While looking for dental and orthodontic marketing ideas you are likely hearing a ton of buzz about Google’s new +1 along with their new Google Plus social media site.

If you have not been hearing about it congratulations for being so busy that you are not distracted by all the media noise.

As a team member or doctor who managed to find this website and post as you were searching around for dental or orthodontic marketing ideas here is what you need to know about Google +1. It is a way for Google to put social media and social proof together with their search results. It’s also a way to push more and more people into their social media site, Google Plus, giving them even more leverage over what people see online and its working.

Now, when you are logged into your Gmail account, YouTube account, Google Docs account, or Google Plus account and you do a Google search, you will see results that show what you and anyone you are connected with have “+1’d”. That means if you and I are connected through any of these Google social media sites and I “+1” a site, which is basically saying “hey this site is pretty good”, then you will know it automatically. These +1’s are even starting to show up on Google adds! Here is a screen shot of what the +1’s look like.

Now we can clearly see where this is headed. Google is going to work very hard to get more people logged into their accounts so they can track what they like when the “+1” it. It also gives them a better search result to end users who are now going to see, and click, on the sites that people they know have already “+1’d”.

So if you are starting to get the picture this means the more people who are essentially telling the world they like your site, or ad, or post, or even your videos, the more likely your site, ad, post, or video is to show up early in search results and get clicked on!

Here is the amazing part for your dental & orthodontic marketing ideas because this gets even better when you have a WordPress site or blog.

Ok, so we’ve been studying Google’s new social network like crazy in order to figure out just how it can benefit our dental and orthodontic marketing clients. The early research suggests that it is going to be an SEO (search engine optimization) powerhouse so do not ignore it.

Google Plus is now open to all users and you should sign up and start playing with it. The user interface is clear and clean but the real power is getting “plus 1′d”, having everyone in your social circle seeing your “plus 1′s”…essentially combining social media with search results. This can prove to be very powerful stuff if Google continues to work out the details.

Now you may be thinking “another social media site, do we really need that?” I’ve been asking myself the same question and we are still putting together the details on how are dental and orthodontic marketing clients can and should be utilizing this new tool. This question lead me to this very entertaining video. Click play, enjoy, and let me know your thoughts on yet another new social media tool by leaving your comments below.

Bye for now,

Brian

Well it’s happened again. Google has updated their search service yet again. It’s called +1 and you can learn all about it by watching the video below. What you need to know is that if you are utilizing social media as a part of your dental or orthodontic marketing mix the right way, this change can be huge for you. If you are not using social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr this little update may change your mind.

As always, if you have questions or need a little help with your dental or orthodontic online marketing leave me a comment or give me a call.

Bye for now,

Brian

Something that I tend to take for granted in the world of marketing is the concept of “target marketing.” All it really means to you is making sure that all of your marketing efforts are designed to get the attention of, appeal to, and motivate a specific group of people you would like to have as patients.

Some marketing efforts are better than others at staying more targeted, but there is more to it these days. If you are using radio, newspaper, or TV ads you are using the scatter approach to marketing. Basically, you put together an ad with an offer (I hope) and shoot it out to large numbers and hope something sticks. The downside here is that you are paying for the large numbers to hear or see your message instead of just your target market.

Today you have the ability to make specific ads and offers that will appeal to each specific target market you have identified and only pay to put it in front of those people. Yes, I’m talking about the internet and specifically local search marketing. It is the only place where 80% of consumers are actively looking for information on your services. It can be completely targeted to your market and be in front of them at the exact time they are looking for you. Local search marketing can be updated and edited on the fly with no added costs, and you can capture prospective patient information to market to them later if they are not ready to come to your office right away.

The power of local search marketing is just beginning to take shape and those who capitalize on it early (that means now) will be able to dominate the local search landscape and become the “obvious choice” when patients do their research online.

If you have questions or comments about how local search marketing works or would like to learn how we can have you dominating page one of Google for your target market, leave a comment below or give us a call at 720-989-1WEB (1932). I look forward to the conversation.

Bye for now,
Brian

I recently read an interesting article (you can read it here) recommending that dental practices start using more social media in their marketing efforts.  I couldn’t agree more that social media has become an important part of dental and orthodontic marketing plans.  What was interesting about the article was that it suggested you start with Twitter but with no reason why, other than it’s easy to set up an account.

There is certainly value in being able to quickly and easily set up an account with a social media outlet like Twitter, but what can you expect from those efforts?  The article suggests that you go find followers and with Twitter, that couldn’t be easier.  In fact, there are programs that will do much of that work for you although I don’t recommend them for reasons we won’t discuss today.  The next step is to engage in conversations that are not pushy.  The suggestion is to think of it as a party where you wouldn’t just walk up to someone and start telling them they should come to your office every few minutes.

The challenge that orthodontists and dentists are seeing when using Twitter as a marketing tool is that it has become so overused, mostly by internet marketers pushing products of their own, that it becomes almost impossible to push your message through the clutter.  There is still the advantage of having Google and Bing pulling your “tweets” into their real time search data, but I’m not seeing it do much more than that these days.

So how do you use Twitter so that it’s effective for your SEO but doesn’t take hours out of your week leaving you wondering if you should be spending more time with Facebook or Google Buzz?  Use Ping.fm to tie them all together so you can do the work once and have it pushed out to all of your social media outlets at once.  That means you use the same strategies of having conversations, not just pushing your agenda all of the time and offering solutions and answers to questions you see come up, but having it listed everywhere you want to be seen after just writing it once.

Go ahead and set up your free account to see how it works.  The cool thing is that once you have your Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, or any of the other major social networking accounts set up you just add them to your Ping.fm account and they will be updated all at once from one place.  Once you get into a flow with adding content to your social media accounts and you have someone on your team heading it up, you get to take advantage of ALL the major places to put your content without any extra work.

Let me know your thoughts, ideas, and challenges when it comes to social media marketing as well as any questions you have about dental/orthodontict marketing ideas in general by leaving a comment below.

Bye for now,

Brian

When recently speaking with a client about their title tags, what they do, how you find them, and what Google does with them it dawned on me that most people don’t really know why title tags are so important to your orthodontic or dental websites.   So let’s just hit the basics so you know enough to know if your title tags might need a tune up.

First of all you should know how to find your title tags.  Go to your website and look at the very top of your web browser.  Here you will see a list of words or hopefully a compelling sentence with keywords in it.  If you are having trouble seeing what I’m talking about right click on your website and select “view source” and you will see a bunch of code.  In the code you will see <title> followed by some words and closed with </title>.  The key for you is to know that this information is extremely important for Google, Yahoo! and Bing to know what your website is all about.  It is also the text used in the search results that you click to go to that site.

This means you want the title tag to not only have keywords you want to be found with but also be somewhat compelling to help get people to click through to your site.  The best way to make this effective and not overwhelming is to have each page on your site focused on a keyword or keyword phrase instead of just trying to stuff as many keywords in as you can.

Each page on your site can have it’s own title tag and each title tag should be about 65 characters long including spaces and punctuation with no more than 70 characters (Google is showing 70 for some sites).  That means you want each page on your site to have a clear title tag letting people and Google know what to expect on that page.  If you are talking about Invisalign on the page, make sure it’s in your title tag.  If Invisalign is not on the page, be sure you do not not have it in your title tag.  Starting to get the idea?

You can also consider things like search volume as you consider your title tags.   The term “orthodontist” in some local areas is getting more searches than “braces” so if you have to let some words go to fit into the 65 characters, let “braces” go before “orthodontist.”

Don’t worry about exactly what to put or in what order.  The key is for you to know enough to know if your title tags are done well or if they need to be updated.  If they need to be updated, remember that after 1-3 months of making changes and tracking results, your website provider should be done and you don’t want or need them messing around with them any longer – unless of course they are still not right and your results have gotten worse instead of better.  If that happens, find a new provider to help you.

That’s if for today.  Let me know your thoughts and comments by leaving them below.

Bye for now,

Brian

A big part of what I do for orthodontists and dentists looking to improve their marketing is to find ways to get more, new patients in the door.  There is more competition than ever before and the amount of noise and chatter the average person faces is overwhelming so getting that new patient is harder and more important than ever.  And using the internet to help is proving to be effective and inexpensive.

What we all need to remember is that the patients you already have in the office are generally worth more to you than the one who you are trying to get into the office.  In most marketing books you will read that it generally takes 6-10 times more marketing dollars to sell a new patient on coming to your practice than it does to re-sell or up-sell an existing patient.  With the increased competition and shaky economy this may be more like 12-15 times more today.

The question becomes what do you do with this knowledge?  It doesn’t mean you should stop looking for ways to get new patients.  A practice that is standing still is really moving backwards when you look at inflation.

It does mean that you should never forget to make offers to those who are already in your practice.  Dentist should make sure that their patients know about everything they offer including whitening, veneers, as well as any and all new technology or techniques in the office.  You may think they already know about what you offer, but unless you tell them specifically, chances are they do not.  And, they may know someone who is looking for that particular service.

Orthodontists need to make sure they know everything about their patients family and offer them treatment.  Don’t make the mistake of assuming a patient’s parent just knows that you treat adults as well as children – Tell Them!  Orthodontists and dentists also need to make sure they are taking advantage of referrals in a systematic way and not just hoping for them.

Do you have a referral program?  If you do, is there one person in the practice in charge of making sure it is implemented and gets results?  If you have a referral program but are not sure how it’s working, then it is probably not working.  Ask the next few patients or parents of patients if they know what it is.  If they don’t, tell them and put someone in charge of implementing the program for real.

One of the best ways that I have seen a referral program work was when an doctor placed a sign showing their referral offer in each area of the office that patients and parents couldn’t help but see.  It was for your choice of a free dinner, bowling, movies and a few other options with the certificates right there below the signs.  The staff was trained to ask everyone if they had decided which offer they were going to choose when their referral came in.  You wouldn’t believe how well this works and how inexpensive it really is compared to even just a simple Yellow Pages ad.

Let me know your thoughts and how this works for you and your office by leaving a comment below.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Bye for now,

Brian

There are a ton of articles and websites out there today that discuss dental and orthodontic marketing ideas.  Some have good advice and others have down right bad advice.  And today, I found a few that were providing advice that was so outdated that it could actually hurt your practice.

These articles discussed the idea that you can purchase a list of email addresses in your area and send out an email letting people know about your services.  This is something people did years ago and it is why we have the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 creating rules around sending emails to people who did not ask for them.  Just to keep things simple, do not send email to people who did not specifically ask you for information or appointments via email.

So if you see any company suggesting that an inexpensive way to market online includes purchasing a list of email addresses in your area and sending emails once in a while, you know to run for the hills.  Marketing online changes fast and I will do my best to keep you informed.

If you have any questions about other types of marketing for your dental or orthodontic practices leave a comment below and I will get back with you right away.  If you would like to know the right way to do email marketing let me know as well and I can put the information on this blog or we can talk live – 720-989-1932

Bye for now,

Brian

While doing a bit of research online today I ran across an article that was supposed to tell the reader what to look for in a marketing firm. What got me thinking wasn’t that the article was poorly written or that two thirds of the article was one large link (not good for an online marketing firm). What got me thinking was the question: how do you choose the right internet marketing firm?

This article went on to tell you that the company you work with should be able to provide you with every last thing under the sun when it comes to dental and orthodontic marketing online.  They were clearly just providing a list of what they offer so you would think anyone offering less would be a poor choice for you.  This got me thinking about how an orthodontist or dentist with limited time and resources would be able to find a reputable company, that charged a fair rate, and could produce a clear return on investment.

The answer unfortunately is not perfectly clear. There are companies out there promising the world for just a few dollars a day while other firms make no promises or guarantees and are charging more than $1000/month. So what do you do? I would recommend you start by learning the basics of internet marketing. I’m not talking about spending hundreds of hours and a bunch of money becoming an expert in something you don’t want to be an expert in. What I am talking about is knowing just enough to be able to ask the right questions, understand the terminology, and be able to spot truth from fiction.

So how do you do that? The first place to start is with the free video training we offer at OrthoVideosNow.com/free (the information is great for dentists too so don’t let the name fool ya). There is nothing to buy, no obligations and you will not start getting a bunch of solicitation calls. The video training covers the top 10 questions I get from orthodontists and dentists about internet marketing and the 10 questions you should be asking but typically are not. Each video is 5 minutes or less and is delivered to your email each day. If you decide you don’t like them, there is an “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of every email that will stop them from coming immediately.

Let me know your thoughts about choosing the right dental/orthodontic online marketing firm and how I can be of service. If you like the videos, let me know by leaving a comment as well.

Bye for now,
Brian

Many of the orthodontists and dentists we speak with ask me the same question: “what am I going to write about in a blog every week?” This is a legitimate concern because it does take some thought and time to keep your orthodontic or dental blog updated. And if you remember from earlier posts and videos, we need to add new blog posts every week.

I ran across a good post today (click here to review it) that should help keep your minds open to what you can and should be writing about.  This post was about a father who saw the results of his daughter after being treated with Invisalign.  This post does well for reasons on several levels.

First, the post automatically brings in social proof without it feeling forced.  Second, there is ample opportunity to put your targeted keywords into the post.  If the idea was to show up for the keyword Invisalign, it can be and is used throughout the post without overdoing it.  To make it pull in the search engines even better, they should have placed the keyword Invisalign into the title as well.  And third, this post reminds parents who are looking for treatment for their kids that is never too late for them to get the smile they’ve always wanted as well.

The last thing to consider with a post like this using a call to action or making an offer.  When you have all of these elements working together for you, don’t be afraid to let the reader know what to do next.  The key is not to try and push them to do anything, just make it easy for them to get in touch or make an appointment.  You won’t get the phone to ring if you don’t ask for the call and make it easy to do it.

And with that in mind, if you need any help with your online marketing, would like to get free video training, or just want to ask us a question, give us a call at 720-989-1932 or click the “call me” button on the right and it will take care of the dialing for you.

Bye for now,

Brian