The Dental Marketer

Are you reaching the right audience or casting your patient net too wide?In this episode of the Ground Marketing Series, we unravel the secrets behind targeting the perfect patient audience to boost the success of your marketing strategies. We dive deep into the art of identifying and defining your ideal patient personas by analyzing demographic and behavioral data. By honing in on specific patient groups, you'll uncover the psychological and behavioral dynamics that drive patient decisions, enabling you to make smarter, data-driven marketing moves.We’ll walk you through practical methods to analyze your existing patient base and research local demographics, crafting marketing strategies that meet your patients where they are. Learn how to naturally engage your target audience in places they frequent, utilizing pre-visit strategies, impactful initial interactions, and persistent follow-ups. To cap it all off, discover the power of forming local partnerships and nurturing community relationships for long-term success. Embarking on this detailed guide, you'll be equipped to create a strategic ground marketing plan that resonates with your ideal patients, laying the groundwork for sustainable growth.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Crafting a detailed profile of your ideal patient persona.Utilizing demographic and behavioral data for marketing plans.Targeting patient groups using psychological and behavioral insights.Analyzing current patient data and local demographic trends.Engaging with patients in their natural gathering spots.Developing a systematic and structured approach to ground marketing.Building robust local partnerships within the community.Tune in to discover how to transform your practice's marketing strategy with precision and insight!‍‍Learn More About the Ground Marketing Course Here:Website: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/‍You can reach out to Michael here:Email: michael@thedentalmarketer.site‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Podcast Episodes:313: Dr. Tyler Brady | How to Use "Influencer Marketing" to Attract New Patients & Grow Your Practice FAST! – The Dental Marketer PodcastBusinesses/Brands:
Invisalign
Amazon
CrossFit24 Hour Fitness
LA Fitness
HyattMarriottPeople:
Dr. Tyler Brady
Groups:Rotary Club
U.S. Chamber of CommerceData Collection:U.S. Census DataFacebook Groups‍For more helpful tips, strategies, ideas, and marketing advice, join my weekly newsletter here.The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Alright, we're going to be discussing identifying your target. Now, this is huge how to pinpoint and approach your ideal patients through ground marketing. So right now, if you're thinking, man, I hear this all the time, I need to find my target audience. I need to know my ideal patients. Maybe sometimes you're thinking like, I just want any patient, but no, you gotta get specific here. Niche down. And you do have an ideal patient in your mind, right? Maybe you're an existing practice in your favorite patients. Those are your ideal patients. If you don't have a practice yet and you're in the opening startup phase Who you've worked with in the past as an associate and your favorite patients, whoever they were, those are ideal patients, right? Obviously it's going to evolve within time. You're going to get more niched down and more specific, which is going to be perfect. Because you're going to be able to target that audience. So why targeting matters in ground marketing. So ground marketing is not about reaching the most people. It's about reaching the right people without precise targeting. Efforts are wasted on audiences who are unlikely to convert into loyal patients. So identifying your ideal patients ensures. That your marketing is efficient, high converting and relationship driven. That's, what's going to be most important, right? You want it to be efficient. Obviously you want it to convert as high as possible, but relationship driven these offers or these other things, they can be easily broken, right? you can cut ties quickly. But once that relationship thickens and thickens more, it's harder to cut because it's a relationship. And that's what you want. You want these ideal patients, all of them to be relationship driven, unlike digital marketing, where you can segment audiences with online analytics, ground marketing relies on behavioral. Demographic and psychological factors to pinpoint ideal patient groups. And in previous episode, we discuss the psychology behind it. Brown marketing. Now the science behind patient behavior and decision making, if we understand how people make healthcare decisions, it's going to help us tailor our approach. So I want to give you some key psychological factors that drive patient choices. And these are things you need to keep in mind whenever you're out ground marketing, or just in general, whenever you're doing any type of marketing. Okay. It's four things, And number one, this is a huge one, proximity and convenience. People providers within a 10 to 15 minute radius from home or work. So a solution for this. Is you want to focus on high foot traffic areas near your practice, grocery stores, schools, gyms, coffee shops, anything in that area, in that radius, you want to focus on and there's a, module in the ground marketing course under the existing patient analysis. The EPA module or the EPA unit, we discussed this in depth. We dive a lot deeper on the exact radius you should be looking at for your practice. that's number one, proximity and convenience is trust and social proof. So patients choose providers recommended by friends, family, or familiar community figures, right?  The solution for this would be leveraged word of mouth referrals and local partnerships to build credibility. So your favorite patients right now, the ones who talk you up, make sure they are consistently talking you up, but you want to turn them into ambassadors who can turn other potential patients into ambassadors. You want to keep this going. That's going to be social proof and you want to build trust as well. That builds a lot of trust. As we know, that's the strongest form of marketing, which is referrals, word of mouth. So that's what you want to do. You want to leverage word of mouth referrals and local partnerships to build your credibility. That's two trust and social proof. Three is immediate need versus preventative mindset. Now, some patients seek urgent solutions maybe they have tooth pain, emergencies right, things like that. Then others prioritize long term dental health, so Invisalign, cosmetic work, etc. Your solution for this is segment patients based on need and customize your approach accordingly. If you're going for emergency patients, That's what we're going to start targeting. Emergency locations, clinics, urgent cares, specific locations. If you're looking for long term, preventative, think of cosmetic, right? Or full mouth reconstruction or something else. Misalign, implants. That's where you want to start targeting. Start thinking of where that demographic probably would be. That coupled with trust and social proof and then proximity and convenience. Now we're targeting, right? We're niching down. And finally is financial concerns and insurance acceptance. So many patients choose a practice based on insurance coverage or affordability. This is not new to you. You know this. You get a call maybe a couple times a day saying, Does my insurance cover this? many patients choose a practice based on that. So the solution is Highlight flexible payment options and insurance acceptance in your marketing, and we're going to dive deeper into this. And in the ground marketing course, there's a whole section on this, on how to verbalize or enhance your vocabulary. So. You know how to respond when people ask questions like, do you accept my insurance or how much does this cost? And so forth. So identify which psychological driver fits each audience and tailor your messaging accordingly. Okay. So little do you know right now, your marketing message is tailored to a specific target audience. Is it the target audience that you want? Based on these four things, number one, remember proximity and convenience to trust and social proof three immediate need versus preventative mindset and for financial concerns and insurance and acceptance based on those four things, who do you think your marketing messaging is targeting right now? so we're going to niche down if it's the right people, perfect. We're going to continue to do that. If it's not, we need to adjust. And make sure you want to niche down to your ideal patients, who you want to continue to see forever, if you could. So now that we got that down, number one, the science behind patient behavior and decision making. We understand how the patients are going to be making decisions. Now we want to define your ideal patient persona. So a patient persona is a detailed profile of your target patient. You want to consider the demographics, behaviors, and pain points. So the steps to create an ideal patient persona, and here's where you probably want to take out your pen and paper write this down, right? And start analyzing and start defining your ideal patient persona. So step one, analyze your current patient base. Who are your most loyal and high value patients? Write that down. What age group, income level, and insurance plans do they have? Write that down. Group them. What common concerns bring them to your practice? Write that down. Okay. That's going to be huge. This is probably the biggest thing ever, because let's just say you have lot of patients, right? And you're writing it down, you're like, your most loyal and high value patients is let's say Bob and Barbara. I love them. What age group are they? Oh, they're ones in the thirties, ones in their fifties. Okay, income level. Oh, I see the income level is common. It's in the 100k to And they do have insurance too. They have PPOs. Okay, cool. Awesome. What common concerns bring them to your practice? Well, They both had initially, you know, pain or maybe they moved and then they wanted to see a new dentist. Or something, or they just had, concerns or they wanted cosmetic work done. Now you're starting to niche down, okay, where do they work? What income level? Where is their HOA? Or where do they live? And what type of apartments at the same time, wherever their hobbies are, what are they doing? Things like that, right? You're starting to live around their life. That's how you're analyzing your current patient base. Once you live around their life, they go to these grocery stores, they go here, they go here. Now we're starting to niche down. Let's focus on those locations to ground market too. So step one, most important step, analyze your current patient base.  Step two, you want to research your local demographics. You can use your U. S. census data, city planning sites, or my favorite is local Facebook groups to gather insights. Just go to the Facebook group in your community. There's probably five or more. And then they even niche down on that. There's mom groups, there's athletic ones, there's ones who love recipes and stuff like that. And just in your community, niche down on that and be a part of those Facebook groups, and you're able to gain some insights on that. What are people talking about? Even if you just type in the search bar, dentist. You're able to gain a lot of insight on that. What's their concerns? What are they looking for? And things like that. And then you want to identify major age groups, household incomes, education levels, and common employment types. Always do that. Every single one of your patients, you should be able to know where they work at what type of obviously insurance they provide, but at the same time, what I recommend and in the course, we recommend this all the time. And we teach you, we give you the scripts on exactly what you should say and how to do this. So that you can get into these patients who let's just say, Oh my God, you work at the Amazon fulfillment center. It's a corporation of 000 employees or a hundred employees. And you would love to have them as your patients because their insurance is great. Yeah, we give you the script on how to ask that patient who's already a patient of yours, how you can dive deeper into their place of employment, who do you need to contact, things like that in order to go inside of the corporation become one of their main providers. So you definitely want to be asking these questions to all your existing patients already, but at the same time, this is something you want to sit down and start identifying yourself, the age groups, household incomes of your ideal patients, the education levels, common employment types, things like that. So that's step two, research local demographics. And the way you can do that is by going to Facebook groups, but us census data and city planning sites are good to Facebook groups, you're able to get a little bit more insight, casual conversations, which is what's on their mind at that time.  And identify a lot of the insights that you're trying to get. So step three would be identify their pain points and decision making triggers. And this is where the Facebook groups come in pretty handy. You can see the insights. You can see what people are saying, but do they struggle with dental anxiety, busy schedules, cost concerns? Are they parents seeking pediatric care? Are they young professionals considering Invisalign? Look into this. Okay. So you want to do three things on step number two, which is number one, analyze your current patient base, who are your most loyal and high value patients, age group, income level. Step two, research local demographics. U. S. Census data, local Facebook groups, right? Three, identify their pain points and decision making triggers. Remember, we discussed what four decision making triggers are. So identify them. Identify their pain points. What are they? And then we niche down. An example of this is right here. And if you're listening to this on the podcast, great, wonderful. But when you can, look at the video version of it because this is where I'm showing you right now the examples of the patient persona. So let's just say persona number one, the busy parent, which is ideal for pediatric and family dentistry. Their ages is 30 to 45. Their lifestyle is full time working parent and their kids are aged from four to 12 pain points would be lack of time and concerned about their children's health, their dental health. So your marketing approach is this. You want to offer a convenient evening or weekend appointments partner with local daycares and schools for easy referrals. And provide family discounts, if you would like, or bundled appointments. Okay. That would be how that would look if you're dealing with a busy parent. Persona number two, the aesthetic driven young professional. They would be ideal for a cosmetic or ortho services. This is a young professional. there between the ages of 25 to 40, their lifestyle, their career oriented, active on social media, and willing to invest in appearance, their pain points. Is they want straight white teeth, but they fear high costs. So your marketing approach would be you offer interest free financing and small makeovers. Just offer the interest free rate financing, offer something bundled up. That's beautiful. A lot of the times we like to show them the big ticket price and say, Hey, this is all the discounts we're giving you. You don't need to do all that. You can just say, you're going to get this at the monthly rate. That's it. you're being efficient with your time, short, sweet, to the point brevity. And at the same time, it's appreciated by them. They're like, Oh man, I can do that. That's as much as like a gym membership or a CrossFit membership. You want to partner with gyms, salons, or coffee shops where they frequent. And you want to provide a before and after transformation and influencer collaborations. And in the course we discuss on how you can do that and influencer collaborations. And in the podcast, we discussed that if you want to type in the search bar on our website the dental marketer. org, you can type in Tyler Brady, he discusses quite a bit on how to do influencer marketing and collaborations. But that's what you want to do. You want to provide before and after transformations big time. one thing I recommend is you want to create two to three personas and align your outreach strategies accordingly. So your ideal patient doesn't mean it has to be one specific persona and one specific ideal patient and that's it. You can have multiple. and I challenge you to have three ideal patients. So one could be the busy parent, the other one can be the aesthetic driven young professional, and then the other one can be like The retired senior who is living it up in the community center, right? And you can go from there. So that's going to be step number two. So to recap, step number one is the science behind patient behavior and decision making. Two is defining your ideal patient persona, which we just did. Three is now locating and approaching your ideal patients. once you've identified your ideal audience, the next step is finding where they gather and crafting their perfect approach. You want to craft your perfect approach. So where to find different patient groups in your community. Now you can make a list and put top left patient type in the middle, where to find them and then on the right best approach. if you want, you can look at my, screen and I have that right here. So the patient type is parent with young kids. You can find them in schools, daycares, pediatrician offices, kids, sports events, ice cream shops specific gyms, just for children, like jamboree and things like that, et cetera. And your best approach could be, you can offer a free comprehensive exam. You can offer something as like a free consultation. You can have signup sheets for parents. You can offer, Hey, come in your first visit a tour for free, right? You can create an event just for the parents to tour everything, do something amazing for the children. That would be your best approach. Patient type. Young professionals, where to find them, gyms, coworking spaces, networking events, coffee shops. You want to go to specific events. If you're looking at the chamber of commerce on the calendar, you can see specific events that people are a part of your community throws specific things for them. A lot of apartment complexes, humongous apartment complexes, throw events every single month for people like a wine and cheese type of thing or anything like that. You can be a part of that. And honestly, your best approach is promoting teeth whitening. That has been incredible. Promoting teeth whitening, or if you want Invisalign specials as well.  Patient type, seniors and retirees. You want to go to community centers, senior health centers things like that. And you want to offer specific things, right? Mainly what we've seen is they have a lot of questions specifically. About not just insurance, but what's covered, what's not, they will have insurance questions.  And so we will dive much deeper, maybe multiple episodes on seniors it's an incredible patient base we forget sometimes that, they're the ones who are learning the quickest, the internet, and they're using it the most. And at the same time, they are excited to receive emails and so much more. So if you're at senior events, senior centers, and things like that, independent living facilities, all you really have to do at those. When you're speaking to them, if you're doing like a booth and a luncheon or anything like that, it's just answer questions and they will sign up and they will be a part of it and they will get their families to go to, so you can do free oral health workshops at these facilities. You can do implant consultations and things like that. But I'd go with, just wanting to answer questions and then you can. Understand the feel of the group and be like, okay, this is what they want. We're going to offer that, or maybe they don't want anything. They just need work done. And then you want someone to finally answer their questions. So anyways, we're going to dive deeper on seniors and later episode, emergency patients, right? You want to go to urgent cares, clinics, pain management centers. That's where you can find them and then provide specific emergency things, right? You want to partner with pharmacists, let them know, talk to them, partner with urgent cares, partner with hospitals, small clinics, things like that. Give them specific flyers if you want on the services and how you're available, what you can do, things like that. And then patient type corporate employees. You want to do HR departments, lunch and learn sessions, offices, offer insurance maximization workshops. You want to dumb it down to them, literally to where you can explain it to a third grader. That's how you want to look at it. And then you want them to be able to explain it to an actual third grader. That way, you know, that they understand the more you can educate them like that, the better, especially with corporate employees, because they have a ton of work. They're doing a lot and they just want, Hey, did I maximize it? Did I do everything I could? At the same time, I know a lot of members in the course, they do have onsite dental screenings, or they actually will go to these corporations and work on them. They have these mobile units that they can just go and do cleanings there. That is huge and helps them out a lot. And the companies absolutely love that because more time there is better for the corporation than, you know, less time out and about. Scheduling and then having be out, So if you can offer that, that's awesome. like I said, we dive deeper into that as well in the course. Now, you want to strategically choose locations where patients already gather rather than trying to bring them to you. Okay? So if they're already there, strategically choose that location. I'll give you an example. There's a pretty big hotel. Let's just give a name, right? Let us say the Hyatt or Marriott or something like that. Right. And they have quite a bit of employees and instead of you trying to go after, Oh, Hey, me go just for the front office. Hey, let me go for the maintenance, signatures, housekeeping. They actually have team meetings early in the morning, monthly team meetings. And believe it or not, they will allow you to come in, set up your booth and have speaking time. that meeting with everyone watching you. And so that's your time, And that is a good example of you're choosing a location that offers insurance, that offers good benefits to their employees and things like that. And. You're choosing locations where patients are already gathered, rather than you're trying to bring them to you individually and just handing out your flyers, you're being strategic, right? And then one of the last is number four, creating a targeted ground marketing approach plan. So now that you know who you're targeting and where to find them, let's just say it's the mother, right? With the kids or it's the young professional. Now you know where to find them. You need a systematized approach. Okay. So there is a pre visit strategy. You want to establish credibility first, right? You can either do that by connecting on LinkedIn or local business networks before showing up. That's why sometimes I do recommend joining the chamber of commerce or the rotary club, but it's not necessary in the course. We teach you how to, be a part of the chamber of commerce and other events without actually joining the chamber of commerce. So you don't have to pay that fee, it does help. if you are. Because you're able to be a part of specific networking events. Now that's one thing you can do. You can also send an email or letter of introduction of your practice before visiting businesses. This works sometimes. I have yet to do this, but I added this in here in this episode because I know some of the members do it. For specific corporations and it's helped out tremendously. So go ahead and do that if you like. I know it's specific corporations. we actually in the course we give you the template. We give you the whole script on what to say in the email and then boom, you can just put your name and send it. But like I said can do that or can find a common contact who can introduce you, right? Mutual connections. That is the best thing. That is what I normally do find a common contact, mutual connections, and that equals trust, right? You call the location. Hey, one of your patients just came into our practice and, you know, I had a couple of questions and. They are like Cause you're calling the HR department. Is everything okay? What, What happened with that person? Oh, no, they're just saying how much they love it there. They love you. And we love them as a patient as well. And I was just wondering, is there any way we can kind of, offer more specific benefits and special offers for the employees there? mean, We love you guys. We love employees that you have. And boom, you're able to get in there, right? And offer more. But that is because you have a common contact who can introduce you. Technically, the person didn't even introduce you. You just have a common contact. And that's what I utilize. I'm just like, hey, you work at this location? Perfect. Is it okay if I call the HR department or, you know what I mean? And let them know. And nine times out of ten, the patient who's already an existing patient will tell you sure, you can go ahead. I mean, I have nothing to do with it. And then just go ahead and call. And then you're able to get in. So perfect. That's a pre visit strategy, right? And then the perfect first interaction you want to approach without being salesy. So that's A. A is the pre visit strategy. B is the perfect first interaction. You want to keep it casual and conversational, not sales pitchy. I can't express to you how important this is. Keeping it casual, Almost like you're talking to a friend. Not overly casual, but casual in the sense of you're now walking in there with everything in your hand and you're not on the phone call. like you're reading something from a script, although you might be reading something from a script. You just want to keep it casual, offer something of value up front, And then use social proof. You know, We worked with other businesses and we've helped their employees and patients. We would love to support your team too.  You can use social proof in the sense of, you know what, every month we partner with a fitness facility. And this month we would love to partner with you guys. We saw incredible results for our patients the employees or the clients or the members in. 24 hour fitness. And we really wanted to partner up with LA fitness now, because that's just been a request and you have something every month that we can be a part of? boom, they're going to say, yeah, we do. We have something that you can be a part of. Wonderful. How does this work? And then you can continue with them. Never start with. And this is a humongous pro tip and you hear this all the time and you've probably done this, I've done this So never start with, Hey, we'd love it if you send referrals our way. So you're going in, dropping off flyers to the perfect location that you want your ideal patient to come from. And you're like, hi, I'm the new dentist down the street. We'd love it if you send referrals our way. That does nothing. Maybe one in a million times it might get you a referral here and there, but that's it, just know as you're the person who's asking for something. So start by offering something first. And then see follow up system. I cannot tell you how important following up is. And I discussed this in the previous episode. I mentioned this is probably where you either gain or lose the most potential patients, new potential patients. Most people won't book immediately. They need reminders and touch points. So you want to immediately follow up same day, send a personalized message, thanking them for their time. Everybody you meet at an event, you just dropped off something, you introduced yourself in the sense of you're going to go be a part of their event. You dropped off a signup sheet. just follow up immediately that same day. more than likely the person you spoke with is not one of your patients already and they can become your patient. Step two, you want to do a three day follow up, right? Provide a quick reminder about the offer, the benefits. And then you also want to follow up again with that. If they haven't booked, want to offer a limited incentive. month our free whining is ending, and I noticed there's only five more days left, or we have five free whining sessions left. We'd love to save one for you, things like that. Right. And we're going to dive so much deeper, multiple episodes on how to follow up specifically. But in the ground marketing course, I give you the breakdown, I give you the scripts. I give you templates, everything on exactly how to follow up, how many days you should wait, how many months, if so. And what to do and what to say in each of them, but remember 80 percent of conversions happen after five to seven touch points. So keep nurturing leads, always keep nurturing leads. So a final thoughts you want to have a targeted strategic ground marketing plan, That is the key to success. So a step by step summary for success. And in this episode is number one, you want to understand patient behavior, identify what drives decision making and we discussed that right. Convenience, cost trust, create clear patient personas, define who you want to attract, and then define their pain points. Get those two crystal clear. Three, locate the right places. Be where your target audience naturally gathers, but be there consistently. Don't just be there one time and that's it. Be there as much as you can for as long as you can. Locate the right places. Four, use a systematic approach. Have a pre visit strategy, an engaging first interaction. And a structured follow up. So when ground marketing is done strategically, it builds sustainable, high value patient pipelines without relying on expensive ads. Identifying your audience is the most critical step to making your efforts pay off. So that's what you want to do. First and foremost. Okay. So thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I hope it helps. I'm excited to see you continue to skyrocket on your ground marketing journey. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out You can email me, you can find me at Michael at the dental marketer dot site. That's the email. Or you can just go on the website, the dental marketer. org and fill out. One of those follow up forms, but the best way to reach out to me is if you are part of the ground marketing course, which I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes below, it's going to be the first link in the show notes below. I mean, We have live office hours like this. You're able to engage with me, talk with me. It's like a mastermind session. At the same time in there, you're able to see all the strategies, all the scripts, all the templates, all the workshops. You even see real life examples of me. I hide the camera or I'm on the phone. Doing these strategies and you're able to see it work in real time, exactly how it's supposed to be. so definitely join the ground marketing course. I'd love to see you in there. I'd love for you to be a part of it so you can start attracting new patients, but at the same time, become the go to practice in your community and build these incredible local partnerships And that's what we're going to be discussing in the next episode, building local partnerships that matter. So thank you so much. And I'll talk to you soon.

Could your Google Business Profile be the untapped goldmine your business is missing?Today we're unpacking the essentials of Google Business Profiles with renowned expert David Kaminski, who reveals strategies to elevate your practice's online presence without relying on traditional advertising. David reveals a wealth of practical tips that can help practices increase their visibility and attract more patients. From sharing timely updates and offers to utilizing high-intent search terms like "dental implants near me," this conversation is brimming with actionable insights tailored to help you maximize your Google Business Profile's potential.David emphasizes the necessity of consistent activity to remain prominent on Google Maps, explaining how regular engagement, such as geo-tagging photos and crafting time-sensitive promotions, can drive traffic. You’ll also get a sneak peek into David’s innovative automated software that streamlines these processes, allowing practices to effortlessly manage their profiles and spend more time focusing on growth. By the end of the episode, you’ll understand the power of a well-optimized Google Business Profile and feel empowered to take control of your digital footprint.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The secret to boosting growth via a Google Business Profile without paid ads.Key actions to maintain visibility and relevance on Google Maps.The effectiveness of using high-intent, transactional keywords.How geo-tagging images can enhance local customer attraction.Insights into leveraging limited-time offers to create urgency.The convenience of automating your Google Business Profile updates.Unlock the power of your Google Business Profile by tuning in to this episode!‍‍Guest: David KaminskiBusiness Name: Transactional DentalCheck out David's Media:‍Website: transactionaldental.comTransactional Dental Success Stories: transactionaldental.com/happy-dentists/Maps Signup (Coming Soon): transactionaldental.com/maps-signup‍Love the Podcast? Let Us Know How We're Doing on Apple Podcasts!‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Software/Tools:Google Business ProfileGeoImgr‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

Can simply showing up in your community drive a successful marketing strategy, or is there a deeper game in play?In this episode of the Ground Marketing Series, we're exploring the fundamental tools and strategies that translate presence into meaningful growth. Contrary to the notion that just "showing up" is enough, I'm uncovering the structured, systematic approaches crucial for relationship-building and impactful outreach. I'm sharing insights into the key psychological principles that form the backbone of effective marketing—such as the law of familiarity, reciprocity, social proof, commitment, and consistency—ensuring long-term success and a steady influx of new patients.The toolkits we dive into provide a roadmap to a seamless ground marketing campaign. From the Relationship Building Toolkit, packed with business partnership essentials, to the Mobile Marketing Toolkit, which equips your team with visually impactful portable branding and lead collection tools, every element is crafted to maximize engagement. Additionally, the Content and Messaging Toolkit empowers practices to maintain consistent and appealing communication. We'll also explore systemizing processes for scaling efficiently, highlighting strategies like automated follow-ups and comprehensive team training programs.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The role of psychological principles in building sustainable marketing strategies.Essential components of a Relationship Building Toolkit.How a Mobile Marketing Toolkit can amplify your outreach efforts.Key elements of effective content and messaging for dental practices.Techniques for systemizing and scaling your marketing campaigns.The benefits of automated follow-ups and consistent team training.Tune in now to discover the foundational pillars of ground marketing and your outreach efforts!‍‍Learn More About the Ground Marketing Course Here:Website: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Products:My Top Tools For Ground Marketing At EventsiPad‍Customer Relationship Managers:HubSpotPipedrive‍Communities:Dentaltown‍Businesses:Trader Joe's‍For more helpful tips, strategies, ideas, and marketing advice, join my weekly newsletter here.The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: All right, we're going to be discussing setting up for success, the ground marketing foundations.this is the essential tools and resources to get started. So now we're getting more tangible, right? The tools that you're going to need. Now, ground marketing is not just about showing up. It requires a structured strategy, the right tools and a systematized approach to maximize results.So throw everything out in case you thought I can just show up to a business and introduce myself and that's ground marketing. Nope, that is not ground marketing. You need a structured strategy. You need the right tools and you need a systematized approach to make sure you are effective. Now, I'm going to break down the fundamental components needed to set up a high performing ground marketing framework that ensures consistency, scalability, and long term success.Okay?Now remember, to start off, the thing you need to keep in mind is the core mindset. for ground marketing as a long term system. Now here's the thing. Many practices fail at ground marketing because they treat it as a one time promotional tactic instead of repeatable system, okay?The key to long term success is consistency, relationship building, and proper execution. Remember the psychological principles that will ensure this success. It's number one, the law of familiarity. People trust what they see repeatedly and ground marketing must be ongoing, not a one time event to the principle of reciprocity, give value first, and people will feel inclined to reciprocate.Three, the social proof effect. When people see others engaging with your brand, they assume it's reputable and worth their time. And for the commitment and consistency rule, small commitments. Increase the likelihood of larger commitments. So make sure you have those four psychological principles always in mind.Now they have to consistently see you. Ground marketing must be ongoing. And honestly, that's probably already what's going to separate you from all your other competitors, all the other practices, DSOs, prior practices in your area, especially if you're in a, saturated location, this alone, the law of familiarity will separate you if you're consistent.Here's a pro tip. Ground marketing must be a structured, trackable system, not random outreach. As soon as it starts feeling random, something is out of place. It has to be trackable and it has to be structured always. So that's why I say, throw that mindset away where you're like, I'm going to go out and ground market.We're in a busy shopping strip and there's a bunch of stuff. And I'm just going to go out there and hand out my cards and give donuts. And no, no, that's not trackable. That's not even a system. That's not structured. You're just going out there and in our treats I mean, You could do that if you want, and it might work here and there, but it's not a system.Build processes that are easy to follow and repeatable for your team. And that's what I'm going to give you right now. Okay? You're going to build a process that's easy to follow and it's repeatable for your team. And obviously, if you're in the ground marketing course, then you know how to do this and I provide you a template and everything like that.That's what you want to do. So number two for this episode is essential tools for ground marketing success. And here's the tools, right? A relationship building toolkit. This is going to be your toolkit to connecting with key community influencers. So to build strong partnerships, you need tools that help you establish report and credibility with local businesses, schools, mainly the school districts, Or the principals and specific organizations or corporations, HR services, things like that. human resources. The people who are in charge of logistics centers. If it's a warehouse, all these things, right? You're going to need number one, a business partnership kit, What can be involved in this kid is a, customized welcome packet, It's a practice intro letter. Maybe your specific business card, a small gift, testimonial sheets, that's in the welcome packet, customized. the second thing that it can have is a co branded flyer, and that can offer an exclusive discount for employees or the customers there, okay? It has to be an exclusive discount for them.And then three, it can be a sign up sheet for employees to schedule appointments directly at the workplace. it can be a glorified signup sheet, right? Just your practice name, the incentive you want to give and the name number, best time to reach you at, or text or call or whatever like that, right?Circle one. And that signup sheet is for the employees. That's going to guarantee you your second visit there. Although the co branded flyers will also guarantee you the second date too, as well. And what I mean by that is let's just say you're going to an apartment complex You're talking to the property management in the front. It might be like the manager, maybe you're talking to all three or four or ten of them, whoever, right? So you're going to give them a customized welcome packet, right? For their move ins. You're going to give them the sign up sheet for them. And then the flyers for the people there, right? Or at the event the apartment complexes have event all the time.So maybe you have flyers that you want to give out or welcome packets. You never want to give out a hundred of them. You never want to give out 50 of them, even if they have a thousand residents, a thousand employees, a thousand, whatever, just give out 10 for now, 15 for now. And then you're able to come back in a couple of days, or even come back in a month and say, Hey, we wanted to drop off some more flyers.Can I have some of your information as well? Right. Or, Hey, we want to drop off more flyers. Do you guys need more? What is the deal? And at the same time you can look at the signup sheet. So you have two reasons for this second date to see them again. It can either be the flyer like that, how I mentioned, or you can come back and pick up the actual signup sheet and, start calling people.that's always the best thing. You want to come back and pick up the signup sheet. But anyways, I digress, that's going to be in another episode. Business Partnership Kit. It should have a customized welcome packet, Your intro letter, business card, small gift and testimonial sheet, or if you want, right?Two is a co branded flyer offering exclusive discounts for the employees or the customers. If it's like a small amount of customers, right? For example, let's just say you're going to a Gymboree or a pediatric. Location. I don't know. Medical location specifically, like those customers never like to a customers, if you're going to a Trader Joe's or something like that, because that's not,their job is not to promote you. Their job is to do their job. And so that would be more for, if you're going to create a co branded flyer with an exclusive discount for the customer. And that would be more for a smaller location, like a pediatrician office, a Gymboree, a medical location, something specific, So a co branded flyer offering an exclusive discount for the employees primarily, and then a signup sheet for employees to schedule appointments directly at the workplace that's in your business Next thing is your networking and relationship log. This is huge.This I talk about, and I have a whole unit on this on the ground marketing course, but you want to track your interactions, track your followups and key contacts. This is simple guys. It's as simple as creating a Google sheet or having a CRM like HubSpot or PipeDrive to track. You want to track their contact name and business, the date of the initial outreach.Your follow up reminders and then notes on past conversations. There's never not enough information. You can put in there, put as much information on your notes, on the past conversations, your follow up reminders here is something I want to tell you. That's huge. the biggest mistake in ground marketing is failing to follow up.Relationships take multiple touch points before they yield results. I cannot tell you how many times people fail to follow up and that's the hole. That's the big hole. Where a lot of your effort will go to waste if you fail to follow up, meaning you're going out, you're dropping off sign up sheets. Maybe you forget a couple of people to pick up their sign up sheets, a couple businesses, you failed those businesses.Or maybe, a lot of the people in an event, They filled out their information and you're like, great, this is exciting. I'm going to call them, but then you get busy. You never do call them. You fail to follow up, or maybe you do call them, but then they say they're busy at the moment. And then if you can call them a little bit later, or you live a voicemail and you never call them again or reach out to them again, you fail to follow up.Following up is humongous in ground marketing and If you just follow the principle of being consistent, you're going to bring them all in, but you need to follow up. Okay, so make sure you have this networking and relationship log. You want to have their contact name and business, date of initial outreach, the follow up reminders on there, how often you want to follow up, and then notes on past conversations.Always have that on there. The more detailed, the better. Now, that's A, right? Your relationship building toolkit. You want to have those. Your business partnership kit, and that can be with your realtors, that can be with your, photographers, it can be with a lot of these, businesses that are like that.And then you want to have your networking and relationship log. Now B is your mobile marketing toolkit. Now this is what you hear a lot of people talk about, especially in Facebook groups, Dental Town, things like that. How to take your brand to the community. Now when engaging with the community, you need tools that make your brand stand out and create instant credibility.So you want to have a portable branding kit. And what I mean by that is have a branded table cover, right? For health fairs, schools, corporate visits lunch and learns just for the events. Have a branded table cover, a professional retractable banner with a clear call to action. Okay. Make sure it has a clear call to action.On what you want to do giveaway items, branded toothbrushes, floss, lip balm, mini hand sanitizers, mouthwash, things like that, right? Floss. You want to have giveaway items always with you ready portable teeth models for demonstrations, On brushing or just to make your booth look a little bit more exciting and always have memorized a quick 32nd pitch everywhere you go.and honestly, this was my quick 30 second pitch. So I'm going to just give it to you right here, right now. It was this simple. Hey, how's it going? Grab whatever you want. It's free. That's it. Was it even 30 seconds? It was like five seconds, right? Hey, how's it going?Grab whatever you want. It's free. And you just stay quiet. Now that was it when it came to booths and events and things like that. Any event, that's all I ever said. And once they came. And they did a little shopping. That's when I would start talking to them about their concerns, their needs, what we're doing, how we're partnering up with a specific location, what we got going on, the incentives and things like that.Think of a quick 32nd pitch always. Okay. That's your portable branding kit. Now your lead collection tools, how are you going to collect these leads? Now I would, and I still do have a signup sheet, just a regular signup sheet. At times I do use an iPad. I always want the ball in my court.So I would say either have a or you can have a QR code signup system. It makes it easy to capture emails and phone numbers. But me personally, I. Prefer to have a signup sheet where I'm actually writing your name and numbers down. Or an iPad where I'm actually writing your name and number down, but just on a digital form.And then the second thing you can have is raffle signup forms. People engage more if they get a chance to win something. And we're going to talk about that with events on another episode, but you're doing that, make sure everybody somehow wins something when you do a raffle. Okay? Because those are potential patients.Everyone is a potential patient to sign up, but you can have that raffle sign up. Right. And this is how you're collecting leads, names, and numbers. You're starting to get names and numbers now into your log, and you're going to start calling out to these people. Now, if you want, you can use QR codes linked to a special offer landing page to track how many people sign up from your ground marketing efforts.This is pretty trackable. Okay. So if they scan the QR code, then they're going to go to the landing page and now boom, you will see how many people at this event actually had interest, looked into the page. Maybe they didn't sign up. Maybe they did sign up and now you have even further details on who they were and stuff like that by using the QR code from this one specific event.So you can do that. Now those are going to be the two things, right? The A and B. Okay. Relationship Building Toolkit and then your Mobile Marketing Toolkit. Now the three things, C, is Content and Messaging Toolkit. So you want to pre frame your brand for trust and credibility. Your communication and marketing materials should be designed to quickly build trust and answer common objections.So have pre designed ground marketing flyers and handouts. Maybe have a general practice handout, an introduction to your office, services, and patient testimonials. Have specific service flyers. This helped a lot, especially at events. When I had one for Invisalign, there was some for dental implants.You can have some for sleep apnea treatment, things like that. Then have business partnership proposal flyers. Explain how partnering with your practice benefits local businesses. And that's all on you. How are you going to benefit them? Go into detail. Something, what we did and what you can talk about.Is once a month, we love to promote a specific, business. So if you want, you can just give us some of your information. We know you have your business cards locked up somewhere, just collecting dust. Why not give us a little bit of them and we will put them in our hygiene kits and we will talk you up and give it to our existing patients, right?Boom. That's more visibility for their business. And at the same time, once they give you a yes, let them know, Hey, would it be okay, we give you some of our information as well. During that month, they're going to see us the principle of reciprocity. Boom. So business partnership proposal flyer, you can steal that if you want, use it, but you can go deeper into that, or you can do something completely different.that is the pre designed ground marketing flyers and handouts. Then the second part of that would be customizable elevator pitch. Always have a 10 second hook, right? Hey, we help your children get the specific results they need with this unique approach, So always say we help a target audience get a specific result with a unique approach, and it doesn't have to be a super unique approach, but the way you word it has to sound unique.Okay. And then. You want to have a quick credibility statement. We've helped over 500 families in the area achieve better oral health. We've helped two thirds of our community, they love us, achieve a better smile, more confidence, right? And then just have a clear next step. You know, We're offering a free consultation.Would you like to schedule now? Actually, don't even ask them if you would like to schedule now. Just say, we're offering a free consultation. What's your name and number? I can get you in as soon as next week. Boom, And then continue that way. People trust and remember stories more than facts.So use patient success stories in your materials Okay. So remember, have a customizable elevator pitch, 10 second hook. We help a target audience get specific results with a unique approach. Then quick credibility statement. We've helped over 500 families in the area achieve better, whatever. And then a clear next step. If you want, we're offering a free consultation right now for the next 10 days. What's your name and number? I can get you in as soon as tomorrow. And boom, give them less time to think of an answer, but more give them the opportunity to give you an answer based on what their desire is and what they want immediately.when you do that, you can say like, Hey, I can get you in as soon as tomorrow. Does that work right now? They only have an option. Yes or no. Instead of like, Oh, let me look at my schedule for the next following 10 days. And Now that's the content and messaging toolkit. So I hope that helped out with the essential tools for ground market.That's what you're going to need. Okay. So real quick, essential tools for ground marketing. You're going to need your relationship building toolkit, which involves your business partnership kit and your network and relationship log. You're going to need your mobile marketing toolkit, which involves your portable branding kit.Your table cover, your table, even a chair, if you want professional retractable banners, your giveaway items, models, your pamphlets, things like that. Quick 30 second pitch. This is an event. And at the same time, I would say, add a, case that you can put everything in, I'm going to put a link And show notes below where I tell you what I use super simple stuff And it's like a case that has like wheels. You can just roll it almost like those bags you see in You know airports, but it's a lot bigger and it's a case where you can fit everything in there pretty easy You can just leave it in the trunk of your car So anyways, your mobile marketing toolkit it involves your portable branding kit and your lead collections tools And then see your content and messaging toolkit.And that involves your pre designed ground marketing flyers and handouts and your customizable elevator pitch. Now three is systemizing and scaling ground marketing efforts. So automating your follow ups for maximum conversions, most ground marketing leads don't convert immediately.A structured follow up system ensures high conversion rates. Meaning you go to an event, you get a hundred people signing up out of those hundred people. Maybe one third will come in pretty immediately. And then the other ones you're going to need to follow up and so forth, right? They're busy. Maybe they had something come up.It doesn't mean they're not interested. They're super interested. You just got to work with them. So immediate follow up same day. So send a personalized thank you message to new contacts, always right within the same day. And then within two to three days. Follow up, Hey, just checking in, send a text or email.Just wanted to check if you had any questions. We'd love to have you in for your free consultation. Remember, always have that sense of urgency. So you can say, Hey, just wanted to get you in before the month ends for that free consultation. So if you're ever offering anything for free, don't give it forever for free.Just say within this month, right? They know they have that time within this month, that it can run out. Now your month can run out in a week. If you're doing that event in a week from now, or it can run out in 30 days from now. But just make sure you say there's an urgency Then after that, if you still don't hear from them, follow up with them within seven days, right? Hey, we're offering the free teeth whining session for the next ten new patients. We'd love to get you in. It's coming down to the wire Just follow up with them if they haven't booked.And continue to follow up. and we're gonna have another episode on following up, but unless they tell you no, always continue to follow up. Don't put your feelings. Into their heart into their mind. Don't put your thoughts into their mind meaning Hey, I'm going to be bothering them.If I follow up too much. Hey, they're going to be mad at me. If I follow up too much. That's what you're thinking. They're busy. They're doing other things. They may want to do this immediately. And then boom, something else happens. And your follow up is a reminder. So do not do that. Cut that wire, cut that emotion, that connection.There's no connection there. Boom. Cut it out. You are relentless. Follow up right now. Be tactful when you follow up. Don't just continue to follow up. Every single day, all the time, but give us some space, give us some time, but some thought in your marketing messaging. And we're going to talk about that a couple episodes down the line on following up.Now that's how you want to do it with a systematizing, on your follow ups and then training your team for ground marketing success. Now, ground marketing is not a solo effort. Your team must be trained to execute consistently. So these things are super important role playing scripts for different scenarios, how to approach a local business, how to start a conversation at community events, and how to follow up out feeling salesy.Those are the three things you're going to role play all the time. I still role play. Okay. How to approach a local business, how to start a conversation at community events. How to follow up without feeling salesy, every single location, business, and so forth has a different script. And we're going to discuss those scenarios and those scripts and later episodes, but always role play.You want to train your team. And the second thing is assigned clear roles and responsibilities. Who is responsible for ground marketing, meaning they're responsible for initiating partnerships, tending events and fairs. Handling follow ups. Now we do have some members who split this up, meaning someone is responsible for building partnerships, pipelines, referrals.Someone is responsible for accumulating events, attending events and fairs. And then someone is responsible separate for handling follow ups. They're on the phones. They're doing all the follow ups because they're just ground marketing everywhere. there is people who do that. And obviously that's.The more focused on a specific thing, the better results. So that I've seen work incredible and I can't take credit for that. We have other team members and we have other members in the ground marketing course who initiated that and it works fantastic, but no harm, no foul. I did all this and you can have one person in charge of the ground marketing and they can do that, but just make sure you assign clear roles and responsibilities.Nothing should be lost. The best ground marketing teams practice scenarios weekly until responses feel natural. So the whole team should be practicing this. Everybody should be on the same page and at the same time they should also see, okay, this person's out ground marketing, they're building partnerships.The team should know where the ground marketer is at or what's happening as far as events and health fairs. Now if it's a huge event and health fair, obviously more team members are going to be involved. More people will know. Assign clear roles and responsibilities. Alright, so hopefully we understand that and coming to an end here on the episode.So by combining the right mindset, the right tools, and execution plan, ground marketing becomes a powerful engine for predictable patient growth. So in summary, you want to develop the right mindset, right? Remember, ground marketing is a system, not a one time effort. You want to equip yourself with the right tools, have your relationship building kits, branding materials, and lead collection tools.Document everything too. Okay. Three, systemize outreach and follow up. So you want to track your interactions, automate follow ups, and leverage relationship building psychology, Use reciprocity, use consistency, use scarcity, urgency, things like that. Four, train your team to execute consistently.Ground marketing thrives when everyone follows a structured approach. So train them to do that. Ground marketing is one of the most effective, powerful strategies for long term patient growth. with the right foundation, Your practice can become the go to provider in your community without relying on expensive ads anymore.So go ahead and do this, make sure you got this locked and loaded and ready. And then in the next episode, we're going to be discussing identifying your target audience. Remember the more focused you are with crowd marketing, the better. So we're going to discuss how you can focus and zone in on your target audience.Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you want more information, the scripts, scenarios, templates want to see real live action, me actually doing this and so much more be part of the community of ground marketers, then you can do so by joining the ground marketing course. You can either Google it, the ground marketing course, or you can go in the show notes below, click the first link in the show notes below, see what everyone's saying and join the ground marketing course.And if you do, I'm excited to see you in there. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in and we'll talk to you in the next episode.

Hiring and practice management can be tricky for independent practices...So today we've brought on Dr. Sarah Blair, a renowned dental consultant whose experiences and insights offer a masterclass in dental practice management. From her early days at Ohio State University to owning a practice of her own, Sarah's story is filled with real-world lessons. She shares how her experiences at two contrasting Milwaukee practices shaped her understanding of effective dental management. One was meticulously systems-focused, while the other embraced a laid-back, blue-collar approach—both offering valuable insights into the nuances of practice operations and the pivotal role of management.Fast forward to 2020, Sarah made the bold decision to pivot from practice owner to consultant. With the co-founding of Indie Practices in 2018, she and her team have been on a mission to deliver tailored, cost-effective coaching that resonates with practice owners. Through this episode, Sarah candidly discusses essential strategies for successful hiring, onboarding, and accountability. Clear communication, well-drafted job descriptions, and intentional onboarding are her cornerstones. By implementing these strategies, Sarah argues, practice owners can enhance team efficiency and reduce stress, fostering a harmonious work environment.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The impact of diverse practice experiences on management style.How to craft effective job descriptions and onboarding processes.Strategies for hiring and maintaining team accountability.The role of communication in preventing common managerial issues.Benefits of regular feedback and one-on-one sessions with team members.How to align team activities with your practice’s mission and values.Resources and tools from Indie Practices to streamline operations.The long-term benefits of a structured management approach.Tune in now to hear Dr. Sarah Blair's tips on hiring and practice management in your indie practice!‍‍Sponsors:‍CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack‍Guest: Dr. Sarah BlairBusiness Name: Indie PracticesCheck out Sarah's Media:‍Website: indiepractices.comResource Library: indiepractices.com/digital-resourcesGet Your Scorecard: assessment.indiepractices.com/begin‍Love the Podcast? Let Us Know How We're Doing on Apple Podcasts!‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Education:Ohio State UniversityMarquette University‍Books:Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is HardThe Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In BusinessUnreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They ExpectBy the Numbers: A Guide to Buy and Run Your Dental Practice‍Podcasts:The Daily Dental Podcast ( Dr. Addison Killeen's podcast)‍People:Patrick Lencioni (Author)Brené Brown‍Tools/Services:The Practice LaunchpadIndeed‍Groups:Dentaltown‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍

Discover the secrets to creating genuine connections with potential patients through the psychology of trust. Learn how first impressions, driven by nonverbal cues like eye contact, can rapidly build rapport. Explore the Reciprocity Principle and how giving first fosters gratitude. Delve into compelling storytelling that resonates emotionally and drives engagement. Uncover techniques to leverage social proof and familiarity, ensuring your marketing strategies connect deeply and effectively. This insight will pave the way for growth and success in your practice.

Could your practice be unknowingly losing money through your website? In this episode, I sit down with Ali Soufi from DocSites to unpack some of the most common yet costly misconceptions that might be holding your practice back. We dive deep into the often-misunderstood world of website costs, emphasizing the crucial roles of customization and local relevance in maximizing your online presence. Listen as we shed light on how vanity metrics can be deceiving and why a strategic partnership between marketing efforts and your website design is essential for boosting performance and cost-effectiveness.Ali shares straightforward, actionable insights, including conducting simple audits to reveal hidden pitfalls and understanding marketing return on investment. He stresses the importance of seamless collaboration between marketing companies and dental practices, ensuring that websites don’t just exist but actively contribute to the bottom line. Discover how DocSites provides clear, affordable, and honest solutions tailored specifically for dental practices, ensuring transparency and consistency in pricing and service delivery. This episode is a must-listen for practice owners eager to optimize their digital footprint and secure a financially healthy future.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How to identify and fix costly website inefficiencies in dental practices.The significance of customization and local relevance for website success.Why vanity metrics can mislead and how to focus on what truly matters.The importance of integrating marketing with functional website design.Tips for conducting simple yet effective website audits.How to accurately measure marketing return on investment.The benefits of collaboration between dental practices and marketing companies.Transparent and cost-effective website solutions offered by DocSites.Tune in to discover how a well-optimized website can transform your dental practice's financial health!‍‍Sponsors: DocSites: Do you need a new website or marketing agency with no long-term contracts? Visit DocSites' website here and be sure to mention The Dental Marketer for $500 off! docsites.com‍Guest: Ali SoufiBusiness Name: DocSitesCheck out Ali's Media:‍Website: docsites.comEmail: ali@docsites.comPhone: 818-616-3919‍Love the Podcast? Let Us Know How We're Doing on Apple Podcasts!‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Places:Las Vegas ARIA‍Tools/Services:FiverrGoogle Analytics‍Products/Brands:FerrariHondaiTeroInvisalign‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍

Discover the transformative power of ground marketing in the dental industry. Learn how personal connections and face-to-face interactions foster trust and boost brand awareness. Explore psychological principles, like the mere exposure effect and social proof, that drive engagement. Real-world examples reveal creative, cost-effective strategies for thriving community partnerships. Uncover why ground marketing consistently outperforms paid ads in conversion rates and sustainability, paving a path for long-term growth.

‍Want to hear from someone who's been through it all, from associateship to acquisitions to a successful startup?This episode dives into the remarkable journey of Dr. David Rice, who masterfully blends the art of dentistry with entrepreneurship. Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, Dr. Rice travels to East Amherst, New York, where he practices, providing a firsthand account of his dynamic lifestyle. He openly shares his transformative journey from being an associate to expanding through strategic acquisitions and establishing his own practice. Dr. Rice highlights the critical role of diverse experiences in refining his professional skills and how meticulously planning his career steps, from securing loans to choosing practice locations, formed the backbone of his success.In our conversation, Dr. Rice provides valuable advice for budding dentists eager to navigate starting their own practice. He underscores the necessity of loan pre-approvals and efficient demographic targeting for marketing success. Teaming with trusted partners like Patterson and utilizing solid cash reserves are among the pillars he emphasizes for achieving sustained growth. Dr. Rice dives into common pitfalls, such as emotional attachments to locations and shallow decision processes prompted by social media allure. As the discussion nears its close, he turns adversity on its head by advocating for practice startups during economic downturns to capitalize on reduced costs.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The intricacies of balancing career and location for optimal practice function.Proven strategies for successful dental practice acquisitions.How to leverage loans and cash reserves for business growth.Importance of detailed demographic targeting in marketing.Building beneficial partnerships and reliable business relationships.Essential preparation steps to avoid practice ownership pitfalls.The unique opportunities available when starting a practice during a recession.Tune in to discover strategies and insights that could redefine your journey in dental practice ownership!(This episode originally aired on 03/02/2023)‍‍Guest: Dr. David RiceBusiness Name: Ignite DDSCheck out David's Media:‍Website: ignitedds.comInstagram: instagram.com/igniteddsFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/igniteddsinsidersEmail: david.rice@ignitedds.com‍Love the Podcast? Let Us Know How We're Doing on Apple Podcasts!‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Podcast episodes:David on Episode 159‍Groups:The Making Of Facebook Group‍Businesses/Services:Henry ScheinBencoBank of AmericaPatterson‍People:Sandy Pardue (Classic Practice)Jon Miller (Patterson)‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

‍Did you know that up to 40% of calls could be going unanswered even during working hours in your practice?In this Monday Morning Episode, I chat with Miles Beckett from Flossy, whose challenging the status quo with an audacious question—should you fire your staff to make way for cutting-edge AI technology? We explore the persistent staffing hurdles in dental offices and unveil how AI can redefine efficiency and service quality. Miles introduces us to Flossy's AI receptionist, Fiona, who skillfully handles appointment scheduling and patient inquiries while significantly reducing no-show rates. This conversation promises a riveting insight into the practical and financial advantages of incorporating AI into dental practices.We examine how incorporating AI like Fiona not only economizes but also enriches team dynamics, fostering a more cohesive and productive work environment. With Miles’ expert insights, we tackle the looming question all dental entrepreneurs grapple with: How can AI propel my practice forward while maintaining high standards of human interaction? As we explore the potential future developments in AI, Miles provides a visionary roadmap that could very well be the blueprint for modernizing your practice. Get ready to rethink your staffing strategy, elevate your service offerings, and embrace the future of dentistry with open arms.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The rationale behind considering AI technology in dental staffing.Challenges faced by dental practices regarding staffing and scheduling.Insights into Fiona, Flossy's AI receptionist, and her functionalities.Strategies for integrating AI to enhance team dynamics.Potential future developments of AI in dental operations.Tune in now to discover how AI could augment your dental practice operations!‍‍You can reach out to Miles Beckett here:Website: Flossy.comTwitter/X: x.com/mbeckett‍Other Mentions and Links:‍AI Tools:ChatGPTGeminiDeepSeek‍Education:Board Exam‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey Miles, so talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Miles: Thanks for having me, Michael. My piece of advice that's controversial is fire your staff. Michael: Interesting. Fire your staff. Why so? Miles: I'm obviously being a little bit facetious, but I think you should raise your bar.I know that one of the biggest issues in dental right now is staffing challenges, both finding good staff, retaining staff, dealing with churn. And you know, it's oftentimes a rotating door at dental practices. And the way we think about things at Flossie is that we can help bring AI workers to help you out.And those AI workers really make you reassess How good is this person doing? Do I really need them on this task? Maybe I can have them do something else instead. Michael: So then what was the specific problem that you saw in practices that inspired you to create? I guess or the suite of it, right? Like Fiona and how does AI solve challenges that traditional front desk systems can't?Miles: the new technology around generative AI, which is really the most recent type of AI that we're seeing out there. We've had things like machine vision and learn machine learning and stuff for a while now. It's created voice technology that allows you to build these agents that really sound like you're talking to a human.So I would say over the last year the technology has improved dramatically such that a year ago we were looking at some of this stuff and it didn't really work. But within the last six months or so, all of a sudden, you could really build these agents that you could talk to that sound like you're talking to a human.So we were kind of playing around with this technology. We had already built out a dental discount network that was kind of our core business before. so we were looking at it for some of our own uses. And we sort of had this aha moment where so many of the dentists that we work with were complaining again about this rotating door, particularly with the front desk.And we were like, wow, actually, we could build a receptionist that would sound and function basically like a human. And so that was the first pain point that we really wanted to solve. And it's kind of shocking the amount of calls that go unanswered. not just nights and weekends where typically people are just getting a voicemail that kind of just goes nowhere.But also during the day, about 30 to 40 percent of the calls coming into a dental practice during the day actually go unanswered. Michael: Really interesting, yeah. That's a good, stat right there. Now when it comes to that, did you kind of see, okay, hey, these calls that are being unanswered, the nights and weekends and everything, it can kind of cover all this?Or was there hiccups, problems with that? I mean, I would assume there's like a ton of questions that AI has to be prepared for, right? That a human can do, but I mean, how did you kind of overcome that? Miles: it already works for nights, weekends, overflow. We have practices that, are starting to use it to fully replace the voice reception duties and to be able to have that staff focus on people that are actually in office.And oftentimes front desk workers aren't just answering the phones. They're usually doing a ton of other things. So, I mean, the short answer is that there's an approach in AI development called rag, which basically allows you to marry, Specific proprietary technology databases to the LLMs that are already out there.So things like chat, GPT or Gemini, for this new model that China released deep seek, these are all generic models. And then there's other. Companies that have built specifically models that generate voice for the conversational aspect of the call. But obviously they don't know anything about dentistry.They don't know anything about your specific practice. and they certainly don't know anything about scheduling or scheduling software. So a lot of what we've built is leveraging those generic LLMs. And then adding in dental specific knowledge that comes from, hundreds of thousands of data points that we have from patient visits and patient interactions with dentists over the years.And then also with the practice, ingesting their data to fine tune it even further to their practice. Both in terms of taking, like all their call log data and actually use that as part of the training for the model, and then also basically taking their rules around scheduling and their rules and information about the practice when they're open, when they're not, when the dentist is there.And all of that is loaded into a database that is available to the AI in real time as a person is talking to Michael: them. Have you seen any. Like hesitation on this as far as people taking it on were you kind of hesitant a little bit as far as taking it on And then like it, blew your mind out of the water kind of a thing Miles: Yeah, I think definitely there's a lot of interest.So, you know, we immediately had people signing up for the product right off the bat. However, in the initial conversation, for sure, there's a lot of skepticism. Part of that is because the technology is so new that if I were to tell you what I'm telling you now, that There's an AI you can talk to, and it knows everything about your dental practice and can book you.Sounds a little bit science fiction. And then second, there are, you know, a lot of people broadly in the industry saying, Ah, we have an AI receptionist for this vertical or that vertical, for dentists, for doctors, for plumbers, blah, blah, blah. And frankly, a lot of that technology is not very good, so if people have had some prior experience, they've maybe had sort of a negative experience.And the big reason for that, again, is that if you just sort of slap together a receptionist on top of a generic model, it's not going to work very well. You have to train it on the data brought for that industry. And even specific, like, the model that we have for a pediatric practice is different than the one for an orthodontics practice, as an example.And then again, Providing other data, that is specific to that practice itself. So there's some like initial skepticism, but once they hear it, once they interact with it, once they talk to other customers that have been using it, they're like, Oh, wow, this is pretty awesome. And then once they actually get it live, you know, they're pretty blown away.Michael: Yeah. So patients now expect, and you've seen this I'm sure, 24 7 communication, right? Right. Whether it's like, but on their time. Like, hey, I need it now, emergencies, whatever. So then, how does Fiona personalize patient interactions to improve that satisfaction of patients? And also, how does it help reduce no shows, or does it do that?Miles: Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. So I mean, there's kind of a few ways that she works. So, most calls coming into a dental practice are for scheduling. majority of the calls are about I need to schedule an appointment. So the primary use case for Fiona, In general, but then really specifically for after hours and overflow is There's a huge amount of call volume that dental practices are getting that literally goes unanswered and goes to voicemail. And what is that person doing? They're calling the next dental practice. That's what we all do. You don't get an answer. You go to the next one. You go to the next one. And so it's giving these dentists an opportunity to actually capture that patient and book them for appointment.Yeah. And she can perfectly book appointments for new patients, answer questions about the practice. Again, it's, uncanny. The second is, as you're saying, no shows. So, people call in a lot and say they're running late or saying they need to reschedule or whatever. typically, that, happens during the day.It also happens, interestingly, a lot before the practice opens in the morning. So, practices will often see a lot of morning no shows and it's because they didn't, hear from the patient. So, She's also capturing those and rescheduling the patient, and so when the doctor gets in, their calendar is actually correct.So I would say those are kind of two of the main use cases. And then there's a lot of question answering, right? So there's, in a pediatric setting, there's, know, how's the first visit going to be? Is it going to be painful? What's it going to be like for my child? They've never been before.If it's a person that has like an immediate issue, can you get me in today? What is your schedule look like? What's the procedure going to be like? I've never had a root canal before. And she can answer all that. So she's actually trained on again a massive clinical data set as well.In fact, she technically passed the board exam. so she's very knowledgeable about dental information as well. Michael: Wow, that's incredible, man. So then I can see how this improves the call, right? It also, I'm assuming saves the practice owner, the business, a lot of money. in some many ways. So can you share a quick example of numbers that illustrate how fast practice could see the ROI?With Fiona. Miles: Yeah, I mean, the ROI with Fiona, literally, if you get one patient booking that you otherwise would not have gotten, she pays for herself that much. Okay. also to give you another example, Fiona costs about one tenth of What a human employee would cost, okay, to answer the phones.So we're talking about a massive cost savings. Above and beyond even the alternative that some practices do, which is like outsourcing to other countries. It's less expensive than that as well. So, the ROI is effectively immediate, especially given the are getting such a large percentage of calls going unanswered.Michael: Interesting, man. So is it like tiers? So, Miles: yeah, we, and again, we really think About these A. I. S. As employees as co workers. And so it basically comes down to like hours of utilization effectively. But you know, like the lowest here is basically nights and weekends and overflow coverage. The middle tier is sort of during the day in a copilot capacity.And then the highest here is just fully taking over all the calls being the first point of contact broadly. That's how we sort of think about it. Yeah. And as we think about all these agents too, I mean, the thing that's kind of cool is that you can interact with them as well. So you can actually have a one on one with Fiona, just like you would with an employee where you can provide her feedback in chat or in talking to her.And then that feedback that you give actually gets incorporated to how she functions going forward. Michael: Interesting. I like that. So then how does this, I mean, maybe you might've seen it miles. Maybe you haven't, does it improve like the team dynamics? Is it more like, Hey, this may take over your job and then the team members are iffy about it, you know what I mean?Miles: Yeah, no, I think it's been fine. I mean, we think of each of these A. I. S. as being co pilot to the workers that are there. And I think the reality is for any practice in particular that's growing or if you're buying other locations, you're constantly hiring more staff. You also, again, there's, a huge amount of churn with dental employees.So oftentimes you have people quitting and then you're hiring new people. So I think what this really lets you do is have a leaner team, not because you're firing people, but because you don't have to hire quite as many people. And for the staff that's there, they can focus on what they, you know, ultimately got into the business for, which is on patient care.You know, most of the staff in the practice are dental techs or hygienists. And oftentimes even front desk people like might even have a credential like that, and they're sort of doing double duty. And so now they can really focus on delivering patient care and also the in office interaction.So talking to the patient that's actually there at the front desk and that you know is getting a treatment, right there in the practice Michael: Yeah, I can definitely see this also a benefit for the startup practice, right? Like somebody who's on a lean budget starting up and then They just need to have someone in the front right now, kind of covering, maybe somebody last minute didn't show up for work because that happens quite a bit.They ghosted him, right? Or something like that. Yeah, right. They just show up and this, is a really good, do you feel like this can a hundred percent replaced? The front desk or more like, Hey, no, we're still going to need somebody there. Miles: I would say that within six months, 99. 9 percent of the phone calls will be able to be handled fully by Fiona.cause she's already can handle. 80 percent of the use cases right now, because again, most of the calls are scheduling related. There will be some edge cases, of course, and those edge cases will require a person, but it's going to be very few and far between. I think it'll be a question of how the practices want to use her and some may be.Just want her in an overflow capacity, regardless of her capabilities. And that's fine. And obviously there's very large DSOs that have call centers. I think we're going to see heavy adoption by them. You know, we're talking to all the major DSOs, rapidly. Yeah. And I think as we think about these other agents that we're building, we really think of it as a suite.Of AI agents for dental practices that all work together. So as a simple example, we'll be launching an insurance verification AI that will automatically verify insurance either through direct connections with insurers, or actually by calling, because sometimes you still can't get the data via their APIs or publicly available sources.And you actually need to call well, great. We have call technology where that AI can just call. The insurance company and now get the verification. And so you can imagine where a patient calls. They talked to Fiona. They're booking to give their insurance info now behind the scenes. Our insurance AI is verifying that data and providing it to the dentist.So they now have a package all ready to go for when that patient shows up. And so for each of these different ones, we're thinking about them working together. And I think in different domains, they'll be able to do, you know, more or less of the work. Some things are more complex, the one that we're thinking about for helping you run your practice, which is kind of like, Sort of a business intelligence product.But again, in the form of like an AI that's actually giving you recommendations, it's not going to be perfect and you're still going to have to run your practice, but it may actually take over the work of, you know, some of the consultants that you use and maybe you can do it a little more efficiently.Michael: Wow, man. Oh, so you guys got a lot, got a lot going on, which is great. It's exciting. So for practice owners who want to explore this further, where can they learn more about Fiona and Flossie? And do you guys offer any type of like demos or trials? Miles: Yeah. Yeah. So they can just go to flossie. com F L O S S Y.com. there's a bunch of info about Fiona on there right now. We offer demos. And we have like Sort of a trial period that we can offer people in, some cases as well. Michael: Awesome, Miles. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Miles: I am on Twitter or X, I guess it's called. I feel like we'll always call it Twitter. Um, and my handle should be M Beckett on Twitter. Michael: And so all that's going to be in the show notes below. So definitely check it out. And Miles, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode.Miles: Awesome. Thanks so much, Mike. I really appreciate it.

‍Navigating the complex world of practice ownership isn't just about mastering the clinical side of dentistry. In this insightful episode, strategic wealth specialist Ross Brannon delves into the less-discussed trials faced by dentists, focusing on the often-overwhelming challenge of people management. Brannon reveals how these difficulties can push some dentists to the brink of considering selling their practices, shedding light on a critical issue that affects countless individuals in the field. His expert guidance is particularly timely given the additional pressures faced by new dentists, who not only contend with professional stressors but also juggle substantial educational debt and delayed career starts.Ross explains these late beginnings in professional life mean dentists often find themselves playing catch-up in financial planning—an endeavor crucial to securing stability and success. Emphasizing a proactive approach, he offers valuable strategies to mitigate these concerns, underscoring the importance of foresight in financial and career planning. By addressing these challenges head-on, dentists can pave their way to long-term success, avoiding the pitfalls that have ensnared their peers. Tune in to discover actionable insights that could redefine your path in the dental profession.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The stress and implications of people management in dental practices.Why some dentists consider selling their practice due to management challenges.The financial impact of entering the dental profession with significant student debt.How delayed career start affects long-term financial stability.Essential strategies for effective financial and career planning in dentistry.Listen now to transform your financial future and career path in dentistry!‍‍Sponsors:‍CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack/Guest: Ross BrannonBusiness Name: Ross Brannon Financial AdvisorCheck out Ross's Media:Website: rossbrannon-8128715.hs-sites.comPhone: 850-566-7999‍Love the Podcast? Let Us Know How We're Doing on Apple Podcasts!‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Florida State UniversityMerrill LynchMorgan StanleyRIA - Registered Investment AdvisorParkinson's LawAlly BankBank of AmericaCostcoUsain Bolt 12,000,000 Savings LostDave RamseyDan Sullivan - Why I Don't Believe in RetirementBitcoinDogecoinEssentialism‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍