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The top five reasons why dental practice ads fail and how to fix them

It can be very frustrating if you’ve tried your hand at running ads for your dental practice but feel like you’ve wasted precious time and money on clicks that didn’t convert, or you’ve outsourced your marketing but didn’t get the results you wanted.

When you’re already so busy with the day-to-day of managing patients and business operations, it can be near impossible to find time to train up on Facebook Ads or Google Ads. They can be complicated, confusing, and a massive time suck.

You want to attract and convert more dental patients to grow your practice, but your ads aren’t working and you don’t know why. The first step is to diagnose the problem, and that’s precisely what we’ll help you do today by exploring the top reasons dental ads don’t produce good results. Let’s get into it!

Why your ads aren’t working for your dental practice

In our experience working with dental practice owners and managers, poor advertising results usually come down to these 5 things. But don’t worry, we can help you avoid these common mistakes! Just keep reading…

1. Poor audience targeting

You can have the best ad copy, marketing video, and landing page, but your savvy advertising efforts will be in vain if you’re not targeting the right audience. Generic, broad audiences (like men and women aged 18-65) won’t get you very far. You’ll only waste your ad budget on people who don’t care about what you have to offer.

Instead, you want to narrow down your audience as much as possible to make your ads more tailored to their specific pain points. It all begins with understanding who your patient personas actually are and what treatments will appeal to them. Depending on the platform, you can target potential patients based on their interests, location, and website activity.

So, use this data to your advantage by targeting those near your practice and showing an interest in dental services. Don’t forget to tailor ads based on where they are in the buyer journey – creating the same ads for current patients vs prospective ones will dilute your efforts.

2. Boring copy

Whether online ads or print, monotonous copy is the easiest way to lose people’s interest and have them scroll or walk right past that Instagram ad or poster you worked so hard on. The dental world is stuffed to the brim with competitors flogging their latest cosmetic treatments and discounts, so you need to capture your audience’s attention immediately.

And compelling, targeted, and engaging copy is one surefire way to do that. Make sure you understand your brand voice, unique selling points, and patients’ pain points before you start writing ad copy. Otherwise, your dental practice’s copy won’t stand out in the competitor crowd or genuinely resonate with your target patients.

Take a look at your competitors; what ad copy stands out to you? Check out ads outside your industry: what makes a mark? You’ll soon understand the difference between good and bad ad copy and use these ideas to craft your own.

Remember to skip the jargon, keep it simple, and get to the heart of how you can solve your patient’s problems. Speak directly to them and what they need, not just about how great your dental practice is.

3. Mundane imagery

As they say, a picture says a thousand words and believe it or not can make or break the success of your dental practice ads. Bland stock imagery with ’90s bubble writing won’t cut it. You need to draw attention with vibrant, attractive, and unique imagery that provokes an emotional response within your audience.

Some of the most effective ad campaigns are the most simple. A captivating image with a perfect headline, and you barely even need an accompanying copy (which many people don’t bother reading!) Our advice? Hire a professional photographer to take modern shots of your dental practice, team, patients, and procedures.

This immediately adds that trust factor and individuality you need to reinforce your unique branding. For maximum impact and to ensure your ad image is easy to read – keep your ad text to an absolute minimum, and don’t forget to test several images, text, and call-to-action (CTA) combinations to see what performs best.

4. Ineffective landing pages

Ever wonder why your ads get a ton of clicks but then when it comes to conversions – zilch? Surely if your audience is clicking on your ads they’re interested, so what’s the problem? Low click-to-conversion ratios are usually down to poorly-designed landing pages. While your audience might need your service, they won’t want it if your landing page is terrible!

So, what makes a dental practice’s landing page ineffective? It usually boils down to your landing page having:

  • Uncompelling copy
  • No call-to-actions (CTAs) like “Book Now”
  • A confusing contact form or no contact form at all
  • No patient testimonials
  • No images or videos
  • Slow loading times
  • A hard to navigate interface

The solution to designing a high-converting landing page? Do the opposite of the above points, and you’ll be well on your way to getting more patients picking up the phone and requesting consultations!

5. An outdated website

An outdated website is one of the quickest ways to lose money on your dental practice ads. If you don’t tend to your website, making sure it’s easy to navigate, up-to-date, mobile-friendly, and fast, your prospective patients might get the feeling you don’t keep on top of your internal standards either.

Creating ads that attract users to your dental practice’s website is only half the battle. Almost all your conversion power rests on your patients having a good experience on your website and receiving a great impression of your brand. An outdated look or feel, poor functionality, or wrong information can turn prospective patients away immediately.

Whether you need some slight website tweaks to bring it up to standard or a complete website redesign, a modern, attractive, and conversion-driven website will be the best investment you can make for your ads and the success of your entire business.

Want the dental practice advertising experts to take over?

We hope this blog has helped you figure out where you might be going wrong in dental practice ads and what you can do to create better ads and get the results you want. If you’re too busy to bring your online and print advertising to the next level, why not let our dental practice consultants take the pressure off?

We offer business consultancy, digital marketing, and web design services for dental practice owners who are ready to streamline and automate their processes, attract and convert new patients, and upsurge profits. Book a free 15-minute consultation today!

CASE STUDY

Dickens Yard Dental

Meet Dr. Sahil Thakkar. Owner, founder, and principal dentist of Dickens Yard Dental, a dental practice based in West London. As a brand new business, the main goal was to increase the number of new patients to kick things off.