Sometimes the best marketing angle is happened upon by accident. Today I just fell in love with the women of this dental practice because they were brave enough to post this “outtakes” video on their practice website. See what I mean:

Want an eye-opener for contrast? Go to the full website and browse through the “real” videos sprinkled along their page tops. I’m sorry, but they’re flat. Where did the real personalities go? Now they just look and sound like any other dental team that’s going all “flaming logo” with their online presence.

This is proof that we all can ditch some of the formality and instead take a side turn down spontaneous lane. If you have that spark of fun in your office, let it show. Big. Bigger. You are awesome, remember?

And save some of that high-end tech for your dental equipment.

For the most part, the American Dental Association meeting in Las Vegas this past week was a dignified, educational, and exciting exhibition. On the other hand, this article is dedicated to some of the stuff that didn’t go over so well.

Exhibit No. 1: Booth Babes

Really? If this is what it takes to sell your dental products, you probably need better products. Hot girls are nice and all, but you seem to have forgotten that half of dentists these days are women themselves.

Exhibit No. 2: Excessive use of color

I get it already. But yellow is the least of the problems here.

Exhibit No. 3: Roll it, don’t fold it

When you only have one thing hanging up at your booth, you really should make sure that thing isn’t creased and messy-looking.

Exhibit No. 4: Voyeurism

An interproximally wedged bit of corned beef begged me to visit the Sonicare AirFloss demo after lunch, and of course I’d been wanting to try it out ever since its preview here at DentalBuzz. What I didn’t realize was that a bunch of people would be peeking their heads around the corner from the sinks while I shot microbursts between my teeth.

Exhibit No. 5: You look stupid

There’s two ways to get into this group. If you’re getting paid to look like a fool, hey, in this economy, at least you have a job!  And then there’s the second way, which proves that paper crowns should only be passed out to small children at Burger King.

Exhibit No. 6: Pretentious company names

But the URL was available!!!! Even the kids wearing the orange shirts look skeptical.

Exhibit No. 7: Unpretentious company names

And sometimes you should try harder to come up with a name for your business.

Exhibit No. 8: Pawn Stars

Editing is a reality TV show’s best friend, as evidenced by the Pawn Stars Roadshow held at the ADA meeting.There were the obligatory purchases of dental gold (3.5 ounces for $2,000, on one sale) but for the most part the items that were brought on the stage for appraisal were met with yawns, disinterest, and concerns about authenticity.

One thing’s true though: the reality show’s stars are the real deal. What you see on the History Channel’s number one show is what you get. Not only did pawn shop owner Rick Harrison share his story about how he became the “media whore” that he is today (his words, not mine) and his experiences in the dental chair, we got a glimpse of the real Chumlee Russell when he accidentally fell off the back of the stage. Now I know why there are “I Heart Chumlee” shirts for sale all over Vegas.

Exhibit No. 9: Bad planning

So, you create a display area for a show that’s esthetically pleasing and then JACK IT UP with loud hand-scribbled posters. Either they forgot to offer a show deal or it’s genius marketing to make it look like they’re going out of business and have the BEST SHOW SPECIAL EVER! And what’s with the unapproachable chick stance? Wow, tough sell.

Exhibit No. 10

There’s no exhibit number ten. I just wanted to make fun of this guy again:

New patient marketing is all about finding clients that will bring repeat business, refer their friends and family, and basically spread good vibes about you to the surrounding community. But lately the social coupon craze has poured mud into the water, causing consumers and business owners alike to lose sight of these goals. The result is second-class service that most customers begrudgingly accept because, well, it’s a DEAL!

A few months ago I purchased one of these group coupons for 60 percent off of a full auto detail from a local car wash. Not only was I disappointed with the way I was treated once I redeemed my voucher, I realized that dentists often get stuck by the same traps that caught our car wash business owner when offering any sort of discount.

Rule 1: You should treat Groupon patients the same as your regular patients.

Two weeks ago I left my second voice mail message at the detailing center. The first phone call was never returned the week previous, but this time the owner called me back immediately. Maybe this was going to work out after all. Yes, he could reserve an appointment for me on the day I asked, but because a lot of people are trying to use their vouchers before they expire, he says the only time he can see me is for an early morning drop off. Not a problem.

So last Friday I drop the car off without incident. The owner assures me that the service will be superb, and I am like, hey, maybe these social coupon deals are worth my time. What a way to “kick the tires” and make sure that a business meets my needs, right?

Right? Ehh, not so much. Basically I got a $70 detailing for $70. If I’d paid the regular price of $179 and they’d called what they did to my car “detailing” I would have made them stay there another hour to go back over all the idiotic things that were missed, with me glaring over them for the inconvenience. And maybe I’d even ask for a HUGE discount.

But I was a pre-pay with my coupon. Instead, it was all I could do to get the heck out of there as quickly as I could. Don’t look back. And don’t go back.

Rule 2: Remember who you are trying to attract.

Out of the 150 auto detailing deals that were purchased during the offer period, only four were in the local area, according to the owner, and he seemed to think that those that traveled out of their way to visit his shop weren’t likely to come back. And then… as one of the four that lived locally, I got treated like one of the out-of-towners! Sheesh.

Not only do you want your marketing efforts to attract more repeat customers than one-timers, when you do have a “keeper” you need to make sure that they value not only your coupon offer but that they can see your Big Picture. In other words, why you signed on to be a Coupon Dentist in the first place. Many patients are hungry to understand your practice philosophy and your ethics. Make sure that you don’t compromise either when you decide to participate in a Daily Deal.

Rule 3: Create an offer with No Regrets.

The worst thing you can do is to go upside-down on a social coupon deal, where it actually costs you money to fulfill an offer. Forget prophys because of the perio thing – you don’t want to gnaw off more than you can occlusally manipulate. But then again, if you don’t make your deal enticing enough you won’t get anyone to purchase it.

You also have to be careful with the cuts you agree to share with the various coupon aggregators, and that you’re not ending up with the super-short end of the stick.

Above all, you don’t want your offer to be a Cheapie Freebie. Whitening kits are notorious for post-coupon exasperation in the dental practice. Take the whitening kit and run, say most of the Deal of the Day playbooks.

My suggestion for a Dental Deal that will attract new patients, enthuse your existing client base, and give your dental team a skip in their step, without tying up valuable chair time? Why not offer something that isn’t even dentistry? Try offering digital smile makeover photo shoots.

Maybe the offer reads like this:

“You want to look like a million bucks, but your teeth might be knocking a few zeroes off that last photo session. The smile designers at Dr. Chill’s Dental Practice can bring Photoshop magic to your mouth with this personalized production starring you and your potential.
What you’ll get (a $50 value):

 • A one-on-one review of your ideas for smile enhancement
• A 30 minute shoot at our own photo studio
• High-resolution professional headshots, including minor retouching and the smile design of your choice, emailed to you

And be prepared to change your LinkedIn photo soon.”

So you charge a small sum for this, say $15. Hopefully the coupon websites will let you do something for this low.  And even though you’ve heard this so much that it’s probably a cliche’ to you by now, keep in mind the most important rule of all:

Rule 4: Under-promise and over-deliver.

The bottom line is that you want to give buyers a reason to become patients.

You can make fun of yourself in your ad copy when you mention that you also want a person to come back as a dental patient. Because that’s like, duh. But you can’t say that “you’ll love us so much that you’ll want to get all that dental work done.” Whatever.

Or you can emphasize how at-home patients will feel in your practice if you have that sort of relaxed environment.  Send each purchaser a note about your practice before they redeem their coupons. But no baiting and switching with high-pressure sales pitches. Keep it real, keep it caring, and most importantly, build a relationship with each person that comes in with the coupon. Everyone knows that it costs money to get dental work done. You just want to be sure that patients have your number when they’re ready to commit.

Think of this deal that you’re building in the same way that you think of magazines. The only reason that publishers let a magazine subscription go out for $12 per year is to create value in the mind of the subscriber (who reads free trade magazines cover to cover? no offense, PennWell publishing!) The real dollars come from the ad revenue, of course.

In that sense, your Groupon (or LivingSocial deal, or whatever program you use) can provide a photo service that professionals are looking for to enhance their online profiles, while at the same time creating low-cost marketing for you that is all about WBID: Warm Bodies In the Door.

And those warm bodies won’t care how much you know how to fix their mouths until they know how much you care*. Sometimes it’s just that simple.

*thank you to Linda Zdanowicz for her dental blog tagline that I tried to paraphrase to fit this article.

Forty-something years ago the US had a revolution that twisted the Mad Men-tality of societal standards. The shadow is all that’s left now: the 60′s are just another commodity that’s most visible in ‘tween fashions and feelgoody Volkswagen campaigns.

There’s probably a few Free Love dustbunnies that have survived by clumping together at Jimmy Buffett concerts (did all the Deadheads join the Parrotheads? are they all now DeadParrotHeads?). Anything else is marketing, which brings us to this Time Life Music parody video from KaVo. It’s not particularly inventive, but it has enough good characters and pretend song titles from the era to keep the average dental professional engaged. Oh, and you can sign up to try any KaVo handpiece for free:

Sorry that you can’t get those three minutes of your life back, but you have to admit that the gal singing “Take Another Little Piece of My Tooth” showed real talent and made most of it worthwhile. Also, patients shouldn’t be used as props. This one just stares at the dentist the whole time he’s talking…

Now go try a handpiece and show KaVo that their creative department really is doing its job so their employees will get more money and maybe the next video they make will be one that you DO share with everyone.

by Trish Walraven

It’s a shame that these commercials, first broadcast during the 2004 Superbowl, were upstaged by Janet Jackson’s “stardom” during the halftime show that day. I thought that it was utterly brilliant marketing, even better than the commercials that went totally silent and you’d have to peek your head around the corner to see why your TV turned off. I mean, this campaign is the epitome of the proof that marketers will do whatever it takes to get your attention.

So if you agree with me that these were the silliest, funnest commercials of the time, especially because secretly you found yourself doing a subconscious ortho workup on the pre-adolescent mess of a dentition, then you now get your chance to revisit them here.

Our little freaky bowler hat hobgoblin is acting shy about showing his jacked-up smile at first. Open please, and bite your back teeth together.


Or just sing for us, okay?




Yes, you have a pepper bar, and you’re cute in a “I can’t unsee that” kind of way. But did you have to go all Sistine Chapel on us?




Note to self: Don’t let smushed up taxidermy specimens wave a pair of scissors around. It’s just creepy. On the other hand, the pirate hat? Wow, perfection.





And our last one. Um, you need to wrap the neck of that guitar with a little gauze if you’re going to clean out his ear.

I was playing these videos very quietly while I was embedding them because it’s a little embarrassing to admit that I have a fondness for these creatures. Like if some of my patients knew that I thought they were funny, maybe they’d think that something was wrong with me because, really, these commercials are just stupid and ugly and have no place in our culture.

Thank goodness for wardrobe malfunctions to take the heat off of Quizno’s for having the audacity to market like this, right?

And I sure hope that the kid whose teeth were used in the making of the commercials got some $$ for braces and is now a poster teen for the AAO.

by Trish Walraven

Photoshop is fun. You can use it to make a fake Yelp review to help illustrate a point that you’re trying to make about something else. Like a patient writing an online review of your dental practice:

Vindication, finally! Yelp lets me air the true story of this miserable experience, and no one can stop me. First off, I had total confidence in the way I cared for my car – had the tires rotated every six months, oil changes every 3000 miles, if it was in the manual, I had it done. About a year after I’d moved into town was when I began noticing a drift to the left (irrespective of the politics here *grin*) so I took my car into Dodgy’s Auto Clinic, which had the highest score on RateMechanics.com. Get this! As I’m filling out some paperwork, one of the forms they’ve handed me is a “Privacy Agreement” that asked me to transfer ownership of any public commentary I might write in the future to Dodgy’s. Like this review – supposedly they now own it. Did the red flag go up? Definitely. Did I heed the warning? Unfortunately not. This mechanic BUTCHERED my car. Nothing feels the same. There are rattles where none previously existed, the steering wheel shimmies when I make a turn, and whenever I drive I just feel like taking a bus instead, it’s THAT BAD. They did fix the drift though, only now it goes in the opposite direction. Just in case I was insane I took it to another shop to get an opinion about their repairs. The second place agreed that unneccessary “treatment” had happened and that it would be difficult and pricey to undo the damage. In the end Dodgy’s did refund my money and asked that I not rip them apart online. I bet! The last thing they did as I walked out was to wave that “agreement” at me. Like it has any authority to do anything except make me mad. I have a destroyed car, and people should know the truth about this “Auto Clinic.” So, Bring it, Dodgy’s. Bring your lawyers. I’ve got everything I need to defend my words. You want to own my words? Here. OWN EM. I now own YOU.

This is a frightening scenario for any service provider. We have a clearly upset individual that seems sincerely convinced her car was ruined by a repair shop. And just one of these unfavorable reviews can inflict massive online damage.

Now let’s take this to dentistry. You got some patients out there talking smack about the quality of your work. Not your chairside manner, not your front office person who was less than helpful about payment arrangements. We are in the heart of your business, a heart that could be ripped out by a singular disgruntled review.

The question appears in your mind: How can we protect ourselves against this sort of damage? Just do good dentistry and treat our patients with kindness, empathy, and respect? Then what? What if you’re doing everything right and a review like the one above comes up and bites you in the backside? It’s not going to go away easily.

There’s always prevention, right? A program called Dental Justice has gotten into the business of fighting Web anti-defamation. For about $1200/year you’ll have access to Online Reputation Management Contract Templates (and some other lawsuit deterrents because otherwise these are some PRICEY legal forms!). You’re supposed to have each patient sign a contract to give you control over any reviews they may post.

What I’ve noticed is that there are two problems inherent to this solution:

1. Patients don’t like legal waivers. They pretty much only end up making you look defensive, like you have something to hide.
   
2. Anyone can post a negative review about you. Even if they’ve never been to your office or work for your competition.
   

Essentially, you have no protection against fictitious posts because even if you are using these contracts they are useless against people who never signed them in the first place. Also if a patient did sign a contract and you “out” them publicly with a copyright takedown notice, you may be exposed to a counterclaim of privacy violation. One lawyer even ended up walking out of his dentist’s office when asked to sign a Dental Justice contract:

story: Doctors and dentists tell patients, “all your reviews are belong to us”

But wait, it gets better.

John Swapceinski, co-founder of RateMDs.com seems to have exposed a fair amount of “sock puppetry” on his website at the hands of Medical Justice, Dental Justice’s parent company. In other words, he is alleging that Medical Justice is planting false reviews, that they are doing exactly the thing that they are hired to protect against.

story: Medical Justice caught impersonating happy patients on Yelp, RateMDs

Over the course of five months there were 86 ratings submissions on the RateMDs website made from Medical Justice’s own IP addresses. Naturally, these were extremely favorable reviews, and John states that Medical Justice was doctoring the web as part of their “Review Builder Program” until the scheme was discovered and the IP addresses blocked.

Sadly, Medical Justice is not the only perpetrator here. Just look up “Online Reputation Management” in your search engine to find dozens of companies that plant favorable reviews for a fee.

Now lucky for you, patients are also wising up. Most of them realize that dentistry isn’t a commodity that is easy to rate, reviews should be taken with a grain of skepticism, and that unhappy people usually squeak louder than satisfied ones. So if you’re worried about your social media going dark, stop practicing in a bubble and give your enthusiastic patients the brushes they need to paint your practice in bold, beautiful colors. Add Yelp and RateMDs links to your followup emails to make it easy for patients to take their happy vibes online.

And please, please, don’t make them sign anything.

Have you seen the most recent ad about electric vehicles, namely the Leaf? Hey, Nissan, the sedation dentists of the world thank you once again for reinforcing patient fears in an original way that also serves your agenda.

Alternative Ways You Can Help Your Husband’s Practice

by Eva Watson

Running a financially solvent and content dental practice is hard work. The challenges of keeping the schedule filled, placating unhappy patients, and ensuring the peace and tranquility between team members are constants that must be adhered to for the greater good of the practice.

None of these responsibilities are taken more seriously than that of the spouses of dentists. These individuals not only have a vested interest in the monetary success of their married dental partners but to better the daily operations and keep ‘the ship sailing smoothly’ as well.

With all of the positive traits and well-meaning leadership dental wives have in mind for their husbands’ offices, there are days, just a tad too many, actually, that your guidance and intentions seem to push the staff’s proverbial ‘button’, so to speak. May I dare say ‘lay the sauce a bit too thick’? If I may be so bold as to offer, ‘Make the employees want to ship you in a box to Africa’?

It’s a difficult pill to swallow, I agree, but I do have some various, and incredibly helpful options, to aid in your demanding role as dental spouse:

Pass out dental office brochures to businesses around a twenty square mile radius, three days a week.

Obviously this will take you away from the practice frequently. Think of it this way – you can hit Neiman Marcus, Restoration Hardware, and schedule appointments with contractors to remodel your kitchen. Just make sure our checks don’t bounce again, okay?

Visit local elementary schools dressed as ‘Rooty! The Giant, Friendly Root Canal Tooth’

I would totally do this myself, but I need to be in the practice so– have fun! There are holes for your arms, but walking may pose a challenge. Oh, and there’s the white stockings and black shoes you have to wear. The staff attached a huge endodontic file to the top of your costume so the little ones understand why root canals are completely awful. Now, the suit gets sweaty and stinky after an hour, so make certain you bring a change of clothes. Come to think of it, you may want to shake it out a few times before you put it on. I thought I saw something crawling in it.

Take some time off

The staff knows you’ve earned it. You come in here, day after day after day, talking and talking, mispronouncing patients’ names then laughing about it, and we just feel like all that hard work deserves some rest and relaxation. In fact, we spoke to the doctor about it at one of the staff meetings. (You were Rooty that day so you missed the meeting.) Anyway, he feels that sending you to a month-long spa getaway is a fantastic idea for your peace of mind and well-being. You’re going to be busy next month – we got a new practice mascot costume for you!

Say hello to ‘Gingie – The Awfully Bloody Gingiva’!

by Trish Walraven

We know that you want to protect your family from anything that you hear about in the media. Especially radiation. Especially now, with the leaks at the nuclear power plant happening in Japan and with Dr. Oz telling everyone that going to the dentist could endanger their thyroid glands.

Your perception is made reality here at Safe Smiles Dental Care. Are you afraid of the cumulative effects of flying in airplanes, going outdoors, and X-Rays? Good.

Why do we say good? Because the way we nurture your fear of radiation sets us apart from other dental offices. We won’t say, “Oops, let’s re-take that xray; it didn’t come out right” here. We will get it right the first time, because, gosh darn it, we care. And we spent a lot of money on rectangular collimators with little magnets and beepers that tell you that we’re all lined up. And what about “Sorry, the thyroid collar will obstruct our view so we can’t use it”? You won’t hear that in our office either. We’ll just not worry your pretty little head about that part of your jaw.

This is what we call scratching our niche, baby. Our practice is the ultimate low-radiation dental office, and you won’t find this level of concern down the street at Dr. Happy-go-lucky’s practice. No way. We’ll massage your fears away with our assurance that any cancer you get in your lifetime won’t be from dental radiation.

So give us a call today at (990) 648-2130 to schedule your complimentary screening exam. We also offer just radiological services if you prefer to have your dental x-rays taken at our office and then forwarded to a dentist of your choice. But that’s such a hassle. Come on, you know you’d rather stay here with us. Especially when you start seeing these warning symbols posted all over the signs of our local competition:

Stay safe, and we’ll look forward to seeing you soon!

__________________

Yesterday on his network television show Dr. Mehmet Oz defended his remarks back in September about the necessity of lead thyroid collar use during dental x-rays whenever possible by stating that “there’s no good reason not to protect yourself against radiation.” While this is true, the bottom line is about using radiation in a way that leads to best outcomes in our patients, a point that several guest physicians also tried to make despite the protests of Dr. Oz.

Seriously, when you look at the sources of radiation in the world today, why worry about the miniscule intentional amounts? All radiation is dangerous, and it should be limited as much as possible, but the only way to avoid it totally is to dig a radon-free hole somewhere and live like a makedd roll gnat the rest of your life (ummmm. I mean naked mole rat. So hard to get that one right!). Calm your fears with this Radiation Dose Chart that was recently compiled, complete with facts about the Fukushima Nuclear plant (click on the image for full-size).

Another thing that I whipped up here for all you DentalBuzz readers is a Medical Radiation Dose Chart to download and show to your patients that have no idea how much radiation that they may be getting from the more common diagnostic procedures. I didn’t know a lot of it myself, so originally I created it to use in our office but you may find it helpful too. Did you know that it takes 10,000 PA radiographs to reach the annual limit of x-radiation? How many CT scans does it take to reach the limit? I’m too lazy to do all the math but it looks like 1 CT scan equals about 2,000 bitewings (film, not digital) according to this chart.

Regardless, we all have a responsibility to admit that we don’t know what we don’t know. And perhaps Dr. Oz may be a little right; we should do our best to protect our patients from radiation whenever possible, adapting the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle with regards to radiation in dentistry.

Enter the media blitz. Interactive Digital Imaging (IDI) is re-introducing its rectangular collimator with a PR campaign targeting consumers. Dental patients will be encouraged to “Look for the Green Ring” at their dental offices, similar to the “Ask Your Doctor About” style of direct-to-consumer advertising used by the pharmaceutical industry. Originally priced at $1295, the newly redesigned Tru-Align collimator will be offered at $795 with improvements that overcome cone-cut errors and enhancements that make the positioner more user-friendly.

My favorite feature of the Tru-Align system is not that it can be used with any typical XCP holders (but still a good thing – this includes sensors, phosphor plates, and film), but that when you bump up the xray cone to the collimation ring, you get a magnetized lock-on and an audible beep to let you know that you will NOT be getting a cone-cut on that image. BAM! ZAP! If nothing else, the precision of this thing should impress our patients. And if they’re the kind that are really concerned about their radiation exposure, you can spew some factoids about reducing the absorbed dose from around 150 microsieverts to 30 microsieverts for an 18-image FMX series.

What it finally comes down to is having the right things to say to your patients when they ask about radiation, and addressing any real problems that you may be having in your office, like the assistant who has to re-take a periapical x-ray three times in order to get the one that you need. Or making sure that your thyroid collars are actually being Velcroed behind your patients’ necks. Or halting the bacteria-fest breeding on your lead aprons. My bet is that’s the biggest offense of all. Ahhh, a problem for another day…..

___

Thanks to these blogs whose articles have helped shape this one:

The ALARA Principle: Dr. Jeffrey Hoos and Michael Razzano on Dentistry IQ

The Digital Dentist Lorne Lavine

Dr. Oz discusses Dental X-Rays and Thyroid Cancer: Dr. Todd Welch at The Science of Dentistry

Yes, she’s got a dental supply company backing her, and yes, she’s a little green and looks like she’s trying hard to be obnoxious (which she obviously isn’t), but there’s something about DESIree that is utterly fascinating.

Yesterday brought the unveiling of The DEZIree Show, a “just between us” video blog for dental hygienists. Will she be engaging, relevant, and positively bloom in her fun weekly rants so that her viewers want to share her messages and spirit? Or will this be a failed publicity experiment that a corporation is trying in order to find their place in the social media order?

Currently it could go either way. But you should totally root for DEZIree because she seems worth five minutes of your time per week.