Orthotown December 2022 - 41

by Casey Bull
Casey Bull, the global director of
content and community at The Invisible
Orthodontist (TIO), drives TIO's efforts
to provide member practices with
marketing and business management
expertise. Bull began her career in the
orthodontic industry in 2014 working for
Dr. Alexander Waldman in Beverly Hills,
where she developed a range of practice management processes
encompassing tracking and reporting, management systems and
templates, treatment plans, marketing programs and more.
" You will either step forward into growth or you will
step back into safety. " - Abraham Maslow
In-office patient interactions and delivering
actual orthodontic care are top priority for all
practices, which means marketing efforts typically
fall to the wayside. This results in practices relying
solely on word-of-mouth referrals and existing
dental relationship referrals.
This model of very minimal marketing initiatives
may have worked for many orthodontic
practices in the past, but times are changing: With
the consumer confidence index at a level typically
associated with a recession, practices will not be
able to sustain a no-effort marketing strategy for
long. Marketing efforts will need to be reprioritized
as a business necessity. After all, without new
patients, there is no practice.
Balancing the cost, maintenance and results
of various marketing efforts is complicated; there
is no magic button or strategy a practice can
implement that will guarantee success. The closest
thing you can get to a guarantee is by using data
and strategy to create effective campaigns. In this
article, I'll explain a concept called " moneyball
marketing, " which involves identifying undervalued
marketing opportunities, setting up targets,
tracking the performance very closely and then
using the data to drive decisions for the campaigns
moving forward.
Paid advertising campaigns
Paid digital advertising is still one of the best
ways to get new patient leads quickly. It's no longer
a question if digital marketing works for orthodontic
practices-the results are undeniable, but you
have to spend enough in order to see the return on
investment. Recommended ad spends are going
up, with ad spend recommendations currently at:
* Google Ads: $1,200/month.
* Facebook/Instagram Ads: $1,000/month.
* Display ads: $300/month
* TikTok ads: $1,500/month is suggested,
although consistent results in the
orthodontic space are still not yet proven.
If you want to grow your practice and are ready
to invest in digital marketing, paid search should
be one of the channels-if not the only one-you
focus on to drive new patient leads.
Improve conversion rates
The single best, cheapest, fastest, most sustainable
way to grow your practice is to improve
your conversion rates. (For more specifics about
this, see Fig. 1 on p. 42).
The results of improvements to your newpatient
funnel have compounding effects. For
example, if you wanted to double your practice
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Orthotown December 2022

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