Modern Dental Practice Marketing

Today, I want to share with you our Enterprising Selection of Services, which is the next level up from our Smart dental marketing selection.

Enterprising Selection of Services

In addition to everything in our Smart Selection, the Enterprising Selection comes with 12 blogs per month and a 10-page dental microsite, built on a CMS, for a significantly more competitive SEO strategy. The microsite will act as a mini-website about a service or product you would like to promote. Blogs may be split between the dental blogsite and the microsite, if you prefer.

We will update your social media profiles, upon request, help you with reputation management, and provide a one-hour consulting call and complete SEO report four times a year, quarterly.

In addition, for patient retention and referrals, we will deliver a custom, quarterly e-newsletter and supplemental, monthly e-blasts to your patients. Simply provide us with a list of emails, and we will manage the subscriptions, track delivery and opt outs, and provide you with an overview of your mailing responses during your quarterly SEO calls. Read the rest of this entry →

Today on LinkedIn Answers, I reviewed comments on a marketing question that I hear from dentists quite often. To paraphrase, the question is: When marketing a dentist, not just a practice, when does branding turn into bragging? Dentists don’t want to come off as narcissistic to potential patients or their colleagues. However, as the primary service provider in a dental practice, a dentist has to mention his experience, education, and expertise in marketing. Rest assured, with professional guidance from Modern Dental Practice Marketing, you won’t appear to be full of yourself.

Professionalism in Marketing

As a dentist, you probably appreciate evidence-based medicine and treatments. Follow this same philosophy in marketing, and you’ll avoid puffery. First, your online real estate (dental website, blog, microsites, social networking profiles, etc.) should convey the facts: your education, internships, years in practice, continuing education, certifications, awards, and other accolades, including published works, public speaking, and teaching experience. All of these facts should be woven throughout your website text, as well as your blogs and microsites.

In addition to the message you send online, you need to promote what patients say about you. Two evidence-based marketing tools are personal referrals and personal testimonials from current patients. Dentists often struggle in this area. Read the rest of this entry →

Most dental practices don’t have a Facebook business page, but they should. I certainly don’t believe that a Facebook page will bring a dentist many new patients, but managing a professional page on the most popular social networking site has benefits.

One, you’ll look like you’re tech savvy. You may have CEREC, DIAGNOdent, and dental lasers galore, but if you don’t have a Facebook page, the public won’t believe that you’re really up to date with modern technology.

Two, Facebook will allow your office to stay connected with patients between visits. If you pay for patient communication software, like Demandforce or Solutionreach (formerly SmileReminder), you should certainly supplement your efforts with a free Facebook page for your dental practice. So often, advertising and marketing is impersonal, yet word-of-mouth is the single most cost-effective type of marketing. With Facebook, you can stay in touch with your patients on a professional, yet somewhat personal, level by sharing your day-to-day workings with your fans.

Three, Facebook allows you to promote upcoming events, milestones in your practice, and special offers — all for free.

And remember, if your special offers, photos, and posts are enticing enough, your Facebook fans may actually share them with their friends — and that could land you some new patients. I want to tell you about four simple tools that will make managing your dental practice Facebook page easier and more effective. These tools are already on your Timeline. Read the rest of this entry →

Are you puzzled by blogging and branding? Wondering how marketing evolved from Yellow Pages ads to search engine optimization? You aren’t the only one. The marketing world has changed dramatically in the past decade! But there’s hope. You can get on the modern marketing bandwagon and bring in new patients.

Just this evening, CBSNews.com released an article about blogging. In it, Robert Pagliarini provides “7 rules of successful bloggers.” I want to take Paliarini’s tips and evaluate how they relate to dentists and dental blogging.

We’re told to create valuable content. What is valuable, when it comes to content? That depends on who you are. To a potential patient searching for a dentist or an answer to a question, interesting information not found elsewhere online would be valuable. To a dentist, a blog that ranks high on Google would be valuable. To Google, a blog that’s original and informative would be valuable. So, ideally, a valuable dental blog has unique, informative content that’s keyword rich and well optimized. When this formula is used, everyone wins.

Focus on a niche and identify popular markets are tips two and three. Obviously, the niche for a dental blog is dentistry. However, you can be more specific. Perhaps your blog should be about sleep apnea, Invisalign, cosmetic dentistry, or sedation. Many of our clients have two or more blogs. This allows them to focus on general dentistry to attract bread-and-butter patients, as well as a specific treatment that they find profitable and enjoyable. Before you blog, consider which procedures or ideas (holistic, biomimetic, systemic health, for example) are most important to you. Read the rest of this entry →

Enjoy this holiday with your family — or by yourself! As you rest and play, we’re hard at work making your online marketing better. MDPM has many improvements and extra benefits for you in 2012. Why? Because you deserve our best, and we’re always working harder to reach that elusive best!