What Happens If You Stop Your Marketing to Cut Costs

In the midst of uncertainty and panic during COVID-19 closures, many dentists have halted their marketing in order to cut costs. We understand that many of these dentists make this choice to bring immediate relief to their wallet. However, these dentists have overlooked the long-term negative effects that stopping their marketing will bring to their practice.  As Henry Ford said, “Stopping your advertising to save money, is like stopping your watch to save time.”

If you’d like to get a clear action plan on how to protect and grow your practice right now, download our Emergency Dental Marketing Guide by clicking below.

If You Stop Your SEO...

For dentists that are stopping or “pausing” SEO to save money, take a moment to remember how long it took for your website to improve in rankings and traffic with SEO. It takes Google months to notice changes on your website, which is why it took so long for the positive effects of your SEO to take hold. Therefore, if you stop or “pause” your SEO now, the major negative effects will not hit until your doors are re-opened. Your website will fall in the rankings, and become invisible to the new patients that are looking for a new dentist. Which, in comparison to saving a few dollars now, will cost you much more in the long run.

If You Stop Your Ads...

There are patients all around you that need a dentist: they are in pain and they need help now. If one of your patients needs help, but your online presence disappeared or it’s unclear if you are taking appointments, the dentist that is running ads will see your patient. This gives that dentist the opportunity to turn your patient into their lifetime patient. 

However, if a patient needs help and their dentist is not showing availability, but you are, then you could build a new relationship with that patient, and turn them into a lifetime patient. There are also so many people that still do not have a regular dentist, and they are not immune to a chipped tooth or severe pain during this time. If you’re one of the only dentists that is running advertising right now, you will book them.

Why You Should Advertise Now

Right now, online ads are the cheapest they have been in years. With your competitors pulling back on their advertising, cost-per-click is cheaper, and your advertising has more impact. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg just said that Facebook is “surging” with traffic right now, making Facebook ads more visible than ever. More patients are scrolling, and you can show them your practice is available to them.

For our dental clients running Google ads right now:

• Overall cost per conversion is 46.24% cheaper 
• Emergency ad cost per conversion is 56.20% cheaper
• Search impression share is 20% higher

The most impactful statistic to take away from our clients’ results, is the emergency ad cost per conversion. At 56.20% cheaper, that means you can gain more than twice as many emergency leads as before, for the same cost. By advertising right now, you will reach more people and have a greater impact than you’ve ever had, on a discount. The dentists that identify and seize this opportunity will get ahead while the market is still up for grabs, and hit the ground running when their doors open back up.

What to Market Right Now

Your practice can advertise your availability to see patients that need emergency care right now, and offer virtual consults for non-essential dental care.

Your ads should show:

• You are open
• You are available
• Your contact info
• Real photos of you, your staff, and/or your practice

“Should I keep my non-emergency ads running?” The answer is absolutely, yes! By using virtual consults, you can start to stack cosmetic and hygiene appointments for May, June, etc. Additionally, patients looking for high-end services like implants or Invisalign have never had more time on their hands than right now! They are using this time to do their research to choose the right dentist, and if your practice is not advertising for those services, those patients won’t even take you into consideration.

Retain Your Marketing Presence

There will still be the same amount of crowns, fillings, and implants needed this year, as there were last year. When your doors re-open, there will be a flood of patients in need, and only the dentists that have retained their marketing presence will capture those patients. 

If you keep your marketing running, then you can still communicate with patients, build new relationships, and stack those appointments for the day your practice re-opens. If you keep your marketing running, you will set your practice up for the most profitable second half of a year you have ever had.

If you’d like to get a clear action plan on how to protect and grow your practice right now, download our Emergency Dental Marketing Guide by clicking below.

If capital is holding you back from running your marketing right now, see our resources on The CARES Act, Finding Capital, and Dealing with Office Closures. If you need immediate help and support right now, schedule a call with us.