Did you know there’s a reason most dentists aren’t getting enough visitors to their website and seeing high percentages of their visitors turn into sales and patients.

It’s because getting more patients and growing profits from the internet is about doing better marketing.

There are rarely ever any shortcuts!

It’s about understanding your patients better. If you provide them with a better web experience by helping them to complete their objectives faster and simplifying the entire decision-making process, the decision to choose YOU will be the easiest and most obvious decision.

With that said, when you boil it down to the basics, an effective dental marketing system comes down to two components:

1. You must get visitors to your website (traffic).

2. You must consistently turn those website visitors into leads and sales, enough sales to pay for your traffic and generate a profit in the process (conversions).

I will focus on Part 2—how we profitably turn website visitors into patients shortly, but for now— let’s look at the major flaw in the way most dentists think about their website traffic…

Having worked on dental marketing campaigns for some years now, I’ve come across many dentists who are frustrated by a lack of sales and profits from their online marketing. They believed their main problem was a lack of visitors to their website (traffic).

It wasn’t. And here’s why…

Today, there’s never been more opportunities to get new visitors to your website:

• Google AdWords
• Facebook ads
• Bing
• YouTube advertising
• Retargeting
• Printed advertising
• Industry publications
• Industry websites
• Google Display Network

By no means is this an exhaustive list, but you can see that there are plenty of options.

This is why the problem for dentists is not a lack of visitors, the problem is a lack of conversions. In other words, the real problem is a lack of know-how in turning website visitors into sales, at a rate high enough to earn back the dollars spent on advertising, while also generating a handsome profit.

This flaw in thinking—that traffic is the reason for the lack of sales is something that needs to be addressed.

Maybe right now, you’re getting plenty of visitors to your website. Or, maybe you’re barely getting any visitors at all. And maybe you simply don’t trust that getting people to your website will result in more sales.

The important thing to understand is that growth and consistency with your dental marketing will only come when you can invest one dollar in advertising and recoup that dollar—and more—back through your dental marketing system.

You see, there are rarely ever any traffic problems, only sales and conversion problems… The real reason many dentists struggle to get more sales online is not from a lack of traffic generation options.

It’s because they don’t have the correct dental marketing system in place to take their visitors and turn them into sales and profit.

We call the process of turning visitors into sales a conversion. And this is the reason why a conversion strategy is so important.

Here’s how I like to explain it—

Imagine a conversion rate scale, with low conversion rate at one end and high at the other. Now, at the low end of the scale you find businesses that have:

• Complex products
• Expensive products
• Long sales cycles—meaning, it takes a longer time to complete the sale

These types of businesses find that their prospects are more likely to do some research before they buy.

For example, a “cosmetic dentist” fits this description.

Cosmetic dentistry is not something people make a quick decision about. They do their research, review all of their options, and take their time before making their decision.

Whereas, at the high end of the conversion rate scale you find businesses that:

• Solve an immediate problem or need
• Have a seemingly simple product/service that the prospect believes they understand (even if they don’t)
• Have relatively short sales cycles

A “locksmith” is an example of a business at the high end of the conversion rate scale. What does a locksmith do? They get you back into your property. And when you’re locked out, you have a very immediate need.

You’re not going to spend much time researching the market, so locksmiths have a very high conversion rate.

So, the purpose of your marketing system is to boost your conversion rate so that more visitors turn into leads and sales. And in doing so—increase the profitability of your advertising or traffic endeavours.

It’s crucial to understand this, because when you have a marketing system that can turn $1 of advertising into $2 or more of sales, business growth is just about investing more of those dollars into advertising to generate more and more traffic. And because the marketing system is effective, more traffic means more and more money in sales.

This is why, when you have a high-converting marketing system that turns more visitors into sales, paying for advertising is never expensive.

It’s not even an expense or even a cost. It’s an investment that comes back to you in multiples. It only becomes expensive when you don’t have the marketing system that converts visitors into sales.

So for now, I want you thinking about your marketing like this—if you could put $1 in a machine and get back $2 in return… How often would you be willing to put a dollar in there?

Hopefully, you said as often as possible!

Well, think of that machine that takes your money and multiplies it as your dental marketing system. Putting the dollar in is the traffic generation. Turning that dollar into $2, $4, $6 or more is the conversion strategy.

When you’re getting 2x, 4x, or 6x your money back for every dollar you put into traffic, just think about what that will do for your income and your business. You could literally advertise anywhere you want… as often as you want… and keep advertising there over and over.

It’s why some dental practices can invest $15,000, $20,000 even $40,000 or more each month on their advertising. They can do this is because their marketing system multiplies their investment.

So remember, if you want your marketing to be profitable, you must relentlessly focus on these two components (1) traffic and (2) conversions. Your marketing must take $1 and turn it into $2 or more in sales.