A total brand overhaul for a pain management clinic is the latest addition to Afflecto’s healthcare marketing portfolio. Our team worked with the doctor to rename his practice, develop a new tagline, and create a robust brand package. That was then used to create print collateral, social media templates, and a new website. Just because Dr. Stynowick focuses on neck and back pain doesn’t mean his branding had to be all vertebrae and x-rays.
INDUSTRY: Orthodontics AGENCY SERVICES: Paid Search, Remarketing, and Programmatic Advertising
What do you do when your client says they need to reduce their digital marketing budget, but still get the same results? You pivot and drive even more leads! Being a good marketer requires one to be willing to change directions, adapt, and use data to revise your plans. And that’s just what the Afflecto Media team did when our client made that call. Find out how our team was able to increase leads, drive more new patient starts, and generate more first-time callers than before despite the decreased budget. Keep reading to find out how we accomplished this task.
CLIENT
Orthodontic network in the St. Louis metro area with six offices under three different practice names.
CLIENT CHALLENGE
For nearly two years, our client had been successfully using digital marketing to increase awareness and drive leads for their orthodontic practices. However, after purchasing additional practices to grow their Dental Service Organization they needed to reallocate budgets to fund onboarding the new practices. The reallocation led to a 46% decrease in their digital marketing spend.
AGENCY OBJECTIVE
Afflecto was tasked with continuing to drive new patient leads with a reduced digital advertising budget. Spend less. Drive the same quantity – if not more – leads. Got it!
AGENCY SOLUTION
We opted to reduce awareness tactics in order to focus the majority of the budget on conversion efforts. This didn’t mean removing all awareness advertising. Supporting awareness is crucial to ensure your marketing reaches people throughout their decision-making process. And the decision-making process for dental and orthodontic decisions can take some time. So it was imperative that our client remain top of mind.
Our past social media advertising and digital display efforts had increased brand awareness for all ortho practices and resulted in an increase of 41% (on average) new website visitors. With demand and attention for these practices established, we knew that a continuity approach to brand awareness would be enough to sustain brand recognition. This allowed us to allocate more dollars to conversion tactics.
Even with these changes to the media plan, additional tweaks were necessary to ensure we reached our lead goals. We knew continuing to use Google Ads and Website Remarketing was the way to go, but how could we rethink our approach? We shifted our strategy to hone in on people who had a higher propensity to convert sooner rather than later.
A NEW SEARCH ADVERTISING STRATEGY
This meant fine tuning our Search targeting to focus only on people making a decision about ortho treatment now; and excluding those who were considering future treatment options. To do this we honed in on the top ten long-tail keywords. These type of keywords are more specific, less competitive, and attract a smaller, super relevant audience. They were the keywords that not only drive a lot of leads, but the ones that turn into new patient starts. They were not necessarily the least expensive, but they were the most effective.
If you can convert higher priced keywords more than the less expensive ones you tend to spend less overall for the same amount of – sometimes more – conversions. Or, in this case new patient starts.
We also focused on website visitors who did not make an appointment or call. Since they had demonstrated a high level of intent it was likely they’d remain interested for the foreseeable future. And convert to new patient starts faster than other groups. These people saw our remarketing ads – both digital display and video – while online. The Afflecto team as able to remarket to this audience using their excusive programmatic partner.
THE RESULT
After six months of the new digital plan being in place we were able to drive more leads with a smaller budget for all orthodontic offices. They also increased new patient starts and first-time callers. Sometimes less can be more.
The year-over-year starts for all six offices were positive with an average of 63% increase in new patients at each location.
The new plan increased calls from an average of 385 per office to 675 calls per office. Additionally, there was a 89% increase in first-time callers to all offices.
Online ‘Contact Form’ submissions from their websites increased 13% (on average) across all six offices.
Contact Afflecto
Interested in driving leads with a smaller budget? Maybe you want to fine-tune your digital marketing plan? Afflecto has extensive experience with developing strategy and running successful digital campaigns. Our experienced team would love to talk to you about your business goals. Let’s chat! Contact Afflecto Media Marketing today.
We talk to a lot of business owners who declare themselves ‘not good writers’ and feel like they have no idea where to start when it comes to creating social content. Little do they know, they are usually sitting on a goldmine of industry knowledge, product details, testimonials, and other information their customers are dying to know!
When social media isn’t your full-time job, it’s difficult to dedicate the time it takes to come up with new post ideas on a daily or weekly basis. If you’re ready to upgrade your business’ social media game, but not sure where to start, this how-to is for you. Take a look at our three easy steps that will tell you how to plan a year’s worth of social media content in no time! Before you know it, this important to-do will be crossed off your to-do list for good! Follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Determine Your Goals
The first step is to determine what you want from this exercise. Social media feels like a necessary evil for many business owners. They spend way too long agonizing over how often to post, what to say, and how it should look. The best way to get started is to understand how your social media presence fits into their greater business goals.
Before you sit down to create your social media content plan, think about what you want to accomplish in your business. A good idea is to ask yourself a few simple questions. What are your marketing goals? Do you want to hire more people? Get your brand in front of a wider audience? Bolster sales of a new product or service? Highlight events or promotions throughout the year? Outlining these kinds of high-level objectives will help focus your content and make sure it’s actually serving a purpose.
Answering these questions is a great way to get a better understanding of topics to address in your social content.
Step 2: Write Your Copy
Ah, now for the fun part! Writing social posts can be intimidating, but with our Content Creation Grid, you can create dozens of posts in a matter of hours! This tool will save you a lot of time. On one axis, think about the focus of your social media content – perhaps a feature of a specific product, a fun historical fact about your business or industry, or an example of how someone uses your service to better their life.
The other axis is the format addresses the variety of content types you can use on social media. This is how you will present your ideas. You might consider writing it out as a blog post or whitepaper, creating video content, or maybe choose something interactive like a quiz. Different people like to engage with different kinds of content, so it’s important to shake things up. What you will find is that one piece of content – such as a blog – can become many types of social posts. For example, a blog can be shared, but also become a video for Instagram Reels, a .gif for an Instagram post, an infographic on LinkedIn, AND a carousel of facts on Facebook.
The powerful tool we call the Content Creation Grid is the easiest way to create different types of content…quickly. With this tool, you can mix and match your focus and format to create 100+ pieces of content without reinventing the wheel 100 different times. Have ideas for other focuses or formats? Feel free to add your own! And the good news is that you can get started today by downloading this free social media tool today. We’re happy to share!
Our free templates will help you, your Social Media Manager, or whomever you have working (or not working) on your social media content. You’ll be amazed at the type of content options you are able to plan out.
Step 3: Create Cohesive Graphics
Social media posts need graphics, so the next step is to create graphics for your ideas. There are many things your graphics need to be – compelling, creative, but most importantly, cohesive. When people see your social content, they should instantly know it’s coming from you based on the look and feel of the content.
When creating your social graphics, think beyond throwing your logo over a stock image. Build up a collection of fonts, colors, banners, and more to give your posts a custom feel. Be consistent with the filter you use, and feel free to recycle templates that do a good job showcasing your message.
Not comfortable with Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop? No problem! Canva is great for business owners who are looking for a simple, easy-to-learn design tool.
Bonus Tip: Fill Up Your Scheduler
Congrats, you’re well on your way to creating enough content to last your business for the next year! However, a year’s worth of social content does your business no good if it sits on your desktop. Another best practice for ensuring your valuable content is shared with the world si to use a scheduler. Once you’ve created your graphics for the year, load them into a social content manager like Sendible or Buffer so you can schedule posts to go out automatically throughout the year. If you would rather not use these tools, you can use a Google calendar, Google sheets, or Google docs to make a publishing schedule you can follow. By dedicating just a couple hours to scheduling posts after your creation session, you can coordinate a whole year of social content that will go out on its own. That way it doesn’t weigh on you (and your to-do list)!
When you’re looking for a social post scheduler, there are a lot of options to consider. Figure out what’s on your ‘must have’ list (like the ability to re-size posts for each platform). Then think about what’s on your ‘nice to have’ list (like an analytics dashboard or monthly reports). That will help you pick the perfect tool that fits your business needs as well as your budget. Whatever you use, make sure you share your new content among all your different social channels. It does no good if it sits on your computer.
Get started today and you’ll be amazed at how much time you save yourself while also creating so much content for your brand!
Need Some Help?
We’re here for you! We love helping business owners create successful social media strategy that support their business goals, write engaging content, and create beautiful graphics that elevate their brand. Get in touch with our teamto schedule your free strategy session to discuss your social media marketing efforts. We’ll review your specific goals and offer you some free advice on what content ideas could work for your brand.
How a comprehensive digital advertising plan drove leads and new patient starts.
Check out our latest ortho marketing success story! Being a good marketer means having the ability to pivot, adapt, and use data to revise marketing plans. When our orthodontic client called and asked how they could reduce their budget but still get results, we made it work. See the infographic below to find out how our team was able to rework their digital media plan to increase leads, drive more new patient starts, and generate more first-time callers than before despite the decreased budget.
Orthodontic Practice Marketing Success
Contact Afflecto for Paid Search Assistance
If your practice needs help fine tuning your marketing plans – or creating a plan – let’s chat! We will listen to your business goals and make a recommendation after doing a full assessment. Use these suggestions to start working with Afflecto, or to take to your current agency. As a Google Certified Partner we have expertise in all Google Ad products and how to make them work best for our clients. Contact us today!
Afflecto Media Marketing has earned multiple honors from dotCOMM Awards. Platinum and Gold honors were awarded to Afflecto for website design. Platinum was awarded for website design in the non-profit category for TYREDD. And gold honors were awarded for the new provider site created for Clear Blue Smiles. Afflecto also received an honorable mention in the Informational Video category. The ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ video series was created for client Amazing Smiles.
The dotCOMM Awards is an international competition honoring excellence in web creativity and digital communication. The competition honors the role creative plays in digital communication. This year the competition received over 2,500 entries. Receiving a Platinum or Gold distinction is an incredible honor.
The dotCOMM competition is administered by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals. Judges are industry professionals who look for companies and individuals whose talent exceeds a high standard of excellence and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry.
“We are pleased our work continues to get noticed,” said Michael Rose, President of Afflecto Media Marketing. “Awards are great, but our goal is to always do the best and most creative work we can do for our clients.”
If you’re a fan of our blog, you’re already familiar with the basics of a great website. But there’s one secret weapon that can have a huge impact on your site – both immediately and long term.
Hosting your website on a high-quality, dedicated server helps increase your site’s speed, SEO ranking, security, and up-time. It can be one of the biggest factors that will give you an edge over your competition.
Here’s how hosting your website on a top tier server can help:
Instant Speed Boost
When you switch from a heavy, weighed-down server to a more efficient, well-maintained one, your site’s speed can increase overnight! And not just increase a little bit – our private server averages a 38% bump for our clients. Since most users bounce off a site that takes longer than 2 seconds to load, every little improvement matters.
To understand what a high-quality server does to make sites work faster, let’s dig into the technical details…
They have a dispersed content delivery network (CDN) – this means web traffic can be routed to a server near the user, no matter where they are. That will keep requests local and prevent unnecessary travel
They’re prepared for large amounts of traffic – on a cheap server, if one site gets a lot of traffic at once it can decrease the performance of the rest. A good server will have multiple caching layers to best serve all users
They let you know when your site needs an update – things like outdated plugins and WordPress versions can seriously slow down your site. A quality host will recognize when your site is behind so you can address the issue and get back up to speed
Long-Term SEO Improvement
Your website’s search engine ranking is based on how helpful search engines like Google or YouTube think your site is, based on a user’s inquiry. The most important factor is whether or not you provide helpful, informative content. But search engines also weigh things like your site’s speed, how well-maintained it is, and even what kinds of sites share the same server. That’s right – a site that was randomly tossed onto the same server could be dragging your SEO ranking down without you ever knowing it.
When a site is hosted alongside low-quality websites (like gambling, pharma, or online scams), it’s referred to as a ‘bad neighborhood’. And much like a real bad neighborhood, it can have a damaging effect on your home even if you keep everything in tip-top shape.
There’s a fascinating study that measured the SEO movement of thousands of sites from different quality servers, including ‘bad neighborhood’ servers vs. their higher quality counterparts. The study definitively showed that sites on the shared IP address ranked less strongly than those on the dedicated server, and the difference continues to grow over time.
Top Notch Security
One unfortunate side effect of the pandemic has been unprecedented levels of cybersecurity attacks. Thousands of sites are hacked every day, which results in leaked customer data, ransomware attacks, site takeovers, and plenty of other nasty things that can bring a business down. Here are a few ways a high-quality server plus regular maintenance can help:
Includes an SSL certificate, which shows your site can securely process data transfer, authentications, credit card purchases, and more
Alerts you when plugin updates are available, so you can avoid out-of-date and potentially vulnerable versions on your site
Keeps you out of ‘bad neighborhood’ IPs, making you less vulnerable to attacks
Provides regular backups and/or a backup environment, so you have a version of your site saved in case it needs to be restored
Signs You Might Have a Cheap Plan
Not sure how your current hosting arrangement measures up? Shopping around for better service? Here are a few red flags to watch out for:
They offer a ‘free domain’ with your hosting package – often these programs will buy a your domain themselves, and essentially rent it to you as long as you continue paying for hosting. If you ever cancel your contract, they usually take your domain with them or sell it back to you at a premium.
No staging site/test environment – before you roll out major site updates, new features, or plugin versions, you should test for issues on a backup version of your site. Many cheap providers forgo this, leaving you to make risky updates directly on your live site.
Tons of add-ons and extra expenses – Some companies offer a cheap rate for hosting, but then charge you extra for things like your SSL, disaster recovery, space usage, and more. Before you know it, you’ll be paying five times the sticker price you budgeted for!
Afflecto Media Marketing earned both Platinum and Gold honors from theHermes Creative Awards for work on client, Clear Blue Smiles. The Platinum distinction was awarded for overall company branding. And the Gold award was in recognition of logo development. Afflecto also received an Honorable Mention for agency stickers created to commemorate 2020.
The Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition for creative professionals. It recognizes work in the areas of concept, writing, and design for both traditional and emerging media. The competition recognizes outstanding work in the industry while also promoting the philanthropic nature of marketing and communication professionals. This year the competition received over 6,000 entries from the United States, Canada, and dozens of other countries. Receiving a Platinum or Gold distinction is an incredible honor.
Hermes Creative Awards are one of the oldest and largest creative competitions in the world. Winners range in size from individuals to media conglomerates, as well as Fortune 500 companies. The competition is administered by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals. Judges are industry professionals looking for companies and individuals whose talent exceeds a high standard of excellence and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry.
Afflecto Thrilled Design Work is Recognized
“I’m thrilled our design work is being recognized,” said Michael Rose, President of Afflecto Media Marketing. “Afflecto invested heavily in creative services over the past two years and to see that focus acknowledged means we’re doing something right.”
“The team was super pumped when we were notified of the awards. I mean, a shiny new trophy? Yes, please,” said Amy Rose, Vice President of Afflecto Media Marketing. “But, truly, the best award isn’t a trophy. It’s a happy client!”
“We went to Afflecto with a brand name and a vision. They brought that vision to life and exceed our expectations,” said Kevin Dillard, CEO and Co-Founder of Clear Blue Smiles. “We continue to be impressed with their creative output and continually hear from colleagues how they believe we have one of the sharpest and most compelling brands in dentistry.”
Need some brand advice? Let’s have a conversation and see if teaming up would make sense. Contact us here.
A quality website can be one of the greatest assets you can invest in. It helps recruit new business, answers your clients’ questions, and teaches people more about your brand and what you’re all about.
But the most important word in there is a quality website! Here are the 4 keys to make sure your website is truly working for you and your business:
1. Lightning-Fast Site Speed
Bad news: The average person will bounce off a site if it takes 2 seconds or longer to load.
Worse news: When they bounce off due to speed, people often return to their Google search and select the next site on the list – so not only do you lose them, but they probably end up on your competitor’s site! The speed of your website is arguably the most important factor in starting the virtual conversation with your visitors. Here are a few things to pay attention to that will help you keep your site quick and light:
Image sizes – this is the #1 culprit we see when someone comes to us with site speed concerns. Did you post headshots straight from the photographer’s ultra-high-def files? Are your decorative background photos taking up a disproportionate amount space without providing a ton of value? A simple reduction in size or quality can often provide an instant speed boost (and is often not even noticeable to your users!).
Plugins – plugins are a great way to introduce new features and functionality to your site without the cost of custom builds. But too many can really weigh your site down! Do a quick audit to make sure all of your site’s plugins are (1) actively being used (2) being properly maintained and regularly updated.
Server Quality – even if you have the fastest, most well-designed site in the world, if you host it on a subpar server your speed will be affected. While those cheap monthly GoDaddy plans might be tempting at first, the security and speed you receive on a higher end, private server can’t be beat.
2. Mobile-First Optimization
Since late 2019, over half of web traffic has come from mobile devices – and that percentage continues to climb every year. Gen Z is positioned to be the most mobile-reliant generation yet. Even Black Friday, once an in-store frenzy, has lost about 40% of its sales to mobile devices. So yeah, mobile-friendly sites are a pretty big deal!
A lot of the traditional web development best practices hold true for mobile development – in fact, often they’re just magnified. Here are a few keys for mobile-first optimization:
Prioritize readability over design – you may need to customize a version of your site specifically for small screens
Create clear, easy to click call-to-actions – make it easy for users to engage and take the action you want them to take
Cut the fluff – no one wants to scroll through tons of unnecessary content on a tiny screen. Give them what they’re looking for, and cut the rest
Avoid click-to-open features – some people think this makes for a cleaner interface, but more often than not, it just hides your content
Take care of your hyperlinks – click-to-call, online scheduling, linking to supplemental resources, and click-to-email should all be linked to open with the press of a button
3. Top-Notch Security
As the owner of a website, it’s your duty to keep your visitors and their information safe. Cybersecurity attacks have been on the upswing, and even a minor attack can devastate businesses of any size. Protect yourself and your clients with the following:
SSL certificate (that padlock icon you see before your URL)
RECAPTCHA and other form security (reduces spam submissions and emails)
Private server (reduces the risk of being housed with low-quality sites)
Regular password updates (and skip the obvious ones like [Hometeam][Year])
Minimize admin accounts (you’re only as secure as your least secure admin!)
Include a Privacy Policy (and make sure your team adheres to it)
And finally…
Protect client information at all costs! When someone fills out a form online, they’re trusting you with their personal information. Be sure your website follows all legal compliance regulations within your industry, and you store user info in a secure place.
4. SEO Optimization
To get any real benefit from your website, people need to be able to find it! SEO, or ‘search engine optimization’, describes the way your website communicates with search engines like Google, Bing, or YouTube, and lets them know what kind of content lives on your site. This helps them know when you’re a relevant result when someone is searching for a business like yours.
A well-organized, SEO optimized site will have the following:
Helpful, unique content with keyword-friendly copy
Quality user experience and great site speed
Compelling title tags and meta descriptions
Pages full of great copy, but not too full (somewhere between 300-1500 words per page should be a good place to start)
Internal links (linking to other pages in your own site) and external links (linking out to other high-quality resources)
Try this: to figure out which direction your SEO should go, put yourself in your customers’ shoes! What kind of things would they Google to find you? What kinds of questions to they have about your product or service? Do they know your industry lingo, or should you stick to language the average person would know? This will help you develop a keyword list you can stick to while writing content and page descriptions.
Is your website due for a makeover? Get in touch for a complimentary website audit and discuss how to make your site best work for you!
For the second year in a row Afflecto Media Marketing has been named one of the Best Marketing Firms in St. Louis, Missouri, by Small Business Monthly’s ‘Best In Business’ awards.
The award states, ‘these days you can’t succeed in business unless customers know who you are and how you can help them. Finding the right marketing firm can be integral to your success.’ Winners were nominated by readers from around the St. Louis area, which makes this an especially exciting designation for our team.
This year, we were nominated by two clients who feel like our partnership has been an integral part of their success. One of those clients is Jason Krazer, owner of 1st Choice Construction. He had all but given up on digital marketing after years of disappointing attempts.
Krazer’s company provides roofing, roof repairs, siding, and construction services for residential and commercial buildings. Their business is heavily dependent on the weather. Lead generation for their industry depends on timely, agile marketing since St. Louis weather can turn on a dime. Our team put together a combination of search, social media, Google My Business, and SEO work to help all parts of his business work together better. The results were immediate! In the first month they drove 37 leads and converted 11 of those to clients for a 288% return on investment.
“Afflecto Media Marketing is the best advertising agency we have ever worked with. They are the only advertising agency that not only followed through on what they told us they would do, but exceeded expectations,” said Krazer in his nomination of Afflecto.
“Jason is a good guy who genuinely cares about his clients and the quality of work he and his team provide,” said Michael Rose, President of Afflecto Media Marketing. “Helping them formulate a plan and seeing it through was our pleasure.”
Afflecto’s Award Winning Approach
Afflecto operates from a place of treating their clients’ businesses like their own. Rose believes this has been an integral part of Afflecto’s success. “We don’t just want results that look good on paper. Our goal is always to generate high-quality new business leads,” said Rose. “That’s what we want for our own business, so we go out there every day and make it happen for others as well.”
Thank you to Small Business Monthly for selecting us as one of the top marketing firms in St. Louis for the second year in a row – we look forward to many more!
Performance Eyecare has selected Afflecto Media Marketing to lead strategic marketing for their network of eyecare offices in Missouri and Illinois.
Afflecto Media Marketing LLC, a St. Louis-based, full-service marketing agency, has announced that it has been named the agency of record across multiple marketing service disciplines by Performance Eyecare, a bi-state leader in quality eyecare services and products. Afflecto Media Marketing will lead marketing strategy, brand design, website design and development, digital and traditional media, and search engine optimizations.
“We hired Afflecto Media Marketing because they have shown themselves to be industry experts in all fields of marketing strategy and advertising,” said Dr. Dirk Massie, O.D., Owner of Performance Eyecare. “We wanted to work with one advertising agency that could effectively, and efficiently, communicate our brand message and manage all efforts to drive awareness and leads. Afflecto was the clear choice.”
Performance Eyecare currently has seven locations in the bi-state area, with plans to open an additional office by year’s end. They utilize the latest in technology to provide thorough exams and offer a wide variety of quality eye care products. They believe vision is invaluable and promise to help their customers see better, look better, and to prevent vision loss.
“We’ve found Afflecto to be highly organized and communicate very well,” said Massie. “We look forward to many years of success ahead.”
“We are thrilled to be working with Performance Eyecare,” said Michael Rose, President of Afflecto Media Marketing. “With their focus on providing outstanding customer service, a wide variety of fashion-forward frames, and multiple locations they poised to be the preeminent optometric group in the St. Louis area.”
Afflecto was founded on the premise that good things happen when you work with people you like. They combine top-level expertise with a desire to do good for all clients. As a result, they’ve experienced strong growth in the last three years, while also maintaining a 95% client retention rate. “When you do good work, and make it fun, everyone wins.” said Rose.
ABOUT AFFLECTO MEDIA MARKETING
Afflecto Media Marketing LLC., is a full-service advertising agency based in St. Louis, Missouri that was formed in 2006. Annual agency billings were over a million dollars in 2018. Growth is also attributed to a focus on driving sales and brand value through expertise in traditional and digital media, online marketing, website creation, social media, PR, creative and branding.
ABOUT PERFORMANCE EYECARE
Performance Eyecare is an industry-leading eyecare provider serving St. Louis and the Metro East. Their vision is to improve the lives of our patients by providing the best possible vision performance. They utilize the latest in exam and lens technology including no air puff and dilation-free exams. They also offer a wide selection of eyeglasses and sunglass frames across a wide variety of brand names and price ranges.
