Cosmetic Dentist Social Media Marketing Case Study
At GTK Solutions, we work with several clients in the Healthcare industry – from cosmetic dentists to med spas, to medical clinics, specialists, mental health doctors, plastic surgeons and even health clubs. Often we get asked what the results of our social media marketing campaigns are so we decided to do a few blog posts (more to come soon) that share case studies of clients we’ve worked with.
The first case study is with a cosmetic dentist. Here’s the bottom-line:
Referral Campaign Adds 580+ Patients In Six Months
Please note that are agreements are for 12 months. We have a 99% renewal rate – meaning that 99% of the people that sign up with us for 1 year, sign on for a second year. We do a 12 month agreement because as we’ve said many times before:
Social media is a marathon, not a sprint.
Our results grow over time. The results after 9 months and after 12 months will be substantially larger than what we’ve seen over the past 6 months – thus the reason our clients sign up for a second year. The second year of our campaign is even bigger and more fruitful than the first. Let’s take a look at this case study:
Category
Healthcare, Cosmetic Dentistry
Challenge
This Dallas based multi-‐location cosmetic dentistry practice was facing a typical challenge. The poor economy had led to a decline in patients, especially those seeking cosmetic procedures, which are costly and usually not covered by insurance.
Solution
Realizing the importance of communicating with existing patients and managing the practice’s reputation, we began using social media to accelerate the natural referral process while encouraging patients to leave positive reviews on social sharing sites. The results were staggering. The website experienced a 167% increase in unique visitors, bringing
the total website traffic to over 8,000 unique visits and over 580 new patients within six months.
6 Month Results
167% increase in Unique Visitors
Over 580 appointment requests
Over 1000 new Facebook “likes”
Over 700 new Twitter “followers”
It’s important to note that these are leads that we generate, not spam. If you’re a cosmetic dentist, we have a team of dedicated professionals ready to grow your business. We have sales team members in Georgia, Nashville, Dallas/Fort Worth, Portland and Salt Lake City ready to meet with you face to face. Contact us HERE for a free discovery meeting.
10 Laws of Social Media Marketing
Have you ever read something and thought “YES!” – I totally agree. We at GTK Solutions came across a blog post by Susan Gunelius at Entrepreneur.com and thought this was good enough to share with our readers. What you are about to read is her list of the 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing. We resonate with each of these, share these, tweet these and have blogged about some of these before, but for what lies ahead, we give full credit to the original author. Please read Susan’s thoughts:
Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate your audience and customer base in a dramatic way. But getting started without any previous experience or insight could be challenging.
It’s vital that you understand social media marketing fundamentals. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, abiding by these 10 laws will help build a foundation that will serve your customers, your brand and — perhaps most importantly — your bottom line.
1. The Law of Listening
Success with social media and content marketing requires more listening and less talking. Read your target audience’s online content and join discussions to learn what’s important to them. Only then can you create content and spark conversations that add value rather than clutter to their lives.
2. The Law of Focus
It’s better to specialize than to be a jack-of-all-trades. A highly-focused social media and content marketing strategy intended to build a strong brand has a better chance for success than a broad strategy that attempts to be all things to all people.
3. The Law of Quality
Quality trumps quantity. It’s better to have 1,000 online connections who read, share and talk about your content with their own audiences than 10,000 connections who disappear after connecting with you the first time.
4. The Law of Patience
Social media and content marketing success doesn’t happen overnight. While it’s possible to catch lightning in a bottle, it’s far more likely that you’ll need to commit to the long haul to achieve results.
5. The Law of Compounding
If you publish amazing, quality content and work to build your online audience of quality followers, they’ll share it with their own audiences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, their own blogs and more.
This sharing and discussing of your content opens new entry points for search engines like Google to find it in keyword searches. Those entry points could grow to hundreds or thousands of more potential ways for people to find you online.
6. The Law of Influence
Spend time finding the online influencers in your market who have quality audiences and are likely to be interested in your products, services and business. Connect with those people and work to build relationships with them.
If you get on their radar as an authoritative, interesting source of useful information, they might share your content with their own followers, which could put you and your business in front of a huge new audience.
7. The Law of Value
If you spend all your time on the social Web directly promoting your products and services, people will stop listening. You must add value to the conversation. Focus less on conversions and more on creating amazing content and developing relationships with online influencers. In time, those people will become a powerful catalyst for word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
8. The Law of Acknowledgment
You wouldn’t ignore someone who reaches out to you in person so don’t ignore them online. Building relationships is one of the most important parts of social media marketing success, so always acknowledge every person who reaches out to you.
9. The Law of Accessibility
Don’t publish your content and then disappear. Be available to your audience. That means you need to consistently publish content and participate in conversations. Followers online can be fickle and they won’t hesitate to replace you if you disappear for weeks or months.
10. The Law of Reciprocity
You can’t expect others to share your content and talk about you if you don’t do the same for them. So, a portion of the time you spend on social media should be focused on sharing and talking about content published by others.
*** Do you agree with Susan’s 10 Laws? How have you lived them out or practiced them in your business marketing?
How Social Media Changed Small Business Marketing
You’d have to be living under a rock to not be aware of the social media revolution going on. 2010 was a big year for small businesses and social media and 2011 promises to be an even bigger year. Watch this video and enjoy.
When Was The Last Time You Used the Yellow Pages?
We came across this picture from our friends at Splash Media and thought it was hilarious – yet sobering. Maybe you have a stack of these, too?
Did you know nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media when researching for a product or service? As we said in this blog post about not wasting money – put your money in social media and online advertising, not in traditional marketing like the Yellow Pages.
As we stated in that blog post: Last year cosmetics brand Swedish Skin launched its products using social media for 100 percent of its marketing.
With the view that social media ‘may well put an end’ to ‘expensive TV and print advertising campaigns’ Swedish Skin eliminated the middlemen, third party distribution companies, television advertising and ‘unnecessary’ business expenses.
Since the launch, the brand has continued to focus its marketing strategy solely online, and has heralded a ‘new era of more affordable skin care through social media marketing.’
The skin care company highlighted the affordability of social media marketing and online sales by successfully reaching customers on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Its product reviews have been posted in video format on YouTube and are said to have been viewed over 115,420 times. That’s effective, efficient and affordable marketing.
As we stated in this blog post, you need to focus your marketing efforts in the area (social media) where you get the most bang for your buck. “For many businesses with Low ad budget, the Social Media Networking is their sole means of Marketing.” – New York Times (July 23, 2009)
So, when was the last time you used the Yellow Pages?
2011 Is The Year For Social Media and Your Business
We at GTK Solutions hope you had a wonderful New Year holiday and are looking forward to connecting with, resourcing, consulting, helping and growing your business in 2011. If you follow our Twitter account (@GTKSolutions), you’ve probably read many articles on social media and business and know we believe all companies should have a strong social media presence.
Currently, 83% of all businesses are on Facebook. Is your business on Facebook? If not, 2011 is the year for you and your company. Our advice to you is to “engage or die” as so many people have said. When 2012 rolls around (if not sooner), your business will become irrelevant if it’s not actively engaging with customers and clients on social media.
The Big 3
Where to start? At GTK Solutions, we set up our clients on over 300 social networks, do email marketing campaigns, as well as blog daily for our clients – but if you’re just wanting to get started and dip your toes into the water, we recommend the big 3: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Here’s a few things to consider about the big 3:
- Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.
- Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.
- Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn.
For a little extra push as to why you should dive in to social media, read this old blog post and watch the video that we posted. Budget tight? Concentrate and focus your marketing dollars on social media efforts. For more on this approach, read this old blog post and consider what we propose.
It is our sincere desire to see you succeed and grow your business. If you haven’t already, download our free ebook on “7 Ways to Get More Likes on Facebook” – this resource will tell you exactly how to grow your Facebook business page. Here’s wishing you an amazing year of business in 2011.