How to Use Remarketing to Engage With Dental Patients on Social Media

While having a stellar looking website and a strong online presence will generate a lot of traffic for your dental practice, it might not be enough to convert first-time-clickers to patients and purchasers.

According to research, 96% of people who click through to a website are not ready to make a purchase or take an action and will require multiple engagements before making their decision [1]. Remarketing is a smart tool to engage with clickers and target dental patients who have been to your website but have not yet taken action.

Why Are First-Time-Visitors Not Immediately Converting?

There are several reasons why a lead may not take action during their first introduction to your dental practice website. For the most part, prospective patients will want to compare your dental practice to others they are considering.

Potential patients usually take the below into consideration when choosing whether or not to book:

• Available treatments and procedures.
• Financing and/or payment plans.
• Accepted insurance options.
• Testimonials/Reviews from others who have used your practice.
• Dental Technology.
• Current offers, benefits, or perks.
• Whether you seem patient-focused.

When it comes to buying a service, consumers want to make sure they are getting the best available option at the highest-quality. This is especially true for dental practices, as prospective patients want to be happy with their treatment outcome and want to find a dentist to re-visit.

What Is Remarketing/Retargeting?

Remarketing also called retargeting, is a marketing tool used to turn prospective leads that are interested in your dental practice, into actual patients.

This is done by creating targeted content, ads, and offers that are sent out to those who have already visited your website, clicked on your offers, or shown a specific interest in certain content like dental services. The retargeting is often done through social media platforms since these sites pull massive audiences during off-hours when individuals have the time to engage with your business. Simply put, remarketing is a way for you to put your advertisements in front of an audience that is more-than-likely to engage and book.

Which Social Media Platforms Are At The Top for Remarketing?

Out of all the social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram are at the top for remarketing and retargeting efforts. On average, individuals spend 111 minutes on Facebook and Instagram combined on a daily basis [2], and each of these platforms pull in large audiences. Instagram pulls in 500 million + active users a day [3] and Facebook has 1.79 billion active users on a daily basis [4].

How Do You Get Started With Remarketing on Facebook & Instagram?

You will need to segment your audiences into groupings. This can be done based on a wide variety of factors, such as those who visit specific pages on your site or those who only seemed interested in certain dental treatments.  Once you find out how to segment your audience, you’ll need to decide what type of ads you’d like to target them with and how often you’d like them to be served.

1. Segmenting Your Audience.

With remarketing on social media platforms, you can deliver personalized advertisements and content that interest and engage a particular target. But to do this, you will need to segment your audience out. For Facebook specifically, you can segment your audience based on who visits your website, who visits certain pages on your website, who visits specific pages only, and those who haven’t re-visited your website in a period of time.  Once you have these segments defined, you can serve personalized content to them that will re-engage them via remarketing.

2. Creating Ads.

Retargeting on social media platforms allows you to reach prospective patients even if they aren’t actively searching for your dental practice.
You can serve them ads in off-hours when they are more likely to be handling things such as booking services and purchasing.

When creating ads it’s important to remember that you’re constructing solutions to a potential patient’s pain points. You’ll need to consider how compelling your offer is and be absolutely sure that you’re presenting your dental practice in a professional way.

3. The Frequency of Your Ads.

The best way to drive prospective patients to book an appointment or make a purchase with you is to serve them with the same ad only 2-4 times. Any additional frequency of the same ad and you are likely to drive away potential patients. There’s a fine line between catching the eye of a potential patient and spamming their page. Too many of the same ads will come off as overbearing and unprofessional.

The trick to avoiding ad fatigue, which can happen fairly quickly, is to consider how frequently you want to serve up your ads across a period of time.

Remarketing on Facebook and Instagram is an incredibly effective way to generate conversions because it allows you to place your dental practice in front of prospective patients who have already shown interest in you. With enough encouragement through retargeting, you’ll see an uptick in generating action – whether that be booking an appointment, referring a new member, or making inquiries about services and payment options.