Dental Marketing | Minoa Marketing

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6 Questions to Analyze Your Dental Practice Website

by Naomi Cooper August 6, 2014

According to Google, 97% of all consumers search for local businesses online. It’s important for dental practice owners to make sure their website is easily found when local patients are researching the practice online.

The dental practice website can be a powerful marketing tool; however it cannot be a static one. That is, the practice website needs to be constantly evolving along with the world of online marketing. Keeping up with the latest online marketing trends will ensure that the website keeps your practice at the top of the search engine listings.

I recently came across a very helpful article from the marketing experts at MarketingProfs, titled “Is Your Website Dead or Just Sleeping?”. In the article they outline 6 important elements to energize your website. Here is a quick summary:

1. Is it usable? – A website needs to be easy for users, and search engines, to navigate.

2. Is it responsive? – Traditional website design does not always function properly when viewed on smartphones and tablets. Make sure your website incorporates responsive design so that all patients see the best version of your website, regardless of the device they are using.

3. Is it focused? – Your website should be more about giving your patients the information they are looking for, and less about flashy design. Streamlining your website will actually make it more usable and can decrease load times.

4. Is it sociable? – A great dental practice website is engaging to patients. Pictures and video of the dentists and staff help welcome new patients into the practice. And linking the website to social media profiles and online review sites make it easy for patients to share your content and get a full, rounded picture of the practice.

5. Is it direct? – You should have a clear call to action all across your website, along with having your phone number and email address easy to find. Make it easy for patients to get in touch with you.

6. Is it fast? – People are impatient these days. In fact, 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Work with your website design team to streamline your website.

If it has been a few years since your website was designed, it may be well worth it to contact your web designer to see if any improvements could be made. How important do you feel your website is to the success of your dental practice?

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The Power of Talking to Strangers

by Naomi Cooper July 23, 2014

As children, we are taught to never to talk to strangers. Our parents weren’t trying to isolate us or make us antisocial; it was merely seen as a reasonable precaution taken to keep kids safe. Fast forward twenty or thirty years, and an unintended consequence of the “stranger danger” mantra is that grown adults often find it difficult and uncomfortable — even scary — to talk to people we don’t know.

Whether we’d prefer to be distracted by our mobile devices or are simply too shy to make the first move, talking to strangers elicits severe anxiety in many adults. I recently came across an interesting article about this very topic that profiles Danny Harris, a writer and creative director living in Washington DC who made a commitment to talking to one stranger every day, a practice he continued for over three years!

Actually, talking to strangers can be a great way to build the dental team’s confidence, practice verbal skills and even spark word of mouth for your dental practice. What’s more, it’s completely free.

The conversations don’t have to be long or involved, and you don’t have to whip out your business card at the end. Instead, try casually mentioning what you do for a living (and asking the other person about him/herself) in the natural course of any chance encounter, be it at the veterinarian’s office, standing in line at the coffee shop or waiting for an elevator.

Now imagine if you were able to start a casual conversation like this with 3 strangers every day for 30 days. That’s 90 new connections you could make in just one month! Let’s take it a step further – what if your entire team committed to this “3 strangers a day for 30 days” plan? Imagine the number of members of your local community who would have the chance to have a positive association with, and possibly even get to know a little bit more about your dental practice — all because of a few quick, friendly conversations?

Check out this Ted Talks at http://youtu.be/fv9Loq-yNWI and try talking to a stranger today. You never know — it could yield big results for your practice, and possibly even transform your life!

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Google’s Newest Tool for Dentists

by Naomi Cooper July 15, 2014

Google has introduced a new feature for business owners: Google My Business. You may have noticed a change with your existing Google Places profile. This new tool is meant to replace Google Places, and should make it much easier for local businesses to be found on Google.

Did you know that Google creates a profile for almost every business? It’s true, and even if you have never logged on to a Google platform, chances are good that there is an existing business listing for your dental practice. If you haven’t already, you need to create a Google account and claim the existing listing. Populate the listing with photos of the practice, current practice contact information, and hours of operation. This way, when patients are researching your practice online, they will be able to easily find your practice and all the necessary information they are looking for.

If you’ve previously claimed your Google Places listing, there’s not much you need to do with the new Google My Business. You’ll notice a new layout to the profile page. Simply make sure all the information is updated and correct.

For more details on the new tool, here is an overview from Google. Have you already noticed the new profile? What do you think of Google’s latest update?

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What Dentists Must Know Before Spending Another Marketing Dollar

by Naomi Cooper June 9, 2014

Some dentists think of marketing as though it is a magical faucet. They believe they should be able to implement a new tactic, snap their fingers and get magically get 100 new patients through the front door. The truth is that marketing is a real faucet, and the laws of physics apply in that you have to exert a force upon the faucet to start the flow. Three forces in particular will turn on the new patient flow, and they are three of your most valuable and limited resources: time, money & energy.

Before spending your precious time, money and energy on generating new patient flow through new external marketing campaigns, take a look at your existing new patient flow. What happens to the prospective new patients who are already coming out of the proverbial marketing faucet by contacting the office by phone or email? Do you have a nice solid bucket under that faucet catching every drop? Or does it look more like a sieve, resulting in missed opportunities to capture new patients?

If there are missed opportunities, then you have what I like to call holes in the bucket. These are issues such as:

Scheduling issues, such as new patients not typically scheduled within 1-3 business days
Not knowing how many prospective new patient callers you already get each month  
Front desk turning away new patients because of insurance or cost concerns       
A lack of comprehensive treatment planning and case presentation skills      
The hygienist not co-diagnosing       
The patient coordinator failing to schedule recommended treatment
Lack of existing patient follow-up for both recall and reactivation

Maybe you are already getting enough new patient calls, but you have challenges that are preventing you from turning your new patients into patients of record. If any of the above is the case, you may not need to spend as much time, money and energy on external marketing as you think – rather, work on correcting these outstanding issues and get solid internal processes in place so that when you are ready to turn on the new patient flow faucet, you’ll be ready to catch every last drop.

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Twitter for Dentists: Update Your Profile Now!

by Naomi Cooper April 30, 2014

If you regularly use Twitter for your dental practice, you may have noticed the remarkable changes to your profile page. Twitter has been rolling out an update to user profiles, with an emphasis made on visual content. They’ve made images a huge focus of the new profile page, reflecting the current trend of visual content across the Internet. If you haven’t yet signed up for Twitter, now is as good of a time as any to jump in! Keep your profile looking its best by updating the following:

Profile & Header Photos: They have made the profile photo larger. This is the image that appears in the feed next to your tweet. The header photo is also now more prominent, spanning across the width of the page.

For dentists, the Profile & Header photos are terrific branding opportunities. If you have an icon feature within your logo, that works great for the profile photo. Twitter has made it easier than ever to upload an image for the profile by automatically resizing any image to fit within the parameters. As far as the header photo, the practice name often works best but whatever you choose, make sure to keep it consistent with your existing branding. They recommend keeping the size to 1500×500 and a maximum size of 5MB. If you are unable to resize on your own, your graphic designer (who designed your logo) should be able to assist you.

Practice Info: The changes also include a shift in the placement of the location, website address and bio. This information used to be at the top, within the old header, which often made it hard to read. It has now been moved to the left side of the page, under the profile photo. Be sure to completely fill out this information, including the brief bio section where you can describe your practice in 160 characters or less.

Pinning Your Tweets: Users can now “pin” their favorite tweets to the top of the page. So if you have a previous tweet that garnered multiple retweets, or maybe a patient tweeted a positive comment about your practice, you can now highlight these individual tweets so that they appear at the top of your page, making it easy for users to see when viewing your profile.

Overall the information is more organized, with the ability to pin top tweets as well as having all photos and images easily accessible. Some users like the new layout; others aren’t as criticizing it for its strong similarities to Facebook pages.

What do you think? Have you updated your dental practice profile to the new layout?

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5 Steps to a Modern Dental Marketing Plan

by Naomi Cooper April 16, 2014

Recent data suggests that Americans are becoming increasingly reliant on the Internet when making purchasing decisions, and that includes finding a dentist.

There are countless ways of updating your dental marketing plan with modern tactics, and it can understandably be overwhelming when trying to figure out where to start. Don’t worry – you don’t have to do everything all at once. Incremental steps can make it easier to implement while keeping your budget in check.

Here are 5 ways to an increasingly modern dental marketing plan:

Updating your practice website – Your website = the foundation of your online strategy.
Playing the SEO game – Increase your online visibility by making sure your website appears at or near the top of search engine results.
Building social media profiles – Connect with your patients online by engaging on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and/or YouTube.
Gathering patient testimonials – Ensure that potential patients get a positive first impression when they are researching your practice online.
Blogging – Share the latest practice news and address frequently asked questions in order to stay in touch with patients year-round.

Taking the initiative now to update your marketing will keep you ahead of your competition as well as saving you from playing catch up later on.

Don’t forget – you don’t have to do this all on your own. Dental industry experts like Sesame Communcations and My Social Practice can help guide you in the right direction. And especially when it comes to website design and SEO, outsourcing is often your best bet. Updates to the search engine algorithms are frequent and can be confusing. Leave it to the professionals and get back to focusing on your main responsibility – your patients!

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