Dental Practice Advertising has become a necessary evil in today’s digital world. In order to grow your practice, you cannot ignore the overwhelming volume of search engine traffic generated by modern consumers. A dental practice owner has every right to promote their practice and services but as with most businesses this must be done within ethical standards.
The American Dental Association has given you Code of Profession Conduct. Section 5.F.Advertising of the Code says the following:
Although any dentist may advertise, no dentist shall advertise or solicit patients in any form of communication in a manner that is false or misleading in any material respect.
This code and standard is put in place to protect the public and allow people to make fully informed decisions about you as a dentist and your practice.
Dental Advertising Rules
Federal Trade Commission – FTC Governance
The FTC is the government arm tasked with monitoring and enforcing rules regarding “truth in advertising”. What are these rules you might ask? According to the Federal Trade Commission Act they are;
- Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
The FTC defines deceptive as ad with a false claim or missing information that deceives a consumer in order to obtain a purchase. - Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims;
- Advertisements cannot be unfair.
The FTC‘s Unfairness Policy Statement defines unfair in an advertisement as “causes or is likely to cause substantial consumer injury which a consumer could not reasonably avoid and it is not outweighed by the benefit to the consumers.”
Dental Practice Advertising Agency
Hiring a dental practice advertising agency is critical to not just knowing the ethical standards of advertising but also the intricacies of how best to run online digital ads. Agencies with experience in this space know what keywords to target, what demographic to target and what the best geo-target is for a practice of your size.
Digital advertising specialist go through certification courses and have years of experience of running campaigns for practices of all sizes. The financial investment you make in digital ads is far to great to risk to have someone with no experience to handle. In addition, a professionally and well run ad campaign can open the floodgates for new patients. Let’s face it, you have made a significant investment in owning your practice, you need an influx of new patients on a consistent basis to ensure the type of growth to justify your initial investment.
If you would like to learn more about running Digital Ads or a Pay Per Click advertising program for your dental office, feel free to contact dental SEO. We are always had to help educate the dental industry to ensure good decisions are being made.