Facebook Ads v Brand Marketing for Your Dental Practice or Clinic.

Recently we have seen a number of clients move away from us, in favour of moving to a person who purely focuses on delivering Facebook Ads. Whilst this shorter-term strategy can instantly get you leads and appointments, over the longer term, brand marketing; or your social media posts, email marketing, blogs and web updates, will deliver larger gains over the longer term.

Brand Marketing v Performance Marketing:

Brand Marketing is about building the foundations for tomorrow’s demand and works over a longer time, usually six months plus, with larger gains seen in two or three years. It’s human focussed, emotive and uses storytelling to bring the values of the brand, or your practice to life. It’s about building positive perceptions of your dental practice or clinic which creates memory structures in the brain that link the brand to the buying situation.

Performance Marketing refers almost entirely to paid ads, where the results are quick and are designed to create leads, sales or sign-ups – compared to organic social or SEO. However, recipients quickly get tired of seeing paid ads and can switch off to your brand or dental practice.

The Long v the Short of It:

Sales activation or paid ads are about capturing sales now. This is how Performance Marketing works, which it does. However, as soon as you switch it off, you get a rapid decline. Building your brand takes longer and accumulates over time… Importantly delivering long-term growth. Performance Marketing (Ads) won’t deliver long-term growth.

The key is to do both!

Both types of marketing are valid, both get results and both have a role to play in the customer journey.

Brand Marketing takes longer and is harder to do. But the effects are longer lasting and importantly deliver longer-term growth.

The key is to do both!

Both Performance Marketing and Brand Marketing are valid and both deliver results and have a role to play in the customer journey. The practices we work with who are doing both are those who are the most successful.