She mentioned Seth Godin and that immediately tipped the conversation we were having. If a conversation about dental marketing includes his name you can bet you’re on to something good.

Actually the context was about the readability-factor of dental industry blog and article content. Seth Godin was mentioned as a benchmark for readable, actionable, audience focused content (more on that in a moment).

If you’re a fan of his marketing wisdom and writing style, you know what I’m talking about. And if you’re not up to speed on him, take a moment, go to Amazon, your favorite local book retailer or library, and browse his titles and chapter excerpts.

In the meantime, subscribe to his blog feed and connect with him on social media. Seth Godin is always creating a “ruckus,” as he likes to say.

The “magic”

Dental marketing shouldn’t be “rocket-science.” Frankly, why should any marketing be complicated?

Once you get past the “funnels,” sales-speak, latest guru webinars, etc., dental marketing is about connecting with people – your audience.

Written, audio, video, or social content – whatever you use – must be audience-centric.

What is “audience-centric?”

Who is your “audience?”

And…

How do you connect with them?

What my colleague referenced about Seth Godin had to do with the tone, tightness, and readability of his published content. No doubt, he gets his point across in fewer words than most…and it radically jolts your conventional thinking about marketing and connecting with your audience.

Being Audience-centric

Writing content for the sake of writing it or writing it in a way that sounds like everyone else’s misses the target. Centric (focused) content considers who is reading YOUR writing.

For example, if you’re a dentist, who reads your dental practice website?

The general public? Colleagues? More often the general public than your colleagues.

Audience-centric tip: Write to one person not a crowd. Think: a potential new patient, a person with dental pain, someone with insurance benefits remaining who has a dental implant in their treatment plan, etc. Action: Keep your dental website’s Service/Procedure pages brief (250-300 words max). Include links to useful, informative blog/article content on your site that are centered on topics of interest to your audience. Create a “ruckus”: Practice fearless curiosity. Discover what interests, frustrates, or loses individuals in your “audience” by listening to their questions, reviews, and survey comments. Write to that!

Having Audience-connection

Knowing your audience – their questions, pain, goals, etc. – enables you to create content that connects on an emotional, rather than intellectual, level. Dental website or marketing content that sounds like a CE course for industry insiders misses where people live.

Audience-Connection tip: Write and create content that’s readable and time-conscious. Think: how a person accesses your content – mobile device (smartphone, tablet, etc.) more often than desktop. Action: Practice excellent “word-economy.” Make your point with short, tight, crisp sentences. Remember that complicated, long, wordy sentences numb your reader. Create a “ruckus”: In your content, minimize features (how great, educated, new, state-of-the-art, etc that you/your services are), maximize benefits (what your services do FOR your reader/site visitor), and tell them what to do (call-to-action) to schedule, contact you, purchase, etc your services.

It’s about one-to-one connection. Make sure your dental marketing content connects!

I’ll toss it to Seth Godin to put a wrap on it.

“Be genuine. Be remarkable. Be worth connecting with.” – Seth Godin