The first (and biggest) problem is that dentists and team members simply fail to ask patients for feedback. But if you do that and it still doesn’t work, maybe you just didn’t really give them a reason to be impressed.

The question you need to ask yourself is—how good is your patient experience? To get a glowing review, you have to do just about everything right, and doing even one thing noticeably wrong can not only prevent a positive review but can even trigger a negative one.

Nailing your new patient experience is well worth the effort, and basically turns into free advertising if you get ALL of it right. Here are some of the things people will be most likely to point out about you when their friends or family members are looking for a new dentist.

YOUR FRIENDLY AND WELCOMING STAFF

First impressions definitely matter to new patients. When someone walks in the door that you don’t recognize and it’s right at the time you’re expecting a new patient, stand up from the desk and walk around/introduce yourself.

HOW CLEAN AND MODERN YOUR OFFICE IS

This goes without saying, but women will notice every little detail, like chipped paint, stains on the rugs, mismatched light bulbs on the ceiling, and even a slightly crooked picture. Details matter. Bring in a trusted friend to do a walk-through with bright pink sticky notes to attach to problem areas.

THE WAY YOU CLEARLY COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PATIENTS

Unfortunately, patients do not understand how dental insurance works. Most think of it just like their medical insurance, with nearly bottomless coverage and nominal co-pays. When you use language like “out of network,” your patients don’t realize that they may need to pay you before they get reimbursed. Imagine you are trying to explain this to your 85-year-old grandmother. How would you simplify it and slow it down so she could understand?

RESPECT THEIR TIME

While it may be best practice for you to see a new patient for a 2-hour comprehensive exam before they can even get near a hygienist, it’s a hard sell to get a patient to come back for a second appointment for their prophy. That’s two separate appointments and two times that the patient has to take off work. I’ve seen more negative reviews about this approach than you would expect. If the patient is relatively young or has been seen by another dentist in the past year or two, current advice says to schedule that patient with hygiene first, and then schedule the exam. Bonus: If you’re a practice that has a tendency to run late, schedule your new patient blocks for first thing in the morning and right after lunch, when you’ll nearly be able to guarantee an on-time appointment.

PAINLESS PROCEDURES, COMPASSIONATE CARE

New patients should be scheduled with your gentlest hygienist. Patient anxiety is often higher until they get to know your office, and any level of discomfort is more likely to be exaggerated. Schedule new patients with your most empathetic, personable hygienist and block 5-10 extra minutes in your schedule to make room for questions. To really dial up your customer service, call every patient who has received an injection that day to ask how they are doing.

PUMP UP THE COMFORT

To combat new patient anxiety, offer blankets, pillows, noise-canceling headphones to block out the drill, and other comforting aids to help make your patients feel more relaxed in the chair.

BEING EXACTLY WHAT THEY EXPECTED… AND MORE

Lastly, you have to live up to your branding. If your website tells patients to expect on-time appointments, make sure you run on time. If you talk about your friendly team and 5-star service, live up to the hype. Authenticity, consistency, and predictability are key to keeping patients HAPPY!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, dedicated to the growth of dental practices. Her agency provides goal driven, full service solutions including branding, dental website design, advertising, and digital marketing. Visit goldenproportions.com to learn more.

Xaña is a board member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and has been awarded a Fellowship in the International Academy of Dental Facial Aesthetics. She lectures and publishes regularly about dental marketing.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Panchenko Vladimir/Shutterstock.com.

WHY IS DENTAL MARKETING SO IMPORTANT?

Owning a dental practice means you are, by default, a small business owner. No matter whether you’re a software developer, a jewelry designer, a restaurant, or a dental office, every small business needs the same basic knowledge of business management to be successful. If you don’t understand the accounting portion of your business, you’ll run out of money (or at least not be very profitable). If you don’t understand leadership, you’ll constantly lose employees. And if you don’t understand marketing, you’ll have problems attracting enough customers (aka patients).

As recently as 20 years ago, dental marketing was viewed as taboo by many dentists. Back then, as a good dentist, you built a practice on your good name alone. This new world is different. Your peers understand marketing and many are doing it well, scooping up your potential new patients because nobody knows you exist. In this digital world, you can no longer count on word of mouth to completely fill your schedule.

WHAT SHOULD YOU KNOW?

Although your Marketing MBA may be imaginary, there is a specific curriculum you can follow to make sure you cover all the bases and have a well-rounded knowledge of how to promote your practice effectively.

THE IMPORTANT OF A WELL-PLANNED STRATEGY

Too often I see doctors go after a tactic – a shiny new high-tech way of asking for a referral, or an automated social media product. Instead, you should start with a strategy that considers every part of the new patient funnel – brand awareness, lead generation, lead conversion, new patient experience, retention, and referrals/advocacy. Simply making the phone ring is NOT a marketing strategy. Too often I see doctors who don’t achieve their best ROI because they do not maximize the leads their dental marketing generates.

I recommend you start your strategic planning with a classic SWOT analysis, which is a summary of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Consider your hours, services, technology, training, insurance/in-house dental plans, and general reputation. How do you fare next to your competition? Comparing your listed strengths, you should be able to identify a combination of three things you do better than anyone else. If you’ve ever read Traction – and if you haven’t, I strongly recommend that you do – this is called your “Three Uniques.” Once you identify them, they become your competitive advantage. (And P.S. — being “nice” or “gentle” is not a competitive advantage.)

HOW TO BUILD A MEMORABLE BRAND

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that a memorable brand takes years to successfully create. But in the long run, it is far less expensive than relying strictly on lead generation marketing without a strong brand. Once established, your dental branding speaks for itself, and you won’t have to lean on new patient specials or other short-term tactics to generate leads. However, until you clearly define your brand and cement the concept of who you are (your Three Uniques) in the mind of your target, you will need to supplement your new patient numbers with traditional lead generation techniques such as pay-per-click (PPC), social ads, and direct mail.

Don’t forget that community outreach is also a huge part of your brand image. People do business with people they like. Your office has to be warm, welcoming, fun, and outgoing in the community. Participate in local festivals. Speak at the local long-term care facility. Join the chamber of commerce or the Lions Club. You may be the best darn restorative dentist out there, but if nobody likes you, you’ll always struggle to find patients. There are always good alternatives for your target patient, even if you’re clinically better.

HOW TO CONVERT LEADS THROUGH OPEN COMMUNICATION AND ENGAGEMENT

When a patient calls from a marketing tactic, well-trained representatives of your brand help convert the lead with polished and practiced communication skills. Ongoing communication with your existing customers/patients then keeps those leads in the practice to continue to generate revenue for you. Call training, SMS marketing, emails, social media engagement, special touches when a patient returns for more care – these all go towards keeping someone in the practice because they feel connected to you.

THE MARKETING STRATEGIES THAT WORK BEST

When it comes to effectively marketing your services, even those that are highly specialized such as All-On-4 implants, there is no one “right” strategy to employ. PPC, social media ads, geo-fencing, and direct mail are all very targeted strategies (especially compared to broad-reach tactics like TV, radio, and magazines of the old days) but can be expensive. On the other end of the spectrum, you can also get measurable results without spending as much. Search engine optimization (SEO) for dental websites is a long-game strategy that always has the best ROI once it takes hold. Organic social media is another low-cost strategy that can be executed in-house by your team. Reviews cost nothing to ask for. Same with referrals.

To improve your ROI, it doesn’t hurt to ask your patients what media they engage with. Do they watch YouTube or Netflix? Do they click on dental PPC ads? What social media ads actually get their attention? What influencers do they follow on social media? In other words, go where your target audience tells you they hang out.

WHICH METRICS OR KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs) YOU SHOULD TRACK

There are many (almost TOO many) metrics you can look at to evaluate your marketing activities. Keep it simple by focusing on what I call your “Critical 5 to Thrive”: the number of leads you generate, the number of leads you convert to patients, your retention percentage, the percent of new patients you get from referrals, and your ROI per marketing strategy. Set a goal for each, measure monthly, and adjust your strategies accordingly.

THE MISTAKES YOU NEED TO AVOID

The only thing more important than learning how to do dental marketing right is avoiding how to do it wrong. The three biggest mistakes inexperienced marketers make time after time are, in no particular order…

• Not having a plan. In the early years of marketing, doctors often “throw tactics at the wall to see what sticks,” wasting money.
• Not measuring the impact of their campaigns. You can’t fix your marketing if you don’t know what’s broken.
• Resorting to cookie-cutter tactics, simply because it’s easier. Today’s consumer absolutely knows what is authentic and what is generic, and I promise you, they don’t respond to generic.

HOW TO EVALUATE AND HIRE THE RIGHT MARKETING COMPANY

Dentists who understand marketing principles will know the right questions to ask before hiring a partner agency – we’ll explore those in a future article. Those who don’t are often taken advantage of or don’t choose the right tactic to meet their marketing goal. You don’t have to personally do the marketing, but you do have to know how to be a good overseer of the end product.

HOW CAN YOU “EARN” YOUR MARKETING DEGREE?

An MBA in Dental Marketing doesn’t exist in the real world, but it is possible to expand your knowledge. Look for seminars, podcasts, and articles from the most respected experts in the field. Not to toot my own horn, but I do go out of my way to share helpful marketing insights whenever and wherever possible. Feel free to visit our website, goldenproportions.com, and dig into our blog and other resources!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, dedicated to the growth of dental practices. Her agency provides goal driven, full service solutions including branding, website design, advertising and digital marketing. Visit goldenproportions.com to learn more.

Xaña is a board member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and has been awarded a Fellowship in the International Academy of Dental Facial Aesthetics. She lectures and publishes regularly about dental marketing.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Docstockmedia/Shutterstock.com.

“Experienced,” on the other hand, is an adjective I’m fine with.

With a couple of decades under my belt in the world of dental marketing, I’ve certainly learned my share of marketing lessons. Admittedly, many of the things I now know would have come in handy back in my earlier days (social media, for example, was something I probably would have jumped on sooner). But here I am now, with a wealth of marketing information that I draw upon on a daily basis to help dentists like you grow your businesses.

Rather than making you wait 20 years to accumulate your own marketing wisdom, let me offer to take you on a journey back through time in my Dental Marketing Time Machine, and share some knowledge that can help make you a smarter dental marketer right now.

The Dental Marketing Time Machine: What I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago

IN THE BEGINNING…

Twenty-some years ago, I was just establishing my dental marketing agency, Golden Proportions Marketing, and working hard to get it off the ground. I wasn’t exactly soaring yet – more like flying by the seat of my pants – but I did have some early successes in the form of national work that appeared on network TV and in major publications. I was in the land before digital. Websites had just barely become a thing, and they were mostly nothing more than online brochures. Google Ads had premiered a few years prior, but not many people knew what they were, much less how to use them as one of the first marketing tools with real attribution capability.

Back then, dentists were still running ads in the Yellow Pages (I can see the puzzled look on the faces of some of you twenty-something dentists). It was considered gauche in those days by many of the old guard to do any marketing at all, because if you paid for advertising the assumption was you weren’t clinically good enough to get patients by sheer reputation.

THROUGH THE YEARS…

Since then, marketing steadily became more recognized as a true business growth opportunity (well, at least if it’s done right). I personally witnessed its evolution through some very notable milestones.

Digital became paramount. Doctors quickly learned that if you were not prominent on digital marketing channels like an optimized website, or Google Ads, it was like not having a phone number at all. You were invisible to new patients.

Tracking became expected. The advent of detailed tracking technology allowed doctors to measure their real-time ROI, just like any other business would demand the same from their marketing investment.

Photography and video became important to build authenticity. Doctors finally appreciated the impact of custom photography. At Golden Proportions Marketing, we had a full-time photographer on staff back in 2004, well before any other agency. Now it’s seen as critical to have custom images for your website and social media efforts.

Doctors learned the importance of strategy and brand messaging. These used to be relegated to major companies with a CMO, but the importance of these tactics finally trickled down to small local businesses as well.

And it wasn’t just marketing that changed. Dental patients behave differently than they once did. Today, consumers are more educated, ask more questions, and do more research before deciding. They don’t just rely on their mother for a recommendation anymore. They want information, and they want it now. 75% of consumers find dentists on their cell phone. They want immediate answers, so things like online scheduling, chat, text messaging and more are vital. If you don’t respond immediately, the consumer goes on to their next source to solve the problem.

It’s also interesting that major dental brands (like Invisalign) are creating consumer demand for elective procedures even before doctors promote it. They have, in essence, reversed the traditional lead generation process.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGED, THE MORE THEY STAYED THE SAME

Specific dental marketing tactics have obviously improved and changed over time, but overall strategy and the goals remained pretty much the same. We’re just finding new ways to get to the same result. Those ways are faster and more measurable, but it still comes down to brand awareness, lead generation, lead conversion, a great experience, and the doctor/team’s internal ability to produce the work that the marketing has promised. No different than any other business for the past 100 years. Digital is just a different way to get there. TV and direct mail were the go-to advertising methods at one time, whereas today websites, pay-per-click, and online reputation are the essential channels to execute those same strategies.

BACK TO THE FUTURE…

So, what can dentists do to “future-proof” their marketing? Like I said earlier, strategy doesn’t change much over time, so my best bits of advice to dentists would still be…

1. Set goals.
2. Track results.
3. Have a plan that gets you to those goals.
4. Engage your team in the process—they are just as important as the marketing itself.
5. Measure the impact of the plan, and adjust accordingly to reach the goals.
6. Don’t jump at the latest, greatest “solution” every few months.
7. Basically…stop shooting in the dark—treat your business like a business.

Now, as for tactics and technologies to implement those strategies, you have to do your best to keep up. Personally, I read constantly. I network with other marketing professionals outside of the dental world. I attend CE conferences and webinars for new ideas. And I’m still constantly discovering things that seem to come out of nowhere.

If you haven’t already heard, artificial intelligence (AI) will rapidly automate and alter many of our marketing practices. AI is already changing Google’s search algorithm, and it will evolve fast. Offices that can’t deliver answers to consumer questions or prove to be a valuable resource with high-quality custom content will get pushed to the bottom. What it can’t do well (yet) is the development of the brand message that differentiates one dentist from all of the competition. But even that is probably going to happen sooner than any of us anticipate.

And here I thought my Dental Marketing Time Machine was an amazing technological breakthrough!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, a full service dental marketing company dedicated to the growth of dental practices. Her agency provides goal driven, full service solutions including branding, website design, advertising and digital marketing. Visit goldenproportions.com to learn more.

Xaña Winans

Xaña is a board member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and has been awarded a Fellowship in the International Academy of Dental Facial Aesthetics.

She lectures and publishes regularly about dental marketing.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

Are You Using AI in Your Dental Marketing?

It kind of makes you wonder why you spent all that time in dental school.

But there’s one place you might not have considered using artificial intelligence: in your dental marketing. We live in a world of content—websites, blogs, social media posts, email marketing, and more. That’s a lot of writing. And using AI tools can be a very tempting idea to help take the heavy lifting out of content development.

But is it up to the task?

As a bit of a science experiment, I decided to test ChatGPT. If you aren’t yet familiar with ChatGPT, it’s an AI chatbot system created primarily for online customer care. ChatGPT has gained a lot of attention recently because it can give natural answers to questions in a conversational tone and even generate articles, blog posts, and other content. You simply type your request into the chatbot, and it will access textbooks, websites, and various articles to model its response in a matter of seconds. Simply amazing!

(Note: if you have some concern that ChatGPT may eventually become self-aware, view mankind as a threat to its existence, and build an army of robots to wipe us out, that remains to be seen. For now, let’s just see if it can write a decent blog article.)

To evaluate just how good ChatGPT is and whether or not it has any true merit as a marketing writing tool, I put myself in the shoes of a dentist and gave it this prompt:

“Write a 300-word blog article explaining the benefits of flossing your teeth.”

Almost instantly, here’s what typed itself out before my eyes: 

Maintaining good oral hygiene is essential to achieving overall health and wellness. Flossing is a crucial part of this process, yet it is often overlooked or disregarded by many people. In this article, we will explore why you should floss your teeth and the benefits that come with this simple yet effective habit.

Flossing helps remove food particles and plaque that can get stuck between your teeth, which brushing alone cannot reach. This can help prevent tooth decay, cavities, and gum disease. Gum disease, also known as periodontal disease, is a severe condition that can lead to tooth loss and even increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Flossing also promotes healthy gums. When you floss regularly, you help to stimulate the gums and increase blood flow to the area. This can help prevent inflammation and swelling, which can lead to gum disease.

Furthermore, flossing can help you maintain fresh breath. When food particles are left between your teeth, they can begin to decay and produce an unpleasant odor. Flossing helps to remove these particles and prevent the buildup of bacteria, keeping your breath fresh and clean.

Regular flossing can also save you money in the long run. By preventing tooth decay and gum disease, you can avoid expensive dental procedures like fillings, root canals, and gum surgery.

To floss effectively, use a piece of floss about 18 in and wrap it around your fingers, leaving about an inch or 2 to work with. Slide the floss gently between your teeth, using a back-and-forth motion to remove any food particles and plaque. Be sure to floss both sides of each tooth and reach all the way down to the gumline.

In conclusion, flossing your teeth is an essential part of maintaining good oral hygiene and overall health. By removing food particles and plaque, promoting healthy gums, preventing bad breath, and saving money on dental procedures, flossing is a habit that everyone should adopt.

Overall, not bad. In fact, many dental offices would be content to copy and paste it onto their blogs as is. It is factual. It is informative. It is on topic. It is the right length.

But does it have personality? Specifically, does it have your personality?

The brand for your dental practice should have, in addition to its visual elements like its logo and colors, a clearly defined voice. That voice should be woven into all of your written content, including blog articles. Currently, AI like ChatGPT can’t process “write a blog post so it sounds like I wrote it.” (And when it does reach that ability, we may want to revisit that whole robot-apocalypse concern.)

In the meantime, ChatGPT can certainly be a boost to your content creation if you use it properly. First, AI is still very much in the imperfect stages, so you do need to fact check. Then you need to put on your editing cap and rework the content so that it has your voice and personality. If you are the serious, academic type, you may not actually need to change much, but if you are more on the funny end of the scale, adding some humor will make the wording sound more like it is coming from your head and not a bot.

For example, I took the example above and added a little of my own personality to it: 

Hide and seek may be fun, but not when it comes to stuff concealed between your teeth.

You already know that good oral hygiene is important to your overall health and wellness. But far too often, flossing is a forgotten counterpart to brushing.

Let’s explore why you should floss your teeth daily and the benefits that you’ll get.

First, flossing helps remove food particles and plaque that can get stuck between your teeth, which brushing alone cannot reach. This can help prevent tooth decay, cavities, and gum disease. When you floss regularly, you help to stimulate the gums and increase blood flow to the area, which can help prevent inflammation and swelling.

Second, flossing can help you maintain fresh breath. When food particles are left between your teeth, they can begin to decay and produce an unpleasant odor. Flossing helps to remove these particles and prevent the buildup of bacteria, keeping your breath fresh and clean.

Finally—and maybe this will get your attention—regular flossing can also save you money in the long run. By preventing tooth decay and gum disease, you can avoid expensive dental procedures like fillings, root canals, and gum surgery.

To make the most of your flossing, grab a piece of floss about 18 in and wrap it around your fingers, leaving about an inch or 2 to work with. Slide the floss gently between your teeth, using a back-and-forth motion to remove any food particles and plaque. Be sure to floss both sides of each tooth and reach all the way down to the gumline. It’s as easy as that!

So if promoting healthy gums, preventing bad breath, and saving money on dental procedures all sounds good to you, remember to find your floss every time you brush!

Admittedly, not prize-winning work, but it took a heck of a lot less time than writing the entire article from scratch, and I would challenge you to pick this out as an “imposter” in a pile of human-authored articles. I also completely avoided the common pitfall of writer’s block since the content just dropped itself onto my laptop in a matter of seconds.

That’s great news for dentists who are hands-on with content creation for their blogs. Using AI as a time-saving hack allows you to focus your time on treating patients rather than spending hours researching and writing content. Without that burden, you’ll also be able to be more consistent with your content output, which is necessary for content marketing and dental SEO.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Dental Marketing

We are in the early stages of using AI, so remember that these applications are in their infancy. As the world adopts these tools at break-neck speed, AI software will learn the nuances of billions of different human-generated prompts, getting more sophisticated by the day (or likely by the hour, maybe even by the minute or second). It’s a fascinating evolution to watch.

It’s hard to predict at this point exactly how far AI will eventually progress and change the way dentists market their practices. But it’s safe to say that these technologies will become new tools for dental marketing agencies, not our replacements, and we’ll stay well ahead of the curve in terms of blending talent and technology to promote dentists in an effective, authentic, and—yes—human way.

Stay tuned for more articles from me (here, and in my dentistrytoday.com column) on a variety of topics that will impact your practice and help you get the best possible ROI from your marketing. To quote actor, politician, and lovable T-800 Terminator cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back.”

(That is assuming, of course, that the whole end-of-the-world scenario doesn’t come to fruition. Then it will just be “Hasta la vista, baby!”)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms. Winans is owner, president, resident visionary, and lead strategist of Golden Proportions Marketing. She brings decades of real-world experience to dental marketing, ensuring that the marketing solutions she and her team develop are both creative and easy for dental offices to execute. She also writes a regular column, Xaña’s Marketing Gold, on dentistrytoday.com. She can be reached at xwinans@goldenproportions.com. 

Disclosure: Ms. Winans reports no disclosures.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: TierneyMJ/Shutterstock.com.

The Art of Failure: What You Can Learn From Your Latest Dental Marketing Flop

At my dental marketing agency, we live by the mantra “fail forward.” This means that everyone in the office has permission to fail. This doesn’t mean that I love failure – far from it. Without permission to fail, my team would be afraid to try new ideas, and that would render our business stagnant and outdated in a matter of months. My only rule is that every failure must be followed by a post mortem, so that we learn not only WHY we failed, but WHAT we need to do differently next time.

Over the course of our history, we have worked with thousands of dental practices and heard about thousands of marketing disasters. Surprisingly, all of these failures could be grouped into a short list of failure types. You can benefit from learning about these types of failures, and our agency can help you avoid them.

YOU WERE AFFLICTED BY A CASE OF SHINY OBJECT SYNDROME

The promise of a quick-fix, magic bullet marketing solution is always enticing, but rarely rewarding. Just like any “lose weight,” “restore your hair,” or “make yourself irresistible to the opposite sex” infomercial promise, these marketing gimmicks are usually too good to be true. You may see some immediate “results,” but they will quickly vanish (most likely right after your check has been cashed by the vendor.)

Lesson learned: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Moving forward, you just have to accept the reality that you got suckered… and be more skeptical next time.

YOU MISSED THE TARGET

Paid marketing only delivers the most effective return on investment (ROI) if you accurately target your ideal patients. If you send direct mail or your dental internet marketing to an audience that is too broad or, worse yet, completely misaligned with your goals, you’ll be wasting your time and money.

Lesson learned: The first thing you need to do is clearly define the persona of who your ideal patient is and then use that information, including demographic and psychographic characteristics, to be laser-focused with your targeting.

YOU CHANGED EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE

Your dental marketing should never be set-it-and-forget it. Testing to see what works, what doesn’t, and what new things to try is part of the ongoing process of improving your ROI. If you don’t take a systematic approach, you can end up changing multiple factors and not have any idea what actually had an impact.

Lesson learned: In marketing, A/B testing is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of making a single change to your strategy. It could be as significant as switching an entire promotional offer or as minor as changing the font of a headline. Regardless, only make one change at a time so you have a clear apples-to-apples comparison. Otherwise, you’ll just be guessing at what changes to implement.

YOU KEPT IT A SECRET

Sometimes marketing campaigns are launched by dentists without making the team aware of it. That leads to a lot of confusion and very little support when the strategy actually starts to work and the phone starts ringing with questions from new patients about the promotional offers. Leaving your front desk in the dark can put them in awkward conversations when they are caught off guard by questions they can’t answer.

Lesson learned: Keep your team in the loop when it comes to any marketing efforts. Make marketing updates a regular part of your team meetings (you do have those, right?). That way, everyone is on the same page.

YOU NEVER HAD A GOAL

Launching a marketing strategy without clear goals is like trying to drive blindfolded. It also makes it impossible to know if your efforts were successful or not.

Lesson learned: Have SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) in place before you spend a single penny on a marketing campaign. Measure the baseline of that goal and then track your progress monthly to ensure you are hitting your goals.

YOU DIDN’T TRACK THE RESULTS

Not having reliable measurements in place for your dental marketing is easily the biggest mistake you can make.

Not only will you not know if you are successful, by the time you find out something is costing you too much money, it will be too late.

Lesson learned: Put accurate dental marketing tracking and analytics in place to ensure that everything you do can be measured in terms of cost and results.

No matter which of these marketing mistakes you’ve made in the past (it’s ok, I won’t judge), be sure to look at them as opportunities to learn a lesson and begin again. Just, as Mr. Ford said, more intelligently.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is Golden Proportions Marketing’s owner, president, resident visionary, and lead strategist. She brings decades of real world experience to dental marketing, ensuring that the marketing solutions she and her team develop are both creative and easy for dental offices to execute. Golden Proportions Marketing provides turnkey full services marketing solutions for private practices, group practices and small to midsize DSO’s.

If you take it seriously.

WHY HUMOR?

What makes humor an effective marketing option for dentists?

There are three primary reasons you may want to consider adding a little bit of silliness to your messaging.

IT IS MEMORABLE

When something strikes you as funny (even if you don’t laugh out loud), you tend to remember it and replay it in your mind. Granted, a potential dental patient may not smile if they have a toothache at the time, but at least they’ll recall your name!

IT GRABS ATTENTION

In a world of serious dental advertising, humor can help you stand out. That’s especially true when you have visuals that make people laugh.

Billboards are a great example of media where you need to catch someone’s eye if you want your ad to get noticed.

IT’S SHAREABLE

With the importance of social media as a part of any dental marketing strategy, maximizing your ROI depends on getting organic reach in addition to your paid Facebook and Instagram ads. Humorous content, even if it is advertising, is likely to be shared by people if it is truly funny. That translates into free additional exposure for your office.

DO YOU HAVE A FUNNY BONE IN YOUR BODY?

If you want to blend humor into your marketing, make sure it’s the right fit for your established brand image. If your brand is serious or sophisticated, a campaign featuring gags could seem out of place, and even confusing to your audience.

For some dentists, humor comes naturally. They joke around with patients, make them laugh in the chair, and keep appointments lighthearted. For those offices, the brand image is most likely built around the dentist’s personality, or at least complimentary to it. If you’re one of those naturally funny people and you present yourself that way, then, by all means, try a humorous approach to advertising.

Just make sure you do it in the right way and in the right situation.

WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?

Humor needs to be used carefully. Sometimes the things that amuse us the most can get too close to the borderlines of good taste. You definitely want to lean away from being offensive in any way. Topics like religion, politics, and stereotypes can easily backfire on you and damage your reputation if there is a lot of backlash directed toward you.

Also consider who you are targeting. Nobody likes to giggle more than kids, so pediatric dentists have the perfect audience for humor. Oral surgeons, on the other hand, should really keep things on the serious side to remain respectable. Most other specialties lie on the spectrum in between, so humor is an option, but would depend on the brand image of the practice as mentioned above.

And, not to point out the obvious, but if you’re going to use humor, it has to actually be funny.

It’s a good idea to test out your material before launching any marketing campaigns that are intended to amuse people to make sure they do just that.

DON’T FORGET TO MAKE IT AN INSIDE JOKE

In addition to your external marketing, make sure your internal marketing and office environment also seem fun. I’m not implying that you should slip whoopie cushions onto the waiting room chairs, but keep the office decor bright and lively so people will know they came to the right place. It also helps if you have a team full of people who have the same kind of fun personality as you do.

The more, the merrier!

THE LAST LAUGH

If you decide to be funny about your dental marketing, be sure to find yourself a reputable marketing agency that knows dentistry and knows how to see it from a humorous perspective. Check some of their past work to get a sense if they have the kind of creativity you’re looking for.

Otherwise you may have people laughing at you instead of with you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, a dental marketing company dedicated to the growth of dental practices throughout North America. Founded in 2001, her agency provides strategy driven, full service solutions including branding, internal marketing, advertising, and digital marketing.

Goal-driven results are at the heart of everything she creates.

Her passion for constant and never ending improvement led her to develop Smart Market Dental, the first dental marketing software designed to tie individual marketing strategies to resulting patients. The ability to measure marketing ROI in real time holds her agency to a higher standard, driving continuous improvement of their work.

Xaña is a board member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and lectures nationally on the topic of dental marketing.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: TierneyMJ/shutterstock.com.

When things take an ugly turn, however, it can get more like a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair (without, of course, the sex tape, two children, claims of Hepatitis C, domestic violence, and three divorce filings with two reconciliations). What differentiates love and hate dental marketing relationships? There are a few, very common signs to look for.

I LOVE MY MARKETING

When a dentist finds that “right” marketing partner, it can be a beautiful, lasting thing. Sure, some relationships are a bit shallow, and more like “what have you done for me lately?” But dentists who are looking beyond quick marketing “flings” want a deeper connection with their marketing agency. One that fulfills certain needs.

You see the real me.

Building a strong brand identity for a dental practice can be challenging, but definitely worth it since it will be the foundation for all future marketing. To do it correctly, the agency really needs to “get” the dentist and the practice, and develop the messaging and visuals that represent who they truly are. Doing it incorrectly (which, unfortunately, is the way it is commonly done) involves creating a somewhat fake identity that is only based on what will appeal to patients, and not on the dentist themselves.

You introduce me to new people that I like.

A steady flow of new patients is critical for any dental practice. It’s even more important to attract your ideal patients, who will turn into loyal evangelists for your office, and refer more family and friends your way. Just about any agency will promise new patient leads, but if those leads aren’t targeted and qualified, you can expect your marketing relationship to quickly turn into a meaningless fling.

You make me a better person.

A real marketing partner is just as interested in your success as their own. Filling your schedule, building brand awareness, retaining patients, and maximizing your ROI are all mutually important when you find the right match. If you have an agency like that, hang on to them. On the other hand, if you see any of the red flags below, it may be time to reevaluate your relationship.

I HATE MY MARKETING

I don’t understand you.

Long gone are the days when a Yellow Pages listing and a dental sign on the street were enough to bring in new patients. Today, it takes a complex strategy of lead funnels, media purchasing, conversion rates, personas, CTAs, lead magnets, and other marketing concepts to generate new business. All of that can be far more complicated than most dentists want to deal with.

After all, dental schools teach dentistry, not dental marketing, and who has the time to learn enough about marketing to truly master it? In most cases, dentists just want their marketing agencies to simplify their explanations of what strategies are being executed. But that results in information simply being withheld from dental clients, which leads to our next problem.

You’re not completely honest with me.

Even if a dental marketing agency has the best intentions of trying to filter the complicated aspects of marketing strategies from the dentist, that can lead to a perception that things are being swept under the carpet. In fact, lack of transparency is one of the biggest complaints we hear from dentists looking to part ways with their old marketing partners. In some cases, the concerns are fully warranted, and their agencies are actually withholding reporting, trying to hide their own lack of performance or service. They just keep sending invoices and cashing checks while the account is on autopilot. That brings us to the third relationship problem.

You only want me for my money.

Agencies that prioritize selling services over helping clients are the worst type of marketing relationship to be in. It really hurts when dentists realize they’ve been taken advantage of.

After that, it’s usually time to break up, and find a real relationship with a “true” marketing love that actually cares about your practice and your success.

FIND YOUR DENTAL MARKETING SOULMATE

What do you do when you realize it’s over? Start looking for a dental marketing agency that knows authentic branding strategy, clearly defined strategies, and transparent reporting.

When you find the right one, trust me, you’ll know.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, a dental marketing company dedicated to the growth of dental practices throughout North America. Founded in 2001, her agency provides strategy driven, full service solutions including branding, internal marketing, advertising, and digital marketing.

Goal driven results are at the heart of everything she creates.

Her passion for constant and never ending improvement led her to develop Smart Market Dental, the first dental marketing software designed to tie individual marketing strategies to resulting patients.

The ability to measure marketing ROI in real time holds her agency to a higher standard, driving continuous improvement of their work.

Xaña is a board member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and lectures nationally on the topic of dental marketing.

She publishes regularly in Dentistry Today and Dental Economics, and is a frequent guest on industry podcasts.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Raywoo/Shutterstock.com.

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023

Marketing your dental practice in 2023 has the potential to be—let’s be honest—interesting. Consumer behavior is changing rapidly in response to a looming recession and out of control inflation. It’s only reasonable to assume that when gas and groceries double in cost, dentistry may face a cooling off period. It would make any practice owner want to cut back on expenses.

So, how does that impact your marketing plan for 2023? The answer is, it shouldn’t.

For those of you who have found your practice growth to be hampered by the availability of good employees, I am delighted to report that the job market is opening back up. With enough hygienists, assistants, and front desk team to fully staff the office, you should have room for lots of new patients.

But wait Xaña, didn’t you just tell me that a recession and inflation could mean less people will be seeking dental care? Yes, I did. While there may be a bit less demand for elective procedures, there are still plenty of patients who will need routine and restorative care. And that means this is the time to go all-in on your dental practice marketing. Doctors all around you will take a knee-jerk reaction to the economy and start cutting back on their marketing. Which means LESS COMPETITION for new patients—woo-hoo!

Look, I know it sounds biased for the owner of a dental marketing agency to tell you not to cut the budget during a down economy, but this is not self-serving. This is tough love. Think of spending money on dental marketing during a recession, just like dollar cost averaging on your 401K when the market takes a hit. You get more for less.

WHAT ARE YOUR GROWTH GOALS?

So, please get cracking with your dental marketing plan for 2023. Your starting place must be your goals.

Map out your growth goals for new patients, production, and collections.

Decide how many reviews you plan to get each month – will it be 5 or 15?

Do you want to start 3 Invisalign cases per month, or 6?

You must know concrete, SMART goals in order to create a plan that will bring those goals into reality.

The mere act of writing down your goals means you are 10x more likely to accomplish them. Trust me when I tell you that most of your competitors are holding their practice together with bubblegum and rubberbands, so if you write down your goals, you are already miles ahead of most other doctors.

CONSIDER YOUR OPTIONS

Once you know your goals, map out your strategies. Google ads and social media ads are a sure fire winner for new patient leads. SEO is a must, because if you cut SEO, you’ll just take twice as long to catch back up when you restart. Maybe you need a new, conversion driven dental website, or more prominent signage on your office building.

Think about the brand message you’ll convey on social media. Decide how you will motivate existing patients to send friends and family to schedule with you. Ask yourself all of the questions that your future patients will ask when seeking a new dentist.

Also important to remember is that dental marketing is about more than just lead generation. It’s critical to think about marketing strategies that will help your team to convert more calls into appointments. We personally love the training from Genevieve Poppe on Dentlogics; it can help your team to limit cancellations and convert those stubborn insurance driven callers.

BUDGETING FOR SUCCESS

Once you have mapped out your strategies, gather estimates for each initiative. Get a full picture of what the investment will be to continually grow your practice. If the budget is overwhelming, you may not be able to accomplish all of your goals in 2023. However, it’s more important to do 3 things really well than to do 10 things just “sorta-okayish.”

We’ll talk more in 2023 about how to measure your success, but for now, just focus on the future.

You don’t need Dorothy’s crystal ball to see into the future, you just need intention and a plan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, a dental marketing company dedicated to the growth of dental practices throughout North America. Founded in 2001, her agency provides strategy driven, full service solutions including branding, internal marketing, advertising, and digital marketing.

Goal driven results are at the heart of everything she creates.

Her passion for constant and never ending improvement led her to develop Smart Market Dental, the first dental marketing software designed to tie individual marketing strategies to resulting patients.

The ability to measure marketing ROI in real time holds her agency to a higher standard, driving continuous improvement of their work.

Xaña is a board member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and lectures nationally on the topic of dental marketing.

She publishes regularly in Dentistry Today and Dental Economics, and is a frequent guest on industry podcasts.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Merakist on Unsplash.

It’s also an extremely common request from the practices we work with.

If I asked you what goes into creating a dental brand, most of you would probably say that a slick logo is key. I would then tell you to stick with dentistry and leave the marketing to the professionals, because the logo is actually one of the least important parts of creating a memorable brand.

A true dental brand is built around the “identity” of the practice – its values, attitude, and how it interacts with the community. Deciding who you are, and being able to tell that story in an authentic, engaging way is everything. And often, it requires you to take a risk, sharing what makes you, “you.”

To help you understand branding, I want to share an example outside of dentistry. A few years ago, my husband sold his dental practice and decided to pursue his passion for brewing craft beer. We live in a rural university town that has no brewery, so I knew he would be successful even if the name of the business was “Lewisburg Brewing.” (snooze…). However, he’s an ambitious man married to an even more ambitious woman, so to grow, I knew we had to develop a brand that would attract the attention of beer enthusiasts throughout the state.

The name of the brewery is “Jackass Brewing Company,” because, well, if you spent an hour with my husband and his partner, it would be obvious. I had my daughter hand sketch a logo of a donkey munching on a wheat braid, and my design team turned the illustration into a professionally designed logo. You would think the name of the brewery would be all you need to create a memorable brand, but then you’d be missing the point of this article.

The “Jackass” attitude is pervasive in their marketing and how my husband and his partner run the business.

If you read the menu, you’ll find food with names like “Mother of all Cluckers” (an obscenely good take on chicken and waffles) and a delicious appetizer called “Do you wanna hummus?” There’s cocktails named “White girl wasted” and beers named “Dumb Ass” and “Moms with Pitchforks,” an homage to a few local SAHM’s who initially boycotted the new brewery due to the name. Everything, and I mean everything about their brand is intentionally designed to feel a little bit irreverent.

Their social media marketing features viral videos of the owners slapping each other with tortillas during the Tortilla Challenge, and live feeds of the team canning a new beer. One of their core values is “Give a <beep!>” where team members are recognized for doing exactly that with their customers.

THIS is how you create a brand. Every message, action, and interaction with their customers reflects the brand’s attitude. As a result, customers routinely drive in from 1-2 hours away and add their names to the 90-minute wait list, all because they want to be part of the brand.

Brands are about creating memorable encounters. The logo simply reminds people of the experiences they have had with you – both positive and negative.

Right now, the introverts among you are likely thinking “This is dentistry, a respectable profession. I can’t act like a Jackass,” and you’d be right.

You do, however, have to learn who you are, and infuse every part of your practice with it.

Dr. Aimee Russo-Mounger has a practice called “The Smile Spa,” where patients are drowned in the comfort of fuzzy blankets, noise canceling headphones, and heated neck wraps. Full body massage chairs are found in the waiting room so patients are fully relaxed prior to their appointment. She creates memorable experiences, which means when our marketing kicks in over the next few months, we can attract the patients who value the patient experience she has to offer.

Tracy London Driver works for Loveland Dental Group, where her infamous “Monday Bites” lip sync videos have patients begging to participate. The Singing Dentist, Dr. Milad Shadrooh, shows patients that dentistry (and dentists) can have a sense of humor, making for a very fun visit. Dr Surina Sehgal is known as The Foodie Dentist, sharing her passion for food and healthy smiles, and how the two work together. The Jackass Brewing Company brand isn’t just about beer, it’s about an attitude of irreverent fun.

Most dentists, when pressed, will say that their friendly practice and painless injections are what makes them unique.

Sorry doctor, but this is the literal antithesis of a memorable brand. It’s nice to be friendly, but it’s nothing special.

If you really want to build a brand about your painless injections, start asking every patient to sign their name to a huge display every time you give them a painless injection, and then market that. Just imagine being able to boast about “10,000 painless injections and counting” on social media! Or if you’re a basketball fan, you could create a “get a shot, take a shot” campaign where patients shoot hoops with you in the parking lot as part of a fundraiser. The possibilities are endless.

The point is, to build a memorable dental brand, you need to find that “thing” that authentically captures your passion. Then, express what makes you memorable in your personal and professional social media, during patient visits, on your website, and in your marketing. Becoming “the brand everyone thinks of for Cosmetic Dentistry/Dental Implants/Invisalign/etc” is not as simple as designing a cool logo. It’s about living your truth and sharing your passions in the most memorable way possible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, a dental marketing company dedicated to the growth of dental practices throughout North America. Founded in 2001, her agency provides strategy driven, full service solutions including branding, internal marketing, advertising, and digital marketing.

Goal driven results are at the heart of everything she creates.

Her passion for constant and never ending improvement led her to develop Smart Market Dental, the first dental marketing software designed to tie individual marketing strategies to resulting patients.

The ability to measure marketing ROI in real time holds her agency to a higher standard, driving continuous improvement of their work.

Xaña is a board member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and lectures nationally on the topic of dental marketing.

She publishes regularly in Dentistry Today and Dental Economics, and is a frequent guest on industry podcasts.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Rawpixel.com from PxHere.

Anything celebrating a quarter century tells me it probably isn’t a fad, no matter how much you might not be a fan of the concept. 

Yes, I know many of you hate using social media to promote your dental practice, because you guys tell me All. The. Time.

Sure, there are plenty of dentists who love social media and how it lets them engage with their audience in real time, or even just use it to connect on a personal level with friends, but there are just as many dentists who feel like it’s a giant time-suck and a serious distraction for their team. Still, just like eating your broccoli or joining a gym, it’s good for you. 

YES, YOU NEED SOCIAL MEDIA.

HERE’S WHY:

Dental social media has the unique ability to change people’s minds. Simply by pulling back the curtain on the people and environment in which you care for your patients, you can change the perception of your dental practice from something potentially scary and intimidating, into an environment filled with patients and team members who can’t stop smiling, all because people feel they know you on a personal level.

To truly appreciate why social media is important to your dental marketing plans, you must first understand its true purpose. While it can be used to generate new patients, its primary intention is to help establish and cultivate your dental brand.

When I say “dental brand,” did your mind immediately go to your logo?

Sure, that’s part of your branding strategy, but real branding comes from modifying the public’s perception of who you are.

Every time someone hears your practice name, they are immediately influenced by the friends who have spoken of you (positively or negatively), the reviews they may have read online, and especially by the engagement they may have experienced on social media.

Social media allows you to directly influence the optics of your practice. Well crafted messaging may showcase you as open, funny, engaging, serious, or even mischievous.

THIS is how you communicate your true brand. Your logo is simply a graphic representation of what that brand personality truly is.

Now that we agree on what social media marketing for dental practices is meant to do, let’s break down the biggest objections I hear, and see if I can change your mind. 

THERE’S A NEW SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM EVERY WEEK.

DO I HAVE TO POST ON ALL OF THEM?

Well, there might not be a new one every week, though it can certainly feel that way. With 17 social media platforms boasting at least 300 million users worldwide, it can feel difficult to focus on just a select few. 

The secret to choosing your preferred social platforms lies in understanding who your audience is.

TikTok might be crazy popular right now, but that does not mean it’s where you want to invest your time – unless that’s where your audience is. If you are seeking older adults with restorative needs, head to Facebook.

If you want to attract 30-40 year old professionals who care about their appearance, Instagram is your jam. If you offer complex full mouth makeovers, you can bet your audience is doing their homework, and will probably be exploring explainer videos on YouTube.

Know your audience, and match it to each platform’s demographics for the greatest reach.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS FOR ATTENTION SEEKERS. 

I’M JUST NOT THAT PERSON.

Look, I get it. It’s hard to act like a social butterfly when you’re more of a social recluse. However, your patients are addicted to their social media feeds, and they genuinely want a peek behind the curtain to see what’s going on in your practice.

You are the face of your brand.

That does not, however, mean that you have to create and upload every post. 

I recommend tapping the extroverts in your practice to manage your social media. These charmers think nothing of asking a patient to participate in a fun selfie, or to record a lip sync video.

Every few posts, you should be featured as the face of the practice so that prospective patients can see who you are and what you might be like in person. Keep in mind, you do not have to change your personality. Be who you are. Just let the rest of the world in.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A HUGE DISTRACTION FOR MY TEAM.

If you’re concerned that your team already spends too much time on their phone instead of with patients, your issue should not be with your social media presence, but with yourself as a leader who allows it to happen.

By choosing one or two dedicated social media ambassadors in your practice, and by providing clear guidelines about when and how engagement is allowed, you should not experience an increase in phone addicted zombies, shuffling head down towards a treatment room with a patient in tow. 

What’s important to remember is that social media isn’t going away. Twenty-five years of growth have proved that.

Whether you agree with the concept or not, your patients spend nearly three hours a day just perusing their social media accounts as a sort of “news feed” (apologies to fans of proper journalism, I know it doesn’t compare).

The question is, do you want to be in the news and influencing the conversation, or would you just rather pout about having to take a selfie or two? Join in, you just might like it after all. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Xaña Winans is the CEO and founder of Golden Proportions Marketing, a dental marketing company dedicated to the growth of dental practices throughout North America. Founded in 2001, her agency provides strategy driven, full service solutions including branding, internal marketing, advertising and digital marketing.

Goal driven results are at the heart of everything she creates.

Her passion for constant and never ending improvement led her to develop Smart Market Dental, the first dental marketing software designed to tie individual marketing strategies to resulting patients.

The ability to measure marketing ROI in real time holds her agency to a higher standard, driving continuous improvement of their work.

Xaña is a member of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants and lectures nationally on the topic of dental marketing.

She publishes regularly in Dentistry Today and Dental Economics, and is a frequent guest on industry podcasts.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Mohamed Hassan form PxHere.