Marketing Strategy For Dental Clinics: A Step-by-Step Guide
Dominique: We’re gonna be looking at the secret to scaling your dental practice, and it might not be exactly what you think it is. Right? It really comes down to having the right strategy.
Which we’ve broken it down as a company into four simple points to make it really easy to digest.
Shannon: And, I think why I’m really excited about this episode, Dominique, is because this is really the basis of our brand name change, right? We were Roadside Dental Marketing for 25 years, and in the past three years, we’ve really dove into strategy before tactics, measuring that ROI, and what that looks like. So, we’ve really become, quite an evolved marketing agency with the experts that are on our team now. But really, the base is this.
Dominique: right?
Shannon: The base that we’re talking about today is having the right strategy because every practice is just a little bit different on how you optimize their strengths, identify their weaknesses, their opportunities, their threats, along with their goals for growth. So it’s just that strategy of how do we get them there and becoming that strategic partner.
Dominique: Right? It’s really kind of like our North Star to grow these practices. And when you say strategy before tactics, what that really means is evolving from, “Hey, you know, we’re going to help you with Facebook ads.” Or “We’re going to help you build a website, right?”
No business just needs Facebook ads, or they don’t just need a website. They need growth. Right? Taking more of a 10,000-foot view and looking at how do these different services or tactics fit into their overarching business strategy. Right? And that’s what we’re going to dive into—with the first point on the star. But, before we do that, why don’t we just introduce ourselves? So why don’t you go ahead and just introduce who you are?
Shannon: All right, great. I’m Shannon. I am the CEO. I run this ship. I’m very proud of it. We’ve been around since 1999, and yeah, really driving the innovation, from the client relationship aspect of our agency.
And this is Dominique.
Dominique: And I’m the CMO here at Marketly Digital. I focus on anything from campaigns to development, websites, everything, you know. When it comes to really driving results, that’s kind of what I’m focused on, and building the business with this young, amazing lady as well.
Shannon: Yeah, I would also like to add that many people don’t know that I started in dentistry in 1987. And then, I just started marketing all of the doctors I worked for and co-founded the agency in ’99. It’s always been a family-owned and operated, agency. Now, I run it with my son, Dominique, so we’re very proud of the new brand and where we’re taking the business into the future.
Dominique: Yeah, so let’s start with the first top point on that star, which is brand foundations. So, what would you say brand foundations are, and why are they important?
Shannon: Um, I would say it is so important because, two reasons right off, right off the top is that it’s usually years before people, doctors really look at their brand and ask, “Is it up to date?” Is it, is it really the experience that the patients are coming in and seeing and feeling?
They have not updated it digitally. So what they’re getting in the practice they put so much time and effort into creating these beautiful relationships with their team and their patients, but their digital presence does not portray that. So, that is their brand messaging. Their core is they have to look at that, and also, people have changed so much. The human psyche has changed so much to be really authentic. You can’t have just stock images on there. You can’t have, you know, just basic brand messaging where your dental family literally almost 80, 90 percent of practices—there’s a whole other episode on that alone—but we have to have that foundation. So then we can grow. Where do we want to grow from, and what are their growth goals? Having that strong brand foundation is of the utmost importance.
Dominique: Okay? So your brand foundations, it’s your brand messaging, your brand message, right?
It’s your photography, your assets: video assets, your website, which is really the foundational piece for all the rest of your marketing. But when we go into brand foundations, it really expands to business strategy. Right? It’s not just about branding or logos.
It’s not just about the fluffy stuff. Although the fluffy stuff is the fun stuff,
You know, how would you say this expands into business strategy, or when you’re talking to these doctors, how are you able to help them with the strategy side of things?
Shannon: I would say when we’re looking at brand strategy, it’s, you know, do you want to grow your team because you want to be more convenient? Do you want to offer more times for them, maybe in the evening times, in the weekend times? Do you want to bring on associates? Do you want to offer more services so you can be all under one roof, and they don’t have to go to different places?
They know that you know. A lot of times people try not to go outside of the practice so much. And then some practices only want to do one or two things very well. And they become very well known for that. If you want this and this done in your mouth, these guys are the ones to go see.
Then also is that multi-location. That is a huge attraction for us. It’s kind of like building multi-associate, multi-location practices because, you know, with the first location, we want to make sure that the brand foundations are super set. So, then when they grow either an associate or a location, it’s so much easier, and it grows quicker because there’s a lot of cost involved in growth in the very beginning. To bring on an associate is crazy expensive, and if they don’t have enough patients, they’re just sitting around. There’s nothing more frustrating.
Dominique: right?
Shannon: And so, once we have that strength of the brand foundations, it’s like, now let’s hire an associate or let’s do more hours and then let’s even build out ops. You know, sometimes that’s a conversation, but we have the brand foundations set and then it’s even on the different locations. Sometimes there are differences in the type of location or the services they’re going to be offering there.
So it’s making sure that that brand foundation, the marketing, the patient acquisition, are super strong before they go to the next location. We often hear, “Hey, we’re, you know, grabbing a location about six months before we even expected.” And it’s because the b brand foundations, the systems within, how we get the brand out there, is so fine-tuned that they are growing even faster than they expected from the past.
Dominique: How is looking at their S.W.O.T important when, you know, analyzing their business strategy?
Shannon: I think it’s one of the most important things because then we can help guide them on what their brand foundation should be. Because it’s like, “Well, what do you know?” You’re not family, dental family to them.
We have to guide them on what they are. So, knowing what their strengths are, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, that’s so cool.” When they’re telling us about their talents, and let’s say they’ve been around for 40 years, and it’s a father and two sons, and they lecture at the college, and they’re like, you know, it’s all white collar.
We see the brand, so we’re testing it out with them. “Are you willing to say this? Is this true?” You know that sort of thing. So we see their strengths, then their weaknesses. What do we want to stay away from, or do we want to make sure we protect the brand because we know their weaknesses? We know what they need to work on, and their opportunities are huge.
I mean, that’s where we need to live, right? We’re like, okay, could we get a little edgy here or no one is talking about this after we do our competitor analysis. Like, let’s go strong. Let’s find some blue ocean. Because a lot of times, the clients who are coming into us, it’s pretty darn competitive, right?
Or, we have different scenarios that they’re living within their practice. And so that one’s super strong. And threats, we have to be very cautious about it because we want to look at the whole thing when we’re building a brand. That foundational piece takes time and it’s a little expensive. But it also means their legacy. They’re trusting us with their legacy, right? So we have to help them get it right and optimize and test as we’re building out that brand foundation. So that’s what really helps us do that.
Dominique: Yeah, I’ve seen how helpful it is and how important this first piece, the brand foundations (aka the business strategy), is instead of shoving down, you know, tactics.
Hey, we need to just do SEO or add these pages to your website.
You know, [we need to know] what this doctor is trying to do at different stages in their careers, right? You mentioned there are doctors that are just coming up. There are doctors who are established. There are doctors who are trying to get their first associate or already have one or two associates. There are ones who are a couple locations in or more like pushing DSO style, right?
So at each layer, they’re willing to do different things. They need different things. And so it’s a really important starting piece, but getting more into the meat, right? Which is our second point on the star: new patient acquisition. This is what we’re really known for. This is the core of our business for the past 20-plus years, right?
And what that goes into is both organic and paid. What would you say about the methods of attracting new blood, new patients, not ones who are already there? But how do I expand both paid SEO, ads, and advertising, at all different levels? So what would you say about that? Why is that so important?
And where’s the direction going with new patient acquisition?
Shannon: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say because it’s interesting when doctors call. There are two camps. They want to go all in on paid ads, or they want to go all in on SEO. And honestly, because social media channels have doubled, which is a lot of traffic, a lot of noise, people are getting lost.
The patient journey has gone from 8 to 12 touch points, and now we’re at about 21 to 35. I mean, it’s like absolutely nuts. Right?
Dominique: people need to see a lot of you. They need to see a lot of you for them to trust you.
Shannon: So it’s not just one channel; it’s not just one way to bring in new patient acquisition.
If you’re gonna say, I just want paid ads, and I want this many patients, it’s like, that was about five years ago that you could really do that. The clients that we’re seeing that are crazy successful and growing have a full spectrum of people. New patient acquisition, right? That’s omnipresent, omni-channel where they’re being seen as experts.
They’re answering real questions the public is asking. They’re very authentic. So that local, that SEO, that organic, is so important. And then along with that are more brand awareness ads depending on the competitive analysis. We want to know, how established their practice is to what kind of paid ads to recommend.
Do we recommend Lead Gen Basic or Lead Gen Pro? Do they need the call team to support how many new patients they want? So, we definitely want to customize a plan for that new patient acquisition, but they have to open up their minds that it has to be an omnipresent, omnichannel presence. Right?
Dominique: And, to me, the reason why that’s so important, is about having the right information at the right time in front of the right person.
Shannon: Yes.
Dominique: Right. That could mean meeting them where they’re at. Are they just starting to look for solutions or they don’t even really know? Have they already connected with your brand and want to learn more about you? Have they maybe become a lead but they’re still on the edge about actually coming in. Having video content to offer, driven content to educational—value-driven content at each stage of the buyer’s journey and building that trust so that they see your face and your brand as the go-to for a specific solution, right?
But from your experience, why would you say omnichannel and omnipresence are really the most predictable ways for practices to grow and scale in attracting new market share?
Shannon: Because their competition isn’t doing it. Their competition is not doing this. This is so new. Very, very few people are doing what we’re doing.
We are going everywhere the patients are going. And it’s impossible to say everybody’s going to come through a Google channel or everyone’s going to go through a Meta. Like you really have to test. You know, what channels are they on? Where are they going to get them from, and even what they’re searching for?
What are they really thinking about? Is it the cost of the implant? Are they worried about being judged? That no judgment movement that we want to go off: anxiety-free, emergency dentistry. There are so many different ways that patients can come in, and it’s a win-win for the practice and the patients. The patients need to find the right doctor too, right? When they make that effort to become that community thought leader, they’re … it’s this beautiful balance of professionalism and “man, I’d like to go have a beer with that guy or that gal.” It’s like, they get me because there are so many different positions that they could be in as human beings.
And even in those searches, Dominique, it’s also, we can just lose them because they get busy, or the kids pull them away. Maybe another aggressive marketer retargets them because they’re searching for dentists and they see that, so a lot of people are like, Oh, which dentist did I call again?
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Dominique: Right, and most dentists that we talked to don’t realize just how competitive the landscape is. And it’s not just other dentists. It’s just life as a whole. You’ve got to think about people’s attention spans getting distracted. You mentioned about different channels. Do you know how sometimes we talk to doctors who can get hyper-focused on one channel?
But, it really has to be omnichannel now. One example is this, most doctors know that Google, for example, Google ads are more intent-based, right? So, searching ‘dentist near me’ or ‘implants near me’ versus Meta as being more disruptive based. Meaning they’re looking at pictures of their friends, and then an ad for dentist pops in, right?
The thing is, though, if you’re just looking at Google ads, 90 percent of those clicks will drop off and won’t take action. If you have Meta, you can now retarget those same ones with different educational videos or even trust-building videos to get the ones who didn’t take action, to take action. Vice versa, people might see your ad, your brand, on Facebook and not take action right in there, but when they search, you want to pop up.
Shannon: Right.
Dominique: Right, and when they see your website, you want to have your website reflect [the same branding and messaging]. So it really is that full spectrum.
It’s not just I can pop up a website and get patients. That was 20 years ago. It’s not just I can throw a couple of grand at Google ads and get patients. That was five years ago, right? It is evolving, and doctors definitely need to be here. We’re here. They have to do it. And one last thing, before we move on to the other point of the star, we’re talking about new patient acquisition, right?
And yes, it has gotten more expensive with less ROI. We’re dealing with that. So that’s where we need to get creative. That’s where we need to get rid of the stock images. They need to see your face for trust, being authentic, that sort of thing. And looking on all these channels, being on all these channels. But it’s also having somebody help you with your internal marketing, too, because we’re bringing these new patients in now. If we can get them referring friends and family, one person—now you’re caught, and your profitability goes way up. So surprise, delight, and wow!
Dominique: Which is our third point of the star.
Shannon: Let’s go into it.
Dominique: External marketing or, new patient acquisition. Yeah. That’s the second point. The third point of the star is building a high-performance culture.
Shannon: Exactly.
Dominique: Which is another word for internal marketing, right? Like you mentioned, external marketing is always going to be more expensive than internal marketing. A lot of times, it’s just marginally profitable. Where you really build your margins is internal marketing. So, what would you say about that and why is it so important?
Shannon: Well, I wanna go back to that marginally profitable because it’s the lifetime value. It’s creating that culture and keeping them on and also creating videos, so they say yes to treatment, faster.
So, it all feeds into each other, the profitability of it. The internal marketing and the culture, you know what we’re talking about. It’s really first, building culture with the team so they love to be there. You know, you have a welcoming hospitality. The front desk is, I know, the most important person on the team besides the dentist. And it’s not given enough love. It’s not given enough training.
We definitely like supporting them in some team training, listening to the phone calls, coaching them, and getting them excited about welcoming these new patients.
“But, you know, a lot of practices are calling up right now and saying, I’ve always been a word-of-mouth practice.”
Now I need more marketing. So we look at the other marketing we just talked about. Peppering in and some of that, but it’s also, well, “Do you have a system and automation for your word-of-mouth? Nope. Oh, sometimes we remember to ask them and sometimes we don’t.
Dominique: It’s like fingers crossed.
“I hope the front desk person asked them for a review while they’re walking out. It’s not a documented system that they execute.”
Shannon: They absolutely have to have systems and automation for their internal marketing to support them, and it needs to be easy on the team. It just does.
So that’s where we’ve come in with some innovative ways to help the team have a whole system from within the CR system. You know, signage, QR codes, some fun goodies that they get, for that wellness quiz. It’s like, they’re asking the team, what is this?
I want wellness codes, what’s going on over here? And they love it because they really didn’t have to implement that much. We just had to implement this system for their referral base. And that really does support the external marketing. Again, these small little things that we can do that surprise, delight, and wow.
I think it’s really important for people to stay on top-of-mind awareness.
Dominique: Yeah, I would say building a high-performance culture as it relates to internal marketing comes down to three core things. It’s your front desk, like you mentioned. So, how well are you at capturing the interest that gets generated when you launch these marketing campaigns and just organically, right?
People are going to be calling your practice, but you have to think from their perspective. If they don’t get an answer, they’re on to the next listing on Google, right? People have too many options.
Shannon: Or it’s not a friendly answer.
Dominique: Exactly, it’s not a friendly answer, it’s not an inviting answer. Which brings me to the next point, is customer service, right?
The hospitality, building that customer care, that level of hospitality [is important. So when someone does come in, they feel this is the office for me. They’re going to stick around because you can do all these things: external marketing, Facebook ads, and SEO, to bring people in.
But if they don’t stay with you, those [new acquisitions] won’t be profitable. You have to build up your lifetime value, and it’s rough both getting referrals and reviews, and making them feel like this is ‘the practice for me’ when they do connect.
Shannon: It is one of the last things that they put their attention to because it’s just hard.
I mean, through COVID, they lost a lot of their team. The team’s psyche changed, right? They were just like, great, you know, excited, to have a butt in the seat. I think that they really need to rethink that. There are a couple of things I’m just going to be super honest about here. I did the job, it where started in dentistry. Either people absolutely flipping nail it or they’re okay, or oh my god, get out of that seat! That is not okay. You cannot be in that seat; that’s terrible, terrible answering, or they just don’t answer. They don’t, and there’s a lot of that. So, I say, “Hey, you’re going to start putting all these marketing dollars and building up your practice growth, and you do not have someone answering that door, welcoming, smiling, and bringing those patients in that you just paid a lot of money for.
We’ve got to fix that. We’re here to help, right? We’ve got to fix that. So, that is a big deal to make sure that that happens.
Dominique: It’s one of the number one things that leads to practice profitability, right?
Shannon: It is. And, I know that, in dentistry, it’s kind of taboo to say this, but your treatment coordinator, depending on your team structure, really needs to be a salesperson.
And it’s not like you have to sell something like a car, but you have to help them [patients] get out of their own heads, so they’ll take care of themselves. And it’s okay to spend $5K, $10K, $20K, or $50K. They have to have the confidence that it’s going to be worth it.
It’s enough value for you. That is a salesperson, you know, it’s a human psychology thing. So, do you have somebody in dental to do that? No. You have to find somebody that sells Mercedes. Go to the Ritz Carlton, find somebody a really nice med spa. I mean, seriously even a Starbucks waitress, I’m encouraging some of the practices to do it, and they find them in these places, they literally found people.
Dominique: At coffee shops where their energy is just extremely high, I feel like, Man, I want to come back to this coffee shop just because I love you. Like, you’ve referred them or given them to dental practices, and they have a front desk, right?
Because you know, and like you said, the word sell can sometimes come off as an icky word, like a used car salesman, but the etymology of the word sell means to give.
Shannon: Yeah,
Dominique: And that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re giving them the confidence, the opportunity, the time, and the attention so that they can improve their smile because that’s what they’re all coming for.
Shannon: Yes!
Shannon: Yeah, you’re changing their life, and they’re there in their own head you have to get them out of that. Whatever they’re running up against, we have to get them out of there.
Dominique: right?
Which brings us to the last point on our star, right? Which is measure and optimize. So it’s really taking the guesswork out of marketing instead of just going off of gut feeling. I mean, I think this is working. I think the phones are ringing more. It seems like they are a little bit more.
It’s really tracking your primary KPIs, things like your new patient numbers, month over month, right? Which channels are the most profitable for you, right? Things like your scheduling rate, your conversion rate, and really making data-driven decisions in your practice.
Shannon: You know, the doctors love this so much because we’ve suffered. We’ve suffered trying to give them good numbers and good information, and it can’t be, Oh, we got this much traffic to your site. Yeah, that is a measurement. It’s not saying we don’t measure that. But it goes so much deeper into what measurements we can really give them.
So that then we can have super smart conversations about that growth that we talked about in the beginning. Like, if they have these goals, how are we really doing? You have to have those targets, and are we hitting the targets, bottom line? Are we hitting our targets, and then, you know, things happen in practices? They lose a team member; this happens as I’ve run practices, and then the doctor kind of brings their targets down. I’m like, nope, we’re going to hit your targets.
This is what we need to do to really accomplish this. We’re not giving up.
Dominique: Yeah, you always say, “Don’t change your targets, just change the amount of effort you put in.” Absolutely. Change your strategy and tactics, but don’t change your targets.
Shannon: Don’t change them. We gotta hit those targets.
Dominique: Yeah.
Shannon: Because we’re usually talking to super smart business owners, doctors, that are really growing with multi-associate, multi-location, very well-established practices. They love it. They’re like, oh my gosh. You know. Finally, a strategic partner who is helping me really look at my business and my numbers.
Dominique: And it’s this star; this point of the star is that we’re able to show them the metrics and have actual ROI.
Shannon: But also, even in their original plan of what their goals were, it might shift. “Oh, I could do more of this now that we’ve accomplished that.” And we’re looking at that and having that conversation with the proper metrics.
Dominique: And it really informs you on where to focus the attention, the energy, the budget. Because there are about a thousand different ways you can optimize; marketing a funnel, a website, within that.
But, if you don’t have clean metrics or actual metrics, you don’t really know what to focus on. You don’t really know where the constraints are. And when you have that data out there in the open, everyone can see it. Everyone’s aligned on what KPIs are important and what we’re improving for this quarter is really what makes a difference in being able to push the profitability for night and day difference.
Dominique: So. If a practice could only focus on one of the four points we discussed, which one would you recommend they start with?
Shannon: Gosh, it really depends on where they’re coming in.
Dominique: Absolutely.
Shannon: It really depends on where they’re coming in. I would need to know what their SWAT and their goals are.
[I’d need to know:] What do you have? Do you have an okay website? Can you live with this for a while as we build up new patients? Are you hungry? Or you have a doctor who is not able to get patients. That’s an emergency.
That is a priority. That’s your low-hanging fruit. Like, we gotta get that guy working.
Dominique: Right, it depends on what assets they have. Do they have a great list already or, are they just starting the practice, from scratch? Oh my God. Patient reactivation, right?
Dominique: Are they all ready, you know, like you said, are they like really hungry for new patients?
“Hey, we need to get new blood in the door.” Or “Hey, we need to optimize what we have and, we just don’t know our numbers.” “Hey, we’re in that success chaos,” where you’re running and gunning, but you have no idea where your actual numbers are.
Shannon: Do you know how many times doctors have said to me, Shannon, no one’s talked about leveraging relationship capital? Because I talk about leveraging their relationship capital.
What’s working right now? Let’s clean it up. Let’s grow it a little bit. Now, let’s bring in new. And they’re like, people don’t talk like that. That’s just such a different way for an agency [to operate]. To look at how we’re strategizing because it really is a strategic partnership.
And so it really depends on, What are their main problems. What are their weaknesses, and what do they need to know? And a lot of them are like, let’s clean up our brand. Let’s have a clean brand foundation. Now, I want to get out there more because my referral base, my practice, aren’t working like they used to.
So that’s a lot, but I have a plethora of so many different ways that people come in to how we’re helping them.
Dominique: Yeah. No, that’s awesome. And this whole conversation was awesome. Like you mentioned, it’s really the core of who we are now as Marketly. It’s our four-point star.
It’s our strategy before tactics. If you’d like to learn more, we have plenty of other videos that go into detail on different aspects of dental marketing. You can check out our website that goes into it, and you can smash the smash that subscribe button.
Dominique: But as you can tell we love talking strategies. So, if you have an established dental practice and you’re looking to grow, and you just want to have an open honest conversation about strategy, [call us].
I can’t promise that we’ll have beers on deck, But you know, we’d be happy to just chat with you and see where that goes.
Shannon: Give us a call