dental marketing

April 24, 2019 Content marketing, Dental blog, Dental blogging, Dental content, Dental Copywriting, Dental marketing strategies, Uncategorized No Comments

How to Become a “Thought-Leader” with Your Dental Content and Increase Your Influence

Recent collaboration with a dental industry client revealed something about their content. And the principle has value for how you view your dental content and copy across all your platforms.

We were importing a new template on our project management platform. Time came to label a category having to do with our editorial calendar. “Thought leadership” appeared to be the obvious tag.

That got me to thinking about the attitude you should have about the content you create to market your dental practice or dental industry services.

It’s about being a thought-leader.

Not all “thought leadership” is worthy

You might have seen a viral video a few months ago. It featured a baby bear attempting to navigate a steep, snow packed cliff to reach its mother.

Millions of people saw the video and were inspired by it. Such triumph and strength against the odds of nature.

That was one perspective…shared by millions!

A contrary opinion was formed. It separated one thought leader from the crowd of admirers.

”Science writer Ed Yong saw it differently… Writing in The Atlantic, he described it as a worrisome example of drone-mounted cameras harassing wildlife. To animal experts, several moments in the video show the mother bear reacting to the too-close drone rather than interacting with her cub.

Marketing expert and mentor, Marcia Yudkin, continues her observation of Yong’s perspective,

I appreciate Yong’s article because it provided unexpected perspective on a seemingly harmless story or idea.

And here’s the jewel…

If you can dish up those kind of ‘Yes, but…’ insights to your audience, you’ll attract thoughtful fans and experience growing influence.

Yong did this without scolding the uninformed admirers of the video, and you should do so as well.

Identify a popular or trending belief that doesn’t mesh with what you know.

Explain your deeper angle in the tone of ‘What you probably didn’t realize is…,’ ‘Unfortunately…’ or ‘The problem here is…’

This is thought leadership at its finest.” 1

How “Yes…But” Thought Leadership Turns Contrary Ideas Into Useful Content That Builds Loyalty with Your “Tribe”

Identify, clarify, and leverage your unique point-of-view (POV)

You have solutions to problems…answers to questions…and more. Therein lies the core of your dental content strategy.

Gone are the days of writing to an “empty room.” The dental seeking public is rich with questions you can answer and problems begging for a solution.

You’re the expert. And more important – you have a POV!

  • Start with the question. Thought leadership has as much or more to do with listening than it does sounding-off on dental-speak. Harvest as many questions as possible (by listening) through conversations, consultations, email, and social media.
  • Share your answers and solve problems. Thought leadership is relevant to what your patients want to know and need to know. Create content that relieves the tension and emotional needs of your audience.

Think of your content like a tribal fire. Your “tribe” will feel safe in the warmth of your expertise.

The good news…they could look no further than YOUR thought-leadership!

Take a contrarian approach and fearlessly share your POV (without judgement)

The recent Netflix root canal documentary is a good example. Sure, as a dental professional you can take offense and voice your opinion as many did. Or you can be a contrarian voice and use the albeit alleged inaccuracies as content seeds.

  • Answer the questions and doubts that emerge around dental myths, dental services, or dentistry in general. There’s plenty of related opinions. Dispel them (graciously and professionally) as a thought-leader.
  • Invite dialogue by being unafraid to take on controversial topics. But always do so not as antagonist…rather as a professional, skilled expert.

Provoke questions and create solutions to problems that compel action.

The sign of a good leader isn’t always how they respond but also the depth and compelling nature of the questions they ask. Always providing answers and opinions can shut down communication more than it opens it to opportunity.

I once heard Jim Collins (bestselling author of Good to Great and Built to Last) say during a lecture something to this effect. He viewed his skilled research and the questions it raised as the careful placement of a grain of sand in the minds of his readers. That solitary grain of sand was strategically designed to “irritate” their thinking.

Worth noting is that pearls begin that way. A grain of sand within an oyster elicits the healing process that layer upon layer forms a pearl.

Your questions are “grains of sand” not to necessarily irritate but to promote healing.

  • Ask questions that reveal the emotional desires of your patients or clients. Within their answers are content “pearls” that can lead to compelling outcomes for your audience.
  • Always be solving problems. Essentially that’s the business of thought-leadership.

Anyone can create content. But…being a thought-leader and influencer requires that you have a point-of-view that you fearlessly communicate.

  1. https://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm ↩
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dental marketing that cuts through the noise
January 12, 2017 Content marketing, Dental Copywriting, Digital marketing No Comments

Does Your Dental Marketing Copy and Content Cut Through the Noise?

I credit Brian Clark and his Copyblogger article. He prompted my thinking about an essential element of compelling copy and content including what use in your dental marketing.

Writing is hard. Reading more so.

How’s that?

You (and your readers) must identify with a compelling reason to take action. In essence, that’s scheduling, using your service, or making a purchase.

Basically it’s the primary response your dental content and dental copy intends to prompt in your reader.

Is it compelling?

What makes content creation difficult is not the writing itself. It’s the identifiable benefits that are hidden behind the features that pose the challenge.

Features are easy.

That’s a theme I’ve covered before. There’s no shortage of feature-intensive dental content.

It’s easy to focus on the newest, greatest, latest, state-of-the-are, cutting-edge this or that. Right?

No doubt you’re proud of whatever it is that you’ve recently acquired or offer as a service. But adding an emphasis on the “thing” without compelling your audience with what the “thing” can do for them makes for a weak, lazy marketing message.

“Why didn’t I think of that…?”

Clark highlights the value of true benefits with a reference to direct response copywriter, Clayton Makepeace.

“…(He) asserts that fake benefits will kill sales copy, so you have to be on the lookout for them in your writing. He uses this headline as a an example: 

Balance Blood Sugar Levels Naturally!

That sounds pretty beneficial, doesn’t it? In reality, there’s not a single real benefit in the headline.

True benefits

Makepeace advises to apply his patented ‘forehead slap’ test to see if your copy truly contains a benefit for the reader. 

Here’s how Makepeace identifies the real benefit in that headline:

‘Nobody really wants to balance their blood sugar levels. But anyone in his or her right mind DOES want to avoid the misery of blindness…cold, numb, painful limbs…amputation…and premature death that go along with diabetes.’”

See the difference?

Make a connection where your reader “feels” something – the risk and effects of diabetes. This hits them where your reader (in this instance) lives.

Get “emotional” about it

Your copy shouldn’t be emotional for the sake of it. That leaves your reader numb and unable to do much about it.

Tap into emotions that compel a response.

Think what?, why?, how?

What is your product, service, etc., and what does it do? This is the feature level.

Why is this important, useful, etc., in the first place? Now you’re thinking at the edge of benefits.

Now…

How does your product or service actually connect with your patient’s/client’s desires? Here’s where you think emotionally and make it about the real benefits they’ll receive from whatever you’re promoting.

Nothing “fringe” about the benefits

Ultimately benefits are personal to everyone who interacts with your promotional copy. They make up their mind and take action simply because you ask them to but…in response to being compelled at an emotional rather than solely rational level (where a high percentage of marketing copy and content fails).

“What’s in it for me?” is the ultimate question your copy and content must answer. Get your reader, listener, viewer to ask that question and it’s only a matter of time before you can lead them to a responsive answer.

And that’s the goal for much of your marketing copy and content – ACTION!

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eye to eye dental marketing
January 5, 2017 Content marketing, Dental blogging, Dental Business, Dental Copywriting, Dental Industry, Dental marketing strategies No Comments

How to Meet Your Audience Eye-to-Eye in Your Dental Marketing Content

Sometimes the strain is too much. In my case it was the strain I consistently felt in my neck.

A practical Christmas gift solved that problem. And it prompted me to think about a principle that can keep your dental content and dental marketing from being well…a pain-the-neck.

I’m at my desk for the majority of each work day. My stand-up desk, though efficient and good for my overall health, even so created ongoing tension in my neck and shoulders.

Looking down at my MacBook Pro all day left me sore at day’s end.

I browsed for a more ergonomic solution. And viola!

The Rain mStand.

This gorgeous piece of aluminum looks sweet on my desk top. More important, it provides the lift I need  to bring my MacBook Pro to eye-level.

Mom hooked me up with one for Christmas. I’m stoked about it.

Everything’s at eye-level now. Neck-strain gone!

Got me to thinking about marketing-strain.

What’s that you ask?

Consider it any promotion, copy, or piece of content that fails to meet your reader, client, patient, or customer at eye-level.

Eye-to-eye or “die!”

Might seem extreme. But in a world of “hey-look-at-us-and-how-great-we-are” marketing it removes the pain.

Marketing that’s so feature heavy and bloated with industry-speak that it weighs your core message down isn’t compelling.

There’s a better way.

How to Create Dental Marketing Copy and Dental Marketing Content That Meets People at Eye-Level

1-Get personal

Your dental marketing strategy has one purpose, ultimately. It’s to consistently meet your patient/client at their personal “pain-points.”

To clarify, not all patients/clients are at a pain threshold all the time. Much of the time they’re simply looking for a solution to a problem.

This demands that you personalize your strategies.

Speak to each as an individual rather than a collective group. For example, use the word “you.”

This trains you to think in terms of a single person. You’ll naturally write, promote, market as if you’re speaking to them alone.

More important, they’ll feel it too.

2-Stop “selling”

Might seem strange to hear that said in a discussion of marketing. True, “selling” is the outcome of your dental marketing.

Though you perhaps don’t like to think of what you do as “selling” it’s the reality of marketing.

But…

It’s important to understand that the concept of “selling” is much different than the approach that feels and sounds “salesy.” Before you dismiss this point as a matter of semantics, think about it.

“People (you included) don’t like the idea of being sold.”

It’s more a matter of connecting their personal desires, emotions, problems to a solution. That connection is where the real value of “selling” takes place.

You create a “fan” over time by how you engage them with your solutions. If you sound, write, promote like a 15 second tv commercial you’ll do nothing more than numb your market.

Tap into your patient’s/client’s emotional buying motives. It’s reflected in a classic marketing formula according to Theodore “Ted” Levitt:

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”

And that, my friends, leads to a third and final idea…

3-Solve problems

The “drill” (according to Levitt) isn’t the ultimate, desired solution. The “hole” is!

In our feature-intensive marketing language it’s easy to forget the problem-solution-benefit equation. That is, how your services/products are described or packaged isn’t as valuable to your patient/client as the solution-benefit it provides.

Know your “audience” and you’ll speak to their pain. Listen to chair side conversations, consultant feedback, online reviews, search data, social media data and conversations, etc.

Mine conversations for problems that your unique services/products can solve. Create content that highlights how the problem/pain is solved.

Your dental marketing value will increase within your niche when you give your patients/clients consistent reason to trust your expertise.

Get eye-level. Your pain and theirs will disappear.

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add content value
March 17, 2016 Content marketing, Dental blog, Dental blogging, Dental Copywriting, Dental Industry, Dental marketing strategies, Dental website platform No Comments

Two Strategies That Will Keep People Reading Your Dental Content

There’s a reason this adult coloring book trend is catching on. The deeper vibe you can gain from it also applies to how you position yourself in the minds of those who consume your dental marketing content.

A friend and colleague has joined the tribe of adult coloring book publishers. Hers goes beyond the simple act of coloring the stress relieving pages.

Her “Thoughtful Colouring” approach includes the refreshing aspect of coloring designs. It adds a corresponding page with an inspirational quote and blank space to process it however you choose (while you’re coloring).

Cool! I agree.

It’s that small addition to the trend that I believe offers a principle you must consider in the content you curate and create.

You increase your authority with your patients/clients when you implant value in your content.

Words, especially the common, fluff your reader is accustomed to can become numbing and an eventual turn-off.

Your content audience has too much info-noise coming at them minute by minute. It’s your task as content creator and publisher to capture their focus.

This is the precise reason I encourage dental providers to step away from a standard, brochure-like website design. Refresh your design (and with it your authority) by adding an information platform to your site (e.g a blog/article page, a newsletter portal, etc).

Your content gains traction when you list dental implants among your services. It increases in value when that page links to an archived blog post/article that answers a common question about “dental implants.”

In fact, in today’s search rankings, you might discover that the article page ranks higher than your keyword intense services/procedures page. The reason: search engines like Google place a higher priority on your value-providing intention via a blog post than on standard webpage content.

How to Add Some “Color” to Your Dental Content Marketing Strategy

Inspire your reader

How inspiring can dental content be? Appeal to your reader’s curiosity and hunger for solutions to their dental problem and your inspiration-factor increases.

You inspire by compelling your reader through the solutions you offer.

General site content promotes your services. Consistent, fresh content inspires your reader with answers to their questions and solutions to their problems.

You become a source of inspiration to your patients/clients when they get that you’re listening to them. The best proof of listening is to mirror their “pain,” “problem,” or “concern” through relevant content.

  • Listen to every patient/client conversation with content in mind.
  • Ask information-gathering questions: “How can I help you with…,” “What’s your biggest fear about…,” etc.

Simple, right? Inspiration shouldn’t be complicated.

Next…

Import secondary value

Think deeper benefits related to what you provide.

You deliver a primary value as a dental professional or a dental marketing professional. Respectively, you help, heal, or you promote in a way that leads to a buying decision.

Your secondary value to your patients or clients is vital too. This happens when you move from an “I’ll-call-when-I-need-you” relationship to a “Go-to-source-of-useful-shareable-information” relationship.

Secondary value rises as you become a consistent “well” of practical (not technical) information.

  • Invest the time and marketing dollars in a consistent well-spring of content. Again, focus on the needs, wants, desires, questions, and problems of your patients/clients.
  • Create a front-of-mind expectation. The more consistently you appear on their “radar” via a blog post, article, newsletter, social media link, etc the more influence you’ll earn.

Influence has value. Give your patients and/or clients something to value alongside the primary services you provide.

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content marketing influence
March 4, 2016 Content marketing, Dental blog, Dental blogging, Dental Copywriter, Dental Copywriting, Dental Industry, Dental internet marketing, Digital marketing, Marketing dental services No Comments

How Influence is More Vital Than Ever to Your Dental Content Marketing Strategy

Election season. You love it or hate it.

Wherever you affectionately land there’s more to the process. The same is true for having an online presence for your dental practice or dental industry business.

I don’t blame those who are a bit disinterested or jaded about American politics. And I’m not here to “stump” one way or the other.

My better point: the right to vote (however you feel about the current stable of candidates) is a privilege of citizenship. It’s a right granted you and I as result of our country’s fight for and preservation of freedom.I

What comes with the “territory”

Rights and privileges are worth protecting. Better is their ability to be used or maximized to their fullest potential.

You don’t have to agree with everything or everyone. But you do have a cause to act.

Action is the energy of your online dental marketing efforts. Succeed or fail, “casting-your-vote” is the essence of the privilege associated with having a piece of territory on the internet.

Sure, it’s a massive space. And you’re one among the billion or so.

Daunting. Yes.

But it comes down to one thing

Value. Not everyone who owns a piece of cyberspace uses it deliver value.

You? Me? I count myself among the value-delivery crowd. And hopefully you do as well.

No, not every blog post, Tweet, newsletter, email, or shared article is a world-changer. But I do approach it feeling as though I deliver something my growing “tribe” will read and be helped by.

And frankly, for starters, that’s enough!

Whatever you do online…do this as consistently as possible.

Create, Deliver, and Share Valuable Content

Increase your influence

I have a client whose influence as a consultant is on the rise. Why?

She recognizes the value, scope, and scalability of hers and her organization’s influence. The weekly content I help her create provides value to a segment of her industry target.

Notice I said, “segment.” You won’t influence everyone.

Focus on a niche within the greater industry universe you occupy. Tap into their pain, problems, and search for relevant solutions. Write, broadcast, email, market to that…consistently!

Showing up on their consciousness “radar” on a regular basis will nestle you into their thinking when they need the help you provide.

Online search these days revolves more and more around your intent. What kind of intent?

Your intent to help. Your online presence that’s branded, so to speak, with a particular library of useful content.

Invest in your influence

Desiring to have influence and being able to consistently deliver on that desire are two different things. For example, as a copy/content writer and content strategist I’m an investment to my previously mentioned consultant client.

I collaborate and create content for her “brand.” She has invested an amount of her marketing stake in my skill to research and write content.

Many dental professionals, dentists, and dental industry business owners desire to expand their influence. And they take a step into the content marketing sea.

Then they become weary. Why?

Consistent content curation, content writing, and content publishing takes time. For most, it’s time you as a professional do not have.

Outsource content curation and creation to other skilled professionals. Locate a go-to copy/content writer, resource them financially, and set them free to consistently stoke your influence via your brand’s content.

Your name is still the one in lights. The content shines on your behalf.

It’s a better approach than a random blog post or digital article here and there. Consistency reveals that you’re dialed in, available, and in tune with your “audience.”

And the quality is also no longer an issue. Although being there with consistently, useful content holds the top spot.

Influence transcends many things. And I’d have to agree that (given the current season where I live) politics is one of them.

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February 26, 2016 Content marketing, Dental blog, Dental blogging, Dental Business, Dental case studies, Dental Industry, Digital marketing, Marketing dental services No Comments

What Simple Intuition Can Do for Your Dental Content Marketing Strategy

He’s smarter than I give him credit for. And there’s another more valuable trait that he’s developing at a young age.

I’ll let you in on our grandson’s growing personality in a moment. On a related note, there’s a trait within his intellectual development that applies to how your create your dental content.

Our grandson is six (”and a half…” as he’s quick to remind). The time I spend with him is priceless.

Being a freelancer and solopreneur has it’s perks. Especially when I can take a day off and spend time with the “B-man” as I call him.

I had that opportunity on a recent school holiday. Following breakfast, I reflexively viewed my incoming email on my iPhone as he was playing on the floor in our family room.

That’s when he schooled me…

“I thought you were taking the day off, G-pa!?”

Busted!

He made a connection that face-in-phone means work. He’s six and already more intuitive than I realize.

Intuition

Your power of observation or your ability to use your intuition can improve your dental content creation. It’s natural to make assumptions about your target audience.

After all, you’re a dental professional. You provide a certain set of services and the assumption is that people know it.

How people access your particular brand of services is the issue. Most approach who you are and what you do with questions.

Those questions – as we’ve discussed before – are your gold mine for creating compelling, useful content to promote your services.

Assume less – Intuit more

Your patients or clients are consistently in search of solutions to their “pain” or problems. And like most, they type a word or phrase in the form of a question into their chosen online search engine.

They, like you, do this more often on-the-fly via their smartphone or tablet. Pain, a problem, an unforeseen setback invades their space and they go searching for a solution.

Content Intuition and What It Can Do for Your Dental Content Marketing that Assumptions Cannot

Intuition creates real-time opportunity

Thoughts are fluid. You are always experiencing a constant stream of them.

So are your patients and clients.

It’s essential that your intuitive content finds its way to their thought consciousness. Your success rate will increase as you appear on their conscious “radar” consistently.

Monthly content…that’s a stretch. Sure, if it’s dense as in a content rich newsletter, industry case study, or informative ebook.

Start with a bi-weekly published content. But consider the opportunity-value of appearing in their space with useful content on a weekly basis – this is optimum.

Why? Your patients/clients are busy.

And volume of content they consume for information, entertainment, support, etc is off the charts.

Be there consistently. Be there usefully.

And you’ll occupy a small space in their content stream.

Intuition compels an informed response

The information your patients or clients search for depends on their current need, mood, pain, etc. Getting a response relies on your ability to intuit their condition.

How?

Listen!

  • Set up listening “stations.” Encourage your business team, consultants, assistants, hygienists to develop an open-ear approach. Train them how to pick up on the signals your patients/clients are sending. Develop ways to log/archive that data.
  • Create content around the questions, pains, problems, and solutions being sought by your patients/clients.

Remember that useful information compels…and “sells.”

Intuition conforms to the solutions you provide

Other “listening stations” are your online reviews, ratings, and strategic surveys. This is useful as you use your intuition to access what’s being said on and between the lines.

  • Get intentional by using surveys. Brief, targeted surveys can help you tap-into the needs, wants, and desires of your patients/clients. Avoid lengthy, complicated, or irrelevant questions. Ask what you really want to know.
  • Use reviews and survey data to create a content editorial list. Craft content around answering the questions and problems with solution-oriented content.
  • Provide variety. Informative content can be shared via a blog, podcast, video, short courses, webinars, etc.

Give your “audience” numerous channels to connect with you. They’ll appreciate the convenience and your intuition.

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