What commitments can you make to yourself for a better practice? In this episode, we explain.

• View your practice as a business
  • Fighting reimbursement entities, corporate entities
  • Your mental image of a "practice"
  • "I don't need marketing. I have organic referrals"
• Commit to a marketing budget
  • Where your money went vs. where it should go
  • The vicious cycle of starting and stopping
  • Avoiding "starting over" every time you market
• Commit to ROI tracking the right way
  • Source your new patients
  • Call tracking
• Understand what customers are looking for and access more education
  • What are your marketable attributes? https://goo.gl/TtqjwM 
  • 7 hours of marketing CE for free: https://goo.gl/iGaFZW 
  • Unlimited New Patients Volume 3: https://goo.gl/RZq39w 
  • Dental Marketing Mastery Facebook Community: https://goo.gl/3DYC3b 
• You have a choice!

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss branding, and the difference between branding and being branded.

Podcast Highlights:

• Definition of Branding and Branded
• How people FEEL about you, their perspectives
• What is achievable for the average dentist
• The amount of TRULY branded dental practices
• How long does it take to establish a brand?
• Newer practices vs. transition of ownership
• How far should you try to brand?
• The dangers of price incentives on branding
• Mismatching your advertising with who you are
• Avoiding the "race to the bottom"
• The ideal mix of traits to showcase

Controversy! In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss duplicate content on websites.

Podcast highlights:

• What's real and what's not?
• How many ways can you describe dental implants?
• SEO
• Effects of geolocation
• Dentistry SEO
• Cookie cutter vs. unproven
• Website companies
• Dentists who want to write every word on their website
• Google's algorithm

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss the differences between marketing a rural practice and an urban one. We also discuss what dentists should do if they are neither rural or urban, but more in between.

We also now have a mail bag! If you have a question that you want us to answer on our podcast, email [email protected], and we'll address your question on the podcast.

Podcast highlights:

• Geographic differences
• Media type differences
  • Internal marketing
  • Internet marketing
  • Direct mail
• What to do if you're in between rural and urban areas?
• Natural obstacles vs. man made obstacles
• Competing with other dentists in these settings
• Mediums available in rural that are not available in urban, and vice versa
• Understanding how all practices are unique
• Understanding the WHY of dental marketing

Video is one of the most underutilized mediums in Dental Marketing. So, what makes a good video? How should you use video, and what should your videos say?

Podcast Highlights:

• Types of videos
• What makes a good home page video?
• Establishing trust and respect
• Video placement
• Communicability
• Length
• What should your video say?
• Marketable attributes video
• Silent videos
• Where to use these videos
• Animated videos
• What to do if you aren't good in front of a camera
• Animated video length
• Video quality
• Quality scripting

The new year is upon us, so what is your practice going to focus on? In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we explain three easy, proven, FREE commitments that your office can make to convert more new patients.

Podcast Highlights:

• Calling new patients the same day they call you
  • Conversation script
  • How patients feel about calls from their dentist
  • Benefits and goals
• Would you like us to take care of that today?
  • Online scheduling
  • Opening up conversions
  • CAD-CAM, same-day dentistry
  • Asking the right questions when patients are in the chair
  • Schedule flexibility
  • Having a team that supports this strategy
• Commit to listening to phone calls
  • Listening to all calls brought in by marketing... yourself
  • Understanding what your patients are asking and what your staff is saying
  • Taking corrective actions

Allow patients to schedule their own appointments online? MADNESS!

Or is it?

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we explore the pros and cons of online scheduling and debunk the myths surrounding this controversial subject.

Podcast highlights:

• The two crowds in this argument
• Parallels between other uses of this technology
• The proper implementation
• Argument #1: "I don't want to lose the connection I have with my patients"
• Argument #2: "We need time to talk to the patient beforehand"
• Argument #3: "I don't want to lose control of my schedule"
• Closing statements

What's this? It's the holiday season, and we are giving away four free gifts for your practice.

Here are the gifts:

1. [Book] Unlimited New Patients, Volume 3

• 211 pages, contains everything we've learned about marketing dentistry over the last 27 years.
• Can be found here: http://www.dentalwebcontent.com/npi_book_v3.html 
• Filled with practical, usable, deployable information.

2. [Score Card] Marketable Attributes Score Card

• A card for planning your marketing. Use this card to find out what your practice should be displaying in your marketing assets.
• This score card shows what patients actually care about, discovered 20 years of client results and millions of dollars of independent consumer research
• Can be found here: http://www.dentalwebcontent.com/marketable_attributes.html 

3. [7-Hour Video Series] New Patients Inc. Marketing Summit

• A 7 part, 7-hour series about marketing your dental practice.
• Get video series here: http://www.dentalwebcontent.com/marketing_summit.html 
• Is also a CE course, which can be taken for credits on www.dentaltown.com 
• Contains information from our book

4. [Marketing Plan] Have a Marketing Plan Created for You

• Get your FREE plan, created by one of our experienced advisors, here: http://newpatientsinc.com/dental_marketing_survey.html 
• Establish your new patient goals
• Includes radius analysis around your practice, looking for high-quality new patient targets
• A reasonable budget will be created
• Recommendations to make your practice more marketable
• Specific deployment instructions

Have you reflected on your marketing year? What plans do you have for the next year? In this episode, Mark and Howie discuss how to make a marketing plan that works, and how to stick to it.

Podcast Highlights:

• Assessing your marketable assets
• Assessing your website, text & email, appointment software
• Are your brochures and print material up to date?
• What are your liabilities?
• Which assets are working, and which are not?
• Setting a marketing goal
• Do you need to increase capacity or marketing?
• Setting a budget
• Budget allocation
• The fundamental channels you should be marketing in
• Sticking to the process
• Conserving resources

What is the niche trap? How can you avoid it? 

Podcast Highlights:

• Cosmetic Dentistry's past niche trap
• A budgeting error that can lead to the niche trap
• Spreading your message across your marketable attributes
• Radio spots
• Is reduced price a niche trap?
• The right messaging in your take-home pieces
• Breaking out of the niche trap with your existing ad pieces