Common Mistakes Dentists Make in Marketing

Episode #422 with Grace Rizza

Marketers are not magicians. They can't turn $50 into 1,000 loyal patients. But what they can do is help you focus and strategize to attract new patients and increase loyalty. And today, Kirk Behrendt brings in Grace Rizza, CEO of Identity Dental Marketing, to share some of the biggest mistakes made in dental marketing that you need to know and avoid. Don't try marketing on your own! To learn how to get the most out of your time and money, listen to Episode 422 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

You will always be spending on marketing.

Being cheap will cost you more in the long run.

Start ASAP and get ahead of the curve.

Don't try to do everything on your own.

Always vet your advisors and ask questions.

Quotes:

“You can actually shape how people think of you. You can shape what they think of you with effective custom branding.” (3:47—3:55)

“[Dentists] don't always realize that [marketing] is its own area of study, that people actually study marketing. Someone made a joke to me the other day. A client said, ‘It’s like I need a second degree in this!’ And I said, ‘You do, if you're going to try to do it on your own! I do have a degree in this. And there are several certifications that you should get if you're going to be running campaigns and things of this nature.’ And they just hadn't really thought about it, that while they were studying dentistry, that other people are studying marketing. So, I think it starts with knowing or accepting the fact that you don't know it and being open to learning from other people’s mistakes.” (5:15—6:00)

“You shouldn't do it all on your own. When it comes to marketing, you're likely going to waste a lot of time and money with the more technical side of things. Like, launching an optimized ad campaign is probably not the highest and best use of your time. As soon as you figure it out, it’s going to change. And you're probably going to realize that it’s not ideal for you to do that. But ramping up the number of reviews in your practice, getting your patients to refer to you, having those internal systems that increase your new patient numbers, most definitely, you want systems for those kinds of things. But with the marketing that should be outsourced, it’s the more technical side. It’s the ads, the SEO, setting audiences, managing budgets.” (7:20—8:06)

“One of my biggest problems right now in business, in general, is that you've got hundreds of thousands in debt in dental school. You've got, now, a buildout and the fanciest equipment and the most beautiful office, because these are all things — I'm going to be really offensive right now — that feed the ego. These are all things that make you feel special. Like, did you really need the most expensive dental chair when you don't have anyone that's going to sit in it because you have zero marketing budget? So, I have these conversations all day long. By the time they think about marketing, there's no money left. So, my question is always, ‘Well, what do you have to lose if you don't have marketing? All of that previous investment is now at risk, because without patients, you have no cashflow. You have nowhere to go.’” (11:56—12:50)

“My advice would be, start asking these questions sooner. Ask, ‘Okay, what does it take to acquire a new patient in my market with this method?’ And then, reverse-engineer what it’s going to cost to make those methods work for you. Instead of saying, ‘I have $500. What can you do with it?’ ask, ‘What's it going to cost to get 20, 50, 80 new patients a month?’ And then, figure out how you can make it happen.” (13:45—14:13)

“Template or builders for websites [are one of the biggest marketing mistakes]. So, when marketing companies use drag-and-drop builders — this can be