The superhero of conversions: How remarketing can increase new patients for your dental practice

Have you ever been online, searching for a new pair of running shoes or perhaps a car mechanic, and you’re browsing those sites, when someone rings your doorbell, or you see a new message on Facebook, and before you know it, you’ve clicked out of the shoe website and on to something new? We’ve all done this, probably many times each day.

So what happens to that new pair of shoes? If you’re like most people, you probably forgot about them. What does this have to do with remarketing? Everything! On average, 95% to 98% of visitors leave your website without taking action. This means most of your visitors come to your site and don't call your office to make an appointment or fill out your new patient form. Why? Because they got distracted, were doing research and comparing various offices, or they just weren’t ready to decide whether to get their teeth whitened or fix that cracked tooth.

That’s remarketing!

At this point you’re probably thinking — wow that’s really neat and I want to learn more, how can this help my dental practice, and what are some numbers to support this marketing effort? Let’s dive in a little deeper to help you better understand.

Let’s start with why remarketing is so successful, share some results, and then we can discuss how you can launch these campaigns.
1. Inexpensive – You can start with as little as $50 per month
2. Conversion – Remarketing customers are 70% more likely to convert compared to someone who has not been the target of remarketing
3. Success rate – 49% of individuals visit a site two to four times before they actually convert
4. Competition – Most consumers visit multiple sites before making a decision. If you’re the only dentist in your area not remarketing, you’re leaving money on the table.

These charts illustrate the difference between a traditional pay-per-click campaign and a remarketing campaign

The numbers speak for themselves
Just in case you need more convincing how remarketing can help your practice, here are a couple more reasons. Visitors will continue to see your brand and messaging for free, which brings awareness to your practice. Another positive aspect of a remarketing campaign is that you will pay only when visitors click on your ads. Remember that we know the people seeing your ads already have an interest in your practice because they visited your website. This means if they take action and click on the ad they must really be interested!

So how does remarketing work? It’s actually pretty simple. When a visitor lands on your website, a cookie is stored in the person’s browser that is later used to uniquely identify them. As that same visitor browses other websites in the days and weeks following, that cookie containing the visitor’s unique identifier is used to determine where he or she has been previously, allowing the ad networks to show the person remarketing ads for the previously visited websites.

There are a couple requirements: you must have a website, and you must have a minimum of 20 to 100 unique visitors per month. I implore you to consider remarketing for your practice in 2015. It may seem optional now, but I can assure you in another year it will not be. Don't wait until all of your competitors have caught on!

Recent studies show that visitors who were remarketed to were 70% more likely to take action compared to those who were not. Our agency offers a free analysis for practices that want to take advantage of remarketing and other digital marketing opportunities.

For those that are interested in launching remarketing campaigns on their own, here are a few resources—Remarketing platforms: AdRoll.com and Perfectaudience.com. Banner design services:DesignPax.com, CannedBanners.com, and 20DollarBanners.com.

I hope you take the time to implement this effective marketing campaign in your practice.

With over a decade of experience in corporate dental laboratory sales, marketing and brand development, Jackie Ulasewich decided to take her passion for the dental business and marketing to the next level by founding Vantage Point Partners. Since starting the company, Jackie and her team have helped a wide variety of business owners all over the nation focus their message, reach their target audience, and increase their sales through effective marketing campaigns. When she isn't helping business owners reach their full potential, Jackie can be found at the beach with her three dogs or immersed in everything food-related with her large Italian family.