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Archives for September 2011

Get your funky Groupon

September 29, 2011 By Trish Walraven Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Marketing, Money, Practice Management Tagged With: Groupon, linkedin, LivingSocial, social coupon deals

A free dental timer

September 27, 2011 By Trish Walraven Leave a Comment

Dental materials have needs. Especially the need to be timed. Like, how long has that anesthetic been working? Or when will the alginate set?

Instead of having to remember all the working and set times for the products that you use every day, maybe what you need is a computer timer that’s specifically designed for dentistry.

Sure, you can use it for your operatory chess matches, timing how long your assistant was in the restroom, or reminding yourself to check the hygiene patient. But its best uses are definitely dental-centric.

Download the BlueMinder Dental Timer here for free. Doesn’t cost anything – no data, no money. Just install it at each clinical computer, tell your assistant to add your most-used dental materials (or just rely on the included materials library) and you can ditch the grey LCD clock boxes on your tray tables forever.

Or at least you can use it until the dental materials can time themselves.

 

Filed Under: Products, Software

Suckdowns, meet the Ortho Ministar

September 23, 2011 By Trish Walraven 1 Comment

Fellow dental blogger Mike Barr has a new toy in his dental lab and wants you to get one, too.

No, not because he’s going to make any money from your purchase, but because he is a believer in sanity! This pressure-forming machine saves you time and anguish over the heat, droop, and noisy suck-down that you’ve just accepted as “this is just the way it’s done.”

So be sure to follow this link, read his extensive review and product comparisons, and watch the video that he’s produced. And if you’re not convinced that you need to get an Ortho Ministar, then maybe you’re too attached to your vaccum-former.

And we’ve all heard the stories about people who got stuck to their vacuums and had to go to the hospital to become unattached, so don’t get mistaken for one of those.

Filed Under: Instruments, Technology Tagged With: Ortho Ministar, vacuum former

Typos on your practice website

September 12, 2011 By Trish Walraven 5 Comments

Let’s play a game of search, kind of a “Where’s Waldo” for proofreaders. Ready? How many grammar and spelling mistakes can you find in this dental practice website?

(click on the image below to see it live)

The offender that originally caught my eye is “Sugary.” Really? Oral Sugary? Sweet. At first that was the only one I saw. And then the others appeared as I looked closer and started trying to read through the front page.

Also, what’s with the music selection for that video you can’t turn off? It’s something between the Brady Bunch theme and middle school marching band, and the best you can do is mute your computer so that it doesn’t keep starting over with each page change.

English appears to be a second language not only for the website developers but for most of the patients, too. Otherwise, don’t you think someone would have told them about this by now? It won’t be me. Not just yet, because I’m getting to a point first.

I counted eight errors. But what makes this number so awful is that there are not that many words on this page!

Maybe the Vietnamese community in Houston is more forgiving about dental websites. They might not even be able to read the words at all, and maybe the flashy stuff looks clean and assuring. Especially the little kiss blown at the end of the video. I actually found the clinician’s manner to be quite touching and sincere.

No one needs to be told anymore that you have to have a decent website to make a good impression these days. I mean, if yours looks like 1995 HTML markup you’re probably better off not having one. And even if you have a super-cool template and someone in-house that can webmaster a bit, you have to watch that you don’t put off patients with weird stuff, or too much information, or not enough information. On the other hand, if you’re not careful enough about the website designer you hire, your prospective patients might get a case of STOCK IMAGE GLAZEOVER and quickly leave your page for the next dentist in the Google search that has real people on their front page, not this same girl you see everywhere:

See what I mean?

Now go look at your own website. It needs to be better, no matter how good it is now. And if you think it’s just fine the way it is, then you need to talk to someone you trust who can either give you ideas on how to improve your online presence or just give up trying. Because there is no “Done” when it comes to web design. There’s just better for now.

Kind of like getting your teeth cleaned.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

“A Little Help” for this dental hygienist

September 11, 2011 By Trish Walraven Leave a Comment

In remembrance of the tenth anniversary and for all the anniversaries before and after today, one sacredness will probably never be broken: no jokes about 9/11.

With that said, it does seem that we’re dealing with the tragedy a little bit better when someone in Hollywood can carefully insert it as a plot element that isn’t about inspiration, or the devastation, or any of that.

You probably recognize Jenna Fischer from her TV role in “The Office.“ With this film she’s an out-of-control New York dental hygienist whose husband dies nearly a year after 9/11. She doesn’t suck spit well, even when patients are coached by the office parrot. Dentists don’t have birds in their offices, silly screenwriters, dentists have fish. Finding Nemo got that part right, and boosted business for aquarium maintenance companies that supply clownfish to dentists.

Our character has a lot bigger problems than pooping parrots to deal with, including a son who tells everyone that his dad died on 9/11 instead of from a heart condition.

I wish that I could have reviewed this movie, overanalyzing all the inevitable dental office flubs, but it’s already come and gone from the theaters less than a month ago due to the minimal publicity it received. No worries though. You should be able to rent it (stream it, whatever you do to movie releases these days) starting October 25th so be sure to subscribe to the DentalBuzz Twitter feed for the reminder when it comes out.

Link: A Little Help official movie website

Filed Under: Anecdotes Tagged With: a little help, dental hygienist, dentistry in film, Jenna Fischer

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DentalBuzz explores rising trends in dentistry with its own slant. The speed at which new products and ideas enter the dental field can often outpace our ability to understand just exactly the direction in which we are heading. But somehow, by being a little less serious about dentistry and dental care, we might get closer to making sense of it all.

So yeah, a tongue-in-cheek pun would fit really nicely here, but that would be in bad taste. Never mind, it just happened anyways. Stop reading sidebars already and click on some content instead.

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