How to generate new leads by targeting specific locations

What is geographic targeting?

Geographic targeting (aka geo-targeting) refers to the practice of delivering different content, messaging, and ads to consumers based on their geographical location.

It can be particularly effective for dental practices, where proximity to the practice is key for a patient’s convenience and access to treatment.

How can geographic targeting help generate new leads?

There’s no point showing your ads to leads in Glasgow if your practice is located in St. Ives – that’s a waste of your hard-earned marketing budget, and it reflects badly on your brand in terms of the customer experience.

In a world that’s based on user experience and content relevancy, showing the lead an ad for a product or location that’s more relevant to them, means they’re more likely to convert.

Focussing your marketing efforts on a specific geographic area that is close to the practice, or where you’ve had a lot of previous interest, can help to refine your marketing strategy and improve your return on investment – better targeting generally means more relevant leads, which can result in more conversions to treatment started.

How do I know which areas to target?

There are a number of different factors that can help you determine which locations you should be geo-targeting.

I’m new to this marketing stuff

If you’re new to marketing and haven’t got a bank of previous campaign and lead data behind you, then it might be best to start with the basics:

1. Location Radius

Start fresh by setting an average travel radius from your practice location – would patients be willing to travel 20miles to for an appointment with you? Or are you located in a city where that radius is likely to be a bit smaller?

1. Existing Patient Database

Your existing patient database is a goldmine of information about who your ideal customer is and where they’re located, so take some time to analyse your patient data and see how far patients are willing to travel and are there any ‘hot spots’ for different treatments that they’re interested in.

I’ve got a DenGro account full of leads

If you’ve already been doing some marketing and you’ve got a DenGro account full of leads, then it’s time to start taking advantage of your DenGro Catchment Report.

You can record a postcode against each of your leads in DenGro, which then allows DenGro to plot where each of your leads live in relation to the practice.

You can then use the DenGro Catchment Report to understand where your active and inactive leads are coming from, geographically, and filter that down by lead status.

For example, if you’re looking to do an Invisalign campaign, try filtering your Catchment Report by Invisalign Treatment, with date range set to the last 6 months, and Status set to Treatment Started. Check for location patterns that might indicate better campaign success when focused on one area over another.

Is there a specific type of marketing I should focus on?

Geo-marketing can be used across any type of marketing – online or offline. It can be great for offline leafleting drops or location-specific billboards; it can also be used when setting up new Google or Facebook ads.

Which type of marketing to use, though, will come down to a host of other factors – budget, practice demographics, previous marketing reports etc.

If you use DenGro to capture and manage your leads, then take advantage of your DenGro reports – in particular the Lead Generation Report. It can show you which marketing sources have generated the most leads for you, over a given period of time. If you filter leads who have a status of Treatment Started you can then match those results against your Catchment Report and pinpoint which marketing medium works best for you and where you should look to target.

Sounds like I need a DenGro account

If you think DenGro could help you to better track, manage, and report on your prospective patient enquiries and their conversion to treatment started, click here to create your account.

Once you’ve created your account, we’ll help you to get your team trained up and your marketing connected into DenGro so you can begin converting more leads within days. What are you waiting for?