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Modern DENTAL marketing guide Lateef Mauricio NOVA MedMarket
Modern Dental Marketing Guide Copyright © 2012 by Lateef Mauricio, NOVA MedMarket All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below. NOVA MedMarket 4015 Chain Bridge Road, Suite L Fairfax, Virginia, USA 22030 www.novamedmarket.com Ordering Information: Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above. Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact NOVA MedMarket: Tel: (703) 855-9641; Fax: (877) 855-2737 or visit www.novamedmarket.com. Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
Table of Contents FOREWORD
II
I. ONLINE MARKETING
1
INTRODUCTION TO WEB STRATEGY PRACTICE WEBSITE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION VIDEOS SOCIAL MEDIA
2 4 6 8 11 13
II. ADVERTISING
16
SEARCH ENGINE ADVERTISING DIRECTORY ADVERTISING LOCAL PUBLICATIONS
17 22 23
III. REFERRAL SUCCESS
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COMPLEMENTARY PRACTICES CURRENT PATIENTS
30 32
IV. PATIENT SATISFACTION & RETENTION
34
PATIENT SATISFACTION PATIENT RETENTION
35 38
V. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
41
EXIT STRATEGY PRINCIPLES SELL OR PARTNER-‐UP
42 44
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Foreword
We go into business for ourselves to control our own future, and to take on a rewarding challenge.
Remember, you can earn more money, but when time is spent it is gone forever. – Zig Ziglar
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Why did I start my own practice again? In this guide I outline several marketing methods that rely on new technologies like search engines, social networks, and digital video. But this is not the primary reason for calling it the “Modern Marketing” guide. What is modern is a method of operating your practice that is very new to most of the folks reading this, it’s a frame of mind more than the marketing tools themselves. This philosophy is one that I’ve only recently come to embrace, and its central theme is that you have to start living your life, the way you desire to live it, right now. The fact that you’re running your own dental practice gets you halfway there, now let’s take steps to achieving your desired lifestyle, protecting your investment of time and money, and securing a strong financial future that relies on the success of your practice. Whether you have owned your practice for several years or you just opened up your practice, there are a lot of challenges coming up. The way you deal with these challenges will determine the role that your practice plays in your life, in the short-term and in the long-term. The goal of this brief guide is to outline some of the major business factors that go into maintaining a financially rewarding practice through marketing techniques that work towards achieving your revenue goals. This is not a guide that tells you how much to spend on magazine advertising and direct mail; rather, this guide will explain the varied activities that are available to today’s dentists, allowing you to develop a customized marketing plan for the very specific and unique needs of your own practice. Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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I. Online marketing
Reach prospective patients wherever they might be looking to find you.
The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous – Peter Drucker
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Introduction to Web Strategy
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he goal of Web Strategy is to qualify the importance of anything you do online as an essential component of your business’s success. A decade ago many dental practices didn’t even have a website, and those that did have a website up weren’t relying on getting patients through the internet. Today, we can tell that the internet is much more important to businesses then it ever was, and it will continue to increase in importance into the foreseeable future. Now that consumers are more likely to visit Google when they’re looking to purchase something, we are beginning to understand the importance of being there when potential customers search for the treatments and procedures offered at your practice. This search engine positioning involves two components of Web Strategy: Search Engine Marketing and Online Advertising, which we will return to in a bit. Right Place, Right Time: An Example. Being there for your future patients when they are looking for you is what effective online marketing is all about. It means being there for your future patients when they are looking for you – this is the epitome of marketing success. To use a retail example: supermarkets stock candy bars at checkout aisles so you can impulsively pick one up to hold you off until you get home. Here’s something interesting, when you look down at the checkout snacks it’s very likely that you’ll see a Snickers bar and remember Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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their slogan “Hungry, why wait?” This is because they’ve generated brand awareness for their candy bar, and on top of that, made the candy bar available to you when you need it the most. This is how effective marketing works – you’re there when folks want you to be there. Taking this thought just a little further, you have to realize that prospective patients don’t know they’re looking for you specifically, they’re looking for a dentist that is compassionate, caring, friendly, patient, credible, and sometimes, miraculous (but we’ll leave that one to the holy books!) Being there when it matters is why we turn our attention to establishing engaging and effective online social networking profiles on Facebook, Google Places, Yelp, and Twitter, among other related sites. This introduces another component of Web Strategy: Social Media. Quantify your business goals. The most important component of your web strategy though, is not the clever technologies or cool social networking websites you use, rather, it’s the formal evaluation of the ability of your web presence to help your practice achieve its business goals. This means that we must correlate online business to offline business, which is where most business is actually based. For example, as a real estate agent you might do a lot online to promote a new house listing, yet still not receive offers for the property. This means that something is off – you might not be attracting the right folks to your website, you might not be attracting much traffic at all, and more importantly…you don’t have a formal plan for marketing your products and Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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services online. Set quantitative goals and hold your marketing activities accountable for helping you reach those goals.
Practice Website Building an interactive, patient-converting website
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website is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity, just like it’s always been necessary to have a telephone line. People want to be seen by a dentist that they can trust, and though we all have different psychological criteria for what is “trustworthy,” there are a few standard denominators, one of those important factors is the success of the dentist. Success in providing patient, compassionate healthcare, as well as success in business. When you walk into the dentist’s office it’s clean and neat, decorations are welcoming, the front desk staff is cordial, and the nurse receives you at the scheduled appointment time with no delay. Similarly, we expect this image of success to be conveyed online, on the practice’s website. Credibility. The website’s design is modern and inviting, users are offered descriptions of the types of patients and treatments that the practice specializes in, and contact information is easy to find. These few factors alone are enough to convince future patients that they’ve found the right dentist for their immediate needs. Your office staff will also notice a reduction in time spent informing and educating patients because sought after information is now online. Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Let’s not forget that by sheer fact of having your own website you will earn yourself several spots on the search engines – when folks type your name into Google, now they’ll have the opportunity to click through to your very own website to learn about you – instead of clicking on a scammy review website that disseminates untruths about your quality of care. Your website is your opportunity to post patient testimonials – ask your patients why they enjoyed their experience and get permission to post their review onto the practice website. You can also record a video of your patient reading out the testimonial and post this to the website. Control your own reputation. Convenience. Patients can download important registration forms right on the website, saving time in the waiting room; furthermore, these forms can and should be connected to your databases (i.e. practice management systems like Dentrix and Endovision) so that time spent on forms is minimized for your office team. A practice website must also make it super simple for patients to get in touch and request appointments. We can accomplish this by placing phone numbers in high-visibility areas, including an interactive map that makes it easy to get customized directions to your location, and a contact form that allows patients to send you an email to ask a question or request an appointment. By sheer fact of providing the public with a way to reach you, you’re improving your odds of getting new patient registrations without spending any resources to market to them.
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Personality. The practice website is your opportunity to impress future patients. When they can meet your staff online by viewing their photographs and read about their practice function you can start to expect phone calls that begin with pleasantries – business is important, but a phone call that starts with pleasantries is bound to produce a successful relationship. Your first impression is your last impression. Whether you’re the only dentist, or there are others at your practice, short biographical blurbs that talk about the dentists’ education, experience, specialties, hobbies, and family are always construed positively. This is the difference between dentists that are “providers” and dentists that are community leaders, with real lives of their own – they have children and pets, they play golf, they’re avid photographers, they’re people!
Reputation Management Show the world how great you are, on your own terms
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n this hyper-digital age we can be certain that every dentist can be found on Google. Type in your own name and you’ll see results from review websites whose stated goal is to provide the public with a trustworthy review system. The most popular sites in this category include Yelp, Vitals, ZocDocs, and Google Places. Each of these websites make money through advertising – they get paid from ad space throughout their websites as well as promoted profiles by dentists that are willing to shell out cash to take control of their profile. We Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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all know that there is minimal trust and credibility in these review websites – anyone can post a review, whether or not they’re actual patients – and the worst thing about this is that you can’t get the review removed. The bottom line is that you need to minimize online negative reviews because they will affect your first impression. This is the primary reason for having a strong, informative practice website – to control what people read about you online. Fixing a bad online reputation. I’ve seen great dentists, with fantastic offline reputations, have several terrible reviews on review websites – these can be managed by getting patients to visit those websites to submit their positive reviews. Don’t ever attempt to fix this problem by posting fake reviews – these review systems have ways to figure out when people are “gaming” the system, and more importantly, it’s unethical and shameful. If your patients are truly satisfied when they leave your office, they are your best source of reputation control. You might say, “my patients don’t use the web.” Firstly, that’s just a blanket statement that carries little weight. Secondly, it doesn’t matter – hand out a card that provides links to your various online review platforms so they can do it on their own time when they leave your office. Your bad reviews will be dropped to the bottom of the list in no time. I’ve also worked with dentists that have a terrible offline reputation, if they’re at a point in their lives where they’re ready to take steps to improve this reputation, success is imminent, and the internet can help to expedite their newly positive reputation. For those dentists that Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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cannot improve their offline reputation – there is nothing to be done in the online world that can help them. Marketing vultures will sell their products and services to these dentists – offering them “promoted profiles” on review websites – but they’ll soon figure out that this practice is akin to paying off witnesses – once you stop paying, you’re back to square one.
Search Engine Optimization Get your website on the front page of search engines
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hen a potential patient goes into Google and types in your dental specialty, you must be at the top of the list. Thus, we “optimize” the practice website in order to get to the top of search engines. This is the difference between receiving a call at your practice and your competitor receiving the call. Here’s an example using pediatric dentistry in a city located in Virginia.
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To understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO) we simplify the various factors into two main categories: 1. On-page Optimization 2. Off-page Optimization On-page Optimization. This type of optimization involves direct manipulation and configuration of the practice’s website. This is where an SEO expert edits the programming code that makes up the website and edits the text throughout the website to ensure that search engines like Google and Yahoo consider the website as one that is relevant to a searcher’s search criteria. A website for an endodontics practice must contain content and back-end code that is rich with endodontics-relevant keywords that searchers are likely to type when they’re searching for endodontic care in their specific locality. There is a methodology for on-page optimization, this methodology involves the analysis of consumer search patterns and the SEO practices of competing practices so it’s important to conduct appropriate research when planning your on-page SEO strategy which must also include a strategic content plan. This is where a Dentist or Staff Blog comes into play. When your website is frequently updated with blog articles that are directly related to your dental specialties, search engines regard the website as a relevant authority on those topics – thus further ensuring search engine prominence.
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Off-page Optimization. When search engines “index” your website they load your website’s domain name into their database – once the website is indexed, the goal is for the search engine to believe that the website is relevant to searchers’ search criteria. One major component of indexing involves credibility. In other words, the search engine’s automated indexing algorithms want to make sure that your website is trustworthy. One can fill a website up with keyword-rich content but that’s not enough to make it “credible.” This is where off-page optimization kicks in by building relationships with other websites that Google has already considered to be relevant and credible. This process must be conducted by a professional that has experience in ethical and sustainable search engine optimization practices. There are many SEO companies and one-man outfits out there that offer quick and cheap results – most of them are not established businesses, and they won’t be around very long. The fact is that an effective SEO strategy considers the long-term viability of search engine optimization efforts, and these “quick-results” companies often employ unethical practices that might get you to the top of Google fast, but will ruin long-term SEO potential by deeming your website irrelevant.
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Videos Using moving pictures to educate and influence
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f a picture can tell a thousand words – a video can tell millions! Don’t be intimidated by the process and cost of creating videos for your practice. A professional videographer will take great care of you, he or she will make sure that the video’s resolution is highdefinition, the setting and background is aesthetically pleasing, the sound quality will be perfect, and lighting will be spot on. A professionally produced video will enhance that “first impression” and convey a level of professionalism that helps you to stand out from the crowd of competing small private practices, and larger dental centers. Nevertheless, there are many benefits of any video, whether or not professionally produced. A video provides you with the opportunity to introduce yourself to prospective patients – after watching the video these prospective patients will have already met you and become convinced that you will take great care of them. Types of videos Of course, let’s start with an introductory video that introduces prospective patients to their future dentist. Present a professional and understanding image for yourself and your staff. With the introductory video out of the way you can start focusing on educational videos that describe specific treatments, dental ailments, and developments in your dental field. This could be as simple as describing the merits of getting a scheduled cleaning or Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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debridement or providing advice on building good dental care habits in children. Preventative care advice goes a long way, not just in promoting health, but also by building good will in your community as you become recognized as a dentist that promotes healthy living. A few pointers for your video: 1. Make sure to smile and carry a conversational tone. This is not the time to confuse viewers with complex dental terminology – this is your chance to convince patients that you’ll provide excellent quality of care. 2. Use a camera that captures sound that is clear and wholesome. It’s hard to listen to a video that sounds like you’re talking into a tin can. 3. Choose the right setting for the video so that there aren’t any distracting background elements and to ensure that lighting is not too bright or too dark. 4. Upload the video to YouTube. This will allow you to share the video anywhere else on the web, on your Facebook page, through e-mails, and even on your practice’s website.
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Social Media Making the most of Facebook, Google+, and more.
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t’s easy to hear “social media” and think, “my practice already has a Facebook account, I’ve done enough already.” However, there is much more to social media than the trendy buzzwords we hear every day. Social media is today’s “word of mouth,” and it’s a prime source for new patient registrations because dental care is one of the few services where quality of care plays a bigger role in overall value than price itself.
I want to personally thank Jodi, and the wonderful nurses at the Vienna location, along with Dr. Claude, she’s amazing. Due to your wonderful compassionate staff, that have been so kind, so helpful, I am now running over 5 miles. Before it was less than a mile. – Facebook Fan You are in fact a great dentist, right? The above statement, when it comes from an existing patient, is worth more than any piece of advertising you can pay for. Their relatives, friends, and colleagues, will be setting up an appointment with your office the next time they are looking for a dentist. This is where social media kicks in: 1. To provide a platform for current patients to share the great merits of your practice
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2. To expose your practice to your current patients’ network of friends Recommendations & Referrals from happy patients. In this day and age, more and more, families and friends share their experiences and recommendations on social networks like Facebook and Google Plus (Google +). Take a look at the screenshot below, from the Facebook page for Smileville, a pediatric dentist located in Alexandria, Virginia. You’ll notice a few recommendations posted about the practice by happy patients – each of these recommendations were posted directly to the patient’s Facebook profile page (known as the Facebook Wall), where they publicly stated how happy they are with the practice’s service – essentially recommending the practice to their own network of Facebook friends, which could be a lot of people!
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Making time for social media. Social media management is simple to implement when planned effectively. You don’t have to overthink this. Kaiser Permanente’s Facebook page has over 19,000 fans – they may very well have a dedicated social media team. For private practices and small dental groups all you have to do is get started, don’t put it off. Open up a Facebook page, start writing a few posts a day so the page seems active, invite your patients to add you on Facebook, and don’t be too shy to ask them to write a recommendation on Facebook. If they aren’t comfortable with Facebook, ask them to review your practice on Google + or Yelp.com. Every little bit of social media interaction will help to build community goodwill and a broadened reach for your practice. As your social network grows and more local residents are following you on sites like Facebook, you will be able to use these platforms as free, high-impact advertising channels.
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II. Advertising
Recognize that your practice is unique and you will never waste money on advertising again. You’ll invest it.
Doing what everyone else is doing is the sure path to "average." That should not be good enough for you. – Ben Glass Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Search Engine Advertising
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ust as we see products and services being advertised to us in the offline world, by passing a billboard, flipping on the radio, and receiving junk mail at home, the internet has become quite an active marketplace. You see ads everywhere you go online these days – whether it’s checking your web-based e-mail, using a search engine, or visiting your favorite websites, you will find that ads are being displayed all over the web. Just like in the real world, these are paid advertisements – but in many ways they are much more effective than traditional offline advertisements. Is online advertising right for me? Online advertising gives your practice one more location for exposure; however, it’s not for every practice. In fact, most practices can’t benefit enough from online advertising to merit spending money on online pay-perclick ads. For example, when you buy those ads that display at the very top and to the right of the search results in Google, you are paying every time someone clicks on one your ad – this is often between $4.00 - $15.00 per click, depending on your dental specialty. As you can see, the cost can become hefty, fairly quickly. The good thing about pay-per-click advertising is that you can run a trial campaign and measure how good it performed for you. Just like anything else on the web, we can track how many folks clicked your ads, and how many of those “clickers” actually called your practice and paid Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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for your services. You may find that the return on investment (ROI) just isn’t good enough to carry continue online advertising campaigns. How Pay-per-click Advertising Campaigns Work. Each major search engine has its own version of an online ad campaign management tool – on Google it’s called Google AdWords, and in 2011 Yahoo and Bing calls it the Microsoft AdCenter. Using these campaign management tools you create advertisements and then bid on keywords – essentially, you are spending your money on purchasing keywords. For example, a cosmetic dentist may want to display its ads only when someone types in: Cosmetic Dentist Washington DC. In this case, the phrase “Cosmetic Dentist Washington DC” is referred to as a single keyword and depending on how many other websites are interested in the keyword the bid can be anywhere from 2 cents to $25.00 or more…it all depends on the competitive environment. It’s an auction – the highest bidder gets the best ad placement (all the way at the top), and the lowest bidder will get the poorest placement, all the way at the bottom (and in the worst case, on the next page!). Critical Elements for Online Advertising Success. So how does a business without experience in online advertising figure what an acceptable price is for a specific keyword? The only way to be sure is to conduct research. This means running multiple searches with various variations of varying keywords, leveraging online Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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tools to estimate how much it will cost to use variations on the desired keyword, setting up the ad copy itself so that it is appealing to the right audiences and repels the wrong audiences, ensuring that the website is prepared to receive paid visitors and convert them to customers, and finally, when everything is set in place and your ads are running, you must measure your performance. In the online advertising world, all of these are elements that must be optimized to ensure success – the light at the end of the tunnel is that once you figure out the right mix for your own company, you will reap the benefits of being there at the right place, at the right time, and best of all, at the right price. The many variables that are necessary to optimize for effective online advertising campaigns can be narrowed down into four categories: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Keyword Research Ad Copy Research Landing Page Optimization Analytics
Keyword Research. With keyword research the idea is to determine which keywords will deliver the most return on investment, you base this on estimated traffic volume and determine how competitive the keywords are. If it’s a keyword with high search volume you can expect the probability of someone typing it in to be pretty high. At the same time, you can expect your competitors to be aware of the keyword’s popularity, thus setting the average bid price Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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fairly high – and of course, you have to keep cost per acquisition (CPA) down. Upon careful review of your business revenue model you will have to decide on the highest bid price that will still allow you to make a profit from eventual ad-generated business. For example, if you are a dental office that is promoting a comprehensive dental exam and routine cleaning at a reduced rate that allows you to break even, say $150, you have to make business sense out of your ad purchasing decisions. If someone walked into your office you’d happily offer the $150 rate because you’re breaking even and you can expect that patient to return when he has a dental ailment or his child needs to be seen. However, you have to come up with a maximum amount to spend per online advertising lead … is it worth it to spend $100 to get someone to give $100? In this case, the dentist incurs additional cost to see this patient because he needs to pay his staff and use some supplies to provide the x-rays and cleaning. This is where it becomes very important to apply business rules and revenue realities to online advertising efforts. Ad Copy Research. Ad Copy Research starts by selecting great text to draw in your target consumers. The real strategic purpose of Ad Copy Research though, is to analyze your own performance and conduct continuous improvements that optimize your ad’s probability of bringing in business. Just like any research project you have to take a set of data from a pre-determined range of time and analyze the performance of the varying ad copies you used. Thus, when Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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you’re running an online advertising campaign you have to agree to review performance periodically and fine-tune your ad copy accordingly. When your competitors are displaying ads with catchy ad copy, the challenge for you is to determine which mix of text will get the searcher to click on your ad instead of your competitors’ ads. The Landing Page. The element of online advertising that is most often overlooked is possibly the one that is the most obvious, the landing page. The landing page is the page that your ad links to – there’s a bit of a fight to bid on the right keywords at the right price and create attractive ad copy…but the challenge continues once the user hits your website. This is a big deal – it’s like getting someone to walk into your office…you don’t want them to leave without making an appointment or at least committing to setting up an appointment. Therefore, in the online world, instead of your office’s friendly front desk staff, you need Landing Pages that have easy to find Calls to Action. A Call to Action can be as practical as presenting a quick form to “Request an Appointment” or as direct as telling the visitor to “Call Now.” To optimize these landing pages you have to go through a process of testing that is similar to that of the ad copy research – this time you create more than one landing page, after a period of time you can analyze your performance and determine which landing page generated more conversions (leads) and delete the landing pages that were underperforming.
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Statistics / Analytics. This is something we truly can’t live without. Analytics will tell you everything about your website visitors – you will be able to find out how long visitors spent on specific web pages, figure out what they clicked on, and best of all determine which keywords they typed into their search engine to see one of your ads and click on it. From these analytics you get information that reveals weaknesses in your website design, which includes landing pages, as well as shortcomings in keyword or ad copy selection. Allowing us to continuously improve our ad campaign performance.
Directory Advertising Online directories provide additional exposure.
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here are several dental directories such as WebMD.com, avvo.com, healthgrades.com and LocateADoc.com. These directories offer consumers a portal from where they can find dentists within their respective locations, read reviews on those dentists, and write reviews on those dentists. These directories often make money through advertising, and lately, several of them have started to profit by offering dentists their own “promoted” directory listings. A promoted listing can be as simple displaying a “featured” label on the dentist’s listing, or more advanced, to include a space for additional images of your practice and the ability to reach you directly using a contact form. ZocDocs empowers patients to make appointments right from the Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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site. Sites such as Avvo.com and WebMD.com offer free basic listings to dentists and for a fee will upgrade your listing or offer on-site advertising to enhance your prominence and visibility.
Local Publications Targeting specific audiences, languages and ethnicities.
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he world is changing into an online world; with people migrating more and more to the web to get their information, you need to keep this modern reality in mind when it comes to investing in marketing for your practice. However, don't discount print advertising altogether. Local publication advertising can still be a very effective marketing channel, especially when attempting to reach specific target audiences and ethnicities, if done correctly. In the past, many advertisers relied almost solely on magazines to deliver their ads to the buying public. After all, running an ad in a magazine was much less expensive than running an ad on national TV or Radio. This was especially true if you were targeting a niche market. For example, let’s say you want to promote skin rejuvenation to women. You really wouldn’t run an ad for this on national TV, you would run an ad in a magazine such as Women’s Health that provides health and beauty tips specifically for women. This would be much more cost effective, as you would only be paying to reach out to your specific target market.
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Targeting Demographics: Incomes and Minorities. Today, the demographics of the United States are changing very quickly. By assessing the local economy of any given U.S. city we are able to determine whether or not the residents of specific communities are likely to become your future patients. Each practice has its own sort of qualification system, a system that determines the profile of the target patient for your practice. Depending on your specialty there are income qualifications to consider since there are dental procedures that insurance doesn’t cover; moreover, household income level determines how likely certain communities are to go out of pocket for certain dental procedures. Other demographic variables that you should consider are age, household size, sex, and ethnicity. This last factor, ethnicity, is becoming more and more useful to private practices as they vie for the same consumers that dental centers, hospitals, and dental schools are going after. If you are in a region that includes concentrated pockets of specific language or ethnic groups, then you have the opportunity right now to reach them before the competition tries to do so. The specific ethnic group you choose to target depends on your region’s specific demographic makeup. In particular, I recommend an analysis of your local Hispanic market, it is booming nationwide, and this can be a key opportunity for your practice, today. Local publications offer one of the paths of least resistance towards becoming the dentist of choice, in your specialty, in your local Hispanic community. Look for the Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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local Spanish-language magazines and newspapers and you’ll find that advertising rates are still affordable, though quickly rising, and your return on investment should be decent as long as you set the campaign up correctly. Don’t forget to update your online presence as well with a website that caters to specific languages, and search engine optimization programs that target local prospective patients that search in a foreign language, like Spanish.
A few considerations when advertising in publications: 1. Review the publication’s media kit thoroughly 2. Are they offering any “introductory” deals? 3. How are they going to distribute the magazine? (i.e. through dealers, subscribers, web based, etc.) 4. How many subscribers do they have? 5. Are they paid subscribers or are they free issues going out to “qualified” subscribers? 6. How did they qualify or obtain these subscribers? (how did the subscribers sign up, or were they automatically opted-in?) 7. How many issues are they going to distribute? 8. Are they going to be offering the magazine as a web publication?
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Online Magazines / Newspapers. Some magazine publishers also have websites where they post additional articles and media to complement their offline print publication. They do this for several reasons: 1. They don’t have to pay for the extra printing cost of the additional articles. 2. By adding extra content to the online version, they can justify the subscription fees they charge to subscribers of the offline, print magazine. 3. By adding more value to the online version, they are hoping to get people to switch from print, to electronic subscriptions. The main reason is that they want to convert readers to the electronic version is cost. It’s a lot cheaper to put out an online version of the magazine or newspaper than it is to pay for printing and mailing costs. Now some of you are thinking, “if the electronic version of the magazine is cheaper to publish, then advertising costs should go down as well.” That’s not always the case, and this is clear evidence that the world is moving towards a digital future. We found that many magazines and newspapers charge the same advertising rates for their online and offline editions, while some publications provide up to 50% discounts to their online advertisers and sometimes they even offer a free online advertisement to businesses that advertise in the print edition.
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Media Kits Whenever you contact a magazine or newspaper about advertising make sure you ask them to send you a media kit. Most of them will email you an electronic media kit. The information you can gain from a media kit can be very valuable and it can give you some insight into the type of people who read that particular magazine. A Media Kit will generally include: 1. A sample issue of the magazine or a link to a copy of the magazine online. 2. A rate card - explaining the advertising rates, allowable discounts, positioning, etc. 3. Advertising specifications - listing the dimensions for the different ad sizes, etc. 4. Circulation information - Depending on the magazine this may be nothing more than a cover letter stating the number of "readers,� to more indepth, offering up statistics on the demographic breakdowns of the magazine’s readership. Market Research. Don’t purchase advertising in a publication without first understanding what type of people you will be reaching, what kind of content is within the publication, who the other advertisers are, and where the magazine or newspaper will be delivered. You might consider ordering back-issues of the publication to help you in your research.
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Tracking Your Patient Inquiries. A lot of dentists I’ve talked to over the years don’t track the response they are getting from their advertisements. They haven’t the foggiest idea which ad or magazine is pulling in the best response. This isn’t any way to make wise marketing investments, it’s haphazard and uneducated. Instead, consider establishing a formal process for your front desk to follow when receiving new phone calls or e-mails from new patients – you must include a simple question in that process:
“How did you hear about us?” Patients will gladly tell you how they found your practice, keep a spreadsheet on your front desk computer, use your practice management software’s “referral source” function, or simply jot this information down on a piece of paper that doesn’t move from the front desk. At the end of each advertising cycle you’ll be able to know for sure how much business each publication has brought to your practice. What can help you make better decisions than these customized statistics? Not much. The caveat here is that you may find that you’re getting many calls – but not closing enough patients. This will highlight operational inefficiencies that you can work on – whether it means that phones need to be answered quicker or front desk staff needs to be more patient and welcoming. Whatever the case, now you have real statistics for your very own practice – there is no objective method for improving results from each marketing dollar you spend until you have this in place. Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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III.Referral Success
There is no competitive advantage in “Word of Mouth” referrals, every practice gets them.
Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. – Steve Jobs Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Complementary Practices Building lasting, fruitful, and ethical relationships
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complementary practice is a clinic, dental specialist, healthcare facility, or medical office that provides care to patients that are likely to require the type of care offered at your own practice. Commonly known as “referring dentists,” these complementary practices stand to become a top source of high quality, new patient referrals to your practice. But, the referrals can only begin once you establish an ethical working relationship with other dentists and doctors in your region. This is a critical offline marketing task for dental offices – if you ever want to receive referrals from other dentists you cannot just sit and wait to get a call from a dentist that looks through a phone book to find your number; in fact, it’s highly likely that the dentist already has a regional referral list for each dental specialty. Developing dental referral relationships. The opportunity lies in establishing a mutually beneficial, long-lasting, mature relationship with these referring dentists. This adds value to the simple task of quickly writing a referral slip – when the referring dentist is writing that slip you want them to be 100% sure that their patient is going to be in great hands. You add value by explaining the merits and philosophies of your practice and assuring the referring practice that you have a process for effective inter-practice communication that keeps the other dentist in the loop about the care being provided to their Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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patients. It’s no longer a simple referral, rather, an ethical partnership that ensures comprehensive, customized care for each patient. Executing a referral generation program. The one-to-one, in-person meeting, is the most impactful and valuable method for developing these sensitive, important, long-term relationships. When your front desk staff has downtime, ask them to make some phone calls, start with a couple a week, to complementary practices. Print out referral pads that your staff can mail out to practices that agree to consider referring patients to your practice. It’s also a great idea to put together a referral follow-up program that emphasizes a consistent and detailed loop of communication between your practices. A well-developed referral generation program will identify your practice’s strengths as well as its weaknesses; as a result, most practices require an adjustment or enhancement of current operational procedures to ensure sustainable success. A note on ethics. You deliver the best quality of care possible – that should be the basis for attracting referrals. When you refer a patient to another dentist or physician you do it in the patient’s best interest – you wouldn’t accept nor tolerate any offers for referral compensation. Yet, there is a form of compensation that is not unethical, it’s called appreciation. You’d be surprised how far a simple patient treatment
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update and “thank you” will go when your office manager speaks to her counterpart at the referring practice.
A dentist is allowed to pay for any advertising permitted by the Code, but is generally not permitted to make payments to another person or entity for the referral of a patient for professional services. ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct, Section 5.F.4 – Referral Services
Professional solutions for referral generation. My company, NOVA MedMarket, offers a proprietary, successful Referral Generation Program. Our referral generation team takes care of all of the nuts and bolts, designing and printing referral pads, strategically identifying local complementary practices, establishing critical referral generation processes and office procedures, and physically conducting informative and professional one-to-one meetings with complementary practices. Consider reaching out to learn more about our provensuccessful program that will build up your practice’s number of new patient registrations that will result from complementary practice referrals – a long-term source of sustainable revenue, that you can count on for as long as the complementary practices continue to refer patients.
Current Patients
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ake great care of your patients, offer compassionate care, and establish office procedures that provide a common framework for
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interacting with patients.
9 in 10 patients are willing to recommend a healthcare provider after a good experience. PricewaterhouseCoopers Survey of 6,000 consumers1
Also recognize that happy patients need to be reminded and influenced to share their good experience with friends and family. Without any guidance, many of your patients will suggest your practice when asked for a recommendation; however, a patient that has had a fantastic experience, and is asked to tell their friends, is much more likely to volunteer a recommendation to your practice on social media sites like Facebook and Yelp. A note on ethics. You don’t need to rely on providing a financial incentive to patients for each referral they bring to your practice. The incentive is in the quality of each visit. The message to prospective patients is that they’ll be taken care of when they visit the office, their appointments will be on time, your staff will listen to their concerns, and the billing process will be as easy as possible, among other positive factors.
Many states have regulations that directly or indirectly prohibit or restrict the award of gifts as a means of soliciting dental patients […] ADA Legal Division Memo, October 2011 Legal Issues in marketing a Dental Practice: Referral Gifts and Groupon
1 PwC Experience Radar 2012 Customer insights for the US healthcare
provider industry. http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/advisory/customerimpact/assets/pwc-experience-radar-healthcare-provider.pdf Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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IV. Patient satisfaction & retention Make your first impression an excellent lasting impression! When the front desk is smiling, patients will follow suit.
When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it's like giving them emotional oxygen. – Steven Covey Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Patient Satisfaction There’s more to it than you may think
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have met dentists and doctors that don’t understand the importance of the Golden Rule as it applies to the sustained success of their practice. This is a maxim that has been expressed in just about every language by the world’s most important and influential philosophers:
“One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.” These are dentists that don’t respect the patient’s time, they’re rough, they’re pompous, and don’t listen. This doesn’t mean that these are bad dentists, they practice scientifically, precisely; nevertheless, you’re operating a business. If you don’t believe quality of care is a direct result of the way you act then you don’t understand that patient satisfaction is the number one way to keep new patient registrations coming in. At the end of the day, a dentist that is an employee, that doesn’t run his or her own practice, can only get away with a poor patient satisfaction record for so long until they’re reprimanded. A dentist running their own practice must adhere to similar standards. Setting Your Own, Customized Goals. Patient satisfaction is an important outcome measure for dental care; however, “satisfaction” is so subjective and based on the specific beliefs, morals, and culture of each patient. Consequently, dentists and Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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managers need to devise their own, customized, set of patient satisfaction factors in order to begin to measure and set patient satisfaction goals for your own practice. We can’t collect industry-wide patient satisfaction benchmarks and hope that they apply to everyone’s practice; it’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. What matters to a pediatric dentist’s patients will be different than the patient satisfaction factors that matter to an orthodontist’s patients.
Perception of quality stems from good staff attitude, which is more than just bedside manner PricewaterhouseCoopers Survey of 6,000 consumers2
These patient satisfaction goals could be as simple as fulfilling prescription refill requests quicker, to more detailed, specifying that the average refill should be called in within three hours of request during business hours. It’s up to you, and the ultimate goal is to retain your patients longer, and treat them well enough that they will refer their friends and relatives to your practice. Proactive Issue Resolution, Avoid Lawsuits. It’s simple, the first time you get negative feedback about any facet of your practice, deal with it. Resolve the issue now before it gets out of hand, and convert the poor feedback into an opportunity to become better.
2 PwC Experience Radar 2012 Customer insights for the US healthcare
provider industry. http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/advisory/customerimpact/assets/pwc-experience-radar-healthcare-provider.pdf Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Low satisfaction ratings have proven to have negative spillover effects into other areas of the dental practice. Medical practices with low satisfaction ratings are more likely to have malpractice lawsuits brought against them, this is also applicable to dentistry.3 Patient Satisfaction Surveys. This can be a touchy subject, but it shouldn’t be. Patients aren’t criticizing your knowledge of dentistry, they are providing valuable feedback about your business. That said, the quality and value of your patient satisfaction surveys is dependent on the questions that you’re asking, and of course, what you choose to do with the information. What's being measured? Quality of care is not what’s being measured here and we certainly don’t want patients telling us that the dentist “doesn’t know what he’s doing,” because the dentist’s skill isn’t up for judgment here. What we do want to know is qualitative in nature; we want to ask questions about the patient’s pre-visit expectations, how they came to learn about our practice, how fast they were seen, how long they waited, and general commentary about their visit. Don’t be afraid of hearing and reading these surveys, you only have to “fix” what you want to – and by simple fact of having these surveys readily available we’re showing patients that we care and desire to enhance their experience. 3
Stelfox, H.T. et al., “The Relation of Patient Satisfaction with Complaints Against Physicians and Malpractice Lawsuits.” American Journal of Medicine. 2005. 118: 1126-33. Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Patient Retention Discounts don’t work, honesty and value preside
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here is no business in the world where the customer base can be expected to stay with you permanently. The same applies to dental businesses; yet, we have a better opportunity to preserve clients longer than most other industries. When it comes to healthcare, Americans are willing to pay more for care from dentists whom they trust and appreciate. If your ambition is to have the front desk sign-in sheet fill up everyday, then start by taking great care of your current patients. Happy patients will return, they will share your greatness with their friends and relatives, and they will help you to be satisfied with your own business. What can be better than receiving an unsolicited, physical “Thank You” note in the mail? You can surf the web all you want to look for “bad” reviews about your bedside manner (Lord knows we can’t please them all!); or, you can start thinking positively and generate those “great” reviews, right now, today. Retention and Attrition. No doubt, we want retention rate high and attrition rate low. But let’s find out what your specific practice can do to retain more and lose fewer patients. You retain patients by delivering top-notch dental care, with super bedside manner, and a fantastic, smiling front desk staff.
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You lose patients because you underperform in the aforementioned retention activities; but let’s not forget the competition. There is so much competition. Hospitals, especially university hospitals, offer reduced pricing on dental care, consumers have less spending power and are putting their health on the backburner, and insurance companies want to pay you less. Yet, I don’t think you should be afraid. You’re in business because you’re a trained dentist and you want to control your own future. So it’s true that there might be cheaper alternatives to your practice, but consumers have already proven to be less price-sensitive with healthcare than with most other customer services – so take care of your existing patients. Measuring up. Take a look at your practice management system. If you don’t have one then look into your handwritten or typed records. What we’re looking for is patients that haven’t visited your office for a long time – this is defined as a period of time where the patient should have returned to your office. Practice management software is very valuable in this regard – you can look at a listing of all of your patients and witness how often they come to visit you, and how often their friends and relatives visit you. When you see that too many patients are dropping off, it’s time to be objective to figure out why this is happening. When your patient attrition rate, quarter after quarter, is abnormally high, you can count on seeing thousands less in your bank account – and believe it, this affects the longterm viability of your practice, and has led many practices to shut their doors. The excuse is often the economy, or Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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competition from a local dental group that does things better and more efficiently. That’s not acceptable, and a modern dental marketing expert would tell you that there is opportunity amidst adversity.
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V. Planning for the future Your practice is more than a safety net, it’s part of your life.
The simple reason that most people fail financially is not because of the lack of a plan, it’s not because of good advice, it’s not even because of a lack of capital. It is for one reason—they attach more pain to the idea of having money, than NOT having it. – Anthony Robbins Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Exit Strategy Principles Why you need to think about the end game
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s a dentist with your own dental practice you have already been approached by many financial planners that wants you to stop thinking in the short-term and think about the future. They’re right. After all, your business is not the sole purpose for existing, at least it shouldn’t be (there are a lot of theories for why we exist, but I’m sure this isn’t one of them, and I definitely won’t try to tackle existentialism in this little guide!) The fact is that you have goals for your life and your business is a means to achieve those goals. We set an exit strategy not merely to expect the best and plan for the worst, but to realistically figure out what the best is and what you’ll do when you get there. You will need to do this with money in mind, how much do you need every year, and how much would you like in your bank account when you retire? You’ll also want to consider family time, how many of your kids’ and grandkids’ softball games do you want to attend every week? Don’t forget to consider the loans you have to pay off, the type of home you desire, your kids’ college tuition, your vacations, your quality of life. Once we set our life goals and figure out what role the practice is expected to play in helping you achieve these goals we can set quantitative goals for exiting. Not everyone reading this guide will want to exit at all – in fact, my previous primary care physician was in every day at Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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7am until the day he passed away. That’s fine. But you still need to set quantitative goals because the business works for you and you need the business to bring results just like you expect results from anything else you invest time and money into. Your quantitative goals, when broken down into years and quarters will give us a starting point for planning your practice’s marketing activities. Take that revenue number that you have to hit every quarter and plan marketing activities accordingly. You have to conduct these activities in order to get more new patients and maintain current patients on your roster – so give these activities attention every month and you’ll be sure to hit your quarterly revenue goals. When you don’t hit your revenue goals it’s time to throw up a red flag, take a step back, and identify the weakest link. You don’t have to exit outright. If you’re after working fewer hours, consider hiring. Take a cut to your paycheck but continue to operate a profitable business by hiring dentists and staff to work for you. Also consider a consistent evaluation of your staff’s efficiency and general performance. If you need an objective analysis, there are several reliable human resource consultants that specialize in dental practices – check with your local dental society or give us a call and we’ll introduce you to someone.
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Sell or Partner-up Options for maximizing the return on your investment
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f you have a well-running dental practice there are opportunities to sell your practice to the highest bidder.
You can also choose a partner that will add value to your practice and take ownership in maintaining financial viability and profitability for the practice. This partner can be a dentist or someone with a great mind for business. Instead of selling the practice outright, it’s possible to work fewer hours and sell a portion of the practice as equity to a business partner. If this partner is a dentist, they will continue to be available during normal business hours while you continue to collect revenue from the practice you invested so much time and money into. Another interesting option that has become more palatable lately is to join or form a dental group. You may also consider developing a consortium of dental businesses that will join hands to provide comprehensive, ethical care to a shared pool of patients. In the medical world, this is one of the main reasons that hospital systems are growing so fast, they make it simple to receive comprehensive healthcare delivered by an integrated team of coordinated physicians – we’re seeing this trend take flight in the dental field as more “groups” pop up. Because of their scale, hospitals and groups also maintain strong negotiation leverage with suppliers and insurance companies. This is something to think about when planning the future of your business – there is strength in numbers. Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Final Thoughts I put together this guide because there just isn’t enough marketing education out there that applies to private dental practices. You’d be hard-pressed to find a business-oriented continuing education course, let alone one that focuses on marketing. Additionally, there is so much clutter on the vendor side of marketing. I run a dental marketing consultancy and receive at least two spam emails and phone calls every day from marketing vultures that want to sell me marketing services. Along with my business partners, I’ve been running NOVA MedMarket for three years now and I’m no longer surprised to hear how misinformed our clients were before joining us, and that’s okay because logic prevails when you take the time to make sense of all the clutter. The competition will intensify in the coming years and the practices that practice modern dental marketing will thrive. It’s now time to think outside the box. I hope this guide was helpful to you and I welcome the opportunity to speak with you about any practice management matters you have in mind. We offer our clients highly valuable, high-impact solutions for several of the critical marketing elements outlined in this guide – we might be able to help you. If our solutions aren’t suitable for your practice at this time we’ll let you know, hopefully we’ll hear from you later, and at best we established a new friendship.
Lateef Mauricio Abro NOVA MedMarket • www.novamedmarket.com (703) 855-9641 • lateef@novamedmarket.com Modern Dental Marketing Guide
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Modern DENTAL marketing guide First Edition • NOVA MedMarket www.novamedmarket.com