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Patient Attraction Episode 1074

As a small business owner who knows thousands of dentists, I have sound experience backing up this statement: dentists shouldn’t do their own marketing. I’m not saying that they can’t, but it’s the rare dentist who can master the complexities of today’s hypercompetitive dental industry. After the break, I’ll tell you how you can get back to doing what you love and get a far better return on your marketing investment.

– I’m Colin Receveur, CEO of SmartBox.

– Thanks for tuning in to the Patient Attraction Podcast.

– My dad’s a very successful dentist in the greater Louisville, Kentucky, area.

– I’m proud to say that he’s also a SmartBox dentist.

– He’s been in practice for decades, and I’ve gotta tell you that he’s having a great time.

– That’s because he gets to do what he loves and handle the kind of cases he loves to tackle.

– SmartBox handles all his patient attraction efforts while he gets to play and make a lot of money doing it.

– But it wasn’t always like that.

– I practically grew up in his practice, and I remember the lean months and difficult years.

– I remember him struggling with what offer or special to advertise each month.

– And I remember when that advertising didn’t pay off well enough.

– Dad really doesn’t have bad months anymore, much less bad years.

– He’s seeing fewer patients but with a higher average case value.

– He’s making more while working less, and I couldn’t be happier.

– Now, you might think that I’m cherry-picking a best-case scenario.

– But that kind of freedom is the rule rather than the exception for SmartBox dentists.

– We work with more than 550 dentists on 3 continents to help them get more and better patients.

– And do you know what one of the hardest things is to convince those dentists about?

– It’s to stop chasing new patients on price, specials, and discounts.

– That’s how dentists have gone after prospects for decades, and it’s become traditional dental marketing.

– But this is a new era for dentistry, and the old ways don’t work like they used to.

– Your prospects aren’t looking for a dentist in the newspaper.

– 90 percent of dental prospects begin their search for a dentist online.

– And the online environment doesn’t play by the same rules as traditional dental marketing.

– For one thing, your prospects have access to an unbelievable amount of information about dental practices in your market.

– For another, there’s no guarantee that your practice will even come up in local search.

– It takes considerable knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to make that happen.

– And SEO is constantly evolving, so if dentists want to handle that themselves, they have to stay abreast of the changes.

– But part of ranking well in search is the quality of the content on your website, in your blog, and in your social media posts.

– Google has rules for what it considers great content, and the truth is that the best content wins.

– You can’t just throw up a website and expect it to work for you, although a lot of dentists still do that.

– You’re also competing with dentists in your market with paid online ads, so you need a thorough knowledge of search engine management techniques.

– And you need time to manage your pay-per-click campaigns.

– What I’ve discussed barely scratches the surface of everything that goes into attracting new patients online.

– Are you beginning to get a sense of why I believe dentists shouldn’t do their own marketing?

– They didn’t go to dental school to become marketers – they spent those 4 years and a ton of money to learn to solve patients’ dental problems.

– Dentists who do their own marketing are amateurs going up against professionals.

– Tho[...]