Dental Marketing Mastery

In this episode, Howie and Mark discuss hitting dental practice plateaus. Is your practice growth stalled? Learn more about how to handle and anticipate future patient plateaus.  Podcast Highlights: Discussion of the various career plateau points for a dental practice When to add a hygienist to a starter solo practice Stalling at $800–850,000 gross revenue—and how to break through Referrals and insurance participation plateaus Aging patient base plateaus Relying less on insurance plans and more on marketing Transitioning into promoting your practice  The always-increasing costs of business, combined with reimbursements going down—leading to plateaus Pre-appointment plateaus Recognizing when your team is too busy and overwhelmed, leading to practice stagnation, poor customer service, and less time for collections and booking future appointments

Join Howie Horrocks and Mark Dilatush of New Patients, Inc., as they discuss dental insurance participation, the pros and cons, and how to make it work for your dental practice. Podcast Highlights: When insurance companies cut reimbursements, should you take it or leave it? Transitioning away from insurance dependence. Not feeling cornered or helpless—there is hope.  How to fight back and take action. Finding patients who value you and your team more than an insurance plan. Using Membership Plans to ease the transition. How long does it take? Unifying and motivating your team for success.  Preparing, executing, and budgeting for a marketing plan as a way to replace insurance-dependent patients. Calculating how many new patients you need to replace insurance patients. Consciously targeting higher-quality new patients.

This week, Howie Horrocks and Mark Dilatush discuss the upcoming update to their bestselling book, Unlimited New Patients, Volume 3. Podcast Highlights:  Is Unlimited New Patients, Volume 3 still valuable? (Spoiler alert: YES!) How dentistry has evolved over the past several years Sneak peek at topics: The Business of Dentistry Data Tracking Websites Social Media Search Engine Marketing Reputation Management Online Scheduling Online Advertising Call Management Original book and update both free!

This week, join Mark Dilatush with special guest Lee Buzard, NPI’s VP of Professional Relations, as they explain how they develop marketing plans for the upcoming year.  Podcast Highlights:  What questions to ask/answer Determining goals for growth What’s your current capacity? Taking stock of current marketing assets websites internal marketing positioning external marketing reviews online scheduling Prioritization What’s not working? What needs the most help? Budget allocation Online versus offline marketing The influence of your location Monitoring results

In this episode, Howie and Mark talk about your competition. Who are they? How are they promoting their practices? Why does it matter? You can either ignore it, or exploit it to your advantage! Learn how to set yourself apart.   Podcast Highlights: Niche vs. price Positioning in the local market What sets you apart? Financing Convenience Public relations assets Technologies Competitors too focused on low prices? NOT using price in marketing to set yourself apart

Are your new patient numbers staying the same each month? What can you do to fix it without a big investment in time or money? What could be the issue? In this episode, Mark and Howie discuss how your schedule and capacity could be to blame and how to use block scheduling to increase your new patient numbers.   Podcast Highlights:   What issues contribute to stagnation? Taking away availability Fixing capacity “I’m stuck at X new patients/month!” Taking away barriers to creating appointments Apply this strategy that will work immediately  How to do block scheduling correctly How long until you see results?

In this episode, we continue our discussion of Google Adwords and PPC in general. We discuss high volume vs. quality searches, effective landing pages, the economy of language, and more!   Podcast Highlights:   Website optimization SEO specialists The foundations of PPC Keywords for high volume patients Keywords for high quality patients Effective landing pages Understanding the searcher's mentality Economy of language Analyzing your PPC budget before diving in  

Which marketing efforts are generating a return? How can you tell? In this episode, Howie discusses ROI, short term vs. long term returns, tracking, the marketing bell curve, and more!   Podcast Highlights:   Finding out which marketing efforts created patients ROI can be difficult to track Offline Marketing ROI First-Level ROI New Patient Lifetime ROI The Radio? Offline traffic drives online traffic Referral sources Call tracking Referral chains First-level ROI is short-sighted! The marketing bell curve Mail list cross referencing Getting staff to accurately track source fields

How do you get your money's worth? How do you know? How do you analyze your Adwords market before even even starting? How do you track your data after the click? When do you turn off certain ads? We discuss all of this and more!   Podcast Highlights: When adwords slow down The “try this, try that” mentality The knowledge lacked by the dental consumer Geotargeting and inexpensive clicks The surprising keywords that are searched for and how to find them Adwords tracking with analytics Measuring analytics after the click Landing page design for conversions Getting ghosted by web visitors Call tracking The importance of an analytics dashboard What are you getting for your money? Receiving wrong-number phone calls Cutting off bad ads Getting your market analyzed Knowing when to do Adwords

In this episode, we discuss Google Adwords and other forms of SEM. How much should you spend? How does it work? Should you do adwords yourself? Who are your main competitors? All of this and more!     PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS:   What's the deal with Google Adwords? What's a "moderate" spend with Google Ads? Passive vs. aggressive marketing The basics of search engine marketing Why are the obvious things easy mistakes?  Doing Adwords yourself? The realities of Adword management The bidding process When search terms get overbid What is NPI Command? Popular search terms vs. terms that will work Adwords competition

How do you continue to claim your local market? How is your competition promoting? What markets have opened up? How do these markets respond to dental advertising? We discuss all of this and more in part 3 of claiming your market. Main competition Recovering from the recession How much did dentistry lose during the recession? How did our clients beat the main dental market by 25%? The market that opened up after the recession What your competition will NOT be promoting Budget allocation… again! Being too busy Fixing capacity for new patients  Different business models for dentistry The impact of marketing and non-marketing DSO practice ownership DSO practice scaling Which half of the market are you marketing to? How will these markets respond to different advertising How to avoid alienating the top half of the market Acquiring your competition Competing with specialists

What is your core market? How do you build this foundation of patients? We explore this concept and more in our latest episode of Dental Marketing Mastery.   Podcast Highlights:   Understanding your core market Getting to this market before your competitors Patient families How your core market produces 11x more ROI than any other market Finding the marketing mediums to reach this core The folly of doing online-only marketing How your online reviews affect you Managing your online reviews Online scheduling now mandatory How online scheduling affects new and existing patients The five channels you need to invest in The staples of dentistry Promoting staples before the fancy stuff Where to put your budget while claiming your market How long does it take to claim your core market? Building a niche practice from a family practice

You don't want to be the annoying guy from Wyoming taking a little bit of gold from everyone. You need to make a choice and then stake your claim! In this episode, we discuss the finding your local market and making it yours.   Podcast Highlights: "I'm disappointed with what I did previously and want the 1 thing that will help me next" Is there ONE trick that will get you new patients? Staking your claim on the patients around you The multiple front approach required What worked in the old days vs. now  What's your "marketing universe?" Building the biggest, nicest, funnest practice Why do so many dentists use price incentives? Patients who pick price incentives vs. patients who pick quality of dental care "The cheap dentist in town" The bell curve on patients How long until pricing-based promotions have diminishing returns? How long until quality promotions have diminishing returns? How far will patients drive to get to your practice? Questions? Give us a call at 866-718-4278 or visit www.newpatientsinc.c

Google is changing, and we're here to keep you updated! In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we talk about review gating, the new SSL changes, updating your website, and more.   Podcast Highlights:   What is review gating? Google’s changes to review gating NPI Crusader™ Companies that have their own review sites SSL security change What is SSL security? What happens if you don’t have it? When is the deadline? How do you get your certificate?  Updating your website How often should you update your website? What if you have multiple locations?  

In this episode, we interview Norm Gelfand of Dental Real Estate Experts! We discuss expanding your practice, the ins and outs of leasing, landlord agreements, and more.   Podcast Highlights:   Expanding your practice with real estate The ins and outs of leasing What do attorneys overlook? Real-estate horror stories! The 61 vital points in a dental lease Agreements between owner, landlord, lender When buildings go into foreclosure What’s a latent defect? Protecting yourself as a tenant Reaching out to Norm: dentalrealestateexperts.com ngelfand@dentalrxp.com 512.833.5300 Get your lease looked at!

It's not you, doc! In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we discuss how to increase case acceptance, what the underlying problems with low case acceptance may be, and how to fix it.   Podcast Highlights:   The assistant, front desk, and hygienist Why is case acceptance not where it needs to be? Purchasing a practice – how long does it take existing patients to accept you? Cancelled appointments  Is it you, or patient quality? Attracting the right patients “Do you take my insurance?” vs real dental questions Do you want patients who choose you because you are cheap or because of your dentistry? Promoting to the right half of the dental market

Is insurance the mob? Do you have to take their deal? And if you do, how do you get the most out of it? How do you get out? We discuss all of this and more in this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery! Podcast Highlights: Insurance as a marketing medium Up front costs Transitioning away from insurance Existing patients Dealing with getting rid of insurance New technologies Online scheduling Adding convenience and value

In this episode of Dental Marketing Mastery, we talk about leads. What is a valuable lead? How do you get leads into the chair? How do you avoid missed opportunities, and more.    Podcast Highlights:   Leads vs. patients in the chair Defining a lead Missed appointments Converting leads into patients Why creating leads isn’t the end all be all Avoiding missed opportunities Why aren’t you following up? How to work your lead funnels Generating appointments and phone calls Cost per lead vs. cost per patient Knowing your marketing numbers Understanding the value of a lead

Our 100th podcast! In this episode, we go over an important question: when should you focus on niche dentistry, and when should you not? Is it possible to over-niche? How does the state of dentistry, your budget, and your capacity affect this decision?   Podcast Highlights: How to keep marketing momentum Over-niching Budget allocation Handling capacity Operatories Review gating

In our final installment of "Top 10 Ways To Destroy Your Advertising Results," we go over the issues with dictating your own strategy, not recognizing your own marketable attributes, not fully utilizing all marketing channels, and letting personal taste dictate your marketing. #7: Dictating Your Own Strategy Ancillary information vs. statistics Consumer research, testing, and strategy #8: Not Recognizing Marketable Attributes Prioritizing services Conveniences! Technologies Public relations assets #9: Believing Offline Promotion is Dead Offline drives online Mail: the dark horse   #10: Personal Taste What works vs. what you like Looks vs. results