Q - What’s the difference between marketing your dental practice and marketing a home improvement store?
A - Nothing!
Surprised? The fact is your dental practice is a business like any other business. You have customers (patients), services (cosmetic, advanced restorative, general dentistry), products (whitening kits, professional oral health care). You also have overhead and employees.
So why aren’t you marketing the dental practice like other businesses?
No, you don’t have to do what Home Depot does. But you need a marketing strategy that works for your dental practice. One that builds an image that separates you from your competition and generates new patients.
Make no mistake, you are competing with a saavy bunch for the Consumer Mind. That Mind is overwhelmed each day with over 3,000 ad impressions for every kind of business or service or product you can think of. What can you take advantage of in your little corner of the world?
Your treatment rooms and reception area are two great places to start.
Yup. market to the patient sitting in the chair and in your reception area. The perfect “captive audience”. What’s more, that captive audience is more susceptible to your marketing because they have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that attention and reinforce why you are the best dentist in the world while scoring some sales. What makes you think the person in that chair doesn’t want that kind of reinforcement? It only makes them feel better about choosing you in the first place!
What can you do?
1. Use treatment room monitors as salespeople. Run a short but interesting marketing presentation on different cosmetic services you provide or the latest products you sell. But make sure they are consumer oriented, not technical doctor-ese designed for the practitioner. Remember, you’re competing for the Consumer Mind’s attention, which is short and focused on “What’s in it for me?”
2. Market in your reception area. Another captive audience area. Today’s consumer is more likely to watch a tv monitor than pick up a magazine. Mount one on the wall where it will be easily seen. Display photos featuring alluring, beautiful results from whitening, veneers, or products that you want to sell. Again, you are reinforcing the patient’s decision to see you in the first place and will make them more comfortable, right from the start.
3. Display attractive educational material with your logo. Anywhere a patient stops and waits – the waiting room, in the chair, paying at the counter for the visit – is a chance to give them something that reinforces your image, your services, YOU. If you don’t have professional brochures, business cards and marketing materials WITH YOUR LOGO available, you lose precious opportunities to market your practice in a meaningful way. And if you have a website or Facebook page, make sure to include them. Providing literature on dental products from your vendors is also important. Give your patients something to take with them, think about, share with others. You will see a return on your investment.
4. On hold messaging. An often overlooked area, being lost in the On Hold Void is tragic from the practice’s view. Here’s the perfect place to suggest services, talk about special promotions, play some commercials you might be running on the radio, refer the listener to your ad in their local paper, whatever information you can give them while waiting on hold. Believe me, they’d rather listen to the latest practice news than empty space. Encourage them to ask about your services when they speak to your staff.
Start marketing yourself the moment the patient walks in the door and never stop throughout their entire visit. If it’s done tastefully, it will not be intrusive and once again, will only reinforce your image and the patient’s reason for being there.
Last, be not afraid to hire a professional consultant to help you determine your needs and to guide you the right way from the start. Marketing the dental practice takes expertise. A good professional dental technology or marketing consultant is worth their weight in gold for what they can save you and what you get for results. And great results, like your patient’s smile, is the bottom line.
Since 1998, Ted Takahashi has helped more than 750 dentists successfully integrate technology solutions. Ted is the owner of T2 Consulting Inc., a planning and design firm exclusively dedicated to the dental profession. T2 Consulting, one of the most trusted names in the dental industry, chooses not to sell dental technology products, opting, instead, to provide objective and unbiased information that can be trusted. You can reach Ted at 952-891-5177 or ted@t2consulting.com.
DENTAL WEBSITE MARKETING SOLUTIONS THAT WORK
Is positioning your practice a priority? It should be in order to compete in today’s business world. Many businesses rely on clichés that make them sound like everyone else - ”The best customer service “ or “the best technology.” What is so unique about that? instead consider what makes you better, new and unlike any other dental practice.
Remember the Yellow Pages? Neither do your patients. When today’s consumers are looking for a dentist, they turn to the web. The digital world is changing traditional outbound marketing methods. Email, TV, and telemarketing are not what they used to be. CAN SPAM Act, TIVO, and no call lists have changed the game. Enter inbound dental website marketing.
Inbound marketing starts with relationship building through relevant content without the obstacles. Your website is no longer a standalone element in your business, rather the hub that supports your marketing efforts. Blogs, landing pages, calls to action, analytics, and social media promotion are tools that feed your business. Look out dental industry, the revelry is just getting started!
Please read the Top 7 Dental Website Marketing Tips:
1. Maintain existing and creating more new patients
The main reason for redesigning or flipping for a new website is to grow your dental practice and increase new patients, NOT because you’re bored with the design or that you prefer it blue not red.
Every decision you make should be focused on improving these goals. With that in mind, you may want to spend a bit less time worrying about the exact shade of the background graphic and more time worrying about how to improve your marketing results...like relevant content!
2. Inventory your assets - then protect them
Bad website redesign can squash your results. In fact, more often than not website redesigns do just that. Your existing website has assets that you have built up over time. These assets help future patients find your website then converts them into new patients. You need to identify these assets (great content, keywords, inbound links, conversion tools) and protect them carefully during the redesign. Many "web design experts" get this stuff wrong. They are design experts - not marketing experts.
3. Spend resources on remarkable content that attracts and converts - not fluffy design
What influences your visitors to convert to new patients? Is it look, feel, or color? Likely not, that’s fluff. Relevant content attracts your audience, creates the relationship, and turns them into patients. Besides, search engines don't recognize look and feel - search engine juice feeds on content.
4. Create an ongoing content building strategy
If you have more content, on average you will have more website visitors and grow your business faster. Example, a 100 page website will out perform a 10 page website 99% of the time and if some of those web pages were written recently, better yet. So, build a strategy to continue adding more content to your website over time. Hint: Blogging makes creating content easy.
5. Enable conversion experiments
The key to driving your conversion rate plus the number of leads generated from your website is improving your conversion tools - this means calls to action and landing pages. If you build a static website without the tools to create, convert and measure then you will never know what works and doesn’t.
6. Include a blog, RSS, landing pages, SEO
Every website built today should include these basics. They are not expensive, and they work. A blog is a great way to create content on an regular basis and to start to connect with your patients and prospects. RSS allows some content from your website to be pushed out to other websites and people. This increases the reach of your content. Landing pages are critical to get value out of your traffic. SEO can be overdone and is not hard – plus it really works!
7. Metrics: Visitors and leads
If your goal is to increase visitors and new patients, then that is the metric worth tracking. What does this mean? If you relish your new design, prove its worthiness through metrics that count.
A business website is a business tool and should deliver business results. Leave the works of art to the galleries and museums. Understand what delivers these results and measure its worthiness.
We put together this article to explain the process of purchasing 
dental technology- “Lowest price” vs. “Total price” and which offers the greatest value to a dentist. Be forewarned, the "devil" is in the details when it comes to technology. Sales reps have their distinctive selling techniques, marketing style and bid presentation...that's business.
Most dental technology products offer service, support and extended warranties with monthly fees attached to them. Dental software updates are wrapped within their support costs…a necessary evil.
As a dentist and business owner, your time is best spent with patients - NOT flipping the hood of a tired computer trying to fix it yourself. Uptime of your technology system is vital and an active ingredient of ROI.
Does it make sense to evaluate bids if apple and oranges? From my perspective...no, and could lead to bad decision making. Computer systems vary between manufacturers and non-name-brand isn't necessarily a bad thing. Playing your hand with comparable bids can save you thousands - not to mention, the headaches associated with stuff that doesn’t work as expected.
The bid review price analysis is real and represents a T2 project that has since been completed. The bids were evaluated and certified accurate with written specifications provided by T2 Consulting.
BID REVIEW TIPS
- Itemized equipment pricing is essential
- Separate labor & installation costs from hardware pricing
- Service/support warranty pricing & deductibles
- Check references & experience level with dental technology
- Always ask for a better price.
To receive your copy of the Bid Review Price Analysis please click the "FREE Download" link below:
Would you ever consider opening your wallet and giving your sales representative free reign to empty it? Sorry, had to ask. But without a dental technology budget, this can easily happen to you.
Simply put, a budget gives a breakdown of all expected costs for a project. Well managed projects should always include a baseline budget so progress may be monitored against it at chosen intervals. Take responsibility for this or give it to someone you can trust...and please, not your rep.
Knowing these costs upfront will drive purchasing decisions along the way. Phasing in technology over time trumps over extending the practice with equipment that it cannot afford.
Also, budget development must be tied back to a sensible plan...from the start. Collectively, budget and planning prepare the groundwork for successful dental technology - minus costly surpises. These surpises will likely force your technology off target. Once off target, your budget goes with it…out the window!
The latest in dental technology systems still need wire but are lying behind your walls, over ceilings, and hopefully out of sight. Cabling can add up faster than you think.
One example: Price per cable drop fluctuates depending on your location but ranges between $150 & $200. With 31 cable drops x $200/drop = $6,200. Becoming more significant, isn’t it?
The budget development example shown was developed for a T2 customer. These numbers were not perfect, but meticulous enough for the dentist to make decisions accordingly. Included was:
- Infrastructure wiring
- Telephone system
- Background sound system
- Large LCD displays
- 15 computer workstations
- File server
This $73,000 did NOT include intraoral cameras, digital x-ray sensors, digital panoramic or dental software. Like most of us, your guess was likely in the $25K range? If financed, this is a $48,000 differential - yes, one big problem! I can't emphasize enough - leaving this to chance will only lead you down the wrong path. Not having the funds will lead to cost cutting mistakes compounding the problem further.
The least expensive way to integrate technology is to do it right the first time...and you can take that to the bank!
Since 1998, Ted Takahashi has helped more than 750 dentists successfully integrate technology solutions. Ted is the owner of T2 Consulting Inc., a planning and design firm exclusively dedicated to the dental profession. T2 Consulting, one of the most trusted names in the dental industry, chooses not to sell dental technology products, opting, instead, to provide objective and unbiased information that can be trusted. You can reach Ted at 952-891-5177 or ted@t2consulting.com.
1. Establish staff procedures that promotes usage and efficiency. By using auxiliary staff to prep an exam, the dentist can do the exam without ever picking up the camera. This saves a tremendous amount of time. Typically, hygiene operatories are camera heavy.
Knowing the optimal number of cameras required and their locations can save thousands of dollars and still produce the same results. This advice also applies to digital x-ray sensors.
2. Pick products that are easy to use. An intraoral camera that is difficult to use will collect dust. First, staff will simply not use it. Depth of focus in the optical system directly relates to its ease of use. Deficient optics will result in constant refocusing. What should be an efficient, single-handed task will turn into an inept two handed operation (one to hold and one to focus). Also, a lousy camera increases dentist-staff frustration & adversely affects ROI.
3. Patient viewing display positioning affects ROI. Dental chair manufacturer’s concept systems (at least the ones that have monitors hanging from them) are practical, but often aren't functional because they don’t enhance the patient experience at the right time. Try this the next time you’re poring through dental trade exhibits: lie yourself in a chair fully supine and ask yourself if you can comfortably view the display connected to it. I’m willing to wager that your vision is limited to the top of the display and up. Explanation: When fully supine, your line of sight is comfortably pointed at an approximate 45 degree angle with respect to your body. The “bullseye” points up towards the ceiling, doesn’t it? Dr. Michael Unthank took this photo (below) at the Chicago Midwinter Meeting demonstrating this flaw with the patient viewing display positioned low on a radius arm.
Look closely at my eyes and the direction that they are pointed…up aren’t they? This design does work but not at the right time. End result: If your patients cannot comfortably see the display at the right time, then its ROI (not to mention camera, digital x-ray) decreases accordingly.
Most offices today incorporate two flat panel displays in each treatment room. By splitting the operatory into private and public viewing zones, private information (schedule & personal information) is kept private. Public information includes intraoral camera, digital radiograph, digital SLR images and CATV. Not only does the patient display drive design, but also provides educational value, communications, and relaxation/entertainment for the patient. The ability to show a fractured cusp or calculus build up provides patient communications and improves acceptance of the treatment. Proper positioning of the patient display allows this to happen efficiently. Your top priority is to ensure that the patient can view the display comfortably while fully upright or reclined in the dental chair. If successful, any position between these points will work.
4. Treatment room computers must be set up for maximum efficiency. As challenging as computers and networks can be, their business goals are basic: to make money and to save money. An understanding of how treatment rooms function is critical to a successful design. The best way to address functional requirements is to reduce them down to their simplest form. First, make a list of requirements for each of the two displays in each operatory. Start with the clinical display behind the chair and make a list. Do the same with the patient viewing monitor. The list should go something like this depending on your specialty and how you practice:
Clinical monitor: Practice management software, image management software, charting software, digital x-ray and intraoral/extraoral camera images, schedule, paging software.
Patient viewing display: Digital x-ray, intraoral/extraoral camera images, patient education programming, cable TV/CD/DVD movies with audio.
Examine these lists and you'll find three requirements that apply to both displays: digital radiographs, intraoral camera images & extraoral camera images (digital SLR). These images require competent switching between the displays. Ultramon ($35) is an amazing piece of software that accommodates these with ease. Programming function keys can turn a difficult task into an effortless keystroke. Example: After a digital x-ray image is stored, it is usually viewed on the clinical display (private) behind the chair. To share this image with the patient, use the designated function key to reposition it on the patient viewing display. When done, you can move the image back to the clinical display by pressing the same function key. It doesn’t get any easier than that! Using Windows display properties or physically dragging windows between displays is simplified to one keystroke each direction. This simple approach will save you time and frustration while adding to your ROI.
Computers in dental offices offer potential ROI as the imaging devices attached to it. But maximizing that ROI depends on your ability to realize the big picture. The infrastructure of your computer network system is the backbone of your technology system. Imaging products & software either ride on or attach to it. Smart equipment positioning will enhance the patient experience, improve diagnosis, and increase IQ. Optimized systems and solutions offer better dental technology for a bigger ROI, …and by the way, much further than the sum of your individual products.
Since 1998, Ted Takahashi has helped more than 750 dentists successfully integrate technology solutions. Ted is the owner of T2 Consulting Inc., a planning and design firm exclusively dedicated to the dental profession. T2 Consulting, one of the most trusted names in the dental industry, chooses not to sell dental technology products, opting, instead, to provide objective and unbiased information that can be trusted. You can reach Ted at 952-891-5177 or ted@t2consulting.com.
Dental technology is not meant to replace human interaction - but a tool that efficiently enhances it. Perseverance and committment are mandatory and not an option. But, do the benefits far exceed the work?
Of couse they do! Because technology increases efficiency and enhances patient communications. Each and every time you use a computer workstation, your tasks should be easier and faster to perform. Equally important is that each piece of dental technology attached to the computer has its own ROI (digital x-ray/pano, intraoral cameras). This equipment increases IQ and awareness by educating and communicating with your patients. If you find this isn’t the case, then something has gone terribly wrong.
The introduction of chair-side scheduling, electronic charts & digital imaging devices (digital x-ray/pano, intraoral cameras), has turned a single computer system into a sophisticated efficiency machine. The dental profession’s implementation of computers is unique and like no other industry – particularly in the treatment room. But if all of this super technology isn’t integrated properly, it can in fact lessen efficiency.
For example, the intraoral camera offers an incredible ROI...if used properly and consistently. The numbers speak for themselves, intraoral cameras yields astounding results: 85% of users paid their cameras off in one single year, with the remaining 15% completing payment within two. Not surprisingly, this was the $35,000 Fuji Dentacam back in the late 1980′s. This success rate was directly related to ease of use, proper training, and the camera’s ability to confirm treatment.
Since 1998, Ted Takahashi has helped more than 750 dentists successfully integrate technology solutions. Ted is the owner of T2 Consulting Inc., a planning and design firm exclusively dedicated to the dental profession. T2 Consulting, one of the most trusted names in the dental industry, chooses not to sell dental technology products, opting, instead, to provide objective and unbiased information that can be trusted. You can reach Ted at 952-891-5177 or ted@t2consulting.com.