As a dental practice owner, you are an expert in all things dentistry. But when it comes to the marketing side of things, are there some concepts that perhaps you’re not completely familiar with? There is a lot of terminology in marketing, and sorting it all out can be a little confusing, especially because some terms can have slightly different meanings depending on the context.
Let’s break down the most common marketing terms to make them a little less intimidating.
GENERAL MARKETING TERMS
Marketing Channel: If used in the general sense, it means a certain category of marketing, such as digital or traditional. However, it can also be used to differentiate marketing lines within a broader category, such as social media, email, blog, paid ads, or reviews.
Marketing Campaign: When we launch a specific initiative that centers around a particular product or concept, that is a marketing campaign. A campaign can focus on gathering more patient reviews or attracting more patients who are looking for dental implants, for example. For our purposes, marketing campaigns usually run across multiple marketing channels.
Marketing Opportunity or New Patient Opportunity: An opportunity is when someone has expressed interest based on a marketing campaign or has reached out through a marketing channel for more information. They are requesting an appointment but have not scheduled one yet.
Lead: Similar to a new patient opportunity, a lead is a person who has expressed interest in the practice or has scheduled an appointment.
Conversion: When a marketing opportunity, a new patient opportunity, or a lead results in an actual appointment on the books, we call it a conversion. It does not necessarily mean that the person has committed to a treatment plan or procedure, but they are one step closer because they have scheduled a time to visit the practice.
Email Open Rate: The number of people who view or open an email your practice has sent out is the email open rate. We typically express it as a percentage of the total number of emails sent. For instance, if we send an email to 200 existing patients (and all 200 emails go through) and 98 of them open the email, the open rate would be 49%.
Email Click Rate: Within an email, we will include a hyperlink, a call to action (CTA), an image, or a combination of those, that the recipient can click on. So, the click rate is the total number of times recipients click on a hyperlink, CTA, etc. divided by the total number of delivered messages, expressed as a percentage.
FACEBOOK TERMS
Facebook Content: Your practice’s Facebook content consists of anything you intentionally post on the practice’s page, including photos, videos, information, and links to blogs, articles, or websites. Your followers and friends are the main people who will see your Facebook content.
Facebook Page Views: This is the number of times people see your Facebook page, whether they are logged into Facebook or not.
Facebook Page Impressions: This is the estimated number of times people see any part of your Facebook page or any content from your facebook page.
Facebook Page Reach: Any time information from or about your Facebook page comes across someone’s screen, it is part of the page’s reach.
Facebook Ad: You can advertise on Facebook, which is separate from your Facebook content. Your ads will appear on other users’ feeds, which can include existing followers or non-followers of your Facebook page, depending on their interests, location, social actions, etc.
GOOGLE TERMS
Google Ads: Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) platform is called Google Ads. The most common type of Google Ads is a search ad, which would appear on the results page when a user in your designated market searches for a dentist or a related topic. Google Ads can also be display ads, shopping ads, YouTube ads, and more.
Google Organic: When you search a specific topic or item on Google, you may notice that the first several search results have “Ad” in front of them. Those are the paid Google Ad results. What follows are the organic search results, which are not paid for and come up organically based on the search criteria. Organic search results are influenced by a number of criteria, but they will always appear after the paid results.
Google Ads Click: This is simply the number of times people click on your Google ad.
Google Ads Conversion: When a person clicks on your Google ad and then completes a specific, pre-defined action, such as a form submission, it is then classified as a conversion.
Hopefully these basic definitions will help demystify some of the terms you may have heard in conversation or read online. Thankfully, when it comes to marketing your dental practice, you’re not expected to know everything.
That’s where My Dental Agency comes in. We have all the answers to your questions and can help you navigate the marketing landscape.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With more than a decade of experience in corporate dental laboratory marketing and brand development, Jackie Ulasewich-Cullen decided to take her passion for the dental business and marketing to the next level by founding My Dental Agency.
Since starting her company, she and her team have helped a wide variety of practices all over the nation focus their message, reach their target audience, and increase their sales through effective marketing campaigns.
She can be reached at (800) 689-6434 or via email at jackie@mydentalagency.com.
