practice. We believe education is key in any marketing strategy, so as we’ve fielded questions from our own clients and friends in the industry, we’ve compiled a few things to help dentists out.
Here are a few things you should know before your practice ever attempts to run any ads on social media:
- You need to be clear on your offer. Sure you can hire someone to help you run your Facebook Ads, or you can have someone on your team hit that “boost” button, but if you have a pathetic offer, or no offer at all, your ads won’t do much for you. Before you ever put dollars behind an ad on Facebook, you need to know what you want people to do as a result of seeing that post and appeal to why they should take action.
- More than just Facebook Ads. Did you know that Facebook also owns Instagram? In fact, the ad platform to set up ads for Facebook is the same one for running Instagram ads. If you want to test out running ads on either or both, you can do it in the same setup.
- Boosting is basic. We hear from practices A LOT that they can “just hit the boost button.” Facebook makes it really easy to throw $20 or more at a post that is performing “really well.” Of course they do! They want you to burn through money by boosting that post. But, did you know that the filters and targeting capabilities you can do with a boosted post are a fraction of what you can do if you set them up as a real ad in Facebook’s Ad Manager? If you’re just boosting posts all the time, you are missing out on valuable ways you could be targeting your audience and spending your ad budget more effectively.
- Retargeting is your friend. We like to encourage practices to spend their ad budget on both cold AND warm audiences. You reach brand new people with the cold audience ad and honestly, you’ll spend more dollars here to try to catch new people’s attention. However, you can retarget those who have expressed interest on the previous ad and spend less money on these retargeting ads. These are more qualified prospects and you’ll send less of them out, but they’ll be more quality and less expensive.
- Audiences matter. Most of the work done behind the scenes on ads is rarely seen, but is all in figuring out who best to target for the ads. Often, A/B testing is done to see what audience will run best for your practice.
- Change is normal. Facebook is an ever-evolving space where the algorithms and ad filters change regularly. However, user behavior also dictates new trends. Essentially, if you’re relying on what worked for your ads three years ago, odds are they won’t work as well today.
- Ads are just part of the puzzle. You need a solid website, regular social media presence, consistent email strategies, print mail, and more to make up a comprehensive marketing strategy. Facebook Ads alone will not carry your practice, nor should they! View them in part and see if you can let these other marketing channels help support the same campaigns you are running on ads and vice versa.
We’ve seen a ton over the years of working with practices on dental marketing and building name recognition for their practices. We know that Facebook Ads can be a confusing topic and that they change regularly. It’s vital to know the basics and be able to ask your marketing team the right questions to ensure that they maximize your Facebook Ad campaigns to their fullest potential.
Got other questions about Facebook Ads or dental marketing? We’d love to connect. You can always find time on our calendar here or contact our team.