Newpaper-type ads don’t work on social media — look to these modern digital marketing solutions
AMERICAN CONSUMERISM IS CHANGING — ESPECIALLY ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Designing and placing ads for the local paper, full-page color or quarter-page upper-right in black and white outlined in hot pink: Those were the attention-grabbers that said, “Wow, look at this on page 7.” This was an earlier way of “driving newspaper page traffic” to your ad.
These were all great as one-time call-to-action campaigns. Now things have changed as we have moved into the digital world and online advertising.
Still, many are using the structure based on the newspaper ad concept above on their social media and expecting a flood of patients rolling in after one ad placement. They are soon disappointed when nothing happens. You cannot place newspaper ads on social media; it does not work that way. You need modern digital marketing solutions.
Consumers today are more educated and, thanks to “Dr. Google,” will first seek information about you and your service before contacting you. The trick is to position yourself as the one providing (or at least directing them to) the information. Here is just one example:
Plan 90 days for marketing
First, identify the services you offer that have the biggest return on investment (ROI) to provide digital marketing solutions and that are also the most in-demand for your area. Take your smartphone and shoot 10-20 five-minute short education videos on that subject. Now throw out the five-dollar words along with medical jargon and simply talk to the person about the symptoms and causes, and even give solutions to try. But don’t make any offers to come into the practice — this is only to educate. Keep it simple and don’t stress about doing this. Let it come off as natural and inviting.
During this time, start gathering emails and drafting simple weekly tips and information, then send them in a weekly natural health email. You can talk about any specials in the closing remarks of the email.
Set up your ad
Next set up a Facebook ad, for $5 a day to start, that will show excerpts of your YouTube videos, giving your best stuff away and directing them to your YouTube channel.
Now that you have a targeted “cold audience” that is watching your videos, you can set up a second ad that will target everyone who has watched at least five seconds of your videos — this is now a “warm audience” you can invite to download your e-book or pamphlet, or fill out a lead form to have you call them. You are adding emails to your list now as well.
Re-target ads and proliferate
Start re-targeting ad campaigns for everyone who has watched your videos or landed on your information page (you install a Facebook tracking pixel on the pages). You can also place short versions of your videos on Instagram with links to a landing page and forms.
You can take the audio portions of your videos and rehash them into podcasts, or transform them into different e-books with very little effort. You can find people to do this at a very low cost on fiverr.com.
By using all the social media platforms, you are creating a very wide net that will position you as being everywhere. People need to see and hear you multiple times and perceive you as an authority on the subject.
If there is a Facebook group that has several thousand people who would be your ideal customers, simply join the group, make some general helpful comments, and then post a link to one of your videos. Most admins don’t mind as long as there is no solicitation and the info is pertinent and helpful. Then simply set up a Facebook campaign and target everyone who watches your video in that group with a call-to-action ad. That is how you can target groups.
Generating long-tail leads
Generally speaking, people will see your ad, and our statistics show that roughly 10-15% will take action immediately (like the old newspaper call to action). Within 3-4 weeks another 30% will take action if they keep seeing your ads or information. Then 60-90 days out another 40% will take action, and the remaining 10% you don’t want.
So, the bigger volume is in the latter part of the game, and they will be the more educated and higher-quality leads. Unfortunately, most only market for the first 15%. This is thinking in a newspaper-ad mentality that results in poor leads and no-shows.
Like doing group talks or lunch-and-learns? Have a staff person film that — and you now have a great educational webinar or YouTube video. Many people also start off by simply doing a PowerPoint and recording a webinar, then taking a snippet of some of the best portions and using it in an ad to drive people to the full recorded webinar. On the page where the webinar is hosted you will place a lead form or free e-book.
One of the easiest ways to build a landing page is from Leadpages at leadpages.net. One of the best ways statistically is to create a Facebook campaign for “engagement” where people like, share and comment on your ad. This is done in the ads manager section of Facebook.
Facebook ads manager
The format we typically start with is two overall campaigns, four adsets, and eight ads:
Campaign = your topic for $10/day each — let’s do “personal injury” and “functional med”
Adset = where you choose your target audience, say “auto accidents” and “weight loss”
Ad = your video or image with link to your landing page. We recommend doing two different images, along with slightly different wording for each ad. That way it gives the Facebook algorithm choices.
Now you can, under that No. 1 campaign (personal injury), create multiple “adsets” for different audiences. Let’s say the next one would be auto body shops, or auto accident attorneys, car rentals, collision, whiplash or a host of others. Choose five of these and run as separate adsets. After 2-3 days you can monitor and see which audiences are responding better in your area. Trim out the ones that are underperforming and scale up the ones that are getting engagement.
Expand on your strengths
You can do this for weight loss, functional med, PRP, thyroid, and just about anything else you can think of. Some are even creating virtual offices and treating nationwide, along with stores that sell products.
The beauty of digital advertising is you can easily change the images, ad copy, targeting, and everything on-demand to see what works for your area.
You can track who has been on your site or watched your videos, and re-target them from multiple social media channels.
So if you are considering expanding or trying to get the word out about your services, consider looking at digital marketing. One of the best ways to do it is to have a dedicated staff person handle everything and schedule postings for the month. This way you keep everything in-house and can save thousands.
BRYAN HAWLEY, DC, had been in health care for more than 20 years before he decided to shift careers and help health and wellness professionals in growing their business. He is proficient in social media marketing, B2B and B2C marketing, and leading a web presence. He can be contacted at .
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