Relationship-Focused Dental Marketing

Archive for the ‘Referral Marketing’ Category

Each week, we’ll feature a 2 minute snippet / excerpt from Rita Zamora’s recent podcast interview “Social Media & Referral Marketing for Dentists” conducted by JB Brathwaite of DentistsSOS.com.

Featured 2 Minute Snippet: How has Social Media Changed Marketing for the Dental Practice?

Listen to the 45 minute podcast:

Gone are the days of treating consumers like targets. Businesses are beginning to realize that it’s better to build trust first and sell second.  So, what does this mean for traditional dental marketing?

The most important thing to consider is the commodity of dental care available on the market today. It’s become easy to replicate digital x-rays, a modern reception room, flexible hours or cool staff uniforms—what’s impossible to replicate is your genuine self. Showing a bit of your personality can go a long way in building trust and relationships. The added bonus is you’ll give patients something easy to remember (and fun to talk about) when they refer to you.

Dr S. and Stella:)

Some of the most successful dentists I know have learned it’s okay to share a bit of their personality with patients. They may love dogs, fishing, golf, music, travel, volunteering, etc.  Whatever their passion, they confidently show a part of their authentic self. This in turn comes across to patients as genuine, real and trustworthy.

What better way to easily connect with someone than through shared interests? For example, over 3 billion dollars are expected to be spent on pet services in the United States alone this year––we Americans love our pets.  The love of dogs is just one example of a personal interest you might share with your patients.

Beep Beep!

Share your personality, interests, and authentic self with patients via newsletter tidbits, Facebook posts or tweets … weave it into your marketing communication.  Allow your truly unique traits to shine through.  By doing so, you’ll likely attract more ideal patients.  Remember, patients that find you genuine and personable are more apt to quickly build trust with you––which in turn affects case acceptance and referrals.

What does your marketing communication say about you?

How much value do you derive from a referral?  If you’ve long dismissed relationship marketing, you may want to reconsider.  A few major shifts have occurred, creating the perfect recipe for referral and relationship marketing to deliver higher returns than ever before.

The first shift is how consumers are dissecting information.  A quote from a recent New York Times article entitled The End of Newspapers said, “Young people judge the validity of information by the network of friends which passed it on, rather than by which media outlet broadcast it.”  The power of relationships has always been strong, but who knew it would reach the strength to dissolve the power of traditional media.

The second shift is Facebook now surpassing Google to become the most visited website in the U.S.  Hitwise, a web analytics firm, also reported the market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185% in 2010 from the same week in 2009. Google also grew, but only 9%. While most of us aren’t yet using Facebook as a search tool, it’s time to pause and consider if that is one of Facebook’s future goals …

The third (potential) shift is that Facebook may in fact surpass Google as a search tool.  Facebook has aggressively enhanced their search technology.  In fact, a recent post from a Facebook representative was entitled, “Delivering More Search Results as You Type”.  This move will essentially facilitate word of mouth among “friends” even more.  An excerpt of that post is shown below:

“Now as you’re typing in a query in the search bar, you will instantaneously see results not only of the people, events, groups and Pages you’re connected with but also the connections of your friends and globally relevant results.”

What this means is that if your patient is a fan of your practice and one of their Facebook friends types in a search for ie:  “Dentist” or “Orthodontist” they are likely to see your page as one of the top search results.

The ROR or return on relationships has become a more powerful force than ever before.  Expect the return you get from loyal fans, who are happy to share you with their network of friends, to become even more valuable.

What are you currently doing to increase your ROR (return on relationships) with your patients?

Your Facebook success is a reflection of how much you talk about it. It’s important to note that Facebook is not a “build it and they will come” marketing tactic—social media marketing is more like a garden that requires continuous nurturing.

With that said, the number of fans you get, and the testimonials and comments you receive on your Facebook page are often a direct result of invitations and promotion done within the dental practice …

One doctor recently said, “Asking patients to become my Facebook fan is just as hard as asking for referrals”.  (Over the years, asking for referrals is one of the most common roadblocks I hear practitioners and teams complain about).

Once the shiny newness of having a Facebook page wears off, it’s time to consider how you can keep the momentum going.  Here are a few tips to help boost your Facebook participation.

1. Will the doctor invite patients to join your Facebook community, or will it be another team member? Whoever is talking to patients about Facebook should be intimate with your page, and the page’s activity.  Discuss this with your team in advance and decide who is best to handle this.
2. Plan what to say when you talk about Facebook. I’m a fan of scripts. Many years ago, I resisted scripts and thought they’d make you sound like a robot.  However with personalization, scripts can be customized to your authentic voice and they can prove invaluable.
3. Determine what you want the “purpose” of your page to be. Will you put root canal videos in your patient’s newsfeeds every week? Or will you be sharing fun news about you and your team, such as the photos of your recent team outing.  When you feel good about your posts, it’s a lot easier to invite patients to join you.

An additional benefit of a Facebook page is to use it as a barometer to show how well you are promoting the page offline (talking about it with patients in your office).  If your page has no recent activity and the fan base is flat, chances are you need to step up the conversation in your practice.  Now, if only there were a tool to determine how often doctors and teams were inviting patients to refer as well: )

Every day I’m getting more and more invitations to join Facebook pages. People are jumping on board like the salmon’s rush … Will Facebook become the replacement for the yellow pages—or will it be more like email?

If it begins to seem more like email, you’ll want to remember how easy it was to get people to share their email with you. Now, patients (like all of us), are more leery about giving out their email address. People wonder if they’ll begin receiving emails from you every day or every week. Our email boxes have become inundated with virtual junk mail. Will patients wonder if they’ll get too much “junk mail” via your Facebook page as well? The answer is likely “yes”.

At the end of the day, it’s not whether Facebook will be more like yellow pages or email. What will matter is what people find when they land on your page. It will be less about the “dental information” you post, and more about how your practice personality translates online.

Most importantly, it’s you, your team, and your relationships with patients that will determine the success or failure of your social marketing efforts.

How can you begin planning today to make sure people will fan your page? (and if they fan you that they won’t hide you). First and foremost, make your page a reflection of your practice personality. Let your relationship skills spill over into your Facebook page.

Be cognizant of the amount you post and be highly cognizant of what you say in your posts.  Ensure your page is a long-term success by focusing on patients in a social way, not just a “here’s-some-dental-news” way. Remember relationships first and the benefits will follow!

Without successful word of mouth strategies in place, social media marketing will fail.  This is the third of my 2010 dental marketing predictions.  Social marketing is not a “build it and they will come” tactic …

For example, a traditional magazine ad required you to build your ad, write the check to pay for it, and perhaps sit and wait for it to work.  Social media marketing requires ongoing effort—sort of like maintaining a yard.  You’ll always need to tend to it or it will die.

Practices well versed in referral marketing strategies, those who understand what it takes to make traditional word of mouth succeed, will likely find social media a remarkable opportunity. On the other hand, those practices looking for fast fixes, immediate floods of new patients or those who practice off-and-on “when we have time” marketing will be quickly disappointed in social media.

It’s happening already.  Check out Facebook, and you’ll find dozens of abandoned dental practice pages.  Pages were created, and for whatever reason were left ignored.  Most commonly I hear, “We just don’t have time”, “We don’t know what to say”, “It didn’t work”, etc.  Here are a few successful word of mouth marketing elements to keep in mind with social media:

• Communicate well and be responsive.
• Be personable (yet you don’t have to get personal).
• Be yourself, authenticity is in.
• Make one specific person in your office responsible for regularly maintaining and monitoring your efforts (it helps if they are people oriented, motivated—and for social media, have good web 2.0 skills).
• Be patient.

Social media marketing efforts will build results for the long term.  As with referral and word of mouth marketing, focus on building quality relationships and communities first—the benefits will follow.

What are your thoughts?

Read the first of my five 2010 Dental Marketing Predictions, just released by my friends at DentalPlanet. Prediction #1 is “Relationship Marketing Will Dominate Traditional Marketing” …

Changing consumer behavior, the Internet and social media will continue to fuel a major shift in the direction of marketing and advertising. The internet will continue to squeeze out phonebook ads and newspaper subscriptions.  Television commercials will continue to be skipped—a result of the growing proliferation of DVR’s … and Pepsi is ending 23-years of super bowl ads, while shifting the budget to new media.

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs, etc. will continue to capture the attention of your patients.  Add to this the fact that today, 6% of consumers say they believe marketers’ ad claims … which means 94% don’t (source: Forrester).

Read more, see what others think about the predictions, and enter to win cool Prize Packages, including BestBuy gift cards, Free Website, $500 off Equipment, Intraoral Camera, A Curing Light, a copy of my ebook “Referral Marketing How-To System For Dentists”  & more at DentalPlanet.com.

Join us!  We’re partnering up with Korey Korfiatis at DDSBrand to present a Social Media & Referral Marketing Seminar for Dentists …

Many dental practices are finding themselves pondering the question, “Can social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter and web video truly help me attract new patients and grow referrals?” “Is it all just a trend? or is new media truly being consumed more than traditional media?”

Learn about this and much more.  Rita will present with Korey on one day only, Friday, February 26, 2010 in lovely Seattle (The Meydenbauer Center, Bellevue, WA).  Register at DDSBrand.  We look forward to seeing you!

At the 2009 ADA meeting in Hawaii,  Kevin Henry, managing editor of Dental Economics and Dentistry IQ blogger, and Rita Zamora discuss word of mouth referral marketing …

Key points are:

1)  The stronger your referral flows are, the better your return on all marketing investments.

2)  Increase referrals via quality patient relations and communication  (consistent contact with patients more than twice per year).

3)  If you don’t already have a referral system for your dental practice, now is a great time to start.

Among other marketing concerns I commonly hear from dentists is, “We don’t have time for social marketing”.   Well, as Ivan Misner said in a recent Entrepreneur.com blog post, “Word-of-mouth marketing is always working, it just may not be working in your favor”.

When it comes to word-of-mouth on the web, staying in touch with your online reputation and participating in conversations is more important than ever.

Remember social marketing is amplified word-of-mouth, good or bad.  It pays to participate–or at minimum have someone help you to monitor/manage it.