MAY
02
0

A rose by any other name...

 

Have you ever heard of AuctionWeb, BackRub or Blue Ribbon Sports? These are all fledgling start-ups that, at some point, rebranded so that today you know them as multinational giants eBay, Google and Nike respectively! It may sound extreme, but renaming your business can breathe new life into it.

Defining your brand is a critical first step in any marketing plan and it takes time and thought. Once you’ve done it, you might like to think that you’ll never have to repeat the exercise, but nothing lasts forever. There comes a time in every business’s life when the branding gets stale or outdated. Change might also be desirable due to a change in ownership or focus.

Several high-profile brands have gone through identity adjustments over the years. A less drastic solution than renaming is to merely modify your business name to freshen it up. A recent example is the Huffington Post that, following the departure of its founder, chose to rebrand as the snappier ‘Huffpost’. In other cases, the business name is fine as it is and all that’s needed is a new or reworked logo, as we’ve seen over the years from the likes of Apple and Coca Cola.

As with all change, there is risk, but also the potential for great rewards. The risk is that you’ll alienate some of your loyal client base. In dental practice this would likely mean your older patients who might be more averse to change. The rewards, however, can be plentiful, especially if you’re looking to attract new patients. The decision, therefore, has to take into account what your prime demographic is, based on your location and services, and what kind of change will either reel them in or send them packing.

In short, when you start to feel like your practice image could use a refresh, it’s time to take stock of where you are as a company, how you are seen in the community and where you want to go. The exercise is an excellent opportunity to check the pulse of your practice and make the changes necessary to give it a jumpstart. The first step is to engage a specialist marketing agency to help guide you through the process. If you choose the right one, they’ll give you an honest assessment of what you should keep, and what you should let go of, and then help you do just that.

 

Milkshake Dental Marketing is a leading provider of specialist dental marketing in the UK, so give us a call on 01844 292086, visit our website or connect with us on social media (@MilkshakeDental).

  3266 Hits
3266 Hits
MAR
06
0

What’s your special day?

What’s your special day?

 

So, did you do anything special for World Play Your Ukelele Day? Lame Duck Day? Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbours Day? No, we’re not kidding - these are all ‘special days’ that were celebrated last month. You may think it’s all getting a bit much, with several special calls to action competing for every single day of the year. But we’d ask you to think again, because the flip side is that these are all opportunities for your marketing to take a free ride on social media.

Step out of your dental scrubs for a minute and see things from your patients’ perspective. Most of them are logging on and off social media pretty much all day long. And the posts they’re sharing are the ones that catch their imagination, which probably doesn’t include your strict reminder to floss twice daily. So how do you grab their interest? Have fun and be engaging. Choose a few special occasion days and tie them into your practice, making them highly shareable, whilst still working for you.

An example? 2nd March was National Old Stuff Day, so why not ask your followers what they’re planning to recycle or throw out and, at the same time, remind them to replace their old toothbrush? 2nd March was also National Book Day, a perfect time to ask your patients who their favourite fictional dentist is (and remind them to ‘like’ and ‘share’ if YOU are their favourite real dentist)! Anything that gets them to engage with you and, ideally, share your post, is marketing gold. Your posts will be seen by not only your followers, but everyone searching for the associated hashtag. And, best of all, it’s free.

Oh and don’t forget the special weeks and months too! Most, if not all, are conveniently indexed on https://www.awarenessdays.co.uk (for more serious causes) and https://www.daysoftheyear.com (for the more whimsical) so why not put a few on your social media calendar and ride those hashtags to success?

And if you don’t have time for such shenanigans, don’t worry - we have two dedicated social media gurus on staff whose job it is to post fun and engaging content for you (yes, they do love their work). So give us a call on 01844 292086, visit our website (link to https://milkshakedental.co.uk) or connect with us on social media (@MilkshakeDental) and we’ll soon have you participating in Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day on 27th March (just joking)!

  4871 Hits
4871 Hits
FEB
21
0

Are you award-worthy?

Are you award-worthy?
 
 
It’s awards season in Hollywood and who among us hasn’t at some point imagined ourselves standing in front of an adoring audience, accepting a gleaming statuette and making the most eloquent and gracious of acceptance speeches? If you thought that, by choosing a career in dentistry instead of film, you’d have to kiss that dream goodbye, think again.
 
There are several dentistry awards in the UK, including the FMC Dentistry Awards and The Dental Awards. More niche awards include the Aesthetic Dentistry Awards and the Private Dentistry Awards. In short, there are plenty to go round and, as the entry cost is either minimal or free, you’ve really nothing to lose and a great deal to possibly gain by entering.
 
Why bother? We’re so glad you asked. In marketing circles, we often talk about word of mouth being golden - the best kind of advertising money can’t buy. Well winning an award is even better, because it’s word of mouth from your peers. Being able to call yourself ‘award-winning’ (or even shortlisted) tells current, lapsed and prospective patients that your fellow dental professionals consider you to be among the best. In marketing terms, that’s priceless.
 
The Dental Awards 2017 have recently extended their entry deadline to 17th February, giving you just enough time to be in with a chance. Entry is free, so why not try your luck? All that’s required is for you to put your best foot forward and showcase your achievements in the best possible light.
 
Once you’ve secured your place amongst the finalists, get to work tooting your own horn on your website and of course on social media. This is certainly no time to be modest, and you should have a marketing campaign ready to take that award and run with it. After all, doesn’t your community deserve to know they have an award-winning practice just around the corner?
 
If you would like help preparing your entry (and marketing your big win!) get in touch with the team at Milkshake Dental Marketing. We’ll do the work while you do the fun stuff - practicing your big acceptance speech!
 
Contact Milkshake today for further information. 
  2918 Hits
2918 Hits
JAN
03
0

Part 1: Introduction

Part 1: Introduction

About GDPUK



As mentioned previously, 2017 marks the 20th year of GDPUK.

GDPUK.com is for dentists and dental professionals to discuss all aspects of their profession, their practice and their business, centred on the UK. Subjects dissected have been diverse, from tips on simple techniques to guidance on buying major equipment, to discussions on the various practice management software packages, and of ongoing developments in British dental politics.

Moderated in Manchester, England by Dr Tony Jacobs BDS, the Group was started in Summer 1997, and continues to grow rapidly.

GDPUK.com also publishes UK dental news, and has had many exclusive stories, as well as being able to publish the latest news relevant to dentistry before other dental news providers. In addition GDPUK blogs, both editorial and product updates are well read throughout the dental profession and industry. A unique feature is the @DentistGoneBadd visual blog.

The group now has nearly 10,000 members, and attracts interest and sponsorship from major companies involved in the dental trade.

Blog Series

To mark this anniversary, we thought we would put together a 20 (get it!) part series of blogs about online advertising and all the advantages of it. Over the next 19 blogs, I am going to look into detail at the reasons that online advertising is effective and why a medium like an online community can be perfect for your brand …. Especially If you are looking to reach a target audience.

Over the series of blogs, we will explore all the elements of online advertising from how you can be creative, the opportunity to increase brand awareness, plus the adaptability and flexibility of online advertising.

Advertising online can no longer be viewed as a new medium, it is extremely well established but we hope this series can convince the sceptics but also prove useful to anyone who is looking to do some powerful marketing of their brand or product in the year ahead. Please get in touch we any queries or questions.

Hope you enjoy this series of blogs. Thanks for reading.

Happy New Year.

  3406 Hits
3406 Hits
NOV
15
0

G.D.P.U.K

G.D.P.U.K

Welcome to our latest blog. Below are 5 reasons that we believe make GDPUK a unique place to market your business and reach your target audience of dentists. G.D.P.U.K.

 

 

 

G = Growing

 

Established in 1997, GDPUK continues to grow

 
  • 20 years of hosting dental discussion chat and opinion

  • The home of dental opinion in the UK

  • Just under 10,000 members, who are all part of the profession

  • Since beginning of 2014, we have had 3500 new members, the site is constantly growing.

  • Approx 1,000 different people contribute to our forum discussions in a calendar year.

  • In 2016, we are averaging over 4,000 unique visitors a month to the site.

D = Debate

GDPUK is the home of dental opinion and information.

 
  • The site is proud that it gives a medium for dentists to discuss dentistry in the UK and give their opinion of what matters to them.

  • The site can be controversial but we see that as a good thing. We exist because the content in our news, blogs and forum pages is interesting to read. We continue to attract an audience.

  • This tradition continued at our conference in November 2016 and our 20th anniversary celebrations in 2017.

P = Publisher

Publisher of Daily Dental News and Blogs

  • Large audience follow our news and blogs

  • GDPUK has a news editor, plus a number of paid content writers

  • News stories receive thousands of readers a week

  • A range of blogs are published weekly, full of opinion, humour and insight.

  • Our news is published instantly, so the site carries the latest stories, no monthly deadlines, no print nor post delays….

  • @DentistGoneBadd our comedy blogger attracts around 5,000 readers per week, 100,000 in the last twelve months.

U = Unique Opportunities

Reach your target audience

  • GDPUK offers unique advertising spaces to get in front of your target audience

  • Dentists are reading our site every day of the week.

  • The site is like a dental exhibition every day!

  • Feature on our daily digest email, which gets sent 3 times a day, every day

  • Ask us about what we can offer for a 12 month marketing campaign.

K = Kinship

Become Part of the GDPUK Family

  • We are a small, close knit group and business at GDPUK

  • Work with us and we can help any problems or issues and come back to you instantly

  • We can provide full accountability on everything and we are always available to speak or help.

  • GDPUK loves to build close relationships, with our users, colleagues and also our customers who help to keep the site running.

For more information about GDPUK and how we can help to market your business, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Thanks for reading.

  4818 Hits
4818 Hits
NOV
09
0

Market your business online, work with GDPUK in 2017

Market your business online, work with GDPUK in 2017

 

Ask us, How we can help you?

 

There has been a recurring theme this week (other than the US Presidential Election) and that is clients or prospects asking how we can help them in 2017?

We see GDPUK as an integral part of a dental companies opportunity to market themselves to dentists in the UK. We believe we have a large, active and engaged audience on the site, which we are very proud of. This is important because dental professionals in the UK are using social media more than ever and GDPUK is at the centre of that.

So we have put together a short list of the ways in which we can help our clients engage with potential customers.

 

  1. Banner Ads - We offer a range of banner ads on the site and our daily digest emails. Further info can be found in our media pack and by getting in This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

  2. 12 month packages of advertising. We have a number of deals with clients that run for 12 months, which offer the client excellent exposure, good value and builds a great working relationship between GDPUK and the client.

  3. Product / Service Launches - We can help launch a new product into the market, with blogs, news articles and banner ads.

  4. Special Offers - Entice new or old customers with a special offer / or sample offer

  5. Case Studies - We can publish case studies for you of products that are working for patients in dental practices. A case study can be a great way of demonstrating how your product works and how it will help the dentist improve his or her skills.

  6. Forum Reviews / Tests - Put your product to the test, use members of the GDPUK forum to test your product and receive honest reviews that can be shared on the forum and published as a blog post.

  7. Surveys - Run a survey, which can be hosted by our site or your site. Use it to do product research etc

  8. Social Media Competitions - Combining promotion on GDPUK and other social media channels, we can run a competition that helps collect data and potential new users of your product.

  9. Promotion of Courses / Events - There are a large number of events, meetings, courses that are scheduled in the UK dental calendar on an annual basis, we can help with promotion and even the sale of the tickets.

  10. 2017 Conference. Next year we are pleased to be hosting an event to celebrate our 20th year of a space for dentists in the UK to talk and share opinion. This milestone, will be marked with conference towards the end of next year. Exhibition and sponsorship opportunities will be available.

 

If you would like to try any other marketing ideas on our site, we are always interested in new methods and always looking to learn. Look forward to hearing from you soon, helping your business thrive in 2017.

Thanks for reading.

  5318 Hits
5318 Hits
APR
19
0

The Full Marketing Experience

The Full Marketing Experience

 

Our site is free for members of the dental profession to join. Established since 1997, we are proud to have nearly close to 10,000 members of our online community.

Revenue for the site is generated by companies from the dental industry advertising on the site.

Advertising on the site is done in the form of banner ads. These work well on the platform because they are reaching an audience who are interested in what services or products are available and you are offering something the audience is interested in.

We also offer advertising on our daily digest emails, which get sent 3 times a day and on average get opened over 100,000 times a month. These are opened on a frequent basis because they the content changes as the forum posts change.

As part of this advertising experience, we feel we can offer you more than traditional advertising mediums. GDPUK offers a value added experience.

 

  • Exposure on the site or daily digest for a full month or as long as you want. Pricing is on a per month basis. This generates a large number of impressions of your message.

  • Opportunity to post PR or blogs onto the site to accompany your campaign, these are then shared with our thousands of followers on social media. So as well as reaching our community audience, you are reaching another audience through social media.

  • By posting content and information to our blog pages, you can be seen as an opinion leader in your sector.

  • Our ad serving software can display more than one ad at a time, instead of having all your impressions on one message, you can split the exposure between as many messages as you want. This works well for a dental business that has a number of product or service offerings eg. a business that does dental repairs and sells equipment, can advertise both services at once. This is a fabulous way to test what works and experiment with which ads gain the best response.

  • Click throughs can be to a dedicated landing page on our website, where you can collect data or provide further information to the audience.

  • Advert can appear on our front page and our news / blog pages, which get viewed thousands of times in a month.

  • Option to run a forum review of your product or service for a small extra fee.

  • Option to have a sponsored post on the forum for a small extra fee.


So as you can see, we offer banner ads but we also offer a number of extras that we include in the package that makes it a great marketing opportunity. If you would like further information and are interested in reaching your target audience, please get in touch today. Pricing starts from £299 + vat.

 

Email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tel - 07786571547

We will be attending the Dentistry Show, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you would like to meet up.

  4077 Hits
4077 Hits
MAR
02
0

8 amazing reasons that you should embrace Digital: The benefits of digital over traditional print media.

8 amazing reasons that you should embrace Digital: The benefits of digital over traditional print media.

 

Trade media has been slow to embrace digital but below you will find 8 compelling reasons why now is the time to embrace digital media. The way we all use and share content has totally changed, with the large majority of people under 40, using only digital mediums when looking for news, information or opinion. Dental publishing is no different.

 

This change is now picking up speed, with the number of dentists reading and joining GDPUK growing all the time. The start of 2016 saw the site go over 20,000 threads created on the forum, which has produced an impressive library of content and knowledge. As dentists spend the majority of their time online, the companies looking to reach dentists will also do so.

Below are our 8 reasons that you should start embracing digital media.

 

  1. Lead generation / Data

For years advertising in magazines has been based on brand recognition but now with digital you can gather data from who visits your site, or who is interested in your product. The opportunities are endless. We are currently helping with a product trial in conjunction with a leading dental manufacturer who are offering products to our users on a trial basis, in return for feedback on the product. 10 dental practices were successful with their application and have now received the product. By encouraging engagement with our community, the manufacturer is also gathering data and generating potential leads as well as increasing brand awareness.

 

  1. Back Catalogue

Online publishers are constantly publishing content, whether it's blogs, daily news or the 20,000 + threads created by our community. A monthly or weekly magazine, are very rarely stored by anyone for more than a few months and it’s not straightforward to search for a particular article or opinion piece. All our content can be found online.

 

  1. Gain extra exposure

With over 4000 visitors a day to the site, we have a large number of eyeballs looking at our content. Online publishers receive a large number of readers on a daily basis, some of our news articles will receive thousands of views in a week. Instead of a banner being seen once, your ad will get seen numerous times in a month by one user!

 

  1. Visit an exhibition every day of the week!

In the dental industry there are a number of events cropping up on a weekly basis which unfortunately crowd the market for the established shows. Sites like our own often have thousands of visitors a day which is like an exhibition every day of the week, so the value of advertising when compared to exhibiting is exceptional because you are getting thousands of eyeballs on your product or service a day.

 

  1. Measure what works

The ability to be able to measure how many impressions your ad has received or which content is engaging users is an incredible advantage. Digital methods provide real-time results.

 

  1. Experiment with content - Flexibility

Another amazing advantage of digital is the ability to experiment with your ad or content. With our software you can even run more than one ad at a time and advertise two products or services at once. Ads can be tweaked or amended at any time giving tremendous flexibility. Make changes quickly based on real-time metrics and performance. There is no need to wait 12 months to identify what is and what is not working.

 

  1. Community

With a digital community content can be shared instantly. Obviously not everything is going to go viral but when your marketing efforts get shared, it is a great way of increasing engagement and exposure.

 

  1. Control your Sales Funnel

With a well functioning landing page you have extra control in your customer's journey. When an ad appears in a magazine you hope they remember the brand or remember to call you, but with a well designed landing page, you can capture information in a much quicker and less random manner. I have written previously on the importance of a good landing page, read more here.

Thanks for reading, get in This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for further information about GDPUK.com.

  5658 Hits
5658 Hits
FEB
11
0

Have you embraced Native Advertising?

Have you embraced Native Advertising?

 

So what is Native Advertising?

Native advertising is a type of advertising, primarily found online, that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears. Most of the time is is produced as an article or a video, created  by an advertiser with the specific intent to promote a product, while matching the form and style which would otherwise be seen in the work of the platform's editorial staff.

Native advertising is the next stage of content marketing. It is a great way to promote the content that brands are creating and an innovative way to reach their target audience where they congregate but in a way that is not seen as being overly intrusive.

 

Why does Native Advertising work?

  • It works for businesses whether small or large in their market.

  • Brands always have content to share and native advertising provides them a way to do this, while also monitoring the results of what works and what doesn’t.

  • Native advertising works very well in a mobile format. Whether it's a text link, hosted editorial or promoted video, because native content sits in the main part of the site, it is often seen as the same as any other content viewed via mobile.

  • Leads to greater innovations, brands don’t have as many limitations as traditional advertising. Anything that is innovative and different is sure to attract your target audience.

  • Native ads work best when placed on social media platforms and news focused websites. Site like these (like gdpuk) are built around content, so exciting native ads will attract attention.

 

Where can we see examples of Native Advertising?

Below are a few examples of native advertising, I have found by utilising google. I have included examples from buzzfeed because it turns out a lot of their content is actually native advertising! From $4 million of revenue in 2011, they were expected to reach close to $100 million of revenue by the end of 2015, primarily from native advertising articles!

  1. Netflix on Wired.com - http://www.wired.com/partners/netflix/

  2. Nike on SB Nation - http://www.sbnation.com/sponsored/nike-pep-talks/

  3. Cancer Research UK on Buzzfeed - http://www.buzzfeed.com/cancerresearchuk/sunbathing-expectation-versus-reality#.vbGDX25oKe

  4. Spotify on Buzzfeed - http://www.buzzfeed.com/h2/osmo/spotify/bands-that-wouldnt-exist-without-led-zeppelin?b=1#.mc7Rp2zNQP

  5. Call of Duty on Buzzfeed - http://www.buzzfeed.com/callofduty/jokes-only-call-of-duty-fans-will-get?b=1#.ffoNOKPeoj

 

 

As we can see in the examples I have randomly chosen, brands have been thinking of some great ways to interact with consumers without appearing overly intrusive. What do you think? Do you spot native ads?

Can this form of advertising be applied to the dental market? GDPUK has recently launched an option available to all potential clients, to do product reviews which gets you interacting with the dental community and getting your brand sampled or tested by our users.

Native advertising could be implemented into GDPUK in a number of ways such as a news story, a regular blog or even a forum post that gets the users engaged. Please get in touch if you have any ideas or methods you would like to try. We are open to suggestions and want to help you get the best experience you can from GDPUK.

Look forward to hearing from you. Contact details below.

  5316 Hits
5316 Hits
FEB
11
0

AIM to be the best

AIM-to-be-the-best.jpg

Dental marketing can be a complex puzzle, requiring time, money and effort from your team in order to see success. With all of these resources in short supply, particularly for the smaller practice, you need an automated solution that does all the hard work for you.

 

With this in mind, 7connections brings you AIM – Automated Intelligent Marketing. 

 

Capturing the team’s extensive experience and expertise in dental marketing and packaging it into a format designed specifically for smaller practices, AIM is the ideal tool to maximise your marketing activities. 

 

Once you have determined what you want to do and when, the system will automatically perform tasks as required, taking the stress away from you and your team.

 

With automated processes to streamline your marketing strategy and enable implementation of effective ideas in a convenient way, discover AIM from 7connections.

 

 

For more information about 7connections and AIM, please 

call 01647 478145, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

or visit www.7connections.com.

 

  3208 Hits
3208 Hits
FEB
09
0

“So much more” with 7connections

So-much-more-with-7connections.jpg

Looking for innovative and practical marketing ideas? Need inspiration?

 

7connections could have the answers you’re looking for. With a variety of different avenues from online marketing, patient relationships and referrals, to branding and social media, 7connectinos can help your practice grow and bloom. 

 

Throughout the year the 7connections coaches host and attend a number of essential educational events, where delegates can learn how to enhance their practice, reach more patients and streamline their business.

 

Aaron Ferguson from West-End Dental in Colwyn Bay attended the recent 7connections Marketing Roadshow, he says:

 

“What’s exciting is the fact that 7connections can add so much more to the software and solutions that are available. I would thoroughly recommend that you give them a call.”

 

If your practice is in need of fresh ideas and inspiration, make sure your explore the options available from 7connections.

 

For more information about 7connections, please call 01647 478145 or email pThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Alternatively, please visit www.7connections.com.

  10634 Hits
10634 Hits
FEB
07
0

Time to market successfully - Tim Caudrelier

Time to market successfully - Tim Caudrelier

You may think that advertising and marketing takes a substantial amount of time and effort and in most cases you’d be right – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Through the help of professionals, an effective system can be implemented to efficiently increase patient retention, acquisition, satisfaction and loyalty, as well as differentiating customer value, developing customers via up-sell and cross-sell opportunities and decreasing costs associated with low response rates[i].

 

Automated systems have become one of the main trends in modern marketing, proven successful across a wide range of industries. With developments in information and communication technology, businesses both large and small are able to build up substantial customer databases with real-time data. Strong software packages can then be utilised to analyse the findings to the advantage of the company.

 

Many of these marketing solutions are based on customer relationship management (CRM) or customer value management (CVM). These focus on the analysis of individual data to acquire and retain consumers and to drive behaviour with developed marketing strategies in such a way that the value of all current and future customers is optimised[ii]. The main objective is to better understand individuals by collecting relevant information and then making the most of this data to manage customer value and firm profitabilityi. With patients interacting through a number of channels, information can be collated from various touch points, such as face-to-face, telephone conversations or online. The information can then be used to better understand, monitor and influence customer behaviour through targeted emails. This shift in perspective in recent years from a product orientation to customer orientation brings marketing back to where it should be – about the patient experience.

 

As a service sector, dentistry should always be about providing the patient with the best experience possible. From the first time individuals access your website to the treatment provided and beyond, the way you and your team interact with the patient affects their overall opinion of the practice. This in turn impacts on future loyalty and whether they recommend your practice to family, friends and colleagues.

 

Implementing an effective system, such as AIM – Automated Intelligent Marketing –from 7connections can help you achieve outstanding results with minimum time and effort. The experts at 7connections can work with you and take care of virtually every aspect, so you don’t have to worry about setting up the technology, writing emails or sending them. Information can be targeted successfully to increase product and treatment sales in an economic and effective manner.

 

For your chance to find out more and claim your free three-month trial of AIM, contact 7connections today.

 

For more information about 7connections and the three-month free trial with AIM, please call 01647 478145, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

or visit www.7connections.com



[i] Aksoy, L., Keiningham, T. L., & Bejou, D. (2008). Objectives of customer centric approaches in relationship marketing. Journal of Relationship Marketing, 6, 1-8.

[ii] Morgan, R. M., et al. (2015). Handbook on Research in Relationship Marketing. Available online: http://bit.ly/1gtVhTy [Accessed 11th August 2015].

 

 

  3264 Hits
3264 Hits
JAN
20
0

The 4 Advantages of Using a Targeted Landing Page

The 4 Advantages of Using a Targeted Landing Page
 
A landing page is a single web page that exists or is created for the sole purpose of getting your user to take action. 
 
In the past I have looked at landing pages and why they are an important part of any marketing strategy. I thought this was something that was definitely worth revisiting. So much of our marketing is now online we have to look at how we attract and keep any leads we attract. 
 
  1. Landing pages are the key to converting the leads that click on your facebook or banner ad. So whether you are asking for contact details in exchange for a white paper, offering a demo piece of dental equipment, a targeted landing page is going to help you convert those visitors.
  2. Using one specific landing page for your campaign also gives you a clear idea if the marketing campaign is working or not. If you are still getting a high bounce rate on your targeted landing page, the page may need tweaking or reworking slightly. If traffic goes to your homepage, it is impossible to see why the leads aren’t taking the next step. The landing page can always be tweaked and then you can see if your results improve.
  3. Having one page also lets you narrow your focus and remove the clutter you would expect on a homepage. The page should enable the visitor to find the information a lot quicker. This keeps the visitor focused on the product or service you want them to look at. 
  4. Landing pages need to be seen as part of your sales team. Can the page sell your service or product to the level you would expect? You obviously wouldn’t expect your salesperson to convert every single lead they receive but you would expect a certain proportion. You need to look at your landing page in the same way. The page needs to be converting the clicks.
 
Therefore the landing page always needs a clear call to action and hopefully you will start seeing some positive results.
 
So when should you be using landing pages?
 
  • As destinations for your banner ads.
  • To create anticipation for a new product or service you are offering the dental community.
  • To promote a special offer that you don’t normally offer. The landing page can expire after one week or a month, it is upto you. 
  • To segment your audience. You may want a landing page that is aimed just at endodontists for example. 
 
If you have a target audience in mind, you need to start thinking about how you are going to reach that audience. Once you reach them, how will you keep them engaged? Designing a targeted and focused landing page is a great step to getting a return on your marketing budget. 
 
Get in touch if you would like further information on GDPUK and where our site can fit into your marketing plans.
 
Have a great week
 
Jonny
  5364 Hits
5364 Hits
JAN
14
0

The 7 Pain Points - Tim Caudrelier

The 7 Pain Points - Tim Caudrelier

Running a successful dental practice, like any small business takes time, effort, perseverance and a little luck. It can be a mammoth step-change going from practising as an associate dentist to owning and operating your own dental practice, and without the essential support and guidance of experts, clinicians will be relying on more than just a little luck.

 

For instance, there can be many reasons why a particular strategy or business approach doesn't garner the results you desire, but without the experienced know-how of business specialists, dentists may find they lack the commercial insight needed for their practice to be a success.

 

Naturally, such insights are gathered over a long period of experience – lots of trial and error – and are based on seeing first hand what works and what doesn't. Having worked with dental practices for many years, at 7connections we have established the following 7 pain points that at some time every practice will have to overcome in order to succeed.

 

1. Lack of Balance

In a recent survey that asked what factors are most important to the UK population, 53.7% said work-life balance was the top concern.[i] And yet according to data from the office of national statistics, almost one in two adults report low satisfaction with their work life balance.[ii]

 

As a practice owner, you can spend 28-35 hours a week performing clinical activity, and then still have to run your business; this can be at least another 10 hours! Achieving a balance therefore requires reducing the time spent working, which means either getting a better team or utilising better systems.

 

2. Lack of Profitability

When you work hard, you naturally want to see your business making money. However, most practices will suffer at some point from a lack of profitability. In short, if your practice costs more to operate than the amount of revenue generated, then it will soon face real problems. But if you employ the correct model and well-established systems this can easily be avoided.

 

3. Lack of Growth

Business growth is essential, you should aim for growth to be at least in line with inflation, and more if you want to eventually sell for a profit. Therefore if you experience a drop in turnover or a lack of progress across your business, it’s time to consider a change.

 

4. Lack of New Patients

A dental practice will always need new patients. To achieve a steady flow, all you need is 20 leads per full time dental surgery per month. Ideally these patients will spend between £1,500 and £1,700 in their first year with you. This will help deliver the sustainable growth required. But bear in mind that every aspect of your practice affects how new patients invest in your services. From your marketing to your systems, to the way your reception looks, it is essential the patient journey reflect the demographic you want to attract.

 

5. Lack of Team Trust

For any successful business, you need a motivated team who all perform and behave according to your exacting brand standards. However, developing and maintaining a dedicated workforce can be one of the biggest challenges you’ll face. Remember any system you create is only as good as the people you have implementing it.

 

6. Lack of Systems

We talk a lot about systems, and for any business to be a success it needs well thought out systems that underline everything you do. Every part of your business should have a system that exists in a manual that your team can refer to and implement. To begin with this requires a lot of hard work, but will ensure that later down the line, your business is ready for the future growth and expansion you desire.

 

7. Lack of Productivity

A key component of success for any dental practice comes down to the individual profitability of every fee-earner in the business. It’s vital to analyse the productivity and profitability of each clinician, and to ensure they are always kept busy – and in order to do that you need leads and conversions.

 

The Solution

If these pain points are sounding familiar there are solutions that will help to address them all. In order to fix these points and build your business you will need to optimise every part of your practice – both through the right use of human resources, and through implementing efficient systems and protocols.

 

The best place to start this is in reviewing your Patient Journey and evaluating how you attract and retain new patients. The much discussed seven-step principle known as ‘lifecycle marketing’, can help you to optimise this process, as it effectively encapsulates the process of attracting new patients and retaining them by building and developing long-term relationships.

 

For more information about 7connections, please call 01647 478145 or email pThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Alternatively, please visit the new website www.7connections.com.

 



[ii] 48.4% of UK adults reported relatively low satisfaction with their work-life balance. Office for national statistics, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/mro/news-release/measuring-well-being-initiative-highlights-work-life-balance/whatwedonr0312.html [accessed 13.3.15]

 

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JAN
12
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When traffic is a good thing - Tim Caudrelier

When traffic is a good thing - Tim Caudrelier

Gone are the days when a website that simply listed your products or services was adequate. Now, with rapidly developing technology, digital advertising and social media you can create an online interactive presence to connect with your existing patients, while also attracting new people to your practice. But what is the best way to boost traffic to your website and convert leads into customers?
 

Until recently, patient use of the internet involved the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. However, now Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have become search engines in their own right[1]. Competition for website surfers looking for information has therefore increased and consumers now have choices they did not have a few years ago. As the online arena becomes more flooded with commerce, buyers have the desire and ability to become familiar with a brand before they purchase. This is changing online buying behaviour and people are opting for two, three or four lead magnets before buying.
 

Traffic platforms are also changing and becoming overcrowded. Take Facebook as an example – previously you could send Facebook traffic to a squeeze page with just a headline and an opt in box, but now it is becoming increasingly strict with what kind of landing pages it allows traffic to be directed to.
 

This crowding of traffic has also caused people to become highly adept at ignoring advertising in all its forms – TV commercials are skipped and emails from unknown senders are left unopened. So although there are various options available to buy advertising, this alone is no longer an effective option for driving traffic to your website. Instead you have to earn traffic by creating valuable content that attracts visitors. Through the development of informative content, you can encourage leads to your site. Reports or webinars, for example, on the latest treatments and oral healthcare advice will engage patients and create interest. More importantly, this information will also allow you to develop a trusted relationship with individuals.
 

Building your content library one piece at a time is an ideal way to start, as this will ensure you have new and interesting topics for patients and potential patients to read and engage with regularly. These could include blog posts, videos, case studies, reports and webinars, and before you know it, you will have a substantial source of work that will help raise the profile of your practice and generate new leads.
 

Having a well-thought-out marketing system in place, such as AIM – Automated Intelligent Marketing – will then allow you to target the information to the correct patients successfully. Developed by 7connections, AIM utilises the lifecycle marketing concept to effectively target communication and create smarter lead management, resulting in enhanced lead conversion rates, increased sales and greater profits.
 

There are many ways to enhance traffic to your website, however just investing time and money on advertising without a clear and structured plan will result in a number of missed opportunities. Developing quality content and then marketing it through an effective proven system will ensure leads are created and converted and patients retained.

 

For more information about 7connections, please call 01647 478145 or email pThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Alternatively, please visit the new website www.7connections.com.

 



[1] Romano, R., & Baum, N. (2015). The business side of developing a social media presence into your medical practice. The Complete Business Guide for a Successful Medial Practice, 239-248. Available online: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-11095-0_20 [Accessed 20th August 2015].

 

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JAN
12
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9 ways GDPUK can help you in 2016.

9 ways GDPUK can help you in 2016.

 

How can we help you?

 

First week back in the office has flown by and like everyone else involved in the world of sales, we have all been working hard on following up leads, arranging meetings and even closing some deals! (always be closing)

There has been a recurring theme this week in my small dental related bubble and that is clients or prospects asking how we can help them in 2016?

We see GDPUK as an integral part of a dental companies opportunity to market themselves to dentists in the UK. We believe we have a large, active and engaged audience on the site, which we are very proud of. This is important because dental professionals in the UK are using social media more than ever and GDPUK is at the centre of that. For example many of the signatures for the letter published in the Daily Telegraph came from GDPUK. NHS unfit for purpose.

So we have put together a short list of the ways in which we can help our clients engage with potential customers.

 

  1. Banner Ads - We offer a range of banner ads on the site and our daily digest emails. Further info can be found in our media pack here

  2. Product Spotlights - New for 2016, the product spotlight will appear on the frontpage of the site, with a promotion of your new service / product or special offer.

  3. Product / Service Launches - We can help launch a new product into the market, with blogs, news articles and banner ads.

  4. Special Offers - Entice new or old customers with a special offer / or sample offer

  5. Case Studies - We can publish case studies for you of products that are working for patients in dental practices. A case study can be a great way of demonstrating how your product works and how it will help the dentist improve his or her skills.

  6. Forum Reviews / Tests - Put your product to the test, use members of the GDPUK forum to test your product and receive honest reviews that can be shared on the forum and published as a blog post.

  7. Surveys - Run a survey, which can be hosted by our site or your site. Use it to do product research etc

  8. Social Media Competitions - Combining promotion on GDPUK and other social media channels, we can run a competition that helps collect data and potential new users of your product.

  9. Promotion of Courses / Events - There are a large number of events, meetings, courses that are scheduled in the UK dental calendar on an annual basis, we can help with promotion and even the sale of the tickets.


We hope everyone out there has also had an insightful start to the year and like ourselves are always thinking about how they can improve what they offer to their customers. If you would like to try any other marketing ideas on our site, we are always interested in new methods and always looking to learn. Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks for reading. 

 

Our latest media pack can be found by clicking on this link

Look at some of our amazing numbers that GDPUK produces - GDPUK in Numbers

 

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4953 Hits
DEC
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Maximising Value Turbo-Charge your Turnover - Luke Moore, Dental Elite

Maximising Value Turbo-Charge your Turnover
 

Turbo charge your Turnover
 

Website optimisation can be a cost effective and easily integrated marketing strategy for a dental practice to pursue. Practice owners need to spend time dedicated to the clinical aspects of a dental surgery, and this is where their expertise lie. However, this can result in the business side of the practice being neglected having detrimental effects on the revenue flow, so owners need to identify tactics that have maximum impact with minimal disruption on the care of their patients.

 

The internet has transformed the way in which businesses can communicate to both their current and potential patients. It is another channel that can be utilised to target specific groups with a tailored message that will resonate with their needs. Most UK dental practices have a website, even if it is not fully optimised, and there are a number of routes that a new patient can take to find it. The majority probably start from a well-known search engine and if a website has been designed effectively, it should have a high enough organic ranking to be featured in the first few search results.

 

However, many websites have to work proactively to acquire a prime position. One method is to pay for advertising. The advertisement needs to be carefully considered to ensure its effectiveness: concise, informative and intriguing. However, this does not guarantee a new patient, with the average conversion rate currently presenting at only 2.5%.  An important tip to increase sales conversion is to ensure that the landing page from the advertisement supports the message. If the landing page does not give the information that the patient requires at first glance, then the viewer is unlikely to spend any more time on that website. Also, it’s important that the potential new patient can easily make contact with the practice through simple forms of visual contact details. Even if the potential new patient does not convert following initial contact, this data can then be used to communicate with the ‘hot lead’ in the future.

 

With over a hundred years’ of experience across the team, Dental Elite can offer your practice a ‘Health Check’ and practical advice on how to achieve your objectives. Dental Elite will work with you to ensure the practice is optimising its revenue stream with view to maximising the valuation for when you come to sell. The Dental Elite directors have experience in marketing and Search Engine Optimisation and so these activities are at the core of the service offered.

 

Web site optimisation can be a powerful marketing tool to drive new patients to your practice, maximise their investment once there and increase the practice’s revenue stream. With just a few simple tactics applied online, the practice’s potential reach to new patients is enhanced with minimal disruption to clinical care.

 

For more information visit www.dentalelite.co.uk, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 01788 545 900

 

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3496 Hits
NOV
30
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Optimising your practice - Tim Caudrelier

Optimising your practice - Tim Caudrelier

As with any business, it is essential to have a well-thought-out marketing plan that will allow you to attract, capture and retain patients. Customer value optimisation (CVO) is one system that can be applied to dental practices to aid success. Consisting of seven steps, it can significantly simplify the process and help your practice to grow and prosper.

 

Step 1: Determine product/ market fit

Dentistry is a well-established sector that will continually be required by patients of all ages. However, it is important to choose the correct product or service for the market. If, for example, you are looking to offer a new orthodontic product or service in your practice, it is worth researching whether the market for the product will be sustainable.

 

Step 2: Choose a traffic source

Attracting interest from potential patients online will greatly optimise your chances of acquiring new clients, selling more products and services and increasing the frequency of sales.

 

With a number of options to choose from, it is best to focus on one traffic source, then once mastered add a second and third. The goal throughout is to drive prospects into the CVO funnel. This begins with the lead magnet.

 

Step 3: Offer a lead magnet

The lead magnet prompts a transaction of information by offering an irresistible bribe that gives a specific chunk of value to a prospect patient in exchange for their contact information. With the lead magnet at the very top of the CVO funnel, increasing opt-ins here will pay dividends throughout the rest of the system and allow you to provide more tripwire offers.

 

Step 4: Offer a tripwire

Tripwire offers are made to potential patients that have displayed interest through the lead magnet. The main aim of a tripwire is to change the relationship from prospect to customer through offers that individuals are unable to resist.

 

Step 5: Offer a core product

The core offer relates to your flagship product or service, perhaps implants, orthodontic or whitening treatment. In some cases, the core offer will be profitable, but it does not have to be. If you follow through on the CVO process, you could take everything you make from the core offer and reinvest it to acquire more patients.

 

Step 6: Offer a profit maximiser

The profit maximiser increases the average transaction value per customer. Through an upsell or cross-sell, patients will spend more during one transaction.

 

Step 7: Create the return path

The final way to grow your practice is to increase the number of transactions per customer. Having gained their contact information through the initial lead magnet, you will have the ability to continue marketing, offering them new lead magnets, tripwires, core offers and profit maximisers.

 

Effective email marketing is one way to maintain communication with patients and increase transaction frequency. The experts at 7connections have recently developed AIM – Automated Intelligent Marketing – specifically for small dental practices. Based on proven strategies, such as CVO, AIM can help your practice to reap the rewards of a clear and well-thought-out marketing plan.

 

Successful marketing systems can enhance a business and allow you to make the most of opportunities. Increase patient numbers, enhance the average transaction value per client and raise the number of transactions per patient with a well-thought-out marketing solution.

 

For more information about 7connections, please call 01647 478145 or email pThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Alternatively, please visit the new website www.7connections.com.

 

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3019 Hits
NOV
05
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Search Engine Optimisation For Dummies

Search Engine Optimisation (part one)

Using search engine optimisation
search engine optimisation

NEIL SANDERSON DENTAL MARKETING EXPERT

You are probably aware that Google now gives the top three search results to it’s paid advertising e.g. pay per click or Google Adwords. This is without doubt the most effective and quickest way to get your website to the top of Google’s rankings.

However there is also a case to be made for being near the top of the rankings organically or free listings. Some people just prefer to click on the free area rather than clicking on an advert. So whilst I would always advocate using Google Adwords as your first choice, I’d like to talk a little about search engine optimisation.

Search engine optimisation is effectively trying to make your website rank towards the top of Google’s listings. You must remember that fourth place is probably the best you will ever get because of the pay per click.

But if you can get yourself to position four of five it’s certainly better than being on page two. So  what do you need to do?

Search Engine Optimisation must do’s
  1. Video You must have video on your website, this is now crucial. Not only does video move you up the rankings but it also is a brilliant tool for keeping people on your page and remember to make your video autoplay. Ideally the video should be on either YouTube or Vimeo with a link to you website rather than being embedded in your site.
  2. Blog Write a regular blog, between 300-500 words. A blog is also extremely effective in influencing Google, make sure you put lots of links back to your website into the blog and also have outbound links. you also need to optimise any images you put into your blog. You also need to think of the keywords you are trying to influence Google with.
  3. Google local business. This is an area often overlooked by most practices but is highly effective at getting you up the local rankings. Put as much content into this area including video, images, your opening times, any special offers, in fact as much as possible. Then get as many reviews from your patients as possible.
  4. Metatags These are the short descriptions you see when you search for something and are presented with the listings, ensure that these are relevant and have your key words in them.
  5. Links. If you have any links in you page ensure that they still work, Google will check for broken links, if you have lots they will mark your site down.
  6. Navigation Analysis ensure that your site has good navigation and all links within the site work.
  7. URL names ensure that your URL (the name of the page) is relevant and has your key words in it.
  8. Content Change you need to make sure that your content changes regularly, Google doesn’t like static sites, it wants to see things changing regularly, just as you update your Social Media ensure that you regularly update your website too.

I’ll go through some of the other SEO tactics in later posts, but if you start to adopt these you should see your rankings improve, although this isn’t guaranteed and you are at the mercy of Google. As I said earlier, the only tried and tested way to get your site to the top of the listings is to advertise with Google.
 

If you would like help with your digital marketing, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk Facebook page

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5481 Hits
NOV
04
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Mobilegeddon & Your Website

Mobilegeddon & Your Website
 

Mobilegeddon

From the 21st April Mobilegeddon happens, you need to act now
 

For some time now I’ve been banging on about how your website should be mobile ready because 60% of all search is now carried out on mobile devices and you should have your website ready for these visitors.

Well things are just about the heat up even more. Google have announced major changes to their algorithms, (the industry is calling this Mobilegeddon that will do two things.

  1. They are going to tag all websites in the search listing that are mobile ready.
  2. They will lower your ranking if your site isn’t mobile ready.

The marketing press have been full of this, Read This Article. So just what does this mean to you as a dental practice? Well basically everything. As I have mentioned on many occasions 60% of all search is not done on mobile devices. This means that if your site isn’t mobile ready, people searching for you will probably never see your site listed.

But and it’s a big but, if your site is actually found by someone who is searching for you, your listing will not have the Google mobile stamp of approval so they may well decide not to bother with your site.

This Google update is not some small thing that they will roll out as they have been doing over the last two years with most people not noticing, this is a major deal for Google, (Mobilegeddon), this is why they have been flagging this up for some time.

So what do you need to do to ensure that your website is mobile friendly and you won’t fall foul of Mobilegeddon?

  1. Ensure the mobile version of your site is active and functional. Responsive designs are the most popular, these are the one’s that we supply, but you can also have a separate hosted mobile version of your site. Google doesn’t have a preference, as long as mobile users’ experience isn’t interrupted.
  2. Ensure Google’s mobile bots can crawl your site. If Google can’t see it, it may as well not even be there.
  3. Check each individual page of your site on a mobile device to ensure navigability. Just because your home page is mobile friendly doesn’t mean the rest of your site is.

In addition Google are offering you a new tool to test your website, click here to check your website and ensure that it is mobile ready, this tool is completely free and safe, it will give you all the information you need to ensure your site is mobile ready.

Incidentally Google are also checking to see if you have a mobile app too, and again if you pass this test they will rank you higher than if you don’t so you might want to think about getting yourself a mobile for the practice (we sell these too) click here to see how our Mobile App can build your practice, it’s been designed specifically for dental practices.

We are now very busy converting many websites to make them mobile ready, if you would like us to give you a quote on making your website mobile ready, call us today on 01767 626 398 or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk or check out our Facebook page.

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SEP
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Why Would A Dental Practice Want A Mobile App?

Why Would Your Patients Want Your Mobile App?
 

mobile appWhen the developers of the dental mobile app first approached me this was the first thing I said to them. Let’s face it why on earth would anyone want to to got the trouble of downloading your mobile app?

First let me explain what a mobile app is. If you have a smart phone either Apple or Android, you will almost certainly have lots of apps on it. For instance to access the iTunes store, Google maps, etc. etc.

Apps are now the best way for all companies to communicate to their customers, but why would anyone want a dental mobile app?

The answer is you make it worth their while to download and use your mobile app!

Firstly you have to advertise the app, particularly in your practice. Patients can download the app simply by pointing their mobile phone at a QR code in your reception. But they need a reason to download it in the first place.

So here’s why they will not only download the app but use it.

Mobile app Loyalty Scheme

There is a built in loyalty facility on the app. Each time your patient comes into the practice they scan a QR code in reception and this puts a tick in a box for them. When they have a certain number of ticks on their app they get a reward from you, maybe an electric tooth brush or a free hygiene session of a bottle of wine, it can be anything. This feature not only guarantees that your patients continue to come and see you but they use the app every time they come to the practice. The app does all this for you automatically.

Mobile app Referral Feature
There is the most amazing referral feature on the mobile app. Did you know that the average Facebook user has between 50 and 100 friends on it? The apps referral feature will send a message to every one of their friends urging them to download the app. If just 100 of your patients do this for you, you’ll reach between 5,000 and 10,000 new potential patients.

But why  would the do this for you? Because you reward not only the referrer but also the person being referred and the app does all this for you. When one of your patients gets let’s say five of their friends to download your app, they are rewarded by you, when a person is referred, they get something off their first appointment, you win, your patient wins, the new patient wins.

You can’t buy advertising like the mobile app

Why because just think of this, if you advertise with Google or Facebook, the press or any other media it is just that “an advert”. Whereby when your patients send a referral to their friends this is a thousand times more powerful. Because it’s word of mouth advertising, but on an industrial scale.

It’s estimated that 50 of your patients sending our a referral to all their friends is worth £1,000 of Google advertising, and that app costs just £50.00 per month. A fraction of the cost.

So don’t hesitate you need to call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at enquiries[at]dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk  or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk or visit our Facebook page

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4902 Hits
SEP
18
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Feature in the GDPUK Showcase Guide

Feature in the GDPUK Showcase Guide
 
 
Our guide to the BDIA Showcase 2015 is now live. This follows a successful guide that we ran last year for the show which has received over 40,000 views.
 
If you are exhibiting at the BDIA Showcase and would like delegates to visit your stand to see your new products or services, this is a great chance to do some promotion and exposure of your product or brand before the show. All you need to do is send an article to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will do the rest.
 
There is a word limit of 600 words but plenty of images are encouraged!
 
Cost to feature in this guide is absolutely free. GDPUK will then promote the feature over the next few weeks, through social media and the GDPUK main site. Email us This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
 
If you would like to advertise elsewhere on GDPUK and would like further information, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. GDPUK is the largest community in Britain for dentists and dental professionals to discuss news, opinion and share information on UK Dentistry. The site reaches thousands of dental professionals on a daily basis.
 
If you would like to meet up at Showcase and discuss how we can work together in 2016 please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Look forward to hearing from you. 
 
 
 
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5225 Hits
JUL
19
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Enhancing our clinic - Mr Jonathan Bell Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Wimbledon Clinics

Enhancing our clinic Mr Jonathan Bell Wimbledon Clinics

The Company

At Wimbledon Clinics we were the first multidisciplinary clinic providing sports medicine and othopaedics in London and the South of England. Our team of orthopaedic consultants specialise in back and neck, foot and ankle, hip and groin, knee, and shoulder pain and we offer a range of solutions and options for treatment. Our goal is to provide exceptional care that focuses on the patient’s need by providing a strong non-operative care pathway alongside surgical excellence when required. Our patients know that they will not be over-treated or operated upon without appropriate trial of non-operatvie care.

 

The Challenge

We initially approached 7Connections as we were looking to attract new patients, and improve efficiency across the clinic. Our biggest challenge was that the principles were generating 60% of the turnover and we wanted to attract increased numbers of patients for the other specialties to even out the figures. Therefore the focus was on establishing a plan to generate direct referrals from marketing, additional revenue streams and recruitment of further associates.

 

The Solution

To do this first required restructuring our front of house and back office management processes. We started working with 7Connections, specifically with Tim Caudrelier, who has helped us immensely with the restructure of the team. This has delivered great results as the productivity and culture in the office has been significantly enriched. This has in turn had a positive impact upon the engagement of associates and the benefits can been seen across the clinic.


We also switched the vehicle from a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) to a Limited company to better allow us to offer minority shares as part of our succession plan. Our finance reporting was then adapted to include monthly EBITDA and forecasting in addition to monthly budgeting, this has allowed a far greater perspective on our continuing progress.


We have also implemented a range of new internal systems, have out sourced our finances (bar day-to-day invoicing and debt collection), and are now in a position to measure and track our new marketing programme, which we have just begun rolling out. The service we received from 7Connections has facilitated the smooth nature of these transitions, and we have found that Tim has been available for calls, emails and meetings and has really gone above and beyond our expectations in the asistance he provided. What’s more, we have now also just completed our first marketing sequences with Jon Barrow and hope to see results from that very soon too.

 

Results

Having made the changes and followed the advice given, we have managed to get to within a few thousand of our end of year forecast, which proves how robust the changes have been. We have also vastly improved our ‘referrer nurture’ program which has seen an increase in referrals from those we engaged with.

Overall, the restructure has allowed us to trim costs and we have seen a 35% growth over the last year, the vast majority of this was for the associates not the two principle shareholders.

 

For more information about 7connections, please call 01647 478145 or email pThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Alternatively, please visit www.7connections.com.

 

  3514 Hits
3514 Hits
JUL
19
0

Maximising Your Marketing - Munroe Sutton

Maximising Your Marketing - Munroe Sutton

The marketing options available to the dental practice vary widely, with differing target audiences, messaging opportunities and costs. Private practices in particular strive to attract new patients and maintain the existing patient-base to ensure a high chair occupancy, which will help the business to thrive. Importantly, a practice wishes to minimise the limited resource that they have on marketing activities in order to maximise investment in materials and equipment and improve the clinical care that they provide to patients. Careful consideration must be given to the allocation of budget, meaning that innovative marketing solutions need to be created.


The digital age has delivered a new, more cost-effective marketing channel to the general dental practice, but it can be resource draining in other ways. Search engine optimisation (SEO), social media platform updates and advertisements on complimentary web sites have their obvious benefits, but to truly optimize the practice’s presence takes commitment. Websites and social media platforms need to be updated frequently to improve SEO and so sporadic participation will not help achieve the end goal. To put the dedication that is required in perspective, most mid-sized to larger businesses have one employee dedicated solely to the digital role.


Other popular and more traditional marketing strategies include direct mail (both paper and electronic) and print advertising. The majority of practices would not have the tools, skill or time to create these activities in-house and so would need to seek external help. A professional and thorough service would be provided, but with a fee attached and also time commitment for a briefing, alterations and sign off on the final collateral. Also, the amount spent on the activity can sometimes outweigh the results, meaning it can be a costly exercise for a smaller dental practice to pursue.


A Complimentary Innovative Solution

Principals and practice managers responsible for the marketing functions need to find innovative, economical and time-friendly solutions that are less of a drain on resources whilst still being reliable and robust. Becoming a Munroe Sutton dental practice provides a solution. With over 30 years experience of designing, organising and managing affordable dental plans, Munroe Sutton works with some of the largest and most influential companies such as CIGNA and Allianz. Listed as a preferred supplier, Munroe Sutton provides unique dental plans that save customers money. The thousands of members that seek financial savings on dental treatment are directed to Munroe Sutton’s network of high quality dental practices, offering your business free promotion to encourage new patients. What’s more, to become listed on the Munroe Sutton network costs the practice absolutely nothing. 


Rather than spending considerable time, effort and expense on trying to attract new patients, Munroe Sutton does the hard work for you and will direct patients straight to your door.

 

For more information please call 0808 234 3558 or visit www.munroesutton.co.uk

  4011 Hits
4011 Hits
JUN
17
0

Email Marketing is still alive and more popular than ever!

 

One of my early posts to my digital dentistry blog was entitled 4 A * Reasons Email Marketing is still Alive! and I looked at the reasons behind why email marketing was still so important.

Nearly 2 years later, this is still seems to be the case. One could argue it is more important than ever. In the recent eConsultancy Census, it was found that revenue from email marketing increased proportionately by 28% in 2014, and was ranked as the number 1 channel in terms of return on investment, with 68% of companies rating the channel as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.

Email has become part of mobile marketing, it is estimated that mobile can account for up to 70% of all email opens. The banner ads or message on these emails still need to be clear and well positioned, although it’s not just the creative that is important, the sales funnel must also be fully mobile-optimised, with every page working so that they are mobile optimised and keep your customer engaged. A well designed landing page is still always an important part of the process.

We forget that with emails you are often reaching an audience that already knows you, if you have them on your list, they want to hear from you. Email requires a deeper level of engagement and trust. That is the reasons our daily digest emails remain popular. Our members are expecting them.

Therefore advertising on the GDPUK daily digest emails (sent 3 times a day) remains incredibly popular because so many people receive these daily emails to their inboxes and thousands of eyes look at the animated banners on the emails. We use these daily digest emails ourselves as an accidental marketing tool. What started as a way of communicating the latest posts on the forum to our members, has instead become a way for our members to be constantly engaged with the site and what is happening within UK dentistry. We know that not every member reads every thread or email but there is always a subject that appeals to a number of our members and that keeps our site busy and the banners receiving impressions. This means email remains incredibly important for GDPUK plus of course every big business that is online and looking for customers.

So two years after I wrote the blog piece linked above, email marketing remains an important tool for businesses of all sizes and needs to be treated as an integral part of your marketing plans, whether you are looking to reach dentists or members of the public for your practice.

We are all looking to generate leads and gain new customers, is email marketing still something you use to reach these goals or do you find other methods more effective? We look forward to hearing your thoughts, on what works for your business and what doesn’t.

Hope you enjoyed this follow up blog. Thanks!

  6364 Hits
6364 Hits
JUN
13
0

Clear the hurdles in dental marketing

Clear the hurdles in dental marketing - 7Connections

At 7connections, we create collateral and systems to ensure you clear your dental marketing hurdles and win the race.

The bespoke services we offer to enhance your marketing activities and maximise your return on marketing on investment include:

  • Artisan Lifecycle Marketing – an innovative, automated email marketing solution that combines exceptional software from InfusionSoft with the expertise of 7connections. Focusing on the seven key phases of lifecycle marketing, the comprehensive package could help you increase new business enquiry conversation rates from an average of 18% to 80%!
  • MagicBox™ – delivers a box of pre-designed and branded marketing tools to your practice door including posters, referral cards, TV loops, social media banners and patient smile evaluations. These physical and digital solutions will help drive sales, boost referrals and increase revenue with minimal cost and hassle for you, and the 12-month planner and tracker will ensure you head in the right direction.
  • Ultimate Marketing Academy – a one-year programme involving quarterly meetings and 24/7 access to the 7connections library of knowledge. You’ll receive a personalised dental marketing strategy, alongside all the skills and support you need to implement it successfully – there’s also a 100% money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the results!*

 

For more information about 7connections please call 01647 478145,

email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or

visit www.7connections.com

 

* The 100% money-back guarantee is available if you implement the knowledge and ideas that you gain and your are not satisfied with the results at the end of the Academic year.

  3642 Hits
3642 Hits
MAY
31
0

Facial Aesthetics – Education, Confidence and Marketing | Dr Nadine Skipp

Facial Aesthetics – Education, Confidence and Marketing

Principal and Founder of AURA Centre of Dental Excellence and Facial Aesthetics in Kingston upon Thames, Dr Nadine Skipp asks, ‘Where to begin?’ when taking up the provision of facial aesthetics.

It’s exciting times for dentistry. We have all seen the growing interest and popularity in non-surgical cosmetic anti-ageing treatments in recent years. But how do we make the most of this in our dental practices?

There is no doubt that the provision of facial aesthetics is perfect for dental practitioners looking to expand their practice and develop their businesses. It stands to reason that dentists are particularly suited to offering this, especially when you consider the years of training and experience in facial anatomy and familiarity with various injection techniques.

Of course, many dentists recognise the enhanced opportunities available through expanding into this growing lucrative market, but do not know how to bring this into their practice. It all begins with training and building up confidence. The first thing would be to explore the entire range of treatments available, considering all the areas and fields that initially appeal to you. From Botulinum Toxin and Dermal Fillers to Dermaroller (microneedling) and Chemical Peels, there are a wealth of options available and the more disciplines you can learn, the more likely you will be able to accommodate all your patients’ potential needs and requirements.

In any dental clinic, unless you’re performing a specific procedure all the time, it will take a while to build up your competence. Following my own initial training, a dental colleague told me that a great way to gain practical experience, increase my confidence and build upon the foundations of my education was to work for a larger provider of facial cosmetic treatments. So that’s exactly what I did. I worked part-time as a sessional non-surgical practitioner at a leading facial aesthetic clinic. It was perfect for building up my skill levels and completing a diversity of facial aesthetic treatments throughout each day.

Of course, it’s not always possible or practical to move into such an environment, especially if you already work in a demanding dental practice, but it is crucial to get as much experience early on as possible. This really helps to cement what you have learnt and build up your confidence.

Regardless of where you apply your newfound talents, the ideal starting point is to undergo the procedures yourself. After all, you can’t expect to be able to adequately explain, understand or empathise with your patients, unless you have experienced the procedures first hand. In fact, I still have my ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures prior to embarking on my very first treatments, and I regularly use these for educating patients and marketing. This has a real wow factor for my patients and builds valuable confidence in my skills.

Also essential is to ensure that every member of staff is well educated in the treatments being offered. To help with this, it is worth encouraging staff members to undergo various treatments, where appropriate, and to use the products themselves. Your practice team can be the ultimate advert for your services and this will help to increase their knowledge and familiarity with the processes. It will also allow them to provide reliable, honest advice and assurance to patients, while also promoting the excellent results on offer.

Encouraging interest in your facial aesthetics offering is all down to your marketing and the way you spread the word about the fantastic treatments you provide. Using e-shots and leaflets that detail the procedures and outcomes patients could expect, as well as offering promotions on certain treatments will help to do this. As will talking about it during routine dental appointments. It is important not to be afraid to mention these or to hesitate when suggesting a facial aesthetic treatment to your patients. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “Have you ever thought about having this done?”

Ultimately, the best way to advertise is by ensuring the provision of high quality services. Patients that are happy at your clinic will always promote you to other people, so it’s crucial to show each patient consistently high standards of care and support to encourage this right from the start. As important as any marketing technique is, a lot of the early interest comes from word of mouth. So, by nurturing existing patient relationships and with the support from your whole practice team, you can be sure to get your facial aesthetics practice off to a great start. 

 

To find out more visit www.auradental.co.uk, call 020 8549 5710, or contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

  5424 Hits
5424 Hits
MAY
31
0

Moving with the times - get your dental marketing right! | Tim Caudrelier

Moving With The Times - Get Your Dental Marketing Right!

There is no doubt that the dental practice landscape has evolved dramatically over the last 20 years, and we are seeing this shift continue as changes to contracts, authorities and organisations affect the way we perceive and run practices. Parallel to the developments in the way dentistry is governed and managed there has been a dramatic increase in competition between surgeries, both locally and nationally. This has caused the emphasis to move more towards viewing a practice as a business, with attention given to its profitability and commerciality.

As such, the business model for a dental practice is wholly unrecognisable from that which we would have been accustomed 3 years ago, let alone to 20. Not only that, but the dentistry on offer is entirely different too. Technology has moved forward at such a pace that complex procedures that would have been either prohibitively expensive or logistically impossible are now a part of the everyday provision. As well as this the demands on a practitioner, from maintaining levels of CPD to managing staff, and the increased amount of paperwork, have snowballed, leaving very little time to consider the well-being and direction of a business.

Dentists are therefore finding themselves pushed and pulled in many directions, with their focus spread increasingly thinly over an array of equally significant issues. In such circumstances it is all too easy for one issue to take a backseat or be neglected altogether and unfortunately, more often than not, it is the marketing of a practice that suffers. This will of course have disastrous repercussions, as the reality is that marketing is just as relevant to dentistry as it is to any other business. Every practice needs to promote itself and the services it provides to ensure a steady stream of new patients. But knowing you need to make a change with your marketing and actually understanding how to do so can be two entirely different problems.

The knee-jerk reaction can be to adopt a scattergun approach, aiming everything at everyone. However, this can be an expensive and potentially pointless exercise. Closely considered and targeted tactics are much more effective in ensuring the right messages are sent to the right people. To create a successful marketing strategy for your practice, it helps to follow a tried and tested formula. The much discussed seven-step principle known as ‘lifecycle marketing’, effectively encapsulates the process of attracting new patients and retaining them by building and developing long-term relationships.

A customer centric strategy, founded on the idea of sending the right message at exactly the right time, lifecycle marketing combines CRM, e-commerce, social media and email marketing into an online system for converting leads into customers and growing sales. It utilises sophisticated email campaigns that treat each recipient individually, taking into account their level of interest in a product or service on offer. For instance, a simple exercise of splitting email recipients into three categories such as interested prospects, current patients and lapsed patients, will allow you to approach your interactions in three distinct ways, tailoring your communication to suit.

Four Main Practice Types

Across the profession, in line with the developments discussed earlier, we now see four distinct practice types emerge, each with its own identifiable set of challenges and opportunities. But whatever your practice type, adopting lifecycle marketing will help you to develop and grow your business and there are specific benefits for each category.

NHS - The primary benefit for an NHS dentist will be in the automation of the patient system and the improved efficiency of the business model – this will lead to fewer missed appointments, less time spent chasing customers and more repeat appointments.

Private - For a private practice it will revolutionise the way the dental team works, enhancing practice turnover and profitability by growing the amount of time spent performing the right treatments and increasing the uptake of elective procedures.

Mixed NHS and Private – A mixed practice will see all the benefits the purely private dentist will see, but most importantly, adopting lifecycle marketing will help to accelerate the acquisition of more private clients.

Dentist Entrepreneur (multiple practices) – The benefits for a dentist running multiple practices is the ability to automatically scale their lead generation, conversion and upsell, whilst also generating a greater consistency of service between practices AND much more efficient use of the team’s time.

No matter your practice type, the aim of your marketing will always be to increase sales and profitability. By adopting the techniques of lifecycle marketing this mission will be made far more achievable thanks to the provision of clear structures and methods for meeting new patients and expanding your clinical reach. By embracing solutions designed, customised and put together for you by the experts, you can save precious time and money without compromising the results. Working with 7connections and software giant Infusionsoft, for example, you can implement effective strategies and fresh ideas with ease.

Dentistry has certainly changed over the last two decades, but that doesn't mean your practice has to be left behind. Make sure you are able to remain competitive by ensuring your marketing is up to scratch. If your practice is feeling its age and in need of greater profitability, client retention, and lead conversions, then you need lifecycle marketing in your business.

 

For more information about 7connections and the Ultimate Marketing Academy, please call 01647 478145, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit www.7connections.com

  4050 Hits
4050 Hits
MAR
24
0

Why You Need A Landing Page For Your Website

Your Landing Page

landing page

Neil Sanderson

Most people think of a website as an entity in its self, this is not the case. A website is a series of pages of which you need to think about landing pages.

What is a landing page? Well the description is in the name really, it’s where people land when they first come to your website.

Most people think that the place people should first see when they arrive at your site is the home page, this again is not the case, ideally you need people to land on the correct landing page, let me explain.

I’m sure that all of you have at one time or another gone to Amazon. Can you ever think of a time when you arrived on a home page which had menu options across the top for you to find what you are looking for?

No of course you haven’t. You always land on the page that you wanted. For instance if you are looking for a camera. I typed in the search “Canon EOS 70D” and below is the search I got.

landing page

Camer search screen

All the search items are about the EOS 70D which is what you would expect, some are reviews and technical pages others are sales pages, but effectively all of them are about this particular camera.

So whenI click on the search item which takes me to the “landing page”. It comes as no surprise that the page I land on is about the Canon EOS 70D.

Because Amazon is so good at this you are presented with everything you need to purchase this camera, there are reviews, things that people also bought when they buy this camera etc. In fact just about everything you need to make a purchase, this is a typical Amazon landing page and they are very good at it.

landing page

Amazon Canon landing page

So what has this got to do with your website and the landing page that your prospective patients land on?

Well it’s about this, we have all been tought by the likes of Amazon that we want to land on exactly the page we are interested in. We don’t want to land on the “home” landing page, we know what we want and we want it right now.

People are not prepared to come to a “home” landing page and navigate around the website until they find the item they are looking for, this is why you have to promote your landing pages all the time, so that your visitors get exactly what they are looking for immediately.

If someone is looking for teeth whitening, most dental websites are set up so they will come to the “Home” landing page, they will then click on the treatment tab, then they will find the whiting link and click on that, do you see the issue?

If you want people to visit your teeth whitening page you need to start optimising this page so that Google can pick it up and display it, this needs to become your whitening landing page.

The same goes for all your other treatment, such as facial aesthetics, implants, straightening etc. etc.

Writing a blog is a great help but having the right key words on the page is also crucial, along with the correct meta description. Get ahead of your competition and ensure that your treatment pages are optimised to be your landing pages.

However you can bypass all this an just use Google Adwords, which will always send people to exactly the page you require, this is one of the huge benefits of Adwords.

If you would like more information on your website, call me on 01767 626  398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit our Facebook page.

www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  5309 Hits
5309 Hits
FEB
27
0

How To Get Free Traffic To Your Website

Website Traffic, How Facebook Can Increase Yours Completely Free Of Charge

website traffic

Neil Sanderson

We all know that saying thank you is a great courtesy and makes the person who is receiving, feel much better don’t we. Well here’s a tip to make those two little words “Thank You” increase your website traffic too.

As I’ve said on many occasions before, there are two things you need to concentrate on with your website, (1) you need to maximise your website traffic. (2) you need to converts as much of that website traffic as possible into paying patients.

So here’s a little tip that will cost you absolutely nothing, it may endear you to your patients and you’ll get more traffic to your website and if your website has the right things on there when they land you’ll start to get more new patients too.

70% of the population now owns a smart phone, which is quite staggering, and just about every person who has a smart phone knows how to use an app. Additionally 50% of the population use Facebook for at least half hour per day every day.

So when you have done a great job for one of your patients and they say “thank you”, why don’t you ask them to put a link onto their Facebook page and just say thank you, it’s as simple as that.

They can even do this whilst you are with them on their Facebook app!

Let me elaborate on how powerful this little “thank you” can be to increase your website traffic. Let’s say you see fifty patients per day and one in five of them post this link to your website on their Facebook page.

The average person has 500 friends and likes on their Facebook account, this means that the link to your website could potentially be seen by 5,000 people every day.

Now I know that not everyone is going to do this for you, however much you try and persuade them. So we’ll scale this down (a lot). Let’s say that only 50 people per day get to see a link posted by one of your patients. This means that upwards of 1,000 people will see the link every month (12,000 per year).

Even if only 10% of them actually click through to your website, this means that 1,200 new patients will visit your site, simply because you asked your patients to say “thank you” on their Facebook page with a link to your site.

The best thing about this is that all this new website traffic is completely free, you’re not spending a penny on advertising anywhere.

But you also need to remember that you have the right wording, graphics, video etc. on your site to convert them from website traffic to paying patients and that is a whole different subject and incidentally even more important.

If you would like to know how I can help you grow your dental practice, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk, or you can visit our FACEBOOK page too.

  4772 Hits
4772 Hits
OCT
21
0

GDPUK Media Pack 2015

Download the new GDPUK Media Pack

Click below to receive the latest information and pricing from GDPUK.com

 

 

Download the media pack to find out all the features and benfits of advertising on GDPUK.com

 

 



Join our other UK Partners on GDPUK.com

Many of the leading businesses in the dental world use GDPUK to reach dentists

For further information on how we can help you, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or download the media pack today. 


  5339 Hits
5339 Hits
SEP
09
0

Your Dental Website, What's Important?

Your Dental Website, What’s Important?

The answer to this question “Dental Website, What’s Important?” is incredibly simple really and it’s this: (1) You need to attract as much traffic to your site as possible (2) You need to convert as much of that traffic as possible.

Most businesses view their website as something that they have to tick the box and can say, yes we now have a website. The fact that the only people who know it exists is themselves, friends and family never seems to come into the equation.

Having a dental website built can cost many thousands of pounds and take up a great deal of your time and effort, only for it to lurk in the shadows never being seen by anyone. It’s a little like setting up a new dental practice in the middle of a field and wondering why nobody is coming!

The best and most reliable way to drive traffic to your website is to use Google Adwords. This will take you to the top of page one of Google in most instances or at worst you’ll be over on the right hand side of the first page see below.

Dental Website

When someone looks for your site on a mobile device this is even more important as normally you’ll only ever see the websites that are using Google Adwords advertising or pay per click (PPC).

Google normally allocates the top three slots for paid advertising which means that if you don’t advertise your website with them the best you can ever hope for is position number four and to get to this position you have to be very, very, very good at optimising your dental website.

So let’s assume you’ve decided to pay Google an amount each day to display your dental website and people are landing on the particular page you want them to land on. You now have to convert them from browsers to buyers.

Take a look at the two websites below:

dental website

Dental Website

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m sure you’ll think that the page on the right is much prettier than my page and you’d probably be right, but my page will outrank the other page in Google rankings and also out convert the one on the right by a factor of 1000% here’s why.

On the left of my page is a video which automatically starts running when someone lands on the page, this immediately gets and keeps their attention. On the page on the right is a nice photograph.

On the right hand side of my page is a picture of my book, and a line saying click here to download my book or have one sent in the post for free. However to actually get the book you have to give me your email address and name and this is key.

If you are selling anything that is of a higher value such as an implant on your dental website, invariably people will not just pick up the phone and book an appointment now, simply because whenever we buy things of a higher value we want more information and this is where the email comes into play.

When someone gives you their email address it is placed in what we call an auto responder, this does exactly what the name implies, it automatically responds. So you can have a series of emails spaced out over the next three or four months that will automatically be sent to your subscriber.

This means that when they do eventually decide to have that implant or have their teeth straightened or have a smile makeover, invariably they will choose you because you have been sending them information for that last three months.

That’s how we convert browsers into paying patients on your dental website.

If you would like to know more about our website service, with video and auto responders built in, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me a This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  5770 Hits
5770 Hits
JUL
29
0

How To Use Facebook For Research

Start Using Facebook For Research

Facebook for research

Neil Sanderson

It wasn’t so long ago whenever you took to the high street or went to the supermarket that there was a nice lady or gentleman with a clip board who would ask you if you had a few minutes spare to answer a few questions was it?

It seemed that they were everywhere asking you questions on every subject from which biscuits you prefer to where you go on holiday or what car you drive etc. etc.

But now you barely ever see one of these people, because the smart corporations have started to use Social Media or more particularly Facebook for Research.

Using Facebook for research is not only a lot cheaper but it is much more accurate too. So what do you need to do to use Facebook for research in your dental practice?

Once you have a couple of hundred fans of your page you can start to see patterns. The best tool for this is the insight tool under people, which gives you just about every bit of information you can think of about the people who “like” your page.

You can see the split between gender, how many people fit into particular age groups, when people are online and looking at what you do, the information is invaluable to build your audience and communicate with them, Facebook for research purposes really has no rivals at all.

If you are thinking of launching some sort of promotion or launch a new product or service, you can test this out on Facebook before you invest your time and effort into it.

There are several aps you can run on Facebook that will let you run surveys. So for instance one of my clients was thinking of changing his opening hours and offering late opening or weekends. We ran a survey for him on Facebook and it turned out that most people didn’t actually want late evenings they wanted to come to the dentist before work e.g. early mornings.

Facebook for research

A section of Facebook insights

You might think of going on a course for straightening or offer a new type of whitening, so run a survey with your likes and find out if there is a ready market waiting to take your new products or services.

But you don’t really have to go to the time and effort of running a survey if you don’t want to, simply ask your fans what they would like to have on your page.

Facebook is a very interactive medium and is ideal for simply asking your audience questions. So once you have decided that you are going to launch a particular service or you are going to make a special offer Facebook is also great for telling you how large your market is too.

First you create an advert for something like teeth whitening, you can then target it at exactly the audience you want and Facebook will tell you how many people fit that profile. Let’s say you are going to launch straightening and your Facebook research told you that the best age group for this would be 30-40 year olds.

You can specify that you want to just target this age group in your area and Facebook will tell you exactly how many people your advert will reach. As far as I know there is nothing that comes close to this type of market information and how this can give you laser focus with your advertising.

If you would like more information on Facebook for research or any other type of Dental marketing information, call me on 01767626398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  4961 Hits
4961 Hits
JUL
15
0

How To Promote Private Dentistry In Your Practice

To Promote Private Dental Treatment You Have To Tell People What You Do!

promote private dental treatment

Neil Sanderson

Just how do you promote private dental treatment? Your private dental treatment may just be one of the best kept secrets in your practice! I don’t think I have been to a dental practice yet where the private treatments offered are being promoted.

If you don’t believe me just have a look around your practice! What information are you currently offering your patients on the services you offer, I suspect if you are like just about every dental practice you aren’t.

Let’s face it dental implants, veneers, bridges, invisible braces are not cheap are they? A couple of implants may well set your patient back many thousands of pounds, a course of Invisalign runs into thousands, these aren’t easy decisions for your patients to make.

When you are thinking of buying a car, holiday, TV etc. you don’t normally make a snap decision, you gather as much information as you can get and hopefully make an informed decision.

This normally means visiting websites, getting brochures, going into a showroom and gathering as much material as possible, which means that you have to do the same to promote private dental treatment in your practice.

Car manufacturers, holiday providers know that they have to promote their products both online and in the showrooms or travel agents, they provide brochures, sales people, downloads etc. and you are no different, people have to have information to make a decision.

So just how do you promote your private dental treatment? Incidentally you have an even more difficult task than a car manufacturer or a holiday company because a large number of your patients and prospective patients don’t even know that your private dental treatment exists.

Many don’t know what an implant is or that they can straighten their teeth without metal braces and if they do they don’t know that it may apply to them. If you take nothing else from this article remember this statement.

It’s not your patients job to find out what you do, it’s your job to tell them!

So just how do your promote private dental treatment in your practice?

Well if you want to do it really well you buy my Practice Information System, but you can do this yourself too if you have the time and can find a good graphic designer, printer, video production company etc., here’s what we provide you and what you need.

  1. Get rid of Sky or BBC news on your reception TV and start to show patients what you do. We provide you with a bespoke video which is branded to you. It has testimonials from your patients, it has you explaining what you can do and it has incredible animations which really grab your patients attention.
  2. You need a brochure and I don’t mean a little tri-fold thing which one of your suppliers has provided I mean a high quality A4 brochure that is produced by you and promotes your treatment, explaining what you can offer and how it can benefit your patients.
  3. We provide you with banners which draw your patients attention to your video and your brochures, but at its simplest just highlights what you can do for them.

We call this our Practice Information System and is designed specifically to promote private dental treatment in your practice.

But it gets better, standing out from your competition is crucial and not only will the video run on the TV in your reception from a standard DVD player, it will run on your website, you can email it (or parts of it) to your patients, it will run on an iPad in your surgery, in fact just about anywhere.

Dental Marketing Expert’s Practice Information System is your one stop shop to promote private dental treatment in your practice.

If you would like more information on Practice Information System, call us now on 01767 626 398 or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  6922 Hits
6922 Hits
JUL
14
0

Dentists and the web: 5 actionable tips to improve your online exposure

This week, we are publishing a guest blog by Alex from FireCask on how you can improve your online exposure.
 
 
Alex is a Director at FireCask, an online marketing and web design company in central 
Manchester. He has written over 10 WordPress plugins attracting over 750,000 downloads, 
speaks at industry events and has written for publications such as The Guardian, Huffington 
Post, Smashing Magazine and Econsultancy. 
 
I have been working in online marketing for nearly 10 years now. In that time I’ve worked with 
100’s of businesses in all kinds of verticals and helped them get ahead online. Dentists are 
actually in a competitive vertical when it comes to ranking within search engines so it’s important 
to know that your online exposure is improved as much as possible to ensure you get new 
people walking through the door and into the dentist’s chair. 
 
Tip #1: Write something relevant on your site 
You may have been advised to write on your site’s blog or you may have a company writing blog 
posts on your behalf. One piece of advice is to ensure that the content is of the utmost quality 
rather than content being produced for the sake of publishing content x times per month. As well 
as this make sure your subject matter is relevant and possibly attached to current affairs. 
 
I’m still unsure why no dentist has taken advantage of the Suarez biting incident. It’s current, 
popular and you have the opportunity to sell yourself whilst using something such as humour as 
your outlet. 
 
Tip #2: Make sure your Website is user friendly 
Ranking well in Google is great, but it’s only half the battle. Once someone enters your site they 
need to find what they’re looking for whilst you try and make them convert. A conversion for you 
may be as simple as sending you an email, picking up the phone or finding out your location but 
these things need to be easy for the user to do. 
 
Ensure your website has this information to hand on every page. It’s also important to have your 
site mobile friendly ­ meaning that someone on a mobile (or tablet) device can read and navigate 
through your site just as easily as they would a desktop computer. As someone who wrote the 
chapter on Mobile SEO for Econsultancy, I understand that dentistry is a vertical where the 
majority of people now will view your site on a mobile, and because 2014 is the year that mobile 
use overtakes desktop use for browsing the web, it’s vital to cater for mobile users. 
 
By the way, we make great websites at FireCask :)
 
Tip #3: You’re the Authority, not the building you work in 
If I want to research into my next dentist or I want to know more about a certain procedure I 
would have more trust in you if you were the ones who authored the information. For example, if I 
need a root canal and read information about it (sources of the issue, what to expect on the day, 
approximate costs) I’d be much more comfortable knowing the information was provided by the 
dentist that could potentially be performing the procedure. 
 
People love people, not brands. This means that if you want to attract a new client they have to 
connect with the people, not the building the people work in. You will be in more demand if you 
become the authority on dentistry (or your specific area of dentistry). 
 
Tip#4: Get recommendations from your customers 
At FireCask we don’t have a sales team so most of our work comes from the oldest method of 
social networking known to man ­ word of mouth. Online, a good recommendation written by a 
satisfied customer has a wider reach and is permanent (unless of course the customer decides 
to remove the recommendation at a later date which is very uncommon). 
 
You can receive recommendations offline (via post, or filling out a form) which you can then 
publish on your website. Asking for marks out of 5 can help you produce the 5 star rating system 
as seen in some of Google’s results pages such as this. Online, you have various options for 
recommendations: 
? Facebook: your company may have a Facebook Page. If so, ensure it is set as a Local 
Business where people will then be allowed to rate you out of 5. 
? Linkedin: people can recommend you as a dentist within Linkedin. For me, I find this 
invaluable as I now have over 35 recommendations spanning over 5 years. Business 
pages used to have recommendation options but have now been replaced with 
Showcase Pages which I suggest you look into. 
? Google+: as with Facebook, your business’ location can receive reviews if you have a 
Business Page. If you don’t have a business page I suggest you create one as soon as 
possible so you can be located on a map (such as if you search for dentist in 
manchester) 
 
Tip #5: Add to a Discussion 
As well as the above, social networks also let you, as a person, get involved with discussions. 
Here’s a few places you can go to and become an authority on dentistry within the networks 
themselves: 
? Linkedin Groups ­ you will see suggested groups to join, as well as being able to search 
for groups in the search bar at the top. ? Google+ Communities ­ similar to Linkedin. Find some relevant communities and
contribute to them. 
? Facebook Groups ­ search for groups with relevant terms. 
? Niche sites ­ as well as GDPUK, there will be other sites that cover dentistry from the 
customer’s point of view. Contributing to those sites will help you also become an 
authority, especially if they’re locally based. Searching for terms such as dentist forum uk 
can help (and I notice GDPUK is number 1). 
 
I hope that this post helps you be able to become more involved online not only to grow your 
business but also your personal profile. Some people of course don’t have the time to do all this 
which is why they hire companies such as my own in order to help them improve their online 
exposure and conversions. 
 
Get in touch via email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
tel: +44 161 222 8655
mob: +44 7743 870 210 
 
  9285 Hits
9285 Hits
JUL
09
0

How To Grow Your NHS Dental Practice (part II)

How To Grow Your NHS Dental Practice

Grow your nhs dental practice
Neil Sanderson

I wrote part one of How To Grow Your NHS Dental Practice a few weeks ago, the reason that there has been a little delay is that I have been putting into place a new product to help solve this problem.

So let's have a look at the issues for most NHS dental practices. Unless you can get the local PCT to give you some more UDA's you simply can't grow your NHS dental practice revenues and because staff costs, and inflation continue to grow this in effect means your revenues fall every year.

Add to that the growing uncertainty about the new contract, it puts practices that are wholly or mainly dependent on an NHS contract in a difficult position.

So what is the solution? Well of course there really only is one solution to grow your NHS dental practice and that is to sell private treatment, which I assume doesn't come as any surprise whatsoever, in fact it is blindingly obvious.

But here's the catch, just how do you grow your NHS dental practice with private work, because there are some very difficult obstacles to overcome when trying to sell private treatment when you depend on your NHS patients and that contract.

Let me put one myth to bed straight away, it doesn't matter where your practice is or what the demographics are, there are people out there who will find the money for private treatment, however deprived your area is, please believe me on this one. despite what your associates may tell you.

However there is one practical problem to growing your NHS dental practice you will have to overcome and that is this. Can you actually deliver the private treatment e.g. straightening, whitening, implants, smile makeovers. If you can't deliver then you need to find a way to do this. But I am going to assume that you can deliver private treatment in some form or other.

So we know what the problems of how to grow your NHS dental practice are, how are you going to overcome them. The biggest problem you have to solve is letting your patients know what you can offer them.

If you take nothing else from this article remember this statement... It is not your patients job to find out what you can do for them. It is your job to tell them what you can do for them!!!

So how are you going to sell private treatment, let's just remind ourselves of the issues again:

  1. You don't have time to discuss with your patients the various private options you offer.
  2. Your patients subsequently don't know what you do.
  3. There is now an information block, your patients don't know what you can do for them and you don't have time to tell them.

It's not often I plug my products or services in these blogs but I now have the perfect solution, it is our  "Reception Information Centre", this comprises of three elements.

  1. The first is a bespoke video which will run on your TV from a DVD, computer, iPad, YouTube etc. etc. It tells your patients exactly what you can offer them in a 5-10 minute video. This video can either be an animated type of video or a professionally shot video where we bring in a film crew, not only can it run in reception but also on your website, via email or on a tablet.
  2. The second element is a practice brochure which matches the video EXACTLY it is designed specifically for your patients to take away and remind them exactly what they saw when they were waiting to see you.
  3. The third element are pull up exhibition stands which will have the bullet points of what you can offer and again matches exactly the style of the video and the brochure. It will guide them to watch the TV and pick up a brochure.

In order to grow your NHS Dental Practice you need time to tell your story and you simply don't have it in an NHS practice so this system does exactly that for you, it will encourage your patients to ask what you can do because they are now informed, even asking for a white filling rather than a standard one. All the above is bespoke to you with your logo, colours and even YOU in it. It is the perfect solution to the age long problem of how do you sell private treatment to NHS patients.

I will have examples of the above in a couple of weeks with pricing to match.

There are other options for informing your patients what you can do and I'll cover these in a couple of weeks, but they all involve much more expense and time and effort on your part.

So if you would like more information on the "Reception Information Centre" or how to grow your NHS dental practice or any other dental marketing issues, call me on 01767626398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

 
  5144 Hits
5144 Hits
MAY
09
0

What are the 6 key attributes of an effective landing page?

What are the 6 key attributes of an effective landing page?

In part 1 of this series, I wrote about the importance of an effective landing page and how it helps to attract new customers to your business. We are now going to look at the key features of an effective landing page. What will make visitors give you the information or business you desire? Below are 6 key attributes of an effective landing page. Please feel free to add other attributes you believe would be effective. 

1. USP – Unique Selling Point

For our clients, they are looking to offer dentists a product or service that sets it apart from the competition. The client needs to break down what they are offering to the customer and when successful, it should be clear and attract attention. The first headline used needs to clearly describe what your product or service can offer and why they should be interested.

2. Picture or video

A picture or even better a video of someone using the product or service gives the users the feeling of what it is or what it looks like. This gets the customers thinking how they could use the product or service in their everyday life and how it would benefit them. A dental example;  A new dental handpiece being shown in a video being used by a dentist, gets the reader thinking about them using it in their practice and how it will benefit them.

3. The benefits of what you offer.

After the USP, you now need to give your reader a few more details. So how will the product or service benefit the reader? You need to think from the customer’s point of view. How will the new handpiece (for example) benefit the dentist, what features or advantages can you prove over your competitors?

4. Keep it simple

You want your reader to make a decision, for a decision to be more likely, the clearer and simpler your page needs to be.  As well as your landing pages, this also applies to a homepage. Traffic will often hit your homepage, so it should be treated like sales specific landing pages; keep your offer and strategy simple. Only offer a few places that can be clicked, keep the reader focused on the reason they clicked through to your landing page in the first place!

5. Testimonials / Proof

You want to show that your product is being utilised by other people in the field. People are more likely to use something that they can see is being used by others. If a product has excellent reviews or testimonials, then you need to shout about it. Other ways of demonstrating that the product is the best; Number of customers, organisations that you count as customers or awards received for your product or service. If you can provide evidence of testimonials, reviews or awards you will build trust and then sales!

6. CTA - Call to Action

CTA or call to action is incredibly important. You need to incorporate a bold, clear call to action into the design of the landing page. This could take a number of different forms, phone number, email address, contact form, social media links. The key is to think like the customer, make it as easy and straightforward as possible. The call to action details should be displayed a number of times on the page if possible.

We are constantly adapting and changing our own website and this is the huge advantage of being an online publication. Pages you create can be changed at anytime, so experiment with what works and what doesn’t and don’t be scared to try out different tactics or marketing plans.

If you would like to discuss how to market your brand or product on GDPUK.com, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We can organise a marketing strategy that will work for your business needs. 

  6506 Hits
6506 Hits
MAY
07
0

The importance of an effective landing page

The importance of an effective landing page

Landing Pages

Part1...The importance of an effective landing page

GDPUK.com earns revenue from banner ads, we display adverts from companies looking to attract dentists as customers. The most successful banners, direct the user to a specific landing page. A good landing page should be seen as a part of your sales team, in the first part of this series I have listed some thoughts on the importance of an effective landing page.

A landing page is a web page that allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead-capture form. These are often known as a conversion form.

Landing pages are created to convert traffic into qualified leads. If you can focus on converting visitors into leads, landing pages are all about positive ROI. This is where a good landing page can make all the difference.

So why are landing pages important?

  • They help you focus on conversion. The focus has to be on converting visitors into leads. A few simple ideas could be contact details for a free white paper, or contact details for a sample of your product.
  • Direct. By using a landing page you will start to find that a landing page can be more effective than just directing traffic to a homepage, which is likely to be a waste of time. Once someone makes the effort to click on a banner, if the landing page matches what is on the banner, the odds of converting the click into a lead will increase dramatically.
  • Generation of leads. If an effective page is created, it is suddenly a lot easier to capture leads. Every time a lead completes a conversion form on a landing page your sales team collects valuable information. Obviously this is a great for the sales team, as they are receiving warm leads to target.
  • The more the better. Once you start creating a range of landing pages for different offers, the more opportunities you will create to convert visitors into leads.
  • Makes the expenditure on advertising worthwhile. The landing page should sell your product; the language on the landing page needs to be customised and persuasive to your target audience. If you are creating specific ads (which many GDPUK clients do) then it is pointless if you’re only going to send potential customers in the direction of your homepage.

I hope this blog gives you an idea of the importance of a landing page and how getting it right can lead to an increase in revenue. Advertising online is something we are all still learning about, but we believe by investing in your landing page, it is a great start to achieving a return from your online advertising.

For further information on how we can help with the marketing of your brand or product or to learn how we can help with a landing page for your advert, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We will publish part two of this series next week, which will give you some ideas of the key features of an effective landing page

  5564 Hits
5564 Hits
APR
09
0

Why You Need To Blog On Your Website

Blogging For Your Practice

Blogging

Neil Sanderson

Blogging is now essential if you want to have a successful Social Media presence and at the same time get your dental practice website up the Google natural rankings, so first things first, what is a blog?

Well you are reading one now, this is my blog and I write one every week, for two reasons, the first is to communicate with my clients and potential clients, the second reason is that blogging is one of the best ways to keep your website on the first page of Google.

A blog is simply an article written by you, usually on your website, but you can have a separate blog area too if you don’t have this as part of your site. I would recommend to anyone that if you are thinking of building a new dental practice website or changing your existing one you must have the ability to write a blog.

I recently asked for a quote on behalf of one of my clients to have upgrade his website which currently doesn’t have the ability to start blogging. Both he and I were staggered when I was quoted £950.00 + VAT.

All websites should have a blog built into them, if you build a website in one of the two major “content management systems” e.g. WordPress or Joomla, this will be provided for you automatically. Don’t buy a website without either (a) a content management system or (b) a blog section. Incidentally all the websites we build have both as standard see my siteDental Website Design and Build.

So why is blogging so important? Let’s look at Social Media first. The two main Social Media sites you should have your practice on are of course Facebook and Twitter. Neither are really geared up for having lots of content in a single post, in fact Twitter limits you to 140 characters in total.

So if you are going to engage with your patients you have to link to something else, this is where blogging really comes into its own and this is how you do it. First you write your blog (remember a blog can be any size you want) on whatever special offer you are running or something interesting about the practice. You then create a post on either Facebook or Twitter and put a link back to your blog.

This does several things, firstly it takes the person who is reading your post back to your website which is ideally where you want them. Hopefully they will take advantage of your offer or maybe have a look around your website, either way this is what you want to achieve.

Secondly Google loves this type of traffic, so the more traffic you have coming to your site from Facebook and Twitter the higher Google will rank your site. This is the modern equivalent of “link building” but one that Google approves of and rewards you for doing it.

Blogging has another great positive effect on your website ranking. Google is encouraging everyone to update and create new content for your website. A blog is the single best and easiest way to do this. If you start to blog ideally once per week or once a month even once a quarter, your website rankings will improve.

So remember, if you are ordering a new website, insist it has the ability to blog (all ours do). Insist it has a content management system (all ours do). Start blogging and see your website rise up the rankings and your Social Media engagement soar.

If you don’t have time to blog yourself, we can do it for you, simply call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  7847 Hits
7847 Hits
MAR
31
0

The Consequences Of Not Marketing Your Practice

What Can Happen When You Do No Marketing

The perils of not marketing

Neil Sanderson

Oh the perils of not marketing yourself. I had my first customer default on me this week, apparently he is ceasing to trade from next month. I took on this customer in good faith just before Christmas.

The customer called me early January to say that he was in financial trouble and that his creditors were letting him continue to trade, (I know its strange that he would take my services in December and then tell me he is struggling to pay creditors in January.)

Strangely I had gone to see this dentist nearly two years earlier and he had decided not to proceed with any marketing at that time as he was doing lots of other things to his practice and taking on new staff etc. etc.

I could see at that time, that this practice was in trouble and needed help. The first thing that struck me as odd was the fact that he had a practice management system that had 18,000+ patients on it of which only 3,000 were active.

Now it could be that this guy might be a rubbish dentist and just loses patients, I have no idea of that and can’t comment, but whilst I was there, patients were coming into the waiting room and he was speaking with them as friends so I have to assume that he got on well with his patients.

The second thing that made alarm bells go off was the fact that he’d done little or no marketing whatsoever over the past five years, not to existing or new patients.

Whenever I write these columns I stress the importance of saying that as part of your marketing you have to communicate regularly with your existing patients to make them feel loved, just as much as you spend time trying to get new ones. It’s absolutely imperative.

Time and again I see potential customers and they tell me that they can’t afford marketing, whilst at the same time telling me that they don’t have enough patients and the patients they have aren’t spending enough with them.

I hear this statement over and over again, don’t you think that there is a certain irony, “I don’t have enough business, but I don’t want to spend any more money getting any”. Let me say to everyone reading this now. If you continue to do what you’ve always done that’s what you’ll always get. Or even more to the point, doing nothing gets you exactly nothing.

The economy may be coming out of recession but very few of the people I deal with feel that way and patients aren’t just going to start queuing up at your door waiting for your services. Sorry I have to say this, but if you want more patients or you want to sell the higher end services you offer you have to spend money marketing them.

The problem is that most businesses view marketing as a cost not an investment. This week I am spending £3,000 on a 3 x 2 stand for two days at the Dentistry Show. But I know that this will generate me business (without fail).

Unless you start to look at marketing as an investment and not a cost your practice will continue to perform exactly the way it is. Here’s another saying I love to quote “If I gave you £10.00 for every £5.00 you gave me at which point would you like me to stop?”

This is effectively what marketing is about, if you don’t do it, don’t expect your business to grow.

If you would like help marketing your dental practice, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website, www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

 
  4857 Hits
4857 Hits
MAR
27
0

Facebook Advertising For Your Practice

Facebook Advertising For Your Practice

Facebook Advertising

Neil Sanderson

I’m sure when you think of Facebook Advertising you probably think of having to post all the time and interact with your friends or the people who have liked your Facebook page, which by and large it is, but there is another way to manage Facebook Advertising.

As I mentioned in a recent blog, Facebook recently became a publicly listed company, which means that is now has to answer to its share holders, and they are interested in just two things (a) increasing their share value and/or (b) getting a regular dividend.

In order to satisfy this requirement, Facebook has suddenly become very business minded and they now offer a wide range of advertising opportunities for the likes of you and I and Facebook Advertising has become a very good and relatively cheap way to get your message out there.

To advertise on Facebook you have to have a Facebook page and of course be the administrator of it, but you don’t have to post regularly on it, the advert will do the job for you. Facebook Advertising works very similarly to Google PPC (per per click). This means that whenever someone clicks on your advert and is taken either to your website or to your Facebook page you are charged a fee.

Compared to Google this fee is very reasonable (usually about a quarter of the price), however it has to be said, it will never be as targeted as Google is simply because there is nothing that is as targeted as Google Adwords.

However if you are trying to reach a particular group of people with a particular profile, Facebook advertising (PPC) is very, very good.

With Facebook advertising you can not only decide which area you want to aim at e.g. your postcode but you can also target whether the person who sees your advert is female or male, what age group they are, what is their marital status (even if they are engaged). You can specify particular interests they may have.

So for instance you could run an advert that will only be shown to someone who is female, who is between 25 and 35, who is engaged, who likes dogs, who likes going on holiday etc. etc.

There are no other platforms that will  let you get down to this level of detail for display advertising (Google is search advertising). You can set up a Facebook Advertising campaign for just a couple of pounds per day and so long as you get your targeting correct it will almost certainly pay for its self.

Facebook advertising is also the quickest way to get people to like your Facebook page and the best part is that you will only be getting likes from the people you are directly targeting, as opposed to buying likes from disreputable sources (don’t touch them).

The best thing about Facebook advertising is that you can send traffic from Social Media to your website with is where you ideally want people to go.

If you need help and advice with Facebook advertising, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  5109 Hits
5109 Hits
MAR
20
0

The Single Best Way To Market Your Practice

What is the best marketing plan for your practice?

best marketing

Neil Sanderson

I’m often asked what is the best marketing I can buy or do. Let’s face it there are now dozens of ways to market you and your practice.

Not very long ago you really only had two choices 1. You could place an advert in the Yellow Pages or 2. You could send out a mail shot. Those of you who were a bit more ambitious might try telesales too.

Today you have literally dozens of ways to market your practice, but which is the best marketing?

But out of all these different types of marketing e.g. Direct Mail, Social Media, Posters, Leaflets, Text Messaging, Email what really is the best marketing?

So if you said to me I can only do one form of marketing which would you choose, the answer would be Google Adwords (or pay per click). This is without doubt the most cost effective and best marketing for  you and your practice.

Why do I say this. Because unlike Search Engine Optimisation which may or may not get your website to the top of Google rankings. Google Adwords can pretty much guarantee this.

What makes this even more the best marketing, it that Google will only show your ads when someone searches for it. So just think of it this way. If you could place an advert in a local newspaper and only pay when someone looked at your advert and took action would you buy that ad, you bet your life you would.

Google Adwords does exactly this, they only show your advert when someone searches for whatever it is you are advertising e.g. implants or teeth whitening etc. But you don’t pay anything to Google until someone actually clicks on your advert and goes through to your website.

It is the ultimate form of “best marketing” and Google gives you hundreds of tools to test and hone your marketing. They are the only advertising provider that encourages you to get better at your advertising, and rewards you with cheaper ads and better rankings.

Quite literally the better you become at pay per click, the less you can spend and the more your ad will be shown. That’s why we spend so much of our time at Dental Marketing Expert, making sure that we are the ultimate experts in Google Adwords pay per click.

On average all our clients are normally in position 1 or 2 on the search and the amount we are paying Google for the ads is a fraction of what people who don’t know what they are doing are paying.

If you don’t understand how wot work Google Adwords, you can spend an awful lot of money for very little reward. In fact Google’s default settings are generally design to get you to pay them as much as possible. This is why they are now the second biggest company by value in the world.

I have spent the last two years honing my skills the best marketing (Google Adwords) and as a result I would say that I probably know more about this form of marketing than anyone in the dental profession.

I have personally spent thousands of pounds with Google, but last year I grew my business by 100% and this year we are aiming for 400% growth, using this best marketing technique.

So if you want to make a massive difference to your dental practice’s fortunes and start to benefit from the best marketing on the planet, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  5568 Hits
5568 Hits
MAR
17
0

10 Great Ways To Get A Patient Referral

10 Ways To Get A Patient Referral

patient referral

Neil Sanderson

I think just about everyone is in agreement that a patient referral is the best way to get new patients, even I as a marketeer would have to agree with that, however you can only get so many new patients by referral only, so I would still recommend a proper marketing strategy. That said if you are going to increase the number of referrals you get, here are a few hints and do’s and don’ts.

Most dental practices have no patient referral strategy in place at all, getting patient referrals has to be ingrained into the philosophy of the practice, you should view every single patient you see as someone who is going to recommend your practice and services to someone else.

Obviously to do that you have to offer great dentistry, that goes without saying but simply doing this isn’t good enough, because you patients expect you do deliver that anyway. Your services are no different to any other service or product that they are willing to spend their money on, you simply have to deliver quality.

So now we have that part out of the way how can you increase the number of patients who are willing to give you a patient referral?

  1. Strange as it may sound Social Media is becoming more and more important in this area. Quite literally social media is the new “word of mouth” marketing, so if you have an active Facebook and/or Twitter account which has lots of interesting content on it you are likely to increase the number of referrals you get.
  2. The appearance of your practice is incredibly important. If you have a practice that looks shabby, do you really think that your patients are going to refer you to their friends and relatives, I don’t think so.
  3. Don’t think that only long term patients will refer you, in fact quite the opposite is the case. You are just as likely to get a patient referral from a new patient than you are from someone who has been using you for years.
  4. You don’t have to deliver fantastic results to get a patient referral either. Courtesy, smart appearance and attention to detail and giving them exactly what they want is just, if not more important.
  5. Just because a patient has referred you once don’t think that they won’t do it again, you should encourage your patients to refer you as often as possible and reward them for doing it.
  6. Your staff are incredibly important in getting patient referrals, you might be the best dentist in the world and offer a fantastic service, but if your patients don’t have a great experience on reception, you won’t get those much needed patient referrals, reception staff have to be well trained, just as you do.
  7. Communicate regularly with your patients, a newsletter is a great way to share things with your patients along with social media. It’s not rocket science, the better they think they know you the more they’ll give you a patient referral.
  8. Market your referral program everywhere in your practice. Tell them what you are prepared to offer in return for a patient referral, it could be a bottle of wine or a big thank you, but you need to have a rewards system of place and tell everyone about it.
  9. Every new patient that comes to your practice should be given a welcome pack and that should include information about your patient referral program and the benefits they can achieve if they refer a friend or relative to you.
  10. Finally and here’s the real big one. ASK FOR THEM you’ll be astounded the difference this simple little thing does.

If you would like more information on implementing a patient referral program or how to promote this using your social media or training your reception staff, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  4602 Hits
4602 Hits
JAN
29
0

Strength In Numbers!

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Impressed by the numbers? Get in touch to find out how we can work together.

Advertising on GDPUK.com starts from £300 + vat

For further information email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 0161 270 0453

www.gdpuk.com/web

 

  5154 Hits
5154 Hits
JAN
19
0

Is Social Media Too Time Consuming For You?

The Social Media Phenomenon

social media

A

Around two years ago I wrote my first book called How Your Practice Can Survive The Recession, there is a section in it about Social Media, which I was somewhat dismissive of.

I have recently updated the book for several reasons but one of the most important reasons was that Social Media has now moved firmly into the mainstream of business and because of this, all dental practices need to take it very seriously.

My business now receives around 15% of all the enquiries I receive from either Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin, this is a massive change from just twelve months ago. Thats quite staggering, a year ago I could count the number of leads from Social Media on one hand, all that has now changed

It is also a fact that 50% of the U.K population spends at least one hour per day on Facebook. This creates a huge opportunity for your business, both advertising and posting in in general.

I regularly speak with my clients about the opportunities of Social Media and whether or not they should be active in this area, the answer is always a resounding yes.

However there is a problem, in order to have a healthy Social Media presence means you have to be active pretty much every day, its no point trying to get people to “Like” your page if you never put anything on it, and the majority of practices don’t, for one simple reason they simply don’t have the time.

So whilst Facebook, Twitter, Google Circles and LinkedIn may be free to use, they take up a great deal of time and that is the one thing that the majority of dental practices simply don’t have.

So you could give the task to one of your employees, but are you sure that (a) they will post items that are suitable and (b) will they have the time to post on Facebook and Twitter too as well as doing all the other tasks they have to achieve.

So you have a dilemma, you know that you should be regularly communicating with your patients and potential patients via social media, but neither you or your staff have the time to do it!

That’s where my company can help. Until recently I simply told my clients that they should be posting regularly on social media, but didn’t have a solution to the problem of creating the time to do so.

I can now offer a service to any dental practice, or indeed any company involved in the dental profession, whereby we will post on social media sites at least two times per day, Monday to Friday, to find out more about this unique service, go to my website http://www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk/social-media-dentists/ and you will be able to watch a video where we tell you exactly what we can offer you in this area.

I don’t know of any other organisation that offers this social media service, I suspect we may well be a trail blazer in this area.

So don’t waste any more time visit http://www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk/social-media-dentists/

Best Regards

Neil

If you would like us to increase your patient numbers, revenues and profits call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

  5870 Hits
5870 Hits
JAN
08
0

Get Involved!

 
 
 
Our guide to the Dentistry Show 2014 is now live. This follows a successful guide that we ran last year for the BDTA Showcase. 
 
If you are exhibiting at the Dentistry Show 2014 and would like delegates to visit your stand to see your new products or services, this is a great chance to do some promotion and exposure of your product or brand before the show. All you need to do is send an article to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will do the rest.
 
There is a word limit of 950 words but plenty of images are encouraged!
 
Cost to feature in this guide is £99 + vat. Our blogs receive thousands of hits so this represents excellent value for two months exposure in the feature. GDPUK will promote the feature throughout early 2014, through social media and our forum.
 
If you would like to advertise elsewhere on GDPUK and would like further information, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. GDPUK is the largest community in Britain for dentists and dental professionals to discuss opinion and share information on UK Dentistry.
 
 
 
The Dentistry Show takes place on Friday 28th February & Saturday 1st March in Hall 1 at the NEC, Birmingham, B40 1NT 
 
Registration opens from 08.30, and doors open from 09.00 – 17.30.
 
Further information can be found on the Dentistry Show website.
 
  5392 Hits
5392 Hits
JAN
02
0

Blogging is essential for communicating with your patients

Blogging Is Essential To Promote Your Dental Practice or Business

BloggingFor those of you who are not quite sure what a blog is, you are reading one right now and blogging is becoming more and more an essential part of any dental practice’smarketing strategy.

Why I can hear you all saying? Well hopefully you recently read my series of articles on search engine optimisation which over the three articles outlined what you need to be doing to raise your website’s ranking on Google. One of the things I mentioned was that you need to add new original content to your website, and the best way to do that is blogging.

Blogging is effectively you writing anything you like on any subject really. Because it is your ideas and your thoughts, you can write on any subject and be an forthright is you wish. Ideally you need to make it interesting to your public. So for instance if you are a dentist the subjects you might want to cover would be around oral hygiene etc.

Having said all that don’t make your blogs too serious or technical as you’ll just lose your audience, they have to understand what it is you are trying to convey to them, equally don’t use jargon, or scientific dental terms.

Blogging is one of the best ways to increase the rankings in the natural Google search. As I mentioned in my earlier articles, Google wants to present websites to their audience that are fresh and have new original content on them. Blogging is the most natural place to put this new original content. It will quite literally do wonders for your rankings, quite often my blogs out rank my overall website.

Blogging also has the effect of ranking you for many subjects too so for instance you might want to highlight that you offer implants in your practice, well the best way to do this is to write articles on the subject, use slightly different headlines and titles for the blog and you can start to rank for implants as well as general dentistry etc.

Blogging should also be part of your social media strategy. Every time you write your blog you should be promoting this with both Facebook and Twitter, not to mention Google Circles, this again helps immensely with your Google rankings.

Being seen to be an expert in your specialist field is essential if you are to sell at premium prices. For instance if you are regularly blogging on a  particular subject and your patients and potential patients read them, it is highly likely that when they actually want to use this service that they will turn to you rather than your competitors and they will pay a higher fee because of this too.

We call this in the industry “being the trusted expert”. The down side of this is that you have to give lots of information freely and regularly, which of course takes time and effort. But you’ll see that in the long run you will gain from it immensely, the other way to achieve this of course is to have someone else write them for you and this is one the services I offer my clients.

If you want to increase your revenues and profits, increase the number of new patients and encourage existing patients to spend more with you, call me on 01767 626 398, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website

www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  5195 Hits
5195 Hits
DEC
18
0

Multimedia A Must For Your Dental Practice

Multimedia You Need To Cover Every  Channel

Multi-MediaYou only have to think back five or six years ago and marketing your dental practice was pretty straight forward, basically you could put an advert in Yellow Pages and one in the local newspaper and you’d pretty much done it. Today is very different, multimedia is the norm.

Wouldn’t it be easy if all your patients and prospective patients were the same, you could then market to them using one platform or media and everything would be taken care of. For instance you might only have to advertise on Facebook, or Google, the truth is that everyone is different and that’s why you have to cover all the bases, with multimedia.

There is an amazing statistic that 50% of the population spends at least an hour on Facebook every day. But that also highlights another statistic and that is 50% of the population don’t spend an hour or any time whatsoever on Facebook. So if you only use Facebook as your marketing platform, you’ll miss half of your audience.

The same can pretty much be said about any media you choose to look at, for instance did you know that 12 million people buy a newspaper in the UK every day? And when you ad the free newspapers that figure grows to around 15 million, quite a sizeable market.

In 2012 21 million people took action as a result of receiving direct mail. nine out of ten people who receive direct mail open it, which compares to around twenty percent who open email. Without doubt whilst direct mail is relatively expensive in comparison with online, it is one of the the most effective way to grow your patient base, do you see where I’m going with this multimedia thing.

I am asked all the time by my clients “can’t we just email them”? Well yes you could, but ask yourself this question, “how many emails to you receive every day?” If you’re like me probably between 50 and 150. Then let me ask the same question about direct mail, “how many envelopes drop through your door every day?” I suspect the answer is probably less than five and certainly less than ten, quite often it might only be one or two packages each day!

The same can be said for text messaging, how many of you use text messages to market your products and services? I suspect very few, but think again, how many text messages to you receive each day? Just about everyone looks at a text when you receive one, for the simple reason that most text messages come from friends and family and you probably only receive one per day (maybe two).

So just have a think about the multimedia that you can now market your practice with, they include:

  • Social Media (Twitter, Facebook Google Circles etc.,
  • Your Website,
  • Your Google Places Page,
  • Text Messaging
  • Direct Mail
  • Leaflet Delivery
  • Video (You Tube)
  • Google Advertising
  • Facebook Advertising
  • Local press advertising
  • Local radio

To name but a few and the only way you can ensure that you reach as many of your potential patients is to have a presence in all these platforms, some may will perform better than others, but it is essential that you address all these areas. So when I say Multimedia is a must for your practice I hope you understand what I really mean.

Because marketing is now more and more complex, you almost certainly need help and that’s where Dental Marketing Expert can help you. Call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website

www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  5144 Hits
5144 Hits
DEC
13
0

How to Blog for your practice

Blogging Is Essential To Promote Your Dental Practice or Business

BloggingFor those of you who are not quite sure what a blog is, you are reading one right now and blogging is becoming more and more an essential part of any dental practice’smarketing strategy.

Why I can hear you all saying? Well hopefully you recently read my series of articles on search engine optimisation which over the three articles outlined what you need to be doing to raise your website’s ranking on Google. One of the things I mentioned was that you need to add new original content to your website, and the best way to do that is blogging.

Blogging is effectively you writing anything you like on any subject really. Because it is your ideas and your thoughts, you can write on any subject and be an forthright is you wish. Ideally you need to make it interesting to your public. So for instance if you are a dentist the subjects you might want to cover would be around oral hygiene etc.

Having said all that don’t make your blogs too serious or technical as you’ll just lose your audience, they have to understand what it is you are trying to convey to them, equally don’t use jargon, or scientific dental terms.

Blogging is one of the best ways to increase the rankings in the natural Google search. As I mentioned in my earlier articles, Google wants to present websites to their audience that are fresh and have new original content on them. Blogging is the most natural place to put this new original content. It will quite literally do wonders for your rankings, quite often my blogs out rank my overall website.

Blogging also has the effect of ranking you for many subjects too so for instance you might want to highlight that you offer implants in your practice, well the best way to do this is to write articles on the subject, use slightly different headlines and titles for the blog and you can start to rank for implants as well as general dentistry etc.

Blogging should also be part of your social media strategy. Every time you write your blog you should be promoting this with both Facebook and Twitter, not to mention Google Circles, this again helps immensely with your Google rankings.

Being seen to be an expert in your specialist field is essential if you are to sell at premium prices. For instance if you are regularly blogging on a  particular subject and your patients and potential patients read them, it is highly likely that when they actually want to use this service that they will turn to you rather than your competitors and they will pay a higher fee because of this too.

We call this in the industry “being the trusted expert”. The down side of this is that you have to give lots of information freely and regularly, which of course takes time and effort. But you’ll see that in the long run you will gain from it immensely, the other way to achieve this of course is to have someone else write them for you and this is one the services I offer my clients.

If you want to increase your revenues and profits, increase the number of new patients and encourage existing patients to spend more with you, call me on 01767 626 398, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website

www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

  6454 Hits
6454 Hits
NOV
12
0

And the winner is …

And the winner is …

Those of you who read and digest the news and views of dentistry at large will perhaps have noticed the recent Private Dentistry Awards1.  A rip roaring time in London for all who attended.  A sore head or two the next day I’ll bet.

The recent announcement of the winners serves to highlight the lengths that many colleagues will go to strive for excellence. They are also extraordinary in that they can find the time to document their activities and seek to obtain external recognition. To all who entered and indeed were in the awards, heartfelt congratulations.

To all of you who did not enter, I am sure I am not alone in noticing that the effect rubs off.

You read about how others do things.  You read about ideas and marketing. You introduce these things in your own way into your own practice.  Just because you do not enter does not mean you are not a winner.

Of course, the clue is in the name – none of these particular practices lay claim to  providing dental care under the NHS, although how many of them employ NHS associates remains to be detailed.

But as we witness NHS England purging their Performers List with suspect letters of a dodgy tone threatening removal arbitrarily simply because it suits someone in London’s database management skills, it seems to me that there is no doubt about this: Beware the false security that the Government offers.

Left to its own devices, Dentistry as a business and a profession would make a far better job of marketing its services at the right price, in the right place, to best suit a particular patient base than any mish-mash of Reds, Ambers and Greens that the Government’s Department of Health lackeys can come up with. Why it is that our academic colleagues often fail to see or understand this paradigm remains a mystery.  Are we all really that imbued with social guilt so that any talk to do with the NHS simply proves it is culturally embedded?

That must be the counterpart message of the BDA as it emerges leaner, poorer, but fitter and raring to “engage”.

By all means engage with the DH, but the BDA must lay out the subtle threat that we do have to courage to do it ourselves, and will do it better.

Now that is a profession in a win-win position. The winners of such a brave approach would be everyone, patients included.

 

1        http://www.dentistry.co.uk/news/smiles-and-success-uk%E2%80%99s-private-practices

2        http://www.privatedentistry.co.uk/awards/

 

  18009 Hits
18009 Hits
OCT
28
0

Why Advertise with Us?

b2ap3_thumbnail_why-use-us.jpg

At the recent BDTA Showcase, we had some great meetings with potential advertisers. The GDPUK Team really enjoyed exhibiting at the show, it was a great experience, something we would like to repeat.

Last week, I sent a number of follow up emails after the Show and made phone calls. By the end of the busy week, I started thinking about why companies from the dental trade should advertise with GDPUK and why we should be part of their marketing plan. I have to admit, it is not a question I have thought enough about but over the weekend, I got my thinking cap on.

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So this weekend, after my feet and body had recovered from Showcase, I started to think about the question in the subject line, below are 8 reasons that GDPUK can be used as an effective marketing tool, please feel free to add to them and hopefully we can get a feel for what we are doing well or not offering enough of! All feedback would be appreciated!

1.    We have thousands of members using the site every day – GDPUK is the largest online community of dentists in the UK. Dentists proactively look for information on GDPUK to inform their decisions.

2.    Target Audience – If you want Dentists as customers, we can prove that your target audience is using the GDPUK site every day

3.    Helps your budget work harder when marketing to Dentists – Reach the dentists on their network at exactly the point when they are actively seeking advice / guidance to make an important decision for their practice or career. 

4.    Word of Mouth. The UK’s most influential dentists will talk about your brand on the forum – Create the right message on GDPUK and this will spread to other social media sites, creating improved awareness and recognition of your brand.

5.    Benefit from our knowledge of the Dental Profession – We’ve been around for over 15 years, we understand how dentists think and react, this means we are well placed to support you with your aims and we can share our insight into the dental profession.

6.    Marketing on the site can be done in a number of ways; introduce a new product, improve brand awareness, special "GDPUK" offers, data collection, sample requests, focus groups

7.    Accountability. We give our partners, a full report on the number of clicks received every week, plus the number of impressions the ad receives. This is an effective way to see how the ad performs.

8.    Adaptability. Unlike in the printed media, ads can be changed; partners can experiment with a number of messages over the period they have booked.

 

No matter what business or industry you’re in, if you deal with Dentists, then GDPUK has to be part of your marketing plan. Social Media is now part of the dental landscape and it’s important that you can get your message across and be part of the discussion.

By reading this, we hope you now get a better understanding of how we can help with your marketing plans, if you would like to know more, please get in This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call Jonny on 07786571547. 

  6973 Hits
6973 Hits
OCT
22
0

Toothpick.com awarded Smarta Top 10 ‘Most Innovative Businesses’

 

b2ap3_thumbnail_toothpick-logo-for-web-PR.jpg

Toothpick.com has recently been announced as one of this year’s entries in the Smarta Top 100 Business Awards. Launched in November 2012, the company has been acknowledged within the Top 10 ‘Most Innovative Businesses’ category.

In partnership with O2, The Smarta 100 Awards (http://www.smarta.com) aims to celebrate innovation and finds the best 100 businesses in the UK. This year’s entrepreneur judges of the Top 100 include Ben Dowd (Business Director, O2), Holly Tucket MBE (Co-Founder and CEO, Notonthehighstreet.com) and Piers Linney (Dragons’ Den and CEO, Outsourcery).

As the only dental-focused business to be included within this category, Toothpick.com has been recognised for strongly supporting the growth of dental practices within the UK with an aim to provide transparent access to patients with a live online booking system.

All the winners of Smarta 100 have been invited to the awards ceremony, taking place in central London mid-November. The overall Business of the Year and winner of the £10,000 grand prize will be announced on the night alongside the winners of each category.

To put online dental appointment booking on the map place your vote here http://www.smarta.com/smarta100/2013/toothpick/

For more information about Toothpick visit www.toothpick.com/get-listed, call 020 77681851 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Facebook: /ToothpickDental

Twitter: @toothpick

 

  14536 Hits
14536 Hits
OCT
22
0

Food for [social media] thought?

Food for [social media] thought?

Food for thought from the Bank of England:

In the week where the UK dental industry was tied up at the NEC, the Chief Economist of the Bank of England gave a question and answer session to the world using the medium of Twitter. It appears he made a good job of it. Some commentators criticised the fact that the answers were standard PR fare, but others realised he did, in fact, release some crucial financial information.

Other companies in the world of high finance feel forced by their regulators to only release critical news via official channels. Twitter does not count as "official".

So did the Bank of England break its own and other regulator's rules? Newspapers were once new, as were radio and TV, the world realised these were tools of communication, and engaged with those media.

Let's turn to the consumer field, where large retail and customer facing companies use Twitter and other social media to enhance their customer service operations. They have teams of people, sometimes responding 24/7, to show that they are giving the best customer service and that they are listening. Ask a few people at Dental Showcase, I did, and they all have a story. "My train was cancelled, I had paid through the nose in advance, and I missed a very important meeting, what will the railway operator do about it?" Or " My heating is broken, we have a small baby, an engineer to fix our heating in seven days time is not good enough".

Do have a look in the social media - those two comments are only a small example of the complaints aired daily, and addressed to the relevant companies. In those cases Virgin Trains and British Gas did reply, and fixed the problems rapidly. The responding company hopes the complainant returns to the same social medium to say how great the service recovery was.

So, back to dentistry.

Dental practices and their teams do face the social media and partake, they take the risk that a complaint may be aired, but they know they must respond to this, and respond seriously.

However, some of the dental industry are scared of GDPUK, on whose website you are reading this blog. GDPUK gives dental professionals a platform to tell their colleagues [and only that limited group]  when they have had great service, and that sort of comment is rewarded by a magnified, greater uptake of that service. I know this is a true fact.

As well as sharing all sorts of news, information, questions and experiences, some dental professionals use GDPUK to tell their colleagues when they feel they have had bad service. Sometimes the complaint is only about what is perceived as poor service. The effect of this can be magnified, in the world of the isolated dental professional, when two or three other fellow professionals appear and confirm they too have had the same less than perfect experience. This is the power of the internet in the modern world, we all know it allows us to rapidly compare prices, compare services, and read reviews. Surely the winning technique for the dental companies, and other small businesses the world over, is to monitor those media, and if a problem occurs, respond in that medium, and try your best to give the best service possible. This could be a winning formula and may lead to positive results, and positive feedback, which in turn will create more sales.

I am convinced the modern companies who adopt this approach will be the winners in the long term. Censorship cannot win, but open-ness will.


Refs:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/bank-of-england/10388036/Bank-of-Englands-chief-economist-says-2014-rate-rise-very-unlikely-in-AskBoE-Twitter-chat.htm

Blog image by Gord Fynes, @gordasm. With thanks.

 

  35906 Hits
35906 Hits
OCT
07
0

A third of cosmetic treatments booked online!

 

 

A third of cosmetic treatments booked online!

Recent booking data analysis by Toothpick (toothpick.com) has identified that online appointment booking is fast-becoming a must-have service within the dental practice, revealing that half of all live bookings (50%) [i] made are done so outside of surgery hours (Mon-Fri, 9am – 5pm).

This ever-increasing statistic represents a dramatic shift in the way patients perceive dentistry and the options available to them, as their personal time is being spent researching cosmetic treatment and trawling practices for last-minute appointments whilst sitting in the comfort of their own home.

The analysis also uncovered that over a third of these bookings (37%) were made for cosmetic consultations. With around one in ten general dental practitioners now signed up with toothpick.com and the average practice offering cosmetic treatments, online appointment booking is proving to be an ideal platform to promote these services.

Mintel’s ‘Dentistry MBD 2013’[ii] recent report also supports these statistics, reporting significant growth in cosmetic dentistry over the last five years, increasing to £1.3 billion in 2013, and highlighting that there is likely to be as much as 21% growth in the next five years.  Such findings are further evidence that by opening your doors 24/7 with an online appointment booking system, your practice can generate additional revenue and become more profitable whilst working the same surgery hours.

Additionally, this electronic revolution offers an obvious solution to prevent last minute ‘white space’ in the appointment diary, as Toothpick’s analysis confirmed that over 1 in 5 (21%) bookings are made within 24 hours of the practice putting them online, successfully making unfilled gaps in the diary visible to potential patients and ensuring they’re quickly occupied.

 

See the results for yourself and try online appointment booking for FREE* today, with a no-obligation, no-risk trial. If it’s not for you, don’t worry – you can choose to cancel for free! For more detailed information visit www.toothpick.com/get-listed, call 020 77681851 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Facebook: /ToothpickDental

Twitter: @toothpick

 

[1] Toothpick booking data analysis, online bookings, Jul-Aug 2013

[1] MINTEL, 2013. Dentistry MBD August 2013. London.

 

  6703 Hits
6703 Hits
OCT
01
0

Marketing on a shoestring

Nearly every day I get an email - Get to page ONE of Google. It goes into the same folder as collecting my inheritance from my lost relative in Nigeria. It is rubbish and should be treated like spam.

First of all no one can guarantee to be on the first page of Google unless you have a paid campaign and these days in dentistry you are looking at over £1000 per month to have any chance of getting to page one on sponsored advertisements. Secondly people seem to have gone crazy and want a quick win - they forget Dentistry is a relationship business and relationships take time.

You want more patients? It is simple, just ask your existing ones. I know you have heard this before but do you actually do it with EVERY patient? Tell them how much you like seeing and treating them. Tell them you have vacancies for patients like them and give them a few business cards. Do not leave it there, follow it up with an email reminding them. Most of them never think of telling their friends and family about you unless they get asked. We also send follow-up letters asking them if the treatment was comfortable, explaining the maintenance and guarantees on their work and again asking for referrals.

We look at our day list at our morning meeting - we all instantly see the names of the people we like to treat. Make it a point for the whole team to do this every day.

Now with more and more compliance there are companies out there who can automate this process for you. After every dental appointment they can email your patients and ask them to rate the service they achieved and even ask if they are happy to write a testimonial that can be placed on your website or Google reviews

You do not need a huge marketing budget. It just needs time to make sure your message is clear and you invest in different ways in reaching your target audience. A good campaign also gets them emotionally stimulated to buy or at least investigate your practice. Convert your raving fans into your marketing force.


James Goolnik is a practising Dentist and his book “Brush” donates 100% of the profits to Dentaid. He recently led a team of 8 dental professionals to Malawi to install two dental chairs, equipment and deliver skills transfer workshops from these proceed. He is a trustee of the charity “Heart your Smile”.

www.jamesgoolnik.com

  26633 Hits
26633 Hits
SEP
24
0

Leading market research company predicts strong growth for dental sector

A report published last month by market research giant Mintel, forecasts strong growth across the industry in the coming 5 years and concludes that by 2018 UK dentistry will be worth £9bn, a 14% increase on its current value.

Leading dental marketing agency Manan Limited, who collected data from more than 600 dentists for their 2012 Dental Survey, shared their findings with Mintel, having been approached by industrial analyst and author of the report, Angus Handley. Manan’s data provided an insight into some key areas of the dental market, including dentists’ likelihood of increasing specialist service provision, the level of hygienist services currently available, and the profession’s adoption of new technology, such as online appointment booking.

The report gives detailed forecasts of how the next 5 years are likely to develop, particularly in the face of a new NHS contract, currently expected no earlier than 2016. Predicting slow growth in the private sector of only 2.5% (on a par with GDP forecasts) between 2014 and 2016, a more favourable economic climate and increased disposable income will lead to more patients accessing private care, causing a rapid increase in 2017 and 2018, resulting in an overall 5 year forecast of 14% growth, according to the report.

Similarly, cosmetic dentistry is also expected to benefit from the predicted change in the economic environment. The report concludes that once the financial barriers to cosmetic treatment are removed there is a healthy prediction of 21% growth over the next 5 years in this sector.

Manan has full access to the report and will be happy to discuss those aspects that pertain to their clients’ individual needs.

For more information visit www.mananltd.com

  9950 Hits
9950 Hits
AUG
19
0

4 A * Reasons Email Marketing is still Alive!

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As I have mentioned in my previous digital dentistry blogs, online marketing is a growing industry, with companies investing in a number of different digital formats: Search, Video, Rich Media, Social Media, Mobile and Display. One of the areas that digital marketers still spend their advertising budget in is Email Marketing. Email Marketing sounds like it is old fashioned but if done correctly it is still well and truly alive!

Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. Email marketing in dentistry terms is used in a number of ways. Companies will email current or previous customers to encourage brand loyalty and hopefully win or repeat business. Companies will also send emails in the hope of acquiring new customers. The third way is companies will add advertisements to email messages sent by other companies to their customers. Recent research has suggested that conservative estimates of US companies alone spent US $1.51 billion on email marketing in 2011 and will grow to $2.468 billion by 2016. Amazingly still a growing market.

We now need to look at how email marketing can be used in terms of the dental profession whether you have a new product that you would like dentists to look at, or you would like to attract more patients to your practice. Below are 4 A* reasons (in celebration of exam results) we can still use email marketing to benefit your business and hopefully it will give you some inspiration to revisit your email marketing campaign!

1.    Addiction

After I hit the snooze button for the third time at about 7:30am, I reach for my phone half awake and peruse my emails. We all love to check our emails and unlike other mediums, virtually everyone uses email. Many of us will check email first thing and see what emails we could have been sent in the 7 and a half hours since we last checked! Recent studies have suggested that reading emails consumes 28% of the average workers week and we each send or receive over 112 emails a day! Those stats suggest we keep a close eye on our email inbox. We all have accounts on social media and many of us also check them with regularity but one thing we all have in common is that we all check the email inbox constantly. This means that if you are looking to promote a new product or service, you need to be in your customers email inbox. Email should therefore not be ignored.  

2.    Automated

Auto-responders can easily be set up, which allows you to write and schedule a series of emails that will be sent at regular intervals to any potential customers. They immediately provide information to your prospective customers and then will follow up over a set period. This means that over an example 6 month period you have sent a number of emails and engaged with your customers. Mail Chimp and other email marketing companies offer an auto responder service, which is easy to setup and simple to put in practice. Patients could be sent regular special offers for example over a set period.

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3.    Accountability and Value

 

An exact return on investment (ROI) can be tracked because you will know how many people have received the email, how many people have opened and what the click rate to your message is. This gives you wonderful accountability and value for money. You will also get results instantly. For example with GDPUK when companies advertise in our daily emails or on the website we provide full stats for our customers once a week and even more if they request it. This means that the customer can see what kind of return they are receiving from their digital campaign, with the opportunity to change the banner or message as the campaign progresses.

4.    Aggressive

After we build up a decent list of contacts, prospects and customers, sometimes we can then be cautious with the list. In my previous employment we very rarely sent out email campaigns because we were afraid of appearing too spammy or aggressive but I believe that was a mistake. Please don’t take this advice and send out hundreds of emails a month but if you have something to say or announce, make sure your email list knows about it. (your competitors will be doing the same) There is nothing wrong with sharing information and showing you are doing a good job or can offer excellent value, you want to stay in front of your customer’s eyes as well as plant your brand in the customers mind! Email marketing needs to be constant, well thought out and engaging.

So how can we use email marketing in dentistry?

At GDPUK we keep our members engaged on the site by sending daily digest emails, 3 times a day. This sounds like a lot but these emails all contain different content and contain the latest dental news and the most recent forum posts of the day. This gives our members a chance to check their email inboxes and then click on subjects that interest them. The emails are certainly popular because in an average month they get opened and read 130,000 times. These emails also contain banner ads, which often get excellent click through rates for our customers because our members want to read the emails and the advertisers are reaching a target audience of engaged dentists.

In a dental practice you could send special offers to your patients or an interesting newsletter every few weeks. It means you are proactively communicating with your existing and potential patients instead of hoping they will call or walk in. This will hopefully increase business and develop further patient loyalty. If you send a good offer for “teeth whitening” for example, you could also invite your patients to forward the email offer to their friends or colleagues who might have interest in the offer. So once organised, a few minutes of work every couple of weeks will hopefully fill an empty one or two appointment spaces in the practice! 

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What is the next major trend in Dental Marketing?

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Over the next few years, video will become an integral part of dental marketing. Video attracts and holds customer attention and can contribute to a huge range of marketing ideas whether you are looking to attract new customers or engage current ones.

When we venture online, we are now seeing adverts that are similar to TV ads with the same quality and spend but they are appearing on the computer screen. Some evidence found here suggests that in June 2013, 183 million Americans watched more than 44 billion online content videos and more than 20 billion video advertisements. That is a lot of hours spent watching video! Video content has become increasingly important; in the last year alone over 38 million people watched video on their mobile phones. DG, one of the largest digital ad agencies in the world, point out that in-stream video advertising represents a huge opportunity for advertisers. It is believed that over 200 billion videos are viewed online every month worldwide. DG’s, recent survey results show that click through rate of video ads is on average nearly 2000% more than standard banners. This data suggests that video could be an extremely effective way to drive people to your website, increase traffic levels and ultimately convert sales!

Video ads often get included under the rich media umbrella. The term rich media was coined to describe a broad range of digital interactive media. Rich media can be downloaded but nowadays it is more likely to be embedded within a web page. Rich media is advertising that contains perceptual or interactive elements more elaborate than the usual banner ad. Today, the term is often used for banner ads with popup menus or videos that let the visitor select a particular page to link to on the advertiser's site.

Below is a video about the rise of rich media and its increasing importance in online advertising.

How can video benefit your dental business?

Below are 6 benefits of embracing rich media and online video. These can all be applied to the dental industry.  

1.   Show off your expertise

A video or interactive banner ad can be a fantastic way of showing the world what you know, this then builds credibility with potential customers. This means there has to be a focus on quality content and a well thought out video or advertising campaign.

2.   Make your customers the stars of the video

Colgate and Aquafresh often do this on TV adverts using dentists to endorse their toothpaste but a genuinely satisfied customer is even better, so where possible put customers in the spotlight and let them do the talking about how your product or service has been fantastic or a life saver. This then produces interactive testimonials that show customer satisfaction.

3.   Video becomes part of your overall advertising campaign

The majority of dental companies will have campaigns over multiple mediums. For example, a handpiece manufacturer is promoting their new ultra modern hand piece. They are likely to launch the new handpiece at a trade show, advertise the product in dental magazines and dental websites plus have their rep take it around dental practices, either to existing customers or even potential new customers. As part of this campaign the dental company could also produce a short video that will show how the handpiece works, what the benefits are and maybe some dentists talking about how excellent and easy it is to use. Video could be an exciting addition to a company’s advertising campaign.

4.   Impact on Social Media

The video can be shared across social media, so as well as having it available on a website as an online ad, you can also share the video with your followers on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Twitter. Pinterest for example is no longer just images it is now moving past the static images it was originally known for. Sharing of videos within the dental community get people talking and sharing. Video adverts account for 31% of all videos views, if your ad is interesting or different, it will get shared on social media.

5.   Measures Time

With TV we never know how long people are watching TV ads or how long they listen on the radio but with rich media we are able to measure how long the consumer is looking at the advert or content. It is estimated that consumers are 25% more likely to click on a rich media banner than a normal static banner.

6.   Create an engaging story

Create an engaging story, once the consumer is engaged and clicks on the rich media ad or video they want to learn more and like to see the outcome of the story. Increase interest and intrigue in your brand, consumers will start to remember the ad and reports suggest that branded searches will increase threefold. Below is a good example to a link of a dental company promoting a new product and I personally think they have used video brilliantly. What do you think?

 

So how could video work for the dental profession?

So we have seen the benefits but how could we use video? Video could be introduced in a number of areas of the digital dental world. You could put video on your practice website (many people already have this), introduce your product or brand on your company website through a quick video or instead of playing safe with a printed advert or online banner, why not invest in something a bit more innovative or imaginative and try the online video ad like the example we have viewed above. I am sure there are already many possibilities you have envisaged of how video could be used in dentistry, please share them below, we would love to hear your ideas.

GDPUK can now make rich media a reality, if you would like to discuss running a rich media campaign or publishing video ads on our website, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will be to discuss marketing opportunities with you. Alternatively please come and visit us at the Dental Showcase @ NEC on stand L06a from the 17th - 19th of October 2013. 

 

 

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Is the Dental Industry ready to embrace Digital Marketing?

People far wiser than myself; tell me with a hint of frustration that the Dental Industry has historically always been a few years behind what is happening in other professions & industries. I believe this applies when looking at the dental industry in relation to advertising & marketing to dentists, their customers.

Online Marketing is about attracting your target market to you by making sure you’re on the platforms that your prospects are using to search for their wants and needs. Online marketing has been increasingly taking a prominent role in businesses that realise the older-fashioned; more established methods such as cold calling, direct mail and print advertising were becoming less and less effective.

Traditional advertising power houses have seen their print advertising revenues decline over the past few years, with huge investment & growth taking place in their online versions. One great example of this is the Daily Mail. Even with its traditional, conservative reputation, The Daily Mail has seen huge revenue decline over the last few years in relation to their print advertising. In the meantime the Mail online website has become a huge draw for advertisers because of its 6.6 million unique visitors a day, which makes it the largest newspaper website ahead of The New York Times and The Guardian. Through a combination of comprehensive news, sports and showbiz reporting, the Daily Mail have embraced online publishing and of course the revenue possibilities.

Over the last few years, we know consumers are making the majority of their purchases online but now this also incorporates industries and professions.

So where am I going with all this? Let’s have a look at the profession we all care about; The Dental Profession. Historically, companies would put special offers or promotional material in trade magazines and expect a response and some return on investment but at GDPUK we know and can see this is changing. The printed magazines are no longer being opened and read like they once were, in my humble opinion they are often left in a heap in the corner of the dental practice. Dentists are looking online for their information, plus they love to share their knowledge with each other. One of the places this is done on an increasingly regular basis is the GDPUK Forum.

GDPUK has been established since 1997 and has evolved into the largest online community for dentists and dental professionals in the UK with approx 6000 members signed up to the site. The site is not open to the public, which means that the GDPUK Forum has become a form of social media for the dental community, where dentists discuss what materials or equipment they use, advise each other on surgical procedures, have lively discussions on the future of UK Dentistry and most importantly feel like they are in a secure environment that provides support and expertise.

Like other online publications, GDPUK has seen huge growth over the last the least few years, while 2013 has been exceptional. The below graphic shows the surge in unique visitors and number of visits in a month since Jan 2013, one we are very proud of. The image illustrates that dentists are using the site day in and day out, they have understood that joining an online community like GDPUK offers a place where they can learn, receive the latest dental news and opinion, take part in the discussions, gather information and form long lasting friendships.

 

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GDPUK Server Statistics August 2013.

 

Membership of the site is free and we look to earn revenue from companies who want to embrace a terrific target audience of dentists. GDPUK offers a number of advertising opportunities on the site. These range from publishing articles in our blog section to a full marketing campaign that can be spread over a number of months. Our clients can try a number of marketing ideas and see what results and ROI online marketing brings them. This is the huge advantage online marketing brings, results are totally transparent and with weekly reporting our clients know when campaigns are successful or need tweaking. Over the years we have seen that marketing on our site has increased numbers at trade shows, improved brand awareness and has been instrumental in the promotion of new products or services which have entered the dental market. As I wrote earlier, “Online Marketing is about attracting your target market to you by making sure you’re on the platforms that your prospects are using to search for their wants and needs”. As you can see from the stats above, GDPUK is one of those platforms.

So I am posing a number of questions that I would love to be discussed.

Should you still be throwing money at traditional advertising streams? Should companies be embracing online only? Would you rather focus marketing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Are we still at the point where companies like to mix their budgets all around the industry and see benefits in all mediums? At GDPUK towers we are obviously firm & passionate believers in the online platform and can see signs the dental community is moving closer to embracing the social media and marketing world but what do you think? I look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts. 

If you would like more information on GDPUK, how we can work together and make online marketing work for your business, please get in touch with Jonny Jacobs – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I will be glad to chat and show how you can work with our growing community of dentists to grow your business. 

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Recent Comments
Jonny Jacobs

Good Advice in this article as...

http://bdaily.co.uk/opinion/31-07-2013/not-a-marketer-dont-fret-you-can-succeed/... Read More
Friday, 02 August 2013 12:52
Guest

Good Question

That is a very good question, I think it will be a case of the early adopters will benefit, whereas the dental practices and suppl... Read More
Wednesday, 07 August 2013 10:32
Jonny Jacobs

Re Good Question

Thanks Nat, agree with your posting, as I said in the blog, it is all about attracting your target market (which we are all lookin... Read More
Wednesday, 07 August 2013 10:35
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