Are you looking to hire a dental marketing company in 2021? Dental marketing company strategies that worked well in 2020 won’t work in 2021.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is certain. Because there have been so many changes in everyone’s life this year due to the pandemic, we have to consider the best way to adapt marketing strategies to align with the changes.
Every dental practice must grow with the times to survive. Before hiring a marketing company, you need to ensure that they are willing to do the same.
It is imperative to have a marketing team that is opportunistic, patient-focused, and willing to adapt. Here are three questions to ask any dental marketing company before hiring them to help your practice generate dental implant leads in 2021.
How do you generate convert leads?
The best dental marketing agencies in 2021 are thinking beyond lead generation and focused on lead conversion. Years ago, dental marketing agencies focused on lead generation. The more quality leads they delivered to the practice, the more satisfied the practices became. After all, a steady flow of patient leads feels like a positive result.
As practices got more involved in the dental marketing process, however, they realized lead generation wasn’t always a good thing. If the leads were low quality, practices would spend resources on leads that would never convert. Even if the leads were high quality, those patients were sometimes a long way away from being ready to move forward with their treatment. Practices became overwhelmed with calls from leads who were nowhere close to moving forward.
As 2020 progressed, dental patients shifted their buying patterns. They no longer want to come into an office unless it’s absolutely necessary, and phone calls aren’t enough to generate leads anymore.
For those reasons, the same dental marketing focus that used to be successful no longer will be and dental marketing companies need to shift their focus to help you actually convert leads in the post-pandemic world. You and your marketing partner must take into account the patient’s safety and health concerns especially during a time like this.
Additionally, conversion strategies that work for one practice won’t necessarily work for others. Make sure your marketing partner’s answer about how they help you convert leads isn’t a cookie-cutter approach but a custom lead conversion plan designed in the context of the strengths of your dental practice.
What do you need from me?
Effective dental marketing in 2021 is not a hands-off project and any dental marketing relationship must establish clear expectations about everyone’s responsibilities. The most effective dental marketing agencies will see themselves as a partner with the practice. They will take time to truly understand the unique things about the practice and its patients. They will also take time to understand the practice goals and vision so they can generate and convert leads that lead the practice forward to its vision.
Hiring a dental marketing company that views itself as a true partner is important because not all dental marketing companies are created equal. Many companies view themselves as technicians, placing ads and handing the practice leads. True partners are as invested in the practice success as the practice owner. To help attract and convert leads from the practice, they ask different things from the practices. Thus, before hiring a dental marketing company in 2021 make sure you know what they will need from you and your team to help them succeed in helping you.
Ask, how much time do you need from me? What information do you need from me? Do you need to interact with my team members? If so, who? Make sure you ask these important questions that should be considered even more so when moving forward in a post-pandemic world.
How do you define and measure success?
Every dental practice is aware of how costly and time consuming it is to schedule low quality dental leads. This is why it is so important to prequalify your patients before scheduling them in the practice.
One area where the best marketing companies stand above others is in defining and measuring success. Because the best dental marketing companies are conversion-focused, your marketing partner should not measure success based on leads generated. They should measure it based on leads converted. Additionally, because all practices have different goals, the best dental marketing companies are clear about what defines a qualified lead. Finally, the best dental marketing agencies act as true partners with practices. They should have a clear, measurable way to evaluate performance of each side of the partnership.
At Driven Dental Implant Marketing, we know how important it is for dental practices to be able to convert a consistent flow of prequalified dental implant leads.
To help, we hired and trained a team of dental industry veterans that are professional, empathetic, and educated about dental implants. They learn everything about our clients’ practices to act as a true extension of the team.
To learn more about how our VPA program can help deliver a steady flow of prequalified and prescreened dental implant patients for your practice, book a strategy call today.