As more patients use the internet to find a dentist, paid marketing methods like Google Ads are essential for practices to grow. But with limited budgets and a highly competitive marketplace, dentists need to be certain they are producing the best possible results.

The key to unlocking more efficient paid marketing is measurement – and the most important metric of all is return on investment (ROI).

What Is ROI (Return on Investment)?

ROI indicates the net financial impact of an investment. The simplest way to calculate it is to divide your total revenue by your total costs. If, for example, you spend $100 on paid marketing and generate $200 in new patient bookings, your ROI would be 2x or +100%.

Why is ROI Important for Dental Marketing?

Marketing is only worthwhile if it helps your practice generate more profit. But it’s easy to lose sight of the bottom line impact of marketing and focus on the visible benefits, such as how many new patients you’ve acquired. As a result, you might mistakenly assume your marketing is working well – even if it’s producing a net loss.

Measuring the ROI of your marketing helps ground your decisions in the reality of your business economics. It enables you to:

• Quantify how effective your current marketing strategy is
• Find ways to make your marketing spend more efficient
• Avoid overspending on strategies or tactic that don’t produce measurable results

Three Reasons ROI is Particularly Important for Paid Marketing

1. The impact of paid marketing is exclusively about your bottom line

While brand building or developing a website could be seen as long-term investment that produce intangible value by increasing patient awareness and trust, the only reason to buy Google Ads is to produce measurable results.

You can reasonably consider your website a sunk-cost – and therefore not worry too much about its short-term ROI. But paid marketing that produces losses should be dispensed immediately.

2. The ROI of paid marketing campaigns varies wildly between practices.

Research shows that top performing paid marketing for dentists produces results more than 10x better than the industry average – so there is a big gap between marketing strategies that “work” and those that produce a major competitive advantage. Measuring your ROI helps you benchmark your existing performance and see how much you could improve things with the right strategy.

3. The common errors dentists make in paid marketing are easy to mitigate

You could be overspending on keywords that don’t produce quality leads or simply bidding on the wrong keyword altogether. But these mistakes will quickly be revealed by a solid ROI calculation and can be fixed with relative ease. That means ROI is not just a retrospective measure but something that can be used to proactively improve your marketing within days.

How to Measure the ROI of Your Paid Marketing

A simple ROI calculation does not capture the full complexity of paid marketing. Instead, a truly accurate assessment of your marketing profitability should factor in:

• The cost of your total paid marketing spend
• The number of patients you generate
• And your average patient lifetime value (PLV)

But even that misses out key factors that determine the true impact of your paid marketing.

Why? Because every marketing channel and strategy involves opportunity costs. Your marketing budget is limited, and the true “cost” of your paid marketing is not just the price of your ads – it’s missing out on other marketing methods.

Dentists should always ask themselves: could we get a higher ROI from a different service? Because while paid marketing may produce positive ROI, you may still be making a loss if the opportunity cost is too high.

3 Ways to Fix Poor Paid Marketing ROI

1. Refine your keywords

Dental searches range from extremely broad (“dental practice”) to extremely specific (“root canal surgery in Casper Wyoming”). This creates a huge scope for dentists to bid on the wrong keywords that produce unsuitable patients.

Assess which keywords have produced the highest conversion rate and turned into actual patients. This will help you refine your strategy, remove underperforming terms and zone in on ads that actually produce a return.

2. Change your bidding strategy

The cost of paid marketing varies wildly depending on the level of competition for keywords. Many dentists assume that competitive keywords are inherently more valuable, but this is often not the case. In fact, most dentists are served by highly specific keywords that have fewer bids but more accurately capture your ideal audience.

Your best strategy is to determine the ROI of specific keywords and find a balance between volume and profitability. Get rid of ads that cost too much, as well as ads that are underperforming in terms of their CRT. This process of optimizing will quickly improve your overall performance and leave with only the most effective ads.

3. Experiment with new platforms

Don’t get stuck on one form of paid marketing. While ads can yield a strong ROI, you may be better served by a patient acquisition platform like Opencare that connects you directly with dental patients.

This doesn’t have to be either/or: you can experiment with both and compare the results. If you find one produces significantly higher or more reliable ROI, then you can progressively alter your digital marketing strategy to focus on that approach.

How Opencare Delivers Best-in-class ROI

No upfront fees

Our platform doesn’t charge set-up fees or fixed fees, and you won’t have to pay if a patient doesn’t show up or is under 18. This helps keep the initial investment low.

Zero-risk model

We only charge you when our platform produces a paying patient. As a result, you will only have to pay when you start producing revenue from our service, which removes the risks associated with lead generation agencies.

Extensive marketing

Our long-term investment in SEO, social media and content marketing has helped us build a strong brand and a reputation for expertise in the dental space. We rank for the majority of organic Google searches for local dentists, and our popular referral programs brings in a large volume of new users each month.

Long-term relationships

Not only do we help the average dental practice win 5-10 new patients per month (and some as many as 40!); the patients we produce are loyal. Our average rebooking rate is 85%, producing a high life-time value for every patient.

The result? A zero-risk, highly efficient service that helps you generate and retain lots of high-quality patients – and produce an average ROI of 640% within the first year alone.

Boost Your Bottom Line with Opencare

The average paid marketing campaign produces 200% ROI, but Opencare delivers considerably higher ROI – and is considerably more reliable. If you are currently using paid marketing but want to try a different approach, book your free Opencare demo today.

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The reality is many dental practices are actively losing new patients because their website is not properly optimized for patient acquisition. And in this article, we explore…

3 Important Aspects of Digital Marketing Most Dentists Miss

1. Visibility

Why it matters

The whole point of having a digital presence is to ensure more patients discover your practice. In fact, a recent survey found that 18.4% of patients are most likely to pick the dental practice which ranks highest on search engines.

But simply having a website is not enough to make this happen: most patients will still never stumble upon your website if the site isn’t optimized to appear high in search results, especially as the number of dental practices grows and competition online increases.

Even if a patient has heard about your practice from a friend or social media, they will still likely visit your website before booking an appointment. For many patients, this is a form of due diligence. And if your website is not easily searchable or doesn’t include key information such as insurance details and a list of your services, they will take it as a negative signal – and most likely go with a different dentist.

What you can do

Dentists need to understand that there are multiple ways for patients to find your practice. Generating more search engine traffic comes from Search Engine Optimization(SEO), where dentists improve the volume and quantity of content on your website which is essential to help your site rank. But you also need to think about the various other avenues through which patients might discover your practice.

A strong presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can provide a huge boost to your overall visibility and brand recognition, as can being featured on dental discovery platforms like Opencare and Zocdoc.

Cover these bases and your practice will be far more visible than most competitors.

2. Easy Booking

Why it matters

Consumers expect online transactions to be easy, and 18% say they abandon a purchase because the checkout process is too complicated. This applies to dental patients too: most will simply go elsewhere if it is not quick and easy to book an appointment online.

What you can do

First, it should be extremely clear how to book an appointment through your website. There are a few ways to achieve this:

• Make your phone number visible on every page
• Use scheduling tools like LocalMed to make it easy to book online
• Include a link to your Opencare page

Second, you should ensure there is plenty of quality information about your practice and what patients can expect throughout your website. Most patients will not make a booking online if they are unsure about the quality, cost or people involved.

Your website should therefore list:

• Your services and pricing
• The length of appointment
• When you have available appointments.
• Which insurance you accept
• Profiles of your staff

High-quality images and case studies can also help boost confidence and entice patients to book an appointment, as can…

3. Social proof

Why it matters

With a large number of practices to choose from, patients need a way to determine which dentist will provide the best value – and which they can trust. One study found that 43.3% of patients choose the dentist with the best online reviews, making reviews the single most important factor in selecting a practice.

What you can do

Your practice needs to encourage as many patients as possible to write reviews and rate your service online. The best way to do this is by making it easy to post a review and prompting patients to do so immediately after their appointment. These reviews should then be showcased across your entire digital presence, from your website to your profile on Opencare and Zocdoc.

Enhance Your Digital Presence with Opencare

Having a quality website is essential, but a patient acquisition platform helps you connect with more patients and cover all bases in your digital marketing. Our extensive investment in SEO and social media marketing has helped us become the trusted source for quality dental practices.

We help dentists:

• Increase visibility via our popular marketplace. Opencare ranks highly on nearly all “dentist near me” searches and has a strong presence on social media, meaning your practice will be seen by far more people.
• Make booking simple with our intuitive user interface. Patients can find your practice, learn about your services, see your reviews and book an appointment with just a few clicks.
• Generate more social proof. Our system enables you to automatically request reviews after every appointment, increasing the total volume of reviews you get and helping you stand out online.

As a result, we produce up to 40 new patients each month for many leading practices.

Want to learn more about our zero-risk approach to digital marketing for dentists?

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As a result, many dentists rely on dental marketing agencies to find, nurture and convert new patients. In this article, we explain the value an agency brings, as well as how and when to hire the right one for your practice.

Why You Should Consider a Dental Marketing Agency

With the number of dentists expected to grow by 10% by 2040, patients will have far more choice and dentists will face a lot more competition. Excellent service and quality care is going to be more important than ever, but word of mouth will only get you so far.

Instead, you need to actively pursue new patients using digital marketing methods. From building a quality dental website and improving your search rankings to creating content and building a presence on social media, there are multiple ways patients discover practices today. The problem is most dentists are not skilled in these areas – which is why they turn to professionals.

There are many different kinds of digital marketing agencies, from generic firms to patient acquisition specialists. But all of them help you navigate complex digital marketing channels and build your practice – allowing you to focus on caring for your patients.

When is the Right Time to Work with a Dental Marketing Agency?

When You Are Establishing a New Practice

Whether you’ve recently gone into business or are starting out on your own after working at another dental office, you’re going to need marketing to establish a new practice. For patients to book an appointment, they have to be aware of your practice – and a digital marketing agency can help with that.

Patients need to know:

• Where your practice is
• What hours it’s open
• Who you are as a dentist
• What you offer that competitors don’t.

All this will be made clear through digital marketing, from the copy on your website to your listings on a platform like Opencare. So that when you open your front doors, you already have patients lining up out the door.

You Would Like to Grow Your Practice

You’ve established your practice and have been around for a few years. There’s a reliable patient list, and cash flow isn’t a problem. But your practice is at a point where you’d like it to grow, and without bringing in brand-new patients, that’s not going to happen.

You need a constant stream of new appointments in order to justify bringing on new staff members, onboarding other dentists, and purchasing more equipment. The right digital marketing agency will help you plan a long-term strategy to ensure you bring in new patients at a reasonable cost to ensure not only does your practice grow – your marketing ROI steadily increases over time.

What You Should Be Looking for in a Dental Marketing Agency

When considering hiring a dental marketing company, you should look at three key factors:

1. Experience

A good agency understands the dental industry and has a proven track record helping dental practices grow. They know how practices are run and what patients want, as well as having expertise in key patient acquisition techniques.

This will help them better target and acquire patients on your behalf, and ensure everything you do is geared specifically to the dental market.

2. Long-term goals

Acquiring new patients is one thing, but you also need to retain them. An agency that focuses on patient loyalty – building customer loyalty through improved patient experience – will deliver higher patient lifetime value, and therefore a higher ROI.

3. ROI

Whether you’re establishing a new dental practice or growing an existing practice, you want to see a return on investment. The number one concern of any agency you hire should be to help you maximize your revenue, and they should be able to provide concrete evidence that they have delivered measurable ROI for other practices.

What a Patient Acquisition Company Like Opencare Can Offer You

We’re not a marketing agency, but we do offer all the benefits of a great dental marketing agency, along with an in-depth understanding of the industry, your patients, and how to grow your practice. Our entire focus is on helping dental practices grow – whether they’ve just opened or have been around for decades.

Our processes are simple, smooth, and effective, requiring little to no effort on your behalf. We have invested heavily in SEO and social media marketing, building a strong reputation and a large network of high-quality patients that trust us to connect them with dental practices.

The best part? Unlike dental marketing agencies that require a retainer, we only receive payment once your patient has paid. There is no risk of paying for a lead that never actually comes to an appointment, and we have produced an average ROI of 7.8x!

Get Started with Opencare Today

Our platform has produced an average of 207 new patients for our dental partners, with most patients booking over 5 appointments.

Want to see similar results?

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Being the last of the molars and the last to erupt, complications due to wisdom teeth are fairly common. They can even cause tooth movement, oftentimes reversing previously received or ongoing orthodontic treatment. Therefore, when a dentist says these teeth need to be removed, there’s just no other way.

Despite the reputation of how painful and terrible recovery post- oral surgery can be, in most cases, the cause of such stress is due to the negligence of after-care and unawareness of how to manage the open extraction site properly.

So we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of 10 things you must do for recovery, proven by facts, experience, and statistics. If you want to learn how to avoid post-surgery complications and reduce post-operative pain upon removal of wisdom teeth, continue reading the instruction list below.

1. Don’t Spit

Immediately after the removal of a wisdom tooth, blood and saliva may pool in the mouth. Simultaneously, the body’s defense system forms a blood clot as a plug in the extraction site to stop the bleeding and begin healing. Removing blood/saliva from your mouth has to be done with utmost care, making sure that there is no spitting force that would potentially create a vacuum in the mouth that could dislodge the healing blood clot. The recommended way to do so is by opening your mouth slightly over a sink and letting the blood/saliva flow out while tilting your head forward. Creating a suction pressure in the mouth and dislodging the naturally occurring blood clot in the extraction area can cause painful complications such as a dry socket

2. Do Not Use Straws

As explained above, preserving the blood clot is of utmost importance; another way to ensure that it remains intact is by avoiding the use of straws after the procedure until healing has occurred. The use of straws, just like spitting, creates a suction pressure in the mouth that should be avoided.

3. Eat Soft and Slightly Cold Food

Post-surgery it is recommended not to have anything very hot or very cold at least in the first 24 hours after the extraction. Most dentists recommend slightly melted ice cream for a cooling effect after a same-day wisdom tooth extraction. In general, food items that are soft and slightly cold, requiring very minimal chewing forces, are considered best to consume. Some examples of acceptable food are:

• Yogurt
• Mashed Potatoes and Vegetables
• Soup (warm but not hot)
• Pudding
• Bananas
• Soft bread
• Applesauce
• Porridge

While chewing, attempts should be made to try and chew on the opposite side of the mouth from the extraction site, It’s important to be mindful to chew carefully so as not to bite your cheek or lip that may still be numb from anesthesia shortly after the procedure. It is also advised to avoid any hot drinks such as coffee and tea for the first 24 hours; however, they can be taken warm. Ideally, the soft diet should be continued for at least 48 hours after surgery.

4. Use Warm Saltwater Rinses

After 24 hours have passed since the extraction procedure, you should now begin saltwater rinses. The way to do this is by warming up a cup of tap water and adding a levelled teaspoon of salt and stirring it into the water. Rinse gently with the salt solution, holding it in the mouth for a minute and swishing it around. Saltwater rinses help curb infections, stop food from lodging in areas where brushing with a toothbrush may not be possible, provide relief to inflamed tissues in the mouth, and help ease the gums by promoting quicker healing. You should do this at least 3 to 4 times a day for about a week, especially after meals.

5. Avoid Smoking and Alcohol

Smoking and alcohol should be off-limits on the day of and for 24 hours post-surgery. Smoking reduces blood circulation which can, in turn, affect healing. The smoke itself in the mouth can trigger and delay wound healing, possibly leading to infections if a blood clot has been dislodged or not formed yet. Alcohol is also discouraged, as its negative effect on the wound site can also lead to complications, including infections.

6. Take Your Medication on Time

One of the best ways to manage inevitable wisdom teeth removal pain and discomfort is by timely taking your prescribed medicines, on schedule. Taking painkillers at the right time ensures the therapeutic effect of stays consistent and stable, providing the best way to manage your pain. Following the routine allows a more efficient therapeutic effect and minimal distress.

7. Ice the Area

Icing the affected cheek area with an ice pack has been reported to manage inflammation, pain, and sometimes swelling. Care should be taken to moderately manage icing times and durations and to avoid ice packs completely if you have cold intolerance or hypersensitivity. 

8. Sleep with Your Head Elevated

To avoid the pooling of blood in the missing wisdom tooth area, it is advised to sleep with your head elevated for the first few nights after the procedure. Not doing so could cause the wound to throb and result in discomfort.

9. Avoid Strenuous Exercise

The American Dental Association (ADA) recommends limiting strenuous activity for at least 24 hours after the extraction procedure to reduce chances of post-surgery bleeding and to minimize chances of blood clot dislodgment.

10. Don’t Miss Your Checkup Appointment

It is important to review and follow up with your dental practitioner at the time appointed to you, especially if you have had any stitches placed so they can be removed. You should visit your dentist earlier if you notice heavy bleeding, increased pain after surgery, foul taste or odor in the mouth, and fever during the recovery period.

Better Care Begins with Awareness

Knowing how to take care of your extraction site is the first step in proper management. All steps and efforts should be taken to follow your dental practitioner’s medical advice diligently and to practice methods that will promote faster healing. Straying from these instructions can come at the cost of a post-surgery infection or a hemorrhage which would further complicate and delay healing, not to mention increase pain and discomfort. Being careful and diligently following care instructions ensures quick recovery!

Dr. Hanaa Nasir is a dental professional who has worked for a well-recognized dental hospital in Pakistan, and is in the process of attaining her further education from Australia. Having graduated with honors, she is currently pursuing her Masters in Oral Surgery. Still in the early process of research based on Psychology and Dentistry, she aims to broaden dental care, and advocate for it to be integrated with mental health. Dr. Nasir dedicates most of her time to science and medicine, balancing it with her love of poetry and art. She is a regular contributor to the Rockwest Dental Clinic.

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