We interview NPI Consultant, Lee Buzard, about his honest, no-nonsense approach to marketing dental practices. Lee has over 20 years of experience in dental marketing, including purchasing and owning multiple dental practices. He has walked in the same dental office ownership trenches that many of his clients have. He truly understands when dentists ask, "what should I do?"

Podcast Highlights:

• Dentist's most commonly asked questions
• Assets and liabilities
• Why throwing more money at a problem will not make it go away
• What goes into calculating a 100% customized marketing plan
• The importance of brutal honesty
• Asking the hard questions of your practice
• What can you expect from an advisor?
• Promoting in the right mediums
• Dentist to patient ratio

What makes a good video? That depends on what you're using it for, where it's at, and what type of video you are using. In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we go into the best practices of dental marketing videos.

Podcast Highlights:

• The three types of video
• The importance of a script
• The makeup person
• Proper clothing for the camera
• How many videos is too many?
• How long should your video be?
• The meet the doctor/team video is the most viewed
• Building trust
• What NOT to do with your eyes
• The traditional video
• Where to place videos
• Reception room video best practices
• What makes good narration?
• Website video best practices
• Leveraging social media
• Animated video best practices
• Benefits of animated video
• Under-utilized mediums
• Videos for customers, not for dentists!

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss marketable attributes that you may be overlooking. These attributes not only make you stand out from the crowd, but are also features that your potential new patients care about.

Podcast Highlights

• Being the family dentist in town
• Hobbies
• The big "about the dentist" mistake that most dentists make
• Should you REALLY advertise your continuing education (CE)?
• Being human
• Lectures, teaching, published works
• Being the teacher vs. the student
• Doctor street cred
• Location, location, location
• Creating familiarity
• Charity work
• Military service
• The alphabet behind your name -- should you put it there?
• Your meet the dentist page
• Testimonials and being a hometown dentist
• Utilizing social media to display these attributes

Emergencies! While some doctors do not like them, there are many reasons they should. We discuss in this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery.

Podcast Highlights:

• The macroeconomics of dentistry before and after 2008
• Cosmetic dentistry
• The drop in routine care
• The onslaught of emergencies due to missed care
• Why emergencies don't have to mess up your schedule
• How to make yourself available for emergencies
  • Internally
  • On your website
  • Emails
  • Texts
  • Reception room
  • The right dentists and operatives
  • Social media
  • Online scheduling

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss how to help your marketing firm help you.

Podcast Highlights:

• Clients that have stayed with a company for years – what do they have in common
• Responsiveness
• Avoiding the waiting game
• Agreeing that the big picture involves a career-long proposal, not a one or two year proposal
• Doing multiple things correctly
• How the days of no website, minimal properties online and offline, and still get patients… are over!
• Websites
• Reviews
• Call Management
• Being honest in your own office and staff failures
• Knowing the responsibilities of the firm and the responsibilities of your office
• Being a good client
• What works vs. What looks "good"

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, Howie and Mark explain offers, copywriting, features vs. benefits, and creating digestible advertising for your potential new patients.

Podcast Highlights:

• Are you overly concerned about your offer?
• The different offers you make based on the demographics you are targeting
• How do people REALLY choose a dentist?
• Using patient-friendly language
• Copy is for people, not for you!
• Understanding features vs. benefits
• The flaw behind "We have CEREC"
• How to advertise your technology
• "We can take care of this today"
• Convenience
• How to advertise your new gizmos
• Understanding the difference between dentist benefits and patient benefits
• Marketable attributes
• Writing easily digestible content

What is the lifecycle of marketing a practice? Why do you often see competing dental practices side by side on the same street? In this episode, Mark and Howie explain all of this and more.

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmarketingmasterycommunity/ 

• The importance of a wide-area analysis
• The ratio of potential patients to doctors every practice should seek
• Risk and dental marketing
• Different practice ownership scenarios
• Why do you see dozens of practices side by side?
• The correct budget allocation for a new practice
• How long to run your practice on this budget
• Call tracking and call management
• Staff training
• Applying budget properly

Who are you, or rather, how is your practice perceived? In this podcast, we highlight how you can affect this perception through your marketing and other efforts.

• The person at the grocery store
• Why people don't want to go the dentist in the first place
• Views depend on demographics
• The 50/50 split
• The deals trap
• "The cheap dentist in town"
• Corporate dentistry's effect on you
• Why "what should the offer be?" is NOT the question you want to ask
• The expenses of rebranding
• The right mix of messaging
• How to promote multiple services and avoid the niche trap
• Using your website effectively

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we run through an example marketing plan we did for a multi-specialty practice.

Podcast Highlights

• Setting the marketing foundation
• Specialists
• Dealing with a capacity increase
• Getting this practice to the "next level"
• Magazines for a specialized audience
• Hitting the top 20% of the market
• Trifolds, Magazines, and multi-niche advertising
• Setting up online scheduling and review management
• Setting up lead capture and appointment capture
• How to promote both the practice AND its niches
• Marketing as a specialist

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we answer a few questions we received and give a special announcement.

Podcast Highlights:

We just attended the "Get it Done Weekend" and it was great! It is a great place for dentists to get all of their requirements done in one day.

How Do I Defend Against Illegitimate Reviews?

• Practice Management and Marketing
• What the web surfer sees
• Who leaves illegitimate reviews?
• The amount of positive reviews it takes to counterbalance these bad reviews
• How to get more reviews
• How do you respond to bad reviews?

Is All Mail Dead?

• No way!
• Statistics on mail
• Are you using clipper? A value pack?
• The difference between good mail and bad mail (hint: It's price incentives)
• Which mail mediums are out?
• The bell curve when some mail mediums become ineffective
• What's the ROI on good mail?

How Often Should I Email Patients? I Don't Want to be a Spammer!

• Separating what is promotional vs. what is internal
• Newsletters vs. confirmations or recalls
• The magic number is 4
• Saying as much as you can
• Promoting one thing at a time
• Your mail formula for the next 2 years
• Effective landing page use
• NPI Concierge

Announcement: The ADA

• We will be at the ADA!
• October 19-23
• Atlanta, Georgia
• We have a surprise for you!

We take you through the decision-making process that a potential new customer will go through before they finally book an appointment with your practice.

Free Marketing Plan from New Patients Inc.: https://goo.gl/9YVCbM 

Podcast Highlights:

• How reviews and reputation management affect online AND offline performance
• Googling pizza as an exercise
• The psychology behind clicking on search results
• Avoiding the "train wreck" companies
• How consumers JUSTIFY the dentist they choose
• What a 2.8 star rating means vs. a 4.8 star rating
• Offline advertising
• The 5.0: good or bad?
• The decision-making process behind websites
• Converting website visitors to phone calls
• The important of convenience and online scheduling
• Why 20% of phone calls are missed... and how to prevent it
• How to take away borders from decision making
• How to get a 7pm Sunday Evening caller turned into a patient
• The impact of software on your website

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss the importance of combining your online and offline marketing efforts.

Podcast Highlights:

• The problem with putting all of your eggs into one basket
• Offline advertising's effect on your online properties
• Over-allocating budget to a specific service you provide
• The expiration date on using PPC only
• Avoiding the "niche trap"
• Taking advantage of decreased competition in offline media
• Reallocating budget to drive more family patients
• Proper ad rotation strategies

How many patients are you losing? How do you know? How do you keep them? We answer all of these questions in our podcast.

Podcast Highlights:

• Promoting conveniences and technologies
• "If your offer is your best foot forward, you have no feet!"
• How to measure New Patients vs. Overdue Patients
• How to see if your practice is trending up or down
• How to stop losing patients
• Are you pre-appointing too many people?
• How to sort patients
• How to reward reliable patients
• How to create reliable patients
• Closing the back door with scheduling conveniences
• How to not create your own mess

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we interview the CEO of LocalMed®, Keith English. We discuss why real time online scheduling is becoming the “hot new marketing tool” in dentistry, and why you and the team should embrace it without fear.

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss three more commitments every dentist can make to improve their practice.

Understand ROI

• What is exponential ROI?
• The problem with measuring in only 30 day increments
• Tracking first year production
• Projecting ROI
• The problem with measuring first line responders
• Secondary and tertiary responders

Keeping the Back Door Closed

• The pitfalls of being a new patient junkie
• Keeping existing patients
• Practice Analysis Worksheet: email josh@newpatientsinc.com to receive it

Commit to Capacity

• The number of days that a patient will wait to see you
• How to reduce patient no shows
• Asking yourself, "If a new patient called today, what's the earliest I could see him or her?"

How do you best ask your patients for referrals? How do you reward them, and how do you create incentives to do so?

Podcast Highlights

• The importance of internal promotions
• Avoiding the state board
• Types of relationships
• Transactional Relationships
• Social relationships
• "Predictably Irrational"
• Why you don't give your mother in law $300 for cooking dinner
• Making patient relationships social
• Receiving a gift when expected vs. when it's unexpected
• Incentives
• When is the best time to offer incentives?
• The two halves of the dental market
• Transactional customers vs. social customers

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 josh@newpatientsinc.com, 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