The 10 Minute Dental Marketing Podcast

13 Ways Dentists Can Attract Patients Who Pay, Stay, And Refer

This is the audio version of the blog post at: 13 Ways Dentists Can Attract Patients Who Pay, Stay, And Refer
 

20 Ways to Increase Dental Case Acceptance Rate

10 Ways to Increase Dental Case Acceptance Rate
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.” – Henry Ford
To read this blog post, visit: 20 Simple Ways for Increasing Dental Case Acceptance Rate.
Dental visits have been decreasing for years nationwide. In 2014, 52.3% of people said they visited the dentist every 6 months while more than 1 in 5 said they haven’t visited the dentist in the last few years. There’s still plenty you can do within your practice to increase the rate that patients accept their treatment plan.
One: Optimize Treatment Presentations
Treatment presentations are important in getting the patient to accept their treatment plan. If you won’t be presenting the treatment plan, it’s your job to ensure that whoever is presenting the treatment plan is good at it. Monitor their style, wording, and personality. How are the patients responding to the presentation?
You have to be intentional about building rapport and trust in a short period of time. Patients need to visualize the impact that the treatment will have on their smile and their teeth at the end of the treatment.
Be sure you or your staff cover all the important points:1.    Procedure details2.    Benefits of treatment3.    Length of treatment4.    Cost of treatment5.    Payment options
Two: Relate to the Patient
Your presentation can be ineffective if you don’t put in an effort to relate to the patient. They could view you as just another physician who doesn’t really care about their well-being and is just trying to get as much out of them as possible. You want them to see you as a friend with dental experience. Hear out their objectives and find a non-patronizing way to address them.
Patients who feel that they’ve been heard are more likely to trust you. Many people are looking for a reason to say no, be sure they don’t!
Three: Get Your Team Involved
The dynamics of dental offices have changed in the recent years with nearly 1 million dental personnel employed in 2012. That’s nearly a six fold increase since 1950! The personnel in your practice can have a huge impact on whether or not patients accept treatment. Train all of your employees to promote a caring environment where people feel safe and welcome. Make sure everyone is extremely friendly, personable, and proud of the work you do.
Four: Schedule the Appointment
Many practices can get a patient to accept the treatment plan, but lose them in the scheduling process. Be sure that the patient accepts the plan and schedules the appointment in the office. Don’t let them go home and think over the reasons why they shouldn’t go with the treatment plan. Follow up calls never have the same impact as the initial treatment presentation.
Make sure the patient schedules the appointment the same day they accept the treatment. If they’re adamant about thinking it over, make sure someone from your front desk calls and checks in with them in 24 hours.
Five: Make Your Reminders Personal
Nearly 80% of cellphone users use text messaging and 31% of people prefer text to phone calls. Text messaging and email appointment notifications are very convenient for patient, but can also be easily ignored which can reduce appointment attendance. If increasing patient acceptance rate is your main goal, don’t rely solely on technology and the less personable approaches.
Don’t make text and email the default communication of choice for all patients, but do make it an option.
Six: Help Patients Value Their Appointment Time
Use verbiage to help them value their appointment time. Whether it’s the person calling to book the appointment or calling to remind them about a previously booked appointment, make sure that the patient values their appointment time. Use reminders like “Please be sure to notify us in advance if you’re unable to make your scheduled appointment as the doctor has many other patients who could benefit from that appointment time,” and “Please let us know if you’ll be late to the appointment as the doctor has an appointment right after yours.”
This form of communication puts it in the patient’s head that your office isn’t waiting on standby for them to show up at their convenience. You can either make them more serious about keeping the appointment or let them know they can cancel it in advance so that you can fill that slot with someone else.
Seven: Set an End of Day Protocol
Following up with patients who have unscheduled treatment is a great way to increase acceptance rate. Instead of relying on text messages and emails, set up an end of day protocol to reach out to these patients.
Add something like, “Make 5 phone calls to people who have unscheduled treatments” to your staff’s list of things to do at the end of the day so that you can be sure they’re actively working towards increasing acceptance rate.
Be sure to keep a schedule of when patients were contacted so that you can be sure that multiple staff members aren’t contacting the same patient on the same day.
Eight: Postponing Treatment
Today’s generation has better dental health, but less dental visits. This can also cause them to be uninformed about what happens when certain dental problems go untreated. They may not be aware of the serious dental health issues or that they could lose a tooth for not visiting the dentist.
When your staff calls up patients with unscheduled treatments, be sure they bring up all the potential risks from not getting their dental health taken care of right away. This typically encourages patients to call back and schedule their treatment.
Nine: Offer a Variety of Payment Options
In 2014, nearly 20% of people said they were unsure or definitely didn’t plan to visit the dentist in the next 12 months. The number one cause? Cost.
Just because someone pulls up to your practice in a BMW doesn’t mean they don’t want to see financing options. Studies have shown that having outside financing options available increases dental visits by 62% and case acceptance rate by 282%. You can offer special discounts and payment options to encourage payment to say yes. Around 40% of patients don’t have dental insurance, so anything you can do to make the payment options flexible will help.
Ten: Learn from Your Rejections
No matter what you do to improve your patient acceptance rate, you can’t win them all. Whenever a patient rejects a case, try to learn what caused them to back away. If you’re comfortable with the patient, ask them why they did not move forward with the treatment plan.
Dig into hard numbers and keep track of any changes in your dental case acceptance rate over time. If you see any major increases or decreases, it’s time to assess what you’re doing right or wrong.
 
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How Should Dentists Respond to Online Reviews

How Should You Respond to Online Reviews?
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Wishing is not enough we must do.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Having a presence on Google, Yelp, and Facebook is important, but can also be stressful if you receive negative reviews. Some people give great reviews and some people require you to go the extra mile just to get an okay review. We know from studies that people are trusting online reviews as much as the recommendation of a friend. It’s important to get out there and proactively manage your reviews. Make sure you’re also on some of the lesser-known sites such as Healthgrades, RateMDs, Vitals, and RealSelf.
The first step to managing your reviews is knowing where they’re posted. It’s important to know where your reviews live and what sites you’re being reviewed on so that you can manage them. You can also monitor your reviews through Google Alerts. Set these up and they’ll alert you whenever your business name is mentioned online.
How to Respond to Positive Reviews
Follow these steps to respond to positive reviews in a professional and effective manner:1.    Thank the patient2.    Keep your response brief and professional3.    Don’t discuss any personal information4.    Don’t offer a free service as a thank you5.    Don’t ask anything of the reviewer6.    Don’t defend yourself from a minor criticism (this will make you look petty)
Keep these steps in mind when responding to reviews and you can be confident that you’re handling them correctly. People care about their bodies and absolutely care about who will take care of them, which is why they read reviews in the first place. Responding to positive reviews using the above steps will help others understand the level of professionalism that your business brings to the table.
How to Respond to Negative Reviews
Follow these steps to respond to negative reviews in a professional and effective manner:1.    Never respond when you’re angry2.    Don’t discuss anything specific3.    Don’t respond at length or post multiple replies (this draws attention to the post)4.    Don’t respond at all to troll or spam comments
Be sure to report any spam or troll comments to the website administrator. These will generally be reviewed and will be removed if they’re found to be false or spam.
When setting up your business on different review sites, follow these steps:1.    Use a real photo of yourself (it humanizes you)2.    Use the criticism that you get as ways that you can improve your practice3.    Try to get patients who leave negative feedback back into your office so that you can resolve the issue. Take ownership and take care of them.4.    Let your patients know how they can review you online5.    Personally thank patients offline for leaving positive reviews6.    Share positive reviews on your website and social media7.    Follow the guidelines for responding or requesting reviews. Yelp has really strict guidelines where Google does not. Be sure you’re on top of these guidelines.
Managing your online reputation is incredibly important given how much people tend to trust online reviews.
If you’re interested in getting more reviews, learning about mistakes you can’t afford to be making when it comes to your reviews, and learning more about the most effective strategy in getting positive reviews; be sure to pick up our free report on review management.
If you need assistance with managing your online reputation, be sure to contact us today so we can see if we're a good fit for each other.
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How Can Dentists Improve Their Google Local Presence

How Can Dentists Improve Their Google Local Presence
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Imagine your life is perfect in every respect, what would it look like?” – Brian Tracy
Google Local, Google Maps, and Google My Business are the search results that show up in the form of a small map whenever you search for a place on Google. Improving your presence on that map is great since most people are drawn to those results due to the different look and placement of them on the search results page.
How Google Determines Who is Displayed in These Results
1. Prominence
Prominence refers to how well your office is known in the community and online. Sometimes you see places that have a small internet presence, but rank well on these results. Part of the reason for this is Google takes a lot of different factors into account, including how prominent that business is in the real world.
Another determining factor in prominence is links that are coming to your website. When Google looks at these links they’re taking into consideration both the amount of links to your site, who is linking to your site, and the quality of those links.
Your rank in the organic search results (the search results below the map) can sometimes correlate with a good local map listing result.
2. Distance
This is how Google determines the local map positions. If you’re searching for a dentist in Phoenix, Google is going to look in Phoenix first. Typically, Google will look closer to where the searcher’s IP address is. If you’re a dentist in Scottsdale (outside of Phoenix), then you probably wouldn’t show up for a search term using Phoenix. If there was only one dentist in Phoenix, then you’d probably show up in that even though you weren’t in that city. For the vast majority of dentists, you need to be in the vicinity of where they’re searching.
3. Relevance
Google will try to understand your practice, who you are, and what you do. If you’re a doctor that does a lot of cosmetics and Google sees that on your site, in your Google My Business listing, and in the different descriptions associated with your business, then the chances of you showing up for cosmetic queries are much higher than if you didn’t mention it.
How to Improve Your Google Map & Google Local Listings
1. Share Your Business Listing with Your Patients
Let your patients know that you’re on Google+ and other platforms and that they should follow you. When Google sees that people are following you and engaging with you, it’s considered a good sign.
2. Create Raving Fans
Have patients that are going to go out and be your advocate, people that are going to spread the good news about your brand. Make sure that they’re aware of any referral programs you have, they’re leaving reviews, and that they’re talking about you whenever they can. This can help other people choose your business over anyone else.
3. Manage Your Reviews
It’s important to get reviews, but it’s also important to respond to those reviews. Listen to Episode 84 where we talked about building an amazing online reputation. Responding to reviews that you get that are less than stellar shows patients that you care about everyone’s experience and that you take feedback to improve your practice.
4. Keep Information Consistent
This is important as far as your business name and phone number are concerned. If Google is scanning the web for your business and the phone number, website, and address are inconsistent across the different sites that you’re listed on, that’s a bad sign in Google’s mind. They’ll forego your listing for one that they can be confident is accurate and correct. When your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all platforms, you’ll be able to show up higher in the search results because Google will be more confident that the information they’re providing to the searcher is accurate.
5. Be Visual
Share photos! Many people are extremely visual learners and like to receive content visually more than in words. If you share photos on your Google My Business page and are continually updating them, this will show Google that you’re active and are engaging. People will enjoy it and it’ll improve your results. If Google sees a business that looks great, but doesn’t engage with their followers – they’ll go with the business that looks great and does engage with their followers.
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101 Ways to Grow Your Dental Practice

In this episode, Tyson talks about 101 Creative Dental Marketing Ideas to Attract New Patients
 

21 Healthcare Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Practice

To read this blog post, visit: 31 Dental Marketing Strategies To Get More New Patients
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency if you enjoyed this podcast!

7 Ways to Compete As A High End Dental Practice

This is the audio version of the blog post at: 7 Ways to Compete As A High-End Dental Practice
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency if you enjoyed this podcast!

10 Types of Dental SEO Companies to Avoid

In this episode, Tyson talks about the 10 Types of Dental SEO Companies to Avoid
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @TitanWebAgency if you enjoyed this podcast! 

Developing and Improving Your Marketing, Part IV

Developing & Improving Your Marketing, Part IV
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.” - Joseph Barbara Many people might think that social media doesn’t work for them or doesn’t generate customers for them, which isn’t the right attitude to have. If you’re just posting in an attempt to sell, sell, sell and get people to buy your products, or your posts are bland and boring, or you post once and then don’t post again for months, it’s no surprise that your social media marketing isn’t successful.
Talk To Your Audience
Be sure that you’re talking to your audience, not just selling to them. Think about what you’d like to see if you were searching for a local dentist. Maybe you’d like to see a virtual tour, or you’d like to see how welcoming the office was, or how goofy the dentist was. In a previous episode, we talked about developing your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). If you’re able to develop that USP and implement it on social media, your marketing campaign will be successful. It’s not because of the marketing medium itself; it’s because of how you’re doing it.
Choose Your Platforms
This depends on where most of your patients are. Generally, Facebook is one of the best platforms to be on. However, if you spend some time thinking about it, you might find that your patients pay attention to or are more responsive to different types of social media. For example, if you’re a dentist in Silicon Valley, maybe it’d be more beneficial for you to use LinkedIn as your number one platform. Positioning yourself where your potential or ideal patients are, creating content, being seen as an authority, and getting your USP out there are what’s going to get you patients.
Be Consistent
Make sure that you stick to your social media marketing for at least 6 months, ideally a year, just to see what you’re getting from it. You need to be consistently updating and consistently providing value. Value is extremely important in social media marketing. Don’t just put out statuses that say “Read our new blog post”, no one is going to want to read that and no one finds value in that. Give them a reason to click on that link.
Recruit Your Staff
A great way to do this is to recruit your staff into your marketing efforts. Have your staff tag your office and talk about some of the great stuff that you accomplish in your practice. Have them talk about their favorite patients or procedures (but always make sure this is done in a HIPAA compliant fashion). This will build up your presence a lot more if you have a team of people helping you do it.
Address Issues & Complaints
Patients might go to social media to complain or talk about an issue that they had at your practice and it’s important that you’re active on social media so that you can address these complaints. If you’re not on social media, you’d miss the opportunity to address the issue. If a lot of people are watching your page and your content and you decide to chew out the customer, people will see that. Alternatively, if you respond with empathy and do your best to take care of the patient, people will also see that and it’ll make you look good.
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Developing and Improving Your Marketing, Part III

Developing & Improving Your Marketing, Part III
What was discussed?
Quote of the day: “Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.” – Nelson Mandela Last episode, we spoke about creating relevant content that speaks to your audience. After creating content, you’ll want to start focusing on building links for on-page SEO.
What is a link?
You’ve probably read many sites that have highlighted blue text that takes you to another page when you click on it. The highlighted blue part is called a hyperlink and the website that the link went to received a “backlink” to the original site you were reading. When this happens, Google will notice. If a ton of sites are linking to a certain site, Google will include that in their search result calculations.
Why are links to your site important?
If you’re able to get links to your website that are relevant to your industry, geographically relevant to you, and are authoritative, you’ll be improving your online presence. For example, if you’re a member of your local Chamber of Commerce and they link to you, that’s relevant. If you had something happen in your local community and stepped into help and then CNN or a local news site linked to your site, that helps! When sites with established authority start linking to you, it helps your site establish authority, especially with Google. Keep reading for some more ways to increase the number of links to your site.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to build links with other reputable websites as it increases authority and helps you to be seen. Increasing authority will help you to increase your search rankings.
Claim Your Local Search Listings
Make sure that you’re listed on sites like Yelp, CitySearch, Bing, and HealthGrades. When you claim these search listings, be sure that all of the information is current, consistent, and correct. You want to make sure that Google sees that you’re on all of these different sites and the information is the same across the board. Most of these sites will allow you to leave a link to your main website, which is a great way to gain interested visitors.
Participate in Local Community Events
Getting involved in your community is a great way to get local businesses to link to your site. Try heading to the local library and offering to hold a workshop, sponsor a Little League team, get involved with local volunteering organizations. These are all great ways to get local communities to link to your site. For more information on this, check out this article by Dentistry iQ.
Optimize for Local Search
Be sure that you’re optimized for local search as it’s probably what’s going to matter most for local businesses and customers in the area. When optimizing for local search, make sure you utilize location-specific keywords. An example would be “dentist in Las Vegas, Nevada” and you’d include this in different parts of your website like your title, heading, content, URL, or any other spots on your site that are relevant. Be sure that your Google My Business account is set up properly and that you’ve claimed your listing (or have created your listing). Once you’ve done that, make sure that the information is current and correct. Make sure that the name of the practice is correct as well as Google sometimes messes up the listings, especially for dentists.
Compelling Offer
Every marketing strategy should have a compelling offer to get people in the door. If you’re a dentist, a great offer might be free X-Rays, teeth whitening, etc. for first time patients. For others, coupons off of services, iPad drawings, 50% of products for new patients, etc. Be sure that you’re tracking these offers and that your numbers are accurate. If you don’t track your offers, you won’t be able to tell what’s working and what’s not working.
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