Mark Oborn's Social Media and Dental Online Marketing BLOG

Search, Plus Your Dental World - Google does it again.

2012-01-12T18:26:00.000Z

Google Plus. Are you on it yet?

NO!

Why?

Ok, I got it, I go it... here's your list of reasons why you're not on it yet:

It's boring
You don't get it
You think "Good grief, not another social network"
You're shouting "My friends are on Facebook, why do I want to join another network?"

Now let me tell you why you need to get with the Google Plus beat... do you have a dental practice website? If you do then you need to get Google Plus sorted, and here's why.

Google's customers want answers to questions, these customers type their questions in to the Google search box 400 million times every day. So if Google is to deliver quality for it's customers, it needs to deliver the exact answer to the question asked.. got it so far?

If a website is old or outdated the answer to the searchers question could be old and outdated, so Google might ignore your site, or look for a more up to date one... that's why blogs rank so highly on Google, they are up to date and current by their nature, so Google says "Hey, I'll rank a blog high 'coz I know it'll be up to date".

Now, the next level is for Google to think "OK, how do I get en even more accurate answer to that question that person just typed? How about I ask their friends what they think?"

And BOOM, socially relevant searches are born - after all, it stands to reason, if you and I are friends then we are likely to be like each other, so if YOU are searching for something online, and Google sees that I like a website that contains a possible solution for you, chances are that the website will be more relevant to you personally... so Google gives that website that I like a little nudge up the search results for you.

Manipulative? Hell yeh, but what else do you think the search results are anyway? It's only Google's idea of what they think we should see rated number 1 isn't it.

Now, the way Google knows who are friends is via Google Plus, you will have seen +1 buttons appearing all over the internet...

Here's a video that Google recently made to demonstrate what will happen when you search

Click here to watch on YouTube

The result of all this is that if you have a +1 button on your dental practice website and people click it, and if their friends do a search for say 'dentist ' your dental practice website site will get a little nudge up the rankings for those people on Google - powerful stuff.

To add the buttons to your site, hop on over to the Google website to grab the code - or if you want more advice on the online marketing gunship then book on a course with me. The next course is on 7th February and we'll go through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Optimisation, Email AND the whole Google Plus thing.

Please visit my website today for more information on this course

Book your place now and don't get left behind in the Google Plus Your Dental World Searches

6 Traits of The Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy

2012-01-09T09:37:00.000Z

Over the years I've found there are a few traits that set the successful marketing strategy apart from an unsuccessful one - and if you want to avoid failure then I suggest you read, absord, understand then do!

Trait 1 - Think Holistically

Social Media is not the 'be all and end all' of your online marketing, it should form part of a comprehensive online marketing strategy that includes as many marketing channels as possible.

In my opinion this should include:

Google Plus
Google Places
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
Blogging
Email
Your Website

It may also include Facebook adverts and Google Pay Per Click (No, PPC is not dead.. only doing it wrong is dead!)

The sequence of these is important and social media only seeks to widen your sales funnel. The goal should always be to drive potential patients down the sales funnel and down the list above.

Trait 2 - Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Your website is an integral feature of your online marketing strategy and should include visitor data capture mechanisms (like email) and the facility to request appointments online.

You can then drive traffic to your site from social media by suggesting people book online or download information - and in return you get their email address and the ability to continually build relationships with them.

Trait 3 - Engage

The clue is in the title here, it's SOCIAL media, not BROADCAST media, so engage, be personable, chat and help others. This will build rapport and trust and enable the local people to feel like they know you, making the decision to come to see you a logical one.

The key is a 2 way conversation, not one way. We buy from people we like, so help other to like you!

Trait 4 - Reduce Risk for Patients

Dentistry is not about shifting products. It's about delivering a service.

Products marketing is different, as products can be evaluated before hand and returned to the supplier if you don't like them or they don't work as you thought. Think buying a TV for example.

Services on the other hand can't be evaluated before hand and can't be taken back. Think listening to a lecture.

Product marketing often requires a shop to encourage people to make a quick snap decision - buy one get one free, buy today and save ££ss, special offer today only etc etc

Services marketing often requires a provider to reduce the risk for customers, after all they can't evaluate the service before hand (their new teeth) and can't take them back.

So shift your marketing focus on to reducing risk for patients, NOT shifting products!

Trait 5 - Know The Answer to This Question - "WHY YOU?"

When I see a new client I always go through a full marketing audit ( I majored in marketing on my MBA) and ask this question - "WHY YOU?" - it's amazing how many dental practices can not answer that question.

So layer in the things that are unique to you, this could include:

Unique products and services you offer
Your education
Your training courses
Your materials
Your gadgets
The way you treat patients
Trademarks
Special Techniques you use e.g. Wand, Sedation, Hypnosis etc

Then come up with a simple phrase or statement that encapsulates that and have everyone in the practice know it.

You MUST be totally clear as to why YOU are the best in your area and be able to convey this message on Social Media

Trait 6 - Patience

I find social media is slow burn marketing and often take time to build 'traction'. But once traction is achieved there really is no stopping it. So you do need to commit to the project and be prepared to look at it in the long term and keep going.

Gently hand out great advice, reduce risk for patients, help them like you, engage, drive them to your website, think holistically and I know it will work for you.

-----------------------------

So there you have it, my top 6 traits for a successful social media campaign, if you feel you'd like more guidance then why not book on my latest Social Media Kickstart Course.

James Russell - The London Smile Clinic said "Mark really knows his business! This turns social media into something really powerful - not just for playing with."

Places are booking fast, so click here to reserve your place today.

We'll go through everything above plus a ton more useful stuff too.

"This course will open your eyes to the inifinte possibilies regards social media marketing"

Martin Cox - Forndale Dental Clinic

Book your place today

How to get the new Facebook Timeline Profile

2011-12-23T11:11:00.000Z

Have you heard about the new Facebook timeline?

Have you seen it yet? No well pop over to my profile and you'll see the new design. (add me as friend while you are there if you like)

Here's how the new design looks.

This is what Facebook says about their new timeline

"Back in the early days of Facebook, your profile was pretty basic – just your name, a photo, where you went to school…stuff you'd cover in the first five minutes you met someone.
Over time, your profile evolved to better reflect how you actually communicate with your friends. Now you can can share photos of what you did last weekend, and updates about how you feel today.

But since the focus is on the most recent things you posted, more important stuff slips off the page. The photos of your graduation get replaced by updates about what you had for breakfast.

Say you're catching up with an old friend – would you rather find out that they had eggs this morning, or hear about their new dream job?

The way your profile works today, 99% of the stories you share vanish. The only way to find the posts that matter is to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page. Again. And again.
Imagine if there was an easy way to rediscover the things you shared, and collect all your best moments in a single place.

Introducing timeline – a new kind of profile"

So how do you get the new timeline?

Simply visit www.facebook.com/about/timeline at the bottom of the page there is a green link which says "Get Timeline" all you need to do is click it!

If you don't see the 'Get Timeline' button then sorry dudes, but Facebook is making you wait just a little bit longer... sorry!

Speak again in 2012, until then stay sharp.

Mark

P.S I recently made one small change to my Facebook page that enabled me to reach a load more people, click here to find out what it was.

Is your website found on Google? The art of SEO

2011-12-19T18:53:00.000Z

A large part of the work that I do is getting dentist's websites found, after all, you can have all the email/Facebook/YouTube/Twitter integration you like, but if no-one visits your website then it's all going to amount to not very much huh?

Your website should be the hub of your online marketing - this is the place that we bring it all back together and the central portal for reaching the local people - if it's not found it's like winking at a girl in the dark, you know what you're doing but no-one else does!

So how do we get the lights turned on?

How do we get a light shining on your website and optimised so that people find it?

One small word. Google.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process by which we get your website found in the search results - mainly on Google!

I've written before about 'onsite' SEO, so this post is about 'offsite' SEO, or link building.

Google sees Link building as a referral, you know how powerful a patient referral to another patient is right? Well if another website links to yours then Google sees it as a virtual referral... lot's of links = lot's of referrals = you must be important = higher search engine results - quite simple really.

There's one more thing that we need to consider and that's link juice... WHAT I hear you cry... Link juice!

Link juice is a virtual soup of 'website power' that sloshes around the internet, think of it like this, if you place a link OUT of your website, say to an implant company for example, your website 'leaks' link juice to that site. If you have a link TO your website a little bit of link juice flows your way. Get more link juice and your website rises in the search results. Simple really.

So, you need someone that understands optimisation to manage your online marketing to ensure as much link juice flows your way. Here's a VERY simplified diagram of a technique.

Think of your website as the centre of a target, we want as much link juice to flow in to the bulls eye where your website sits. A technique is to link some Outer Tier (or Tier 2) websites to some Inner Tier (Tier 1) websites. This could be done by uploading articles, blogs, documents etc to the sites. The outer tier squeezes some link juice to the inner tier. And when the juice has built in the Tier 1 sites it's possible to link them through to your website with more articles, blogs and documents.

This has the effect of 'concentrating' the juice at the outer level, so by the time it hits your website it is really valuable link juice - this is a time consuming process but fairly simple to do, although one needs to be careful as there are a few pitfalls to be aware of.

Getting your website to number 1 on Google is not a case of hoping or wishing, it needs a structured approach that uses Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, Articles, Directories plus others.

If you think your website is not performing as well as you'd like give me a call and I'll give you an honest appraisal of what I can do for you 0845 259 1232

Stay sharp,

Mark

Patient Testimonials - What to Ask For

2011-12-06T11:00:00.000Z

Patient testimonials are a brilliant way of demonstrating to potential customers that you are good at what you do. They provide something we marketers call Social Proof - and we all like proof of what we are reading, don't we?

It's simply not good enough to say you are the best dentist in town, or that your crowns are the best - you need to prove it, and the best way to do this is for a satisfied customer to prove it for you!

What I have laid out here is a summary of the questions I think you should ask your patients. Questions 1-3 are to do with 'motivation' if a potential customer can identify with the motivation for solving a dental problem they will feel more 'in tune' with the testimonial and it will be more powerful.

Questions 4 & 5 are to do with the 'decision' itself - we all use different strategies to make a decision, again this will help the reader to feel more at ease with the testimonial.

Question 6 & 8 are to provide comparisons between the emotional state before and after treatment - we make purchasing decisions based on emotion, then justify with logic - so eliciting some emotion in the testimonial will help the reader to make a decision.

Question 7 is to do with the treatment itself.

Question 9 latches on to the 'post purchase' feelings, people often have what we call 'buyers remorse' - with products one can take it back, but with services like dentistry one can not do that, so the purchase decision is much higher risk. If we can demonstrate that a previous patient had no remorse and could do more things afterwards it shows the reader that the decision to buy was a good one.

Question 10 Is a simple command telling the reader what to do - this ought to be a 'call to action' along the lines of "I would suggest anyone that feels like I did contact the practice straight away"

Here are the questions I suggest you ask your happy patient:

What was your initial dental problem?
What did this dental problem prevent you doing?
What made you decide to do something about your dental problem? In other words, why do it now?
How did you chose which dentist to go to? In other words, what selection criteria did you use?
Why did you pick XYZ Dental Practice?
How did you feel about your teeth before you went to XYZ Dental Practice?
What treatment did you have done?
How did you feel about your teeth after treatment?
What have your new teeth allowed you to do now?
What advice would you give other patients in a similar situation to you?

Using a structure like this will allow you to get better testimonials that are more useful to you and your business.

What would you add? Or indeed take away?

Facebook Phishing - You Are Full of Crap

2011-12-03T17:31:00.001Z

This email was sent to a client of mine this week, it looks like an official Facebook email and implies that someone has made a comment "you are full of crap" on their wall.

Yet if you click on either the 'See this comment thread' link or 'Unsubscribe' link in the message it does not go to Facebook but to a phishing/virus site.

I suggest that whenever you click on any link that is sent to you in an email that you ensure it is genuine - most email programs allow you to hover over a link and see the destination and this is a good habit to get in to in order to protect yourself.

Have you seen this email, or similar?

A Facebook Experiment - my Results

2011-11-28T13:30:00.001Z

People say that you need to post on Facebook pages frequently in order to build your fan base, but is this true?

I've no idea, so I decided to run an experiment.

For the first 2 weeks of November I posted relatively frequently, typically 2 posts per day to my Facebook fan page. Then on 9th November I stopped altogether and didn't post anything until 21st November - you can check these dates out by scrolling down on my page to see when the posts were made.

Now, if you have a proper business page on Facebook you can check your stats (with a personal profile you can't do this), and here's my result.

You can see a MASSIVE drop in total fans reached, right up to the point where I started posting again and fans started to be reached again. It's kind of obvious really, if you don't post anything people won't see it, but these are all missed opportunities to build your brand and create exposure for your business.

This also seems to show that people don't go visiting your Facebook pages after they have 'liked' them (or fans reached would remain constant) - so it's not like a website where people might go back time and time again - the only way on Facebook that you keep fans interacting and seeing your page is by posting content - period.

So, based on these findings I've introduced a new Auto Managed service for dental practices on Facebook and Twitter to help you guys out with content - it's an automated service that will keep your content fresh and relevant. Please do visit the page now and take a look through what is possible.

You've seen the results of what happens when you don't post, so it's vital that you do - so take action now!

Twitter Followers

2011-11-24T09:35:00.001Z

Are you on Twitter yet?

If you aren't then get yourself an account, follow @markoborn (that's me) and join in the fun - there are hundreds of dentists on there supporting each other in their daily life, plus millions of potential patients ready to be chatted up! (oops sorry, I mean they're ready to be engaged with!)

If you are on Twitter how many followers do you have? And does it matter?

My answer to that is NO it doesn't matter a jot.

I've been looking at some other social media management companies today and their clients have thousands of followers from all over the world, this looks impressive, but who gives a fig if a dental practice has followers from Russia or the USA?

What matters is relevancy, so a dental practice needs to have followers that fulfil 2 criteria:

They are local to the practice, ideally within 5 miles
They are actively engaging on Twitter, not just with an account, but actively talking to others

Finding any old people to attract as followers is easy, finding targeted followers is harder and takes time and patience - what's more valuable to you - 50 local followers who are engaged on Twitter and live within 5 miles of the practice, or 1500 followers who live 500 miles from the practice? I know which I'd prefer.

So my advice today is to go for those high quality followers, talk to them, engage with them, share their content, hand out useful dental advice to help them keep their teeth for life - and when they need a dentist they'll remember the nice person on Twitter that shared their content and helped them.

Twitter for dentists is taking off... What's your experience on Twitter?

How much more performance does your business need?

2011-11-21T14:37:00.000Z

Many businesses/dental practices are looking for a huge increase in performance in order to be the best. Many want to increase turnover by 00s% in order to 'beat' the competition. Businesses often think that this is required... but my question to you now is.... is it really required?

Here's an example of what I mean.

Sunday was the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and I missed it! GGRRR

However the wonderfully talented Lewis Hamilton won in 1 hour, 37 minutes and 11.886 seconds. Following 8.4 seconds behind (an age in F1 terms) was Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari. A totally conclusive win by Lewis with the second place driver a good distance behind... well done Lewis.

But let's look at those figures, Lewis Hamilton took 5831.886 seconds to complete the race, and Fernando Alonso took 8.4 seconds more... that's a difference of 0.14% WOW. Such a seemingly outright win was with a margin of 0.14%.

If Alonso's engineers could have got 0.2% more performance from the car he would have won.

If Alonso could have increased his performance by 0.2% he would have won.

It doesn't take massive increases to beat the competition, all it needs is consistently great results and constant improvement.

So what's the lesson for your business?

Start those improvements now
Start with any improvement, it's a start!
Accept that your competition are not actually that bad, and that a small % increase in every area of your business will have dramatic results
Start your next marketing activity now, stop procrastinating
Get on with Social Media - that small % increase is often enough to tip the balance
Start marketing with email and look for the tiniest area for improvement
Split test your website pages and go with the ones that perform better
Split test words and forms on your website and go with the ones that have the best % conversion rates
Look at your website analytics, which referral source gives the best % conversion? Spend time on that referral source
Look at your website analytics, which key word gives the best % conversion? Spend time with SEO to ensure you are high on Google for that word/phrase
Break your marketing down in to a marketing system and look for every way to improve it.

If Ferrari could have got 0.5% increase at the weekend they would have won... what can you do TODAY to get that increase?

A Review of Aweber Email Marketing for your Dental Practice

2011-11-01T15:43:00.001Z

A question I'm often asked is 'Will you do our Facebook page for us Mark?" My reply is NO!

My approach to Facebook is that it's part of an arsenal of tools that need to be employed together in one cohesive system to achieve an end result - more patients.

Facebook is great at building a community and generating a buzz about your practice - all good things, however if you are using a Facebook business page (which you should be!) any conversation that is started is in the public domain. So my intention is to use Facebook as level 1 of your sales funnel with the goal of always driving people to level 2 where conversations are more private and personal - and that is email marketing.

Email is a very powerful tool when done properly and a great way I find to use this tool is via a blog.

Your blog should be handing out relevant, free and useful information to your target market - this can then be sent directly to Facebook and Twitter AND to your email list - so how do I do that? Aweber.

Here's a video that explains how Aweber converts your blog post in to an email...

Please click the image below to find our more about Aweber.
Simple RSS to Email by AWeber Communications

Email marketing can be annoying, however when done right it is very effective and I see a good £ conversion of enquiries in to patients for my clients. My most recent stats show a client spent £3k with me and saw £37k of business through an email marketing campaign.

So if you aren't using email yet, I suggest you give Aweber a go as it makes patient communication simple, measurable and effective.

What email system do you use, and why do you like that one?

Facebook Lists and Privacy Settings

2011-09-15T18:18:00.000+01:00

Facebook's new privacy settings have been all over the news recently, and I have to say I quite like the new way of posting status updates.

Historically if one had a load of 'friends' on Facebook, but only 100 were 'actual' friends (in the old style meaning of the word) and the rest were just aquaintances or business contacts it was difficult to really separate the streams of content that each group saw.

Facebook's privacy has allowed you to block lists and individuals from seeing photos and updates for a while, but it was always generic - in other words if you block a list from your status updates then ALL your updates are blocked - not great really.

The new privacy settings now allow you to chose who sees what on an update by update basis - and this is direct response to Google +1 Circles I would imagine.

In this video I show you how you can manage this privacy setting, plus give a top tip for managing your list for business... enjoy...

And if you want more about Facebook for Dentists, do check out my website

If the video above doesn't display, click here to watch on YouTube

How to be creative - the story of naming a puppy

2011-09-01T16:51:00.000+01:00

I've just bought a puppy. Yes he's very cute and, as ever, there's a story in it for a blog post!

So, new puppy arrives home and what are we going to call him? All the usual dog names get bandied about by the kids - you know things like Spot and Patch - but nothing seems to fit.

So as a family we start chatting about things we like, looking for inspiration, then my eldest daughter says "Mum loves Cornwall, it would be great to find a name that relates to there, wouldn't it?" - and it's true Mrs O has a deep love for Cornwall and we both intend moving there in the future...

So while the kids go through lots of Cornish place names I get out a Cornish dictionary (thank goodness for Google) and see that the Cornish for happy is 'Lowen' - that's it - sorted that's his new name.

So how does this relate to creativity?

When I did my MBA I spent 6 months doing a creativity and innovation module and I wish to share a few concepts with you - during that time of my degree we were told to keep these presuppositions in mind... all the time.

Cycle often and close late. This means during any creative process don;t come to conclusions too quickly, allow the creative juices to flow for a long time. The biggest killer for this is to tell someone their idea is no good - so if you want a creative team allow them to cycle around the problem often and bring the creative session to a close as late as possible.

Build up don’t knock down: This is to build on people's ideas. A suggestion is to stop using the word 'but' and replace it with 'and'. When someone puts an idea forwards, add the word 'and' then add your input - by doing this you build upon the work of others.

Value Play: Children learn through play, and as adults we have this knocked out of us at an early age - one of the most amazing and valuable exercises I did on my MBA was finger painting! Value play and you get the participants to discover again like a child.

Explore the givens: Challenge what you believe to be true - companies will often say "we can't do that" or "That won't work" but why? Also, look at what you already do and ask why... nothing should be out of bounds to discuss when looking for creative solutions to problems.

Connect and be receptive: Connect to the people involved in the process and be receptive to their thoughts and opinions, remember build them up don't knock them down!

There were loads more, but I found these were the most useful in any creative problem solving issue I was tackling - and keeping these in mind while trying to chose the dog named helped to come up with a creative solution that truly meant something to our family.

And now comes a big one! Some people might say "But I'm not the creative type!" OH YES YOU ARE, all you need is the right environment and the right support - most people, even the most 'creative' can't just go off and sit in a corner and 'be creative' - they need to get their mind in to the right state and use a system to help the process - if you think you are not creative it's not true, all it is is the wrong state of mind and a lack of process!

Using Twitter For Marketing in Dentistry

2011-08-12T16:11:00.000+01:00

Last week Twitter experienced the biggest spike in UK use ever, why? The riots!

Many tweets were people trying to find out where the riots where going on, some were co-ordinating a clean up and many were co-ordinating the riots themselves - now I'm not going to comment on the riots in this blog post (not because I don't have an opinion, but because this is not the place to air it!) but I do want to talk about why they chose to use Twitter.

Twitter is one of the best ways to get up to date, current and live information. It's rapidly becoming the number one place people go to search for information, and here's why:

Twitter has a very short 'half life' so anything you find is normally only a few hours old maximum. This means Twitter is VERY current and up to date
Content is linked to individuals, so if you find a piece of information you are looking for then you can communicate directly with the author.
There is a huge amount of 'non-twitter' content being shared, this means blogs, websites and articles - so it's a great place to find useful information on your chosen topic

Statistics also show that more people update their profile every day then Facebook, with 52% of users updating their status everyday, compared to Facebook's 12% - this means Twitter is a much more active and engaging environment to work in.

So how can we use this for dentistry?
A recent poll by Pew Internet showed that the most searched for subject on the internet is 'Health' - if this is coupled with the fact that the bulk of 'shares' on Twitter are for 'content' then it makes sense to write a blog about 'dental health' and post this to Twitter.

Writing a blog with a dental health focus is a great way to set yourself up as THE expert in your local area, plus it provides content for people to share and read - and one of the ways to share your blog is to post it to Twitter.

There are a few tools that can be used to post your blog to Twitter, many are free although my preferred option is Social Media Borg, as this gives many other useful features too.

As well as writing a blog I suggest you search for local Twitterers, try Twellow or Twitter Grader - simply enter your local town and follow the local people and engage with them - ReTweet their posts, comment on their blogs and become part of the local Twitter community... then, as they begin to trust you they will look at your blogs and start to share your content.

My golden rule with Twitter is Don't Expect Something For Nothing, if YOU join in, take part and promote other people, THEY will do the same for you.

So, get yourself over to Twitter, sign up , follow me and let's talk dental marketing....

Top Tips for Writing a Dental Blog

2011-07-19T09:26:00.000+01:00

I'm often asked to take a peek at dental practices' blogs to review them, here's a summary of the most common suggestions I make to enhance your blog.

Add links back to your main website where the visitor can find out more, link to specific treatment pages
Include links in the body text of each blog post to specific pages of your website
Give people a free giveaway (help guide, 'how to' sheet, info pack) in return for their email address - they can then automatically be sent your blog and you add them to an email marketing campaign. I use Aweber for this.
Use plenty of 'key words' in the blog title - such as 'teeth whitening' etc - this will get your blog found on Google. Use your geographical location as well if at all possible
Add Twitter and Facebook to your blog (insert them in widgets in the side bar). Widgets are freely available from Twitter and Facebook
Use the categories feature in blogger to allow people to find blog posts via category
Ensure your blog is sent directly to Facebook and Twitter. I use Social Media Borg to ensure this happens automatically.

A blog is the MOST important part of your online marketing as it's your opportunity to PROVE that you are the most helpful and knowledgeable dentist in the local area - plus it's a great way to populate Twitter and Facebook with great content.

What other suggestions would you make to enhance a blog?

A Dental Practice's Basic Story, What's Yours?

2011-07-04T11:23:00.003+01:00

Last Friday I went to see the excellent 'We Will Rock You' at the Dominion theatre in London's West End, if you get the chance to go I can thoroughly recommend it, it really was a great night out.

One thing struck me as I watched in awe of the performance... they were talking about Lady Gaga, Facebook, Twitter and X Factor - none of which existed nearly 10 years ago in 2002 when the show was first put in to production.

This means the show has evolved to be more current, to be more relevant to today and to keep fresh. But I bet the basic elements of the show have stayed the same - the big hits, the moving stage, the jokes about Queen - 'the basic story' stays the same.

So there is a 'core' of the show that is timeless and people love, yet they have a flexible element that stays up to date, current and fresh - so my question is now this... what is the 'core' of your business and which parts do you need to change regularly to be current and fresh?

Is the 'core' of your business the modern colours, the Molton Brown soap, the expensive glass partitioning and the espresso coffee which is always on tap? Or is the 'core' of your business great dentistry that helps people with their dental health issues?

If we are going to have a business that has longevity we need to identify what is our core business and which part of our business needs to be 'flexible' and change, then ensure the flexible part stays current and relevant to the people of today.

So what are the implications of this?

Well, in my opinion I see too many practice focus on the 'flexible' extra parts, they spend a fortune on the glass partitioning and fancy sofas - yet at the end of the day I didn't go to see We Will Rock You for the 'extra' jokes about Lady Gaga - I went to see the show for the 'basic story' which was made more enjoyable by the up to date and relevancy of it.

So, what's your basic story?

Which parts of your business do you need to keep relevant and flexible?

What are the implications of spending money on the 'flexible' elements?

Should you spend more time and money on the 'basic story'?

Think or Act, which do you do?

2011-06-09T11:04:00.000+01:00

If we are to move our businesses forwards we need to learn from our experiences...we get taught a lot of things at school, but one thing we don't get taught is how to learn!

Kolb and Schon did a lot of work on learning, and between them came up with a great model to explain the process.

It starts with a concrete experience this could be a dental case going wrong, an appointment missed, or any other event. Kolb then said that we should take time to think about that experience in detail and to ask ourselves 'what would have happenend if...' or 'if I had done that differently what would have been the result?'. He calls this abstract conceptualisation.

Thinking about our experience in this abstract way, and asking ourselves these questions helps us to detach from the experience and look deeper in to the experience itself. This deep reflection then needs to be put back in to action which is the final stage in the process. This action, which is often a reaction to the original experience then needs to affect all future concrete experiences and so the cycle starts again!

This cyclical process ensures we genuinely learn from our experiences.

Society in general doesn't like this 'detachment' and thinking sections, society likes people that 'do' and 'act now'..often the people that do this miss out on the reflective side and don't learn quite so well. Certainly as dental professionals it is my experience that this happens often. In fact Kolb classifies the people that er towards the action end of the scale as:

"those that act before they think, if they ever think at all"

Whilst the people that er towards the thinking end of the scale only as:

"those that think before they act, if they ever act at all"

Which are you?

I guess the best thing is to have the balance, we will always have a prefered style...acting or thinking... but we need to be aware of this and move ourselves (sometimes forcibly, and yes you know who you are!) through the other stages.

I'm of to thinks some more, then take some action!

Facebook Pages for Dentists - Friends or Fans

2011-05-31T11:00:00.001+01:00

Many dentists are setting their Facebook accounts up wrong! I added 15 new friends on Facebook the other day and all were set up as personal profiles.

When you set up a Facebook account you simply create one for YOU as an individual person, then create a PAGE for the practice with YOU as an administrator, you can then add admin rights to other people. The PAGE is your practice and the profile is YOU.

Here's a video which explains why this is important.

If you can't see the video please click here to watch on YouTube

Is Dentistry retail and should you treat your practice as a retail business?

2011-05-19T09:14:00.002+01:00

Lots of debate around this subject, so here's my opinion.

No... dentistry is not retail and I justify this comment as follows.

The Definition of Retail is generally considered to be 'The sale of goods to end users for use and consumption by the purchaser. Manufacturers sell large quantities of products to retailers, and retailers sell small quantities of those products to consumers."

So, retailers sell products.

Now, in business there are generally considered 2 types of 'market':

Products
Services

Products

Products have a few distinguishing features about them:

They are tangible and can be handled
Because they are tangible they can be evaluated or 'tried' before purchase
They can be made to stock and left on a shelf
They can be returned after purchase if they are unsatisfactory

Services

Services on the other hand exhibit these features (1):

They are intangible and so can not be handled
Inseparability - this means there is simultaneous production and consumption. Like a teacher, as the words are spoken the service is 'consumed'
Variability - a service will vary according to who delivers it
Perishability - a service has no 'shelf life' and can not be stored or returned

Products and Services are not dichotomies but are on a sliding scale (2) and purchases can have elements of both a service and a product - Apple are the masters at combining both these elements. (boy if only you knew how hard it was for me to say that!)

Because products and services are so different, purchasers will use a different set of 'indicators' to evaluate them. For a pure product they will simply 'ask for a test drive' and handle the product to see if it is fit to solve the their problem.

Services are a little more difficult to evaluate, so we tend to use the following to evaluate a service (3):

Reliability Ability to perform ‘the promise’ dependently and effectively
Responsiveness and Willingness to help customers
Assurance - Knowledge of employees and ability to inspire trust
The physical evidence - staff, website, phone
Empathy - Caring and individualised attention to the customer

The above is often known by the mnemonic RRATE.

So, lets bring this back to dentistry.

Can your patient physically hold, touch and evaluate their new smile, or healthier smile BEFORE they commit to buy?
Can you make their new smile or healthier smile in advance - or will the patient evaluate your dentistry as they experience it in the chair?
Would the dentistry that patient receives remain totally constant no matter who treated them?
Can you 'stock' new and healthy smiles on the shelf?

If you answered NO to those questions, then we are in agreement... dentistry is a service!

So now we agree that dentistry is a service, we need to look at how it will be evaluated - the physical evidence or your practice, website and phone skills. Your reliability, do you do and say the same thing all the time? Are your staff responsive to new patient requests? Can you inspire trust - after all you are going to ask that new patient to lie on their back while you cover your face and prod them! And are you empathetic to their unique needs?

If dentistry is a service, and retail is about selling products then we have a mismatch if we consider dentistry a retail business.

Marketing

If a practice believes they are in retail they may be led to use marketing techniques suitable for retail, rather than marketing techniques that are suitable for a service which enable a patient to evaluate that service prior to purchasing.

Marketing for products will generally be around convincing customers to buy that product, where as marketing for services is normally focused around allowing a customer to fully evaluate that service by providing evidence for RRATE as described above. (Assuming we are marketing a specific service and not a brand)

What if things go wrong?

If a product goes wrong the tendency is to look for manufacturing defects, hence if a dental practice views itself as providing 'products' the tendency could be to do the same... and look for defects within the 'manufacture'

However, a service that goes wrong will be viewed in a VERY different way with 'gaps' in the service delivery being highlighted - things such as a mismatch between the 'promise' and the 'experience' of the patient. Gaps between the marketing used and the actual service delivered. In fact there are 5 specific and clear 'gaps' (4) that a business should use to 'fix' a broken service.... very different to a business that makes a product and looks at the production line!

In my opinion the concept of viewing dentistry as a retailer is littered with problems, although if it gives a practice a kick up the proverbial to get going and be competitive then it may have its place!

So, where do you stand? Do you market your practice around the idea of products, or do you market your practice around the idea of a service?

Of course these are my opinions, and I am happy to debate this in an open forum to discuss the concepts further.

Thanks for reading... I'm off to run for cover!

Stay sharp,

Mark

References:

(1) Gummesson E (1999) 'Total relationship marketing' Oxford, Butterworth, Heinemann

(2) Shostack, G.L (1977) 'Breaking free from products marketing' Journal of Marketing, Vol 412, April pp73-80

(3) Zeithaml V A, Bitner M J (1996) "Services Marketing" McGraw Hill

(4) Parasuram A, Zeithaml V A, Berry L (1985) "A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for further research" Journal of Marketing Vol 49, Fall, pp41-50

A review of North Social's Facebook Apps

2011-05-10T09:15:00.001+01:00

Facebook is a great place to build engagement on the internet, and work to set yourself up as THE expert in the local area by handing out useful, free and relevant advice - watch all the top experts in their field... they all do it!

One thing many people aren't aware of are Facebooks guidelines on running promotions, now I'm not saying there are Facebook police out there, but if the guidelines are broken and your account is deleted then you may only have yourself to blame for not following them.

A simple way to overcome this is to use a third party application that is Facebook compliant to run competitions, sweepstakes and draws - I recommend you check out North Social, and here is a brief summary of what they can do for a dental practice.

Deal Share

This is their equivalent of Groupon and means you can run legitimate group deals, with countdowns to the number of offers left, how many people have subscribed and closing date/time. The app will collect subscribers details for you but most importantly North Social have built in a clever 'viral' component. Whilst Facebook users can bypass this viral component (those pesky Facebook Guidelines again) this feature makes this a very powerful way to virally enrol people on to a group deal.

Mark's suggestion: A group deal for 50% off Teeth Whitening by a certain date for the first 30 subscribers. Ideally tie this to a date in the calendar to give a reason (weddings, holidays, celebrations). The focus is to get people in to the practice, then concerntrate on gently encouraging them to become practice members.

Here's a video demonstration

Document Display

This is a great way to gain fans and let them promote your page for you. It allows you to share information via a document, then encourage fans to 'like' the page and 'share' the link.

Mark's suggestion: Simply write a white paper, free guide or useful information guide and upload it. The only way for Facebook users to see this document is to become a fan of your page, they are then encouraged to share this document with other, who then need to become fans in order to see the page. And so the virality goes on.

For a live example of this app in action, please visit my own Facebook page and take a look now.

Here's a video demonstration:

Fan Offer

This app allows you to provide fans with a special offer or deal - perhaps a coupon or discount voucher, or entry ticket to an event. As with all North Social Apps it has a high viral component which again encourages your fans to do your marketing for you... a great idea!

Mark's suggestion: Run a Fan Offer for them to get a refund of your initial consultation fee against any further treatment. So the patient pays your new patient assessment fee, then with the voucher can get this money off of any further treatment. I've run this offer (not with North Social) on many client website and it's been a great way to gain more quality patients.

Here's a video demonstration:

For a live example of North Social in action, please visit my own Facebook page and take a look now.

How much does it cost?

For a regular dental practice it will cost $19.99 per month which is about £12! A no brainer really!

I recommend you take a good look at the other North Social Apps, the above is just 3 out of a total of 19 different ways to promote your practice on Facebook.

If you want further help in setting up North Social or any other form of online marketing, please just shoot me a quick email to info@markoborn.com (I am running a spam filter so please expect an auto response from me - just follow the simple instructions when you get them) or visit my dental marketing website for more info.

Speak soon, and stay sharp.... and social!

Mark

Facebook Pages? Nah, this is where the REAL power is...

2011-04-14T16:59:00.002+01:00

Facebook is a hugely powerful medium for marketing, and in this post I want to show you why.

We are all connected to one another - 6 degrees of separation they say - and Facebook is starting to map those connections. As a marketer we can also tap in to this resource and utilise those connections.

So here are the results of less than 12 hours integration of a client website in to Facebook using their Social Plug-ins. These social plug ins allow a website visitor to interact with your website:

they can 'comment' on a blog post or photo
They can 'like' an article or patient case you have posted and
they can 'recommend' you - all by clicking a simple button.

So for example when a website visitor, that has 500 Facebook friends, uses a social plug-in on your website it automatically syncs to their Facebook stream and will be shown 500 times to all their friends.... ooh now that sounds interesting!

Here's what it looks like:

I simply clicked the 'recommend' button on this website, and this was automatically posted to my friend stream for friends to 'view'.

Now here's the clever bit - we can track those 'views' (Facebook calls them 'impressions') and see how many times it was viewed and how many people clicked on the link back to the original website.

Here are the stats for a client site for 12 hours:

The site had 4 people click the 'recommend' button, it was then shown 1,222 times (MASSIVE brand awareness) which then resulted in 44 hits back to the website - amazing stats for a small dental practice in a few hours.

As Facebook knows how people are connected, it's then possible to create a 'personal recommendations' box showing your site visitors what their friends have shared, liked etc on your site - the future of this, as I see it, is a totally dynamic website that customises itself based on the user experience of your friends... scary (but exciting) stuff huh? Too see this 'personal recommendation' box in action please visit my main blog and scroll down on the right.

To get the Social Plug in, you will need to visit the Facebook Plug-in directory and to gain access to the stats these generate you will need to instal some code on your website from the Facebook Insights page. A small amount of tech knowledge is required to instal.

Have you used social plug ins and to what success?

"Why not follow us online?" - I'll tell you why not!

2011-04-11T14:22:00.001+01:00

This is a constant source of annoyance for me and because of my profession it leaps out at me instantly.

So what is it that could annoy a social media marketer so much?

Not putting your Facebook or Twitter address, that's what.

So often I see "Why not follow us on Facebook"... I'll tell you why I'm not going to follow them on Facebook... they've not given me their Facebook address!

"Why not follow us on Twitter" is a great idea to use on a sign, but how can I if you've not put your twitter @name or twitter address!

Simply putting a logo, like on this notice board I saw in a local cafe, is not good enough - no-one knows the address to actually follow you. It's also putting in barriers that needn't exist, it's making the customer do all the work by having to search for your Facebook or Twitter page - or visit your website to find it.

The more barriers you put in the way, the less engagement you will get from your online marketing activity - and seeing as engagement is what we want... that's not good.

Doing this is a little like saying "Call us, we've got a phone number" or "Visit us online, we've got a website" then not providing your phone number or web address... a bit dumb really!

Even worse than all that is having a Facebook or Twitter link from your website that goes to Facebook.com or Twitter.com and not your actual page or profile - go check your website now and make sure you haven't made this mistake too.

So, I'd love for you to follow me on Twitter, or Join me on Facebook - and if you fancy a course on using either of these - give this one a try but please book today as we only have 4 places left.

Dentists, if you only read one blog post this year, make sure it's this one

2011-03-30T16:42:00.001+01:00

What are your patients and prospective patients doing online?

Here's the answer, I saw this infographic today and think it is one of THE most powerful and compelling arguments for a dental practice to get marketing online TODAY.

Take a look at what your ideal market is doing online...

Most dental practices would argue that their ideal age group of patients is around the 55+ age bracket, I've also heard dentists suggest these people aren't doing much online, but look at what these people spend most of their time doing online... researching Health Care.... and what business are you in?

I can hear it now... [Clang... the sound of a thousand pennies dropping!]

80-90% of your target market are online and looking for Health Information, so come on guys... give it to them!

How do you do this?

Write a blog and add it to your website as 'Free Hints, Tips and Advice'
Ensure you dominate Google with your great Dental Health Care content
Get on to Facebook and populate a page with advice, hints and tips on Dental Health Care
Use Twitter as another mechanism to hand out advice and dominate a Google search

How do you think it will make these people feel when they find such a brilliant dentist handing out useful, free and relevant advice?

Do you think it would set YOU up as the expert in your local area?

Do you think the prospective patient would be pleased they've found what they are looking for?

I'll leave you to answer those questions now...

If you want to find out more about how to hand out useful, free and relevant advice online so you can attract these patient, then sign up today for my Social Media Kickstart Course - it could just be the best £250 you ever spend!

Stop trying so hard to market your practice

2011-03-24T16:45:00.001Z

When I present on marketing to dentists that don't know me there is often quite a barrier to start off with... and that barrier is currently held Marketing Assumptions by dentists - see if any of these assumptions are held by you:

Marketing doesn't work
Marketing is about special offers
Marketing is the same as selling
I've never done any marketing in my practice
Marketing is telling people about new products

I want you now to hand over all those assumptions to me, to park them, to accept for one moment in time that you have no assumptions at all...and that we are working on a clean slate...

For me, dentistry is about the exquisite relationship that you have with your patient, it is built on trust and that trust is built over a period of time.

And this is what I believe marketing is, building relationships.

Modern dental practice marketing should be about building those relationships and allowing patients to relax with you knowing that YOU are the best dentist in town, so these are the assumptions I have about marketing:

Marketing is about building a relationship, great relationships lead to a profitable business - so build relationships well and marketing will work
Special Offers are what is known as 'transactional marketing', this certainly has its place, but comes AFTER the 'relationship marketing' to engender trust first.
Relationship Marketing is about allowing people to 'buy from' you, rather than 'sell to' them.
You are constantly marketing, every time you speak to a patient you are marketing as you are building relationships
When you talk to your patients you find out what they genuinely WANT, this allows you to mention products and services to them and they will 'buy from you' because they trust you

So, now you see that relationship marketing is effective, how do you go about this relationship building process?

There are many ways, but one of the most successful and efficient ways is online. Online marketing allows you to build relationships with many people at the same time. Online marketing should also be permission based... if a patient 'likes' your Facebook fan page, they have given you unique permission to demand a small amount of attention from them in their own personal space each day.

This 'permission' to talk to them in their personal space (their Facebook friend stream) is uniquely powerful and can be used to gently and slowly build trust with potential patients whilst setting you up as THE expert in your local area.

Email works in the same way, if a prospective patient 'allows' you to send them an email, this is a unique opportunity to communicate with them in their own space (their computer) at convenient intervals... but it's a fine balance... too much information and you'll be accused of spam.... too little and you'll have no impact.

To find help you with your own relationship building process I've set up a new Social Media Kickstart course for dentists - I expect this to fill up fast, so please do book early to avoid feeling left behind.

The courses are on Thursday 12th May, Friday 17th June or Tuesday 20th September at Holiday Inn express in Watford. The price is £250 each, with a £50 discount if you book 2 or more places. Please contact Dawn on 0845 259 1232 or email her today to book. Further details are here.

"This Girls Parent's..." Scam on Facebook

2011-03-14T15:18:00.001Z

I got caught today on Facebook... Oh yes, it happens to me too!

I clicked a link which looked as though it was going to be an interesting time lapse video of a girl growing up. I managed to get back in to FB and remove the problem from my own account within 5 seconds of the attack, but others haven't been so luck and this scam attack is growing.

To help, I've made a mini video of what happens, please do everything you can to make sure people see this video to prevent this kind of thing happening.

If you can't see the video here, please click to watch on Facebook

Twitter, Justin Bieber and the art of being flexible

2011-02-15T11:15:00.000Z

One of Twitter's great functions is its ability to monitor what millions of people are saying. Twitter does this by looking at the words people use and if enough people use the same words that word/phrase turns in to what Twitter call a 'trending topic'. Twitter then scroll this across the top of the main Twitter website.

Over the past year or so there has been a growing phenomenon called Justin Bieber, he's got over 7million followers on Twitter, is all over the press and is turning in to a mega star for the teenagers of today. He is so often talked about on Twitter that they allegedly prevented his name from trending to give other phrases a chance of trending.

Oooh, what a way to annoy the Bieber fans... block him from trending....

So what did the fans do?

They changed the way they talk about him from 'justin bieber' to 'JUSTIN BIEBBER', thereby manipulating Twitter and allowing his name to trend again... sneaky!

So what's the moral of this? Well, the internet is a complex adaptive system and as such it exhibits a few properties:

It's complex and trying to fully understand it ain't gonna happen!
It is adaptive and therefore is a moving target, as soon as you do something the game and goals have changed
It is a system of interconnected people and all of these people are both complex and adaptive themselves!

If one tries to control a complex adaptive system then things like the butterfly effect come in to play, and you end up with things happening that you neither wanted nor intended... a dangerous place to be.

Twitter tried to control the complex adaptive system that is Twitter, and found they couldn't as the bieber fans simply manipulated the system and worked around it.

The key to working online in this system is therefore FLEXIBILITY :

Be flexibile in what you expect as your outcomes from online marketing
Be flexibile in the way you approach online marketing, the system you are working with is both complex and adaptive
Be flexibile in the way you respond to the system, people will often work around any blockages you try to impose and you'll end up with a result you didn't want (the butterfly effect) - as a an example of this, some of my competitors have blocked me from following them on Twitter, but I'm adaptive and flexibile, so I tweeted the fact I was blocked - was that what these people wanted to happen?

In any system flexibility is the bext way to survive (For the real geeks this is called the Law of Requisite Variety)

What benefits have you found to being flexibile when marketing online?

How to allow others to share your website on Facebook

2011-02-03T09:57:00.001Z

This is one of the simplest but most effective little tricks for sharing your website on Facebook.

Facebook themselves have a 'share' page on their website which provides all manner of like buttons and share facilities for Fan pages, but here is THE simplest way I have found of doing it, simply use the following code as a link (from text or an image) and the reader will be directed to Facebook with a URL, a description of the page they are sharing and the facility to comment.

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://yourwebsitehere.com

simply change the website at the end to be your own site!

Here's what the result is like.

This will then appear on their profile and in their friends stream... a great way to drive more traffic to your site

Need to see a live example, then click here to share my blog!

If you need any further advice on how to use this, simply comment here and I'll get back to you...

Facebook Fan of the Month

2011-01-25T15:06:00.000Z

Social Media Marketing is about sharing useful and relevant information with your customers (or prospective customers) in order to demonstrate your supreme ability as THE best, and to set YOU up as the expert in your field... and I now want to play a tiny part to assist this process.

Facebook Fan of the Month is a new concept for the Dental Marketing Facebook Fan page and will be exclusive Facebook only content (you could run a similar campaign on your own page and spotlight patient's businesses!). Each month I'm going to select one fan from my page based on the following criteria:

Have they commented, or liked a post on the page during the month
Total engagement on the inter-web
Relevant content that HELPS their clients

So, for any fan that interacts with the FB page, engages on the interweb AND genuinely posts helpful content for their customers I will profile their business for others to see and learn from..

This is part of my drive to encourage people to ENGAGE and SHARE relevant, helpful and genuinely useful content for their customers rather than a stream of "Buy from me coz I'm the best" style posts!

This new project will start at the end of January, we currently have 10 contenders so far for this month- to see who they are simply visit the fan page and see who's commented or liked any of the posts.

Would this also work for dental practices? I reckon so!

Stay sharp,

Mark

How to spot Twitter spam or phishing

2011-01-18T11:07:00.001Z

This menace every so often rears its ugly head on Twitter, typically these phishers seek to gain access to your user account details so they can direct all your loyal followers to scamming sites and take money off them.

So far, touch wood, I've not been caught out and here are my golden rules that may help you prevent getting caught out too.

If someone you don't recognise sends you an @message and you feel a compulsion to click a link (usually because the wording is intriguing) STOP. Alarm bell 1 rings
Check out their profile (NOT the message) and see if they have a photo... young attractive girl/boy that doesn't fit the tweet? Alarm bell 2 rings
Check out their stream... lot's of similar posts? Alarm bell 3 rings
Check their followers... few followers yet following lots? Alarm bell 4 rings
Multiple @users in one post? Alarm bell 5 rings
Does the message promise to reveal something? Typically "Is this you?", "Did you get this?" "Did you view this?" Alarm bell 6 rings
No engagement in their posts, only broadcasting? Alarm bell 7 rings

1 Alarm bell ringing... proceed with caution, research a little more, be very wary of entering any personal details in any page you visit

2 Alarm bells ringing... proceed with extreme caution, research a LOT more, do not enter your details in any page you land on from a link

3,4 or 5 Alarm bells ringing... STOP do not proceed & block the user

6 or more Alarm bells ringing, STOP do not proceed, report the user as spam & block the user

What advice do you have to prevent getting caught?

Have you been caught? Please share your story here to help others...

Paralysis by Analysis

2011-01-15T13:37:00.000Z

Do you analyse everything?

Do you work it all out to ensure that everything you do is a success, or at least measure everything so you know what to 'tweak' if things don't go to plan?

I do too... however there is a flip side to all this measurement and analysis and that is 'Paralysis by Analysis'

If you have a new brand design and can't decide on which design to go for it's possible to mull this over for eternity.

If you have a marketing project that you need a little bit more information on it's always possible to wait for one more piece of information.

If you have a new website being designed it's possible to mull it over for ever trying to ensure it appeals to everyone.

Sometimes it's best to go with SOMETHING rather than NOTHING! After all, the only guaranteed return on investment is the return you get on doing nothing... and that return is nothing!

And if you think about it, if you want to analyse everything you do, you need to have something to analyse, so often just getting on with it... what ever it is, is the best option. You can then get your project live, accepting the fact that it's not perfect and THEN monitor it, tweak it and measure your returns.

It's only possible to make considered alterations to a project once it is under way, if you try to do this before hand you have no feedback around which to make a considered alteration. And so the loop continues, you end up with paralysis by analysis and you end up with NO website, NO marketing project or NO design.

So do you have a marketing project that has sat on the back burner for a while waiting for more information?

Do you have an idea that you're waiting to implement until you've found out just ONE more bit of information?

Do you have a website that's almost finished but you're not quite sure if it's 100%?

You do? Well, my advice is to suspend judgement for a while, get on with it, live with uncertainty and just do it - THEN measure and monitor, tweak and adjust... but for goodness sake DO SOMETHING!

To the people that inspired this post, I still love you but let's just bake the cake huh?

Building Relationships on Twitter and Facebook - from Theory to Practice

2011-01-10T20:07:00.000Z

I want to talk here about a theoretical model that I spent a great deal of time working with when I did my MBA, and that is the concept of building a relationships with marketing.

When I graduated in 2009 and started to look for ways to implement the theory I had learnt, this model gave me my first eureka moment when I saw Twitter and Facebook.

This post will be a walk through the theory and then on to the practice... you are all intelligent people, so I know you will find this an interesting journey to take with me.

The theory of building relationships is a 3 step process of Actor Bonds, Activity Links and Resource Ties. (1)

Actor Bonds
In any business relationship (in fact in most non business relationships too) there need to be a bond between the actors... in other words we need to like, and have some rapport with, a person before we will buy from them. This principle is especially true for businesses that have high credence (the buyer does not understand and finds it hard to evaluate the purchased services, e.g.a surgeon) and businesses that offer high involvement products and services ( i.e. not impulse purchases e.g. houses )... so think about dentistry, this is both High Involvement AND High Credence, so having good Actor Bonds is vital. We need to feel we like the dentist before we commit to the next stage... an activity link.

Activity Links
Once we feel we like someone we will take a first small step towards engaging with them more, and this is called an activity link. These could be things like:

Reading a website
Reading a blog
Reading a leaflet
Going to the practice for a free visit with a TCO

These activities all have a cost (mainly time) but will have no financial value, they are simply the buyer engaging in some form of activity with you as the seller.

Once an activity has occured, the buyer may move to the next level, a Resource Tie.

Resource Ties

This is the final stage of the relationship building process and is ultimately the destination. Resource ties could include:

Commiting to read a blog every time it is published
Coming to the practice for treatment
Purchasing other goods/services

The key aspect to remember is that we all go through this process each time we commit to buy anything that is High Credence (we can't fully evaluate) and High Involvement (non-impulse purchases). We will always go through Actor Bonds, Activity Links and Resource Ties.

Now this is where Twitter and Facebook come in, they are both ideal opportunities to work on these 3 areas:

Actor Bonds - where you went on holiday, personal likes/dislikes, interests, hobbies. If buyers can identify with you through this personal information they are more likely to like you.
Activity Links - Sharing links and other useful resources. Twitter is especially good for this. Once buyers click on the link they engage in an activity
Resource Ties - Committing to read your blog posts each week OR coming to the practice and spending money

People won't move directly to the Resource Tie stage unless they have moved through the previous 2 stages, I recommend spreading your Facebook and Twitter posts across these 3 areas fairly equally.

Many practice I see focus FAR too much on the Resource Tie section and don;t spend enough time working on the relationship by developing Actor Bonds and Activity Links.

.... so stop selling and start engaging!

(1) Hakansson, H. & Snehota, I. (eds.) (1995) Developing Relationships in Business
Networks. London: Routledge

And your nomination for best Social Media Blog is...

2010-12-20T16:39:00.000Z

Dear Friends,

It's not often that I request something from my treasured blog readers, but as it's Christmas I'm going to buck the trend and ask something of you!

I work hard to ensure I provide relevant content for you on Social Media and I'd like to ask for your support and for your nomination of my blog in the Social Media Examiner Annual Top 10 Social Media Blog Contest

To nominate my blog will take only a few minutes and instructions for nomination are clearly explained and must be in before 5/1/11

The best Christmas present anyone could get for me would be to nominate me as the best Social Media Blog, so please pop over to Social Media Examiner now, and nominate http://blog.markoborn.com as your favourite Social Media Blog of 2010.

Thanks... big love to you!

Mark

How To Make Your Dental Marketing Sizzle...

2010-12-12T13:06:00.002Z

In my work as an Online Dental Marketing Consultant, I have the privilege of looking at, and comparing lots of dental web sites.

One problem I find a lot of dental web sites have is that they are written by dentists.

Dentists are lovely people, and they are also often very technical people who love to explain things in a very technical fashion.

So, I was looking at a web site today which was talking about dentures, it explained in every detail what a denture is – that it’s made of methyl methacrylate acrylic with stock Myseron teeth placed onto the acrylic resin plastic base. It’s all very interesting but isn’t really marketing, all that’s doing is explaining.

Now we may have heard the phrase “sell the sizzle not the steak” and this type of marketing is exactly falling into the trap and selling the steak and not selling the sizzle.

I want to elaborate more with an example from TV advertising and marketing.

So think now about some advertising on television for a perfume. Think about a perfume advert. Picture it in your mind, picture what that perfume advert looks like, picture the images you can see when you are watching that perfume advert. Hear the music playing, see the actors in the scene they are playing… so you’ve got that picture now? Nice and bright and colourful in your minds eye…

They’re selling the sizzle and not the steak. That picture you have in your minds eye is the sizzle. Never will you see a perfume advert talking about the content of the perfume, they don’t even try to explain what the perfume smells like because you cannot explain a smell without experiencing it yourself.

So in order to undertake marketing for a smell the companies need to establish a link between their product and an emotion. They establish a link between a product and an emotion, which becomes the sizzle and then they sell the sizzle and not the steak

If you look at all the marketing for perfumes they will always be talking about selling mysteriousness, selling the attraction a new boyfriend, a new girlfriend, being attractive, being seductive or simply being gorgeous with the implied idea that you could look like the actor in the advert. They will always sell an emotion and never the perfume itself.

So, when you think again now at your dental marketing, do exactly the same thing - establish an emotional connection between the product and services you are selling to create the sizzle, then sell the sizzle and not the steak.

What motivates the patients to come to see you?

What emotions does dentistry and your services satisfy?

What experience do you offer your patients and how does it make them feel?

What desires of the patient do you satisfy (steady on now!)?

This is all creates the sizzle… now go sell it...

It's Dental Special Offers Time

2010-11-29T20:52:00.000Z

In this post I want to go through one danger of running special offers and I want to site as an example GoToMeeting.com.

Now GoToMeeting is an absolutely fantastic piece of software which enables us to host meetings over the Internet with up to 15 people. So I can host a meeting, I can share my computer screen, share discussions with people, we can speak in real time and I can show the Internet, my desktop and even share my desktop if I chose. So it’s a fantastic piece of software and I really wanted to purchase it.

So off I go to their website and I signed up to a free trial for 30 days to see if I like it, which was a fantastic idea by GoToMeeting. At the end of my free trial they asked me if I wanted to sign up and I thought ‘No, I’m not quite sure at the moment. I won’t sign up’ and that point it was £49 per month.

So, I left it a week and then I got an email from GoToMeeting saying we are now doing a special discount for me for £39 per month, would I like to sign up now as this offer will expire?

So, I clicked yes. I went through the sign up process and just before I clicked the final confirmation button I thought, “No, I don’t think I do want to sign up, I might wait to see if I get another ‘special Offer’”. So I didn’t sign up.

So now I’m stuck, do I sign up now… or wait for GoToMeeting to come with a BETTER special offer? Is it possible? Could I hang on and on and on, constantly getting more and more special offers with the price coming down and down.

And there in lies one problem with special offers - you have the person waiting longer and longer to see how much the price will come down by.... and I still haven't pressed the signup button, just in case I get a better special offer tomorrow!

Now I’m not saying we should never run special offers, I’m putting this into the mix as to how sometimes special offers can cause problems as well as advantages.

What similar examples do you know of?

What ways have you overcome this problem?

Generate content in order to engage

2010-11-16T16:39:00.001Z

It's all about content.

On the internet content is king, so when you decide to market you dental practice online the same principle applies... content is king. Here's why.

Google loves content. The more content your produce, the more you are likely to be found by optimising, it really is as simple as that. Using a variety of ways to say things means you are more likely to 'hit' upon a 'phrase' that people are typing in to Google and searching for. The more phrases you are using, the more you are likely to be found.

However, THE most important reason for generating content is to help other people with the problems that your business solves.

It's about the percentage game; if you generate content that only 10% of people like or see, and you only do this once per month, then you only stand a 10% chance (at most) per month of people engaging with your content - because either they don't like it, or don't see it because they aren't active where you have posted it.

But if you generate 10 pieces of content per month using different mediums and different topics then that same 10% will still see it, but you stand a much better chance of engaging with that final 90%.

Different people like different things and like to engage in a variety of ways, Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, emails and websites are all ways of engaging - but people won't follow you everywhere... it's too much.

Now I'm not saying you need to generate content to appeal to the masses, you need to focus around your niche, stay focused but find different things to talk about, then share that content in as many ways as possible to allow people the option of engaging with you in the way they prefer.

The easiest way I have found of doing this is via a change of mindset - producing great content is a mind set more than anything else. What would a great playwrite, poet or musician do? They'd carry a note pad and always have their task in the back of their mind.

What ever I do, during any day, I always have content in the back of my mind. Is what is happening right now Tweetable, is it Facebookable, or is it bloggable - will it enhance the lives of my 'followers' if I share it with them? If so , share it.

The great thing about generating dental content is that as a dentist you are in front of your potential readers all day long - so tomorrow when you are seeing your patients, do the following:

Listen. No, I mean really LISTEN. What is the the conversation about? What dental advice did you hand out?
Write down the snippet of dental advice you handed out to that patient
Think about the best format for sharing that advice - would it make a blog post, or could you make the point in 140 characters (Twitter) or could it be linked to a photo and shared on your Facebook group?
Store this up for 1 week - at the end of the week look back at all the great content you have generated, simply by having a process and changing your mindset

I also use content management software to find content to share making the process just that little bit easier.

So how do you find content? Or perhaps you found it hard to find content in the past, what will you do differently now?

David Lloyd Health Club Video - BRILLIANT

2010-11-04T18:36:00.002Z

I was just researching websites to see what people are doing out there and came across the David Lloyd website, this has probably one of the best videos I have seen. And here's why.

They engage at an emotional level - watch the faces of the actors... relaxing, enjoying, envigorating.

But here's the great one for me, they counter objections brilliantly. So, what are possible objections to going to the gym?

If my partner goes and I don't what am I going to do
I don't want to go alone and leave my family at home
I don't want those horrible communal changing rooms
What if I go near lunch time, I don't want to have to rush home for food
I've got a baby to look after so can't go
If my kids come I want them entertained while I work out
I don't want to be limited in my choices of what I do
I don't want to be rushed
I want to be able to park safely
I might want to relax, I might want to be invigorated so I want the option to do what I want

Now watch the video, and notice how they systematically blow every one of these objections out of the water! I love it and who ever did this video for them should be congratulated. So here it is www.davidlloyd.co.uk/home

So, do you have a video for your business? And is it just a narcissistic look at your brand, or do you genuinely answer people's concerns and help them make a decision to use you?

A little know Fact About Changing the name of Your Facebook Fan Page

2010-10-27T18:00:00.001+01:00

A mini blog post this one, but an important one!

Changing the name of your Facebook Fan page used to be impossible, FB were worried that people would set up group titled "I love product X", then attract 1000s of fans and then change the name to "I hate product X"... eek what a disaster for product X!

However there has been an about turn and FB have now allowed name changes for smaller groups. I've checked across all the pages I admin and it seems the boundary is somewhere between 80-100 fans. So if you are nearing80 fans and you wish to change your page name, do it now as once you hit around 100 the function will be blocked and you'll be stuck with the page name forever!

To change the name go to Page>Edit>Basic information, at the top you should see 'Name' and the option to type a new one... if you don't then tough luck you're stuck with it.

Have you changed your FB page name? And what number of fans did you have? It would be great to collect some actual stats for this, so post your comments please....

Facebook Pages. A reply to Krishan Joshi

2010-10-25T17:59:00.001+01:00

Last week on Dentinal Tubules I posted a question "Does having your patients visible on a Facebook fan page concern you?"

I know there is a lot of discussion about this, hence my question!

Krishan Joshi, from Dental Focus posted an excellent response, making some great points about the Facebook CC Risk Factor, you can read his full post on Dentinal Tubules, or his blog. Read the Dentinal Tubules post here.

My personal thoughts are that Facebook is a perfect place to bring your most loyal and raving fans together, and mix them with potential new patients. Most practices will tell you that their biggest source of new patients is from referrals from existing patients, this is because of a phenomenon called Social Proof. Social Proof helps us to make important decisions and is the reason why testimonials on a website are so important and powerful.

Facebook facilitates the process of Social Proof, and means you can build a loyal fan base and create a real buzz about your practice - and the truth is, your patient database is not exposed as I have practices that have Facebook pages with >550 fans and only a small percentage are patients... and no-one can tell who they are anyway!

So, on to NEGATIVE COMMENTS... this is the real worry for practices... what if someone says something bad?

Here's a little story.

In April last year a woman named Amy Korin went to Domino's Pizza in Chicago and had a bad experience, she chose to mention this on Twitter to her 4000 followers... a potential disaster for Domino's Pizza..

When she awoke the next day she found that Domino's had responded to her complaint on Twitter, and here is that response (sorry I can't embed the video so you're just gonna have to click it) http://www.viddler.com/explore/dpzramon/videos/19/

Domino's managed this negative comment excellently, this video has now been seen by over 144,000 people and has become a shining example of how to respond to negative sentiment, and is in fact now a promotional video for Domino's

So really, it's not the fact that you might get a negative comment.. it's how you deal with it, use it as en example to show how good your customer service actually is, demonstrate that you DO care, and admit you got it wrong, invite them in for a free gift pack, or tell them to bring their family in for a free pamper day! People will respond well to this admission, they will respect you for it and will love you even more.

Having said all that, I manage 14 dental practice Facebook pages, we have around 1000 fans in total and we have never had a single negative comment!

So the key is to manage your online reputation, engage, build trust, develop relationships and respond to negative sentiment. Here is a great program for monitoring online sentiment. *

I accept the possible negatives of Facebook, and always it about making a judgment as to the best way to proceed, however, all things taken in to account, I believe the advantages of increasing social proof and creating a buzz far outway the negatives.

What do you think?

* Declaration of interest. This is a program that is sold by Mark Oborn Ltd

The power of blogging for business

2010-10-17T19:16:00.001+01:00

I read loads of blogs on a variety of subjects from Social Media, to SEO to customer service, and 2 that stand out when it comes to improving customer service are the blogs of Chris Barrow and Kevin Rose.

You see, each time I go in to a restaurant or hotel or shop I am now hyper aware of customer service... I'm always thinking 'what would Chris or Kevin have to say about this?'... and then the thought comes to me 'Am I having a bloggable experience now?'

Now this is the real question, do you provide a bloggable experience?

I bet that many of your patients write blogs, I bet that the reach of your marketing potential is enormous if you could get those people writing about you, and how much does that kind of marketing cost? £0, a big fat £0... all it needs is for you to provide a 'bloggable experience' and for you to encourage your patients and customers to blog about you.

Here are some suggestions:

On your next customer questionnaire ask 'Do you write a blog?', then ask these people 'What would it take for you to blog about us?'
Openly promote your blog in your practice, if your patients know that you blog then any bloggers will have a natural affinity towards you, kind of like a bloggers club
Ask patients that blog if they would like to do a guest post on your blog (so long as it is relevant to your patient/customer base)
Have a subscribe facility at the practice, perhaps on an i-pad (no there's a great excuse to buy one) and encourage patients to subscribe - Aweber provide a very neat function for allowing people to subscribe to blogs, as do Feedburner

And last but most important of all, ask yourself... 'Do we provide a bloggable experience in our business?'

It's time to stop selling

2010-10-13T09:54:00.001+01:00

Do you like it when someone tries to sell to you?

Do you like it when you feel a business is trying to get you to buy something from them?

In general we are often immune to classical marketing techniques, we get bombarded with them every day, a simple visit to Google to find out my local hairdresser [cheeky grin for anyone that knows me] ends up with me being bombarded by Adwords trying to get me to click on them.

Then I pop over to Facebook to keep up with my friends and again I'm bombarded with ads trying to get me to click on them.

It all gets a bit tiresome!

So what can we do about it? I suggest we just talk to people, solve their problems and help people.

Follow local people on Twitter (http://twittergrader.com/location) listen to what they have to say, then engage and help them. If they talk about dental problems, help them. If they talk about wanting a local florist, tell them where it is... just help them and engage. NO SELLING.

Invite current customers on to Facebook, run and advert on Facebook shown to local people. Then post questions and small videos of treatments or products on Facebook to stimulate comments and simply answer those questions. Run these as a series, so if you have a dental Facebook page run a series on dental health and offer a free dental health check to everyone that comments.

An example of a Facebook campaign:

"Is chewing gum good or bad for you?" Then when people comment answer...

"My gums bleed a little when I floss, is this normal?" Then when people comment answer...

"Can tooth picks damage my gums?" Then when people comment answer...

The whole point is to engage, talk and set yourself up as THE expert in the local area so that when a customer discovers they have a need or a problem that needs solving YOU are the logical choice... it's about being on their mind the whole time rather than simply SHOUTING ABOUT YOUR LATEST OFFER IN THE HOPE THAT SOMEONE LISTENS!

Look at the 2 questions again that I asked at the beginning of this post... here are 2 alternatives:

Do you like it when people help you?

Do you like it when they ask for nothing in return?

So as a customer, which business do you like better? The one that sells, or the one that helps?

Stay sharp,

Mark

Yell.com or Google Adwords?

2010-10-07T18:04:00.001+01:00

This was a question just asked by a client.

So let's not guess lets look at the stats.

Over a 1 year period for this website Yell.com sent us VERY good quality leads with only 3% of visitors leaving without clicking on another page (this is called bounce rate), compared to a site average of 24%. The visitors from Yell.com spent slightly more time on the site than other visitors but with no statistical significance. They also looked at slightly more pages than other visitors but with no statistical significance.

However, working out the cost of the ad it cost £4.6 per person to get them to the site, which worked out at 96p per page viewed.. ouch!

Google Adwords on the other hand had a higher rate of people leave the site (38%) without looking at other pages and they looked at fewer pages... but using the same formula as above:

Google Adwords cost £1.15 per person to get them to the site which worked out at 38p per page viewed.

So it's a now a simple choice, spend 38p to get a person to look at a page, or 96p!

2010-10-02T18:17:00.001+01:00

Who are your customers?

Sounds like a simple question right, they are the people that buy from you... obviously!

Here are a few examples that may mix this up a little.

In a school, who are the customers?Is it the kids that benefit from the service, or the parents? Or perhaps its the local authority that pay for those services? hhmmm, now things are looking a bit more complicated.

In a local charity, say St John Ambulance, who are the customers? Is it the people that benefit from the medical services? Or perhaps it's the people that donate to the charity?

In a shop with a sweet isle next to the check out, who are the customers? Is it the parent paying for the food, or the nagging child?

In truth we often have consumers of products and services and customers... often they are the same person, but often not.

The key is to identify who your customers are, I was with a new client today (a Landlord support business) and after some time together we identified 2 sets of customers, agents and landlords, each with their own problem to solve and each with their own motivation for going to this business, even though the services provided are the same, the customers have different motivations for using that service.

So ask the questions again about YOUR business... who are your customers?

In a dental practice that sees children, is the customer the parent or the child? Both have different motivations for coming to the practice and crucially they both have different needs and wants that we need to address in marketing.

By truly understanding who your customers are in any given situation you can truly engage with them and market to them effectively. So think carefully now, which products and services do you sell and who are the customers?

Stay sharp,Mark

The Power of a Question to Elicit a Response

2010-09-18T11:53:00.000+01:00

Questions are a very powerful mechanism to encourage a response and are highly underused in online marketing in my opinion. The thing is, we can't refuse to answer a question... we are hard wired to answer in our head even before the answer comes out of our mouths.

So think about these now...

What is your first name?
What is your mother's maiden name?
What is the capital of England?

Do you see what I mean... you only have to look at the question and BANG, the answer POPS uncontrollably in to your head.

The practical application

Many clients of mine are getting a great response from their websites with visitors asking for more information via email, these clients are then responding with emails similar to this:

"Dear XYZ,

Thank you for your enquiry, the answer to your question is ABC.

I look forward to hearing from you soon,

Kind regards,

Dr X"

A very polite response, but one that does not elicit a reply. Ideally we should write an email to a prospect with a question at the end, this will then get answered in the prospects head automatically (as demonstrated above) which will encourage the prospect to respond, therefore entering in to a relationship. If we can encourage this response the prospect moves one step closer to becoming a paying customer.

So, if a prospect sends you an enquiry via the website, your reply would get a better response with a question at the end:

"Dear XYZ,

Thank you for your enquiry, the answer to your question is ABC.

Does that answer your question?

or

What do you think?

or

What day would you like an appointment with us?

or

Does that help?

Dr X"

If you use a question at the end of the email the recipient is FAR more likely to respond and enter in to a relationship with you.

So the next time you get an email enquiry... remember to answer it with a question.

What difference will this now make to your emails?

Social Media Monitoring Platform - Early Adopters Required

2010-09-08T14:08:00.000+01:00

This is an invitation for 10 people to enter a privileged group of inner circle beta testers for a new Social Media Message and Monitoring platform that I am working on.

I would like to ask your opinion on this platform's usability, pricing and functionality and will give you exclusive early adopter access to use the platform once it goes live.

The working name for the platform is "Mark Oborn Social Media Messenger", it will cover aspects such as:

Message scheduling and co-ordinating between social media networks, e.g Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in
Updating of Social Media networks from one place
Contact management in one single place from social media networks
Analytics of contact engagement with you
Email marketing and Social Media marketing combined strategy and automation
SMS marketing and integration in to Social Media campaign
Content discovery and auto Tweeting of interesting articles
Auto discovery of relevant Twitter followers
Auto monitoring of your favourite blogs, and auto Tweeting/Facebook when key words are matched
Monitor Twitter @ replies, Facebook and SMS replies in one place
Monitor engagement (RT, shares, Likes, clicks, views, comments) from all Social Media Networks
Monitor your brand and see what people are saying about you
Filter your brand monitoring by positive and negative comments

Here is a quick screen print of my brand 'mark oborn', fortunately 100%!

This will be exclusive access to this new product, I'm very excited about where this takes Social Media marketing and I know that as soon as you have seen this product in action you will be too!

To become part of this unique inner circle, please send an email to info at markoborn dot com with your full contact details. I will then call you back to arrange a conference call and walk you through this quite amazing and revolutionary software... all I want is your opinion and in exchange I will give you exclusive early adopter access if you so desire.

So get emailing as I will only keep this offer open to the first 10 responses....

stay sharp,

Mark

The 5 Es of Online Marketing - part 2 THE EXPERIENCE

2010-08-20T17:24:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I did the previous video in this series... and people have started to ask me 'Where is the next one?' well guys, here it is... and here I am browner and hairier after my 2 week staycation in Cornwall.

If you want to see the previous video in this series, please visit my YouTube channel (if you subscribe to my channel you will also get automatic updates of new video uploads I make)

If you can't see the video here, please watch on YouTube

At a recent BNI meeting I was asked what is the secret of my success? My answer... 'Get off your arse and do it!'... so when will the experience in your business be ready, branded and decomoditising your products and services?

Once this is done it needs to be fully integrated on to your website, to create a seamless experience that transends all media and stays with the customer from the second they first visit your website.

For more resources on creating an experience in a dental practice please visit the websites of the 2 biggest thought provokers in dentistry at the moment...Chris Barrow and Kevin Rose

Until the next in my series... EVIDENCE...

stay sharp,

Mark

What is a blog for?

2010-07-27T17:44:00.002+01:00

What is a blog for?

This is a question I get asked quite a bit so it seems like a good idea to investigate it a bit- of course this in my opinion as to what a blog is for, not necessarily everyone's opinion!

Let me start by telling you what I think a blog is NOT, a blog is not:

A means to tell everyone what you did on your holiday
An excuse to write information that only YOU are interested in
An excuse to self promote

I believe the purpose of a business blog is to build relationships by handing out useful, free and relevant advice. It should provide a way for prospects to 'suss you out' without making any commitment to you (other than time, which still has a cost!). It allows YOU to tell the world how good YOU are at solving THEIR problems!

So in order to write a great blog you need to understand who your customers are, then you need to ask 'what problem are they trying to solve?' then you simply write a blog that solves those problems! Nothing more, nothing less... just solve those problems!

Great blogs allow your prospects to try you out and will place you in the forefront of their mind when they find the problem they have that needs solving is too great and needs to be solved now... who can they turn to? The expert of course, and you've shown them that this is you.

Now in some businesses this is more difficult, so for a dentist marketing with a blog you are the solution often, but there is still loads and loads of great advice that you can hand out for free, such as:

How can I keep my teeth fit & healthy
How can I ensure my teeth look white, what foods and activities to avoid
What to look to out for that would indicate my teeth and gums are not healthy
Should I be watch my diet to try to keep healthy teeth? If so what should I eat?
What can I do at home to treat any unhealthiest
Are there any food stuffs I should avoid that might damage my teeth
Do 'shop bought' whitening products work? If not why not?
How can I keep my kids teeth healthy?
How should I teach my kids to brush their teeth?
What to look out for in my kids mouths to ensure their teeth and gums are healthy?
At what age should I bring my kids to the dentist?
What are the treatment options if i have crooked teeth
What are the treatment options if I have dark teeth

As your blog is there to build relationships and hand out great useful information avoid the temptation to put special offers in blog posts, this doesn't set you up as the expert and may annoy your loyal readers.

At all times the reader should get something from your blog post, they should come away richer than when they started... so don't tell me about your holidays, or send me your special offers all the time, or tell me how great you are... prove it and write a great blog that I look forward to reading.

Here is a great blog that I totally recommend, Jim writes a brilliant marketing blog and employs all the principles I have discussed. By the way blogs are also great for search engine optimisation as Google loves them!

What problems do you have writing a blog? Comment here and I'll do what I can to help...

The 5 Es of Online Marketing - part 1 EMOTION

2010-07-16T11:04:00.000+01:00

Watcha,

Did you know that we buy on emotion and justify that decision with logic? Think about it for a moment now, think about your last big luxury purchase, something you bought for more than a few hundred pounds... what was the reason you bought it?

I bet it had something to do with emotion huh?

Here's a video of how this effect works it's way in to online marketing, using a dental practice website as an example.

Click here to watch on YouTube.

Remember to watch out for the next in the 5 Es series - EXPERIENCE.

until next time.

stay sharp,

Mark

Mark's Marketing Minute - The 5 Es of online marketing

2010-06-29T22:25:00.001+01:00

I'd like to introduce you to a series of Mark's Marketing Minute videos I will be producing, the next 5 videos (that can easily be watched in a coffee break as they only last a minute) I will explore my 5 Es of Online Marketing:

Emotion
Experience
Evidence
Engage
Encourage

Here's the first video in this mini series that explains what I mean. Once completed I'll post the whole series on my website, or you can view them on my YouTube channel.

These aren't new concepts by any means (Chris Barrow talks extensively about creating an Experience)... but they are so, so , SO often missing from many websites and online marketing communications.

So here's some homework to do for my next Mark's Marketing Minute videocast. Think now about a specific product or service you offer... now ask yourself, how does it make your customer FEEL once you have provided this product or service to them? What emotion does it evoke?

See you next time, and stay sharp,

Mark

Dental Practice Marketing using QR codes

2010-06-16T17:16:00.001+01:00

QR codes are a great way to seamlessly integrate the offline world in to the online world and allos patients to interact simply with you via text message or website.

Take a look at this quick video demo I have made, what do you think? What other uses can you think of for using QR codes?

Generate Attention, Interest, Desire and Action and see an improvement in marketing response

2010-06-01T10:00:00.003+01:00

This is a simple way to get you marketing working better for you and one of the simplest acronyms to remember, yet one that can have the biggest impact on your marketing, AIDA:

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

With every marketing communication you should seek to grab attention, so that's the headline, the email subject line, the Facebook status update or the tweet on Twitter.

Once you've grabbed attention you then need to capture the readers interest, that's the rest of your Facebook fan page content, the content of your email, the first few lines of text in your flyer or the link that you send your Twitter followers to.

Once you have ensured they are interested you need to create desire, that's the emotion linked to your services, the burning desire your prospect has to solve their problem to which you have the solution.

And lastly, and often the one that is missed, be very clear about the action you want them to take. That's a response to your email, a re-tweet on Twitter, a comment on your Facebook page or a phone call at the practice.

It's simple to remember, AIDA

For more tips just like this one please join in with the conversation on our Facebook page... see y'all there.

Stay Sharp,

Mark

The importance of a Dental Brand in your Dental Marketing

2010-05-16T13:36:00.003+01:00

There is a tendency for us to assume that everyone thinks the same as we do! Now if you are a dentist, that means you probably have a very logical, technical and analytical brain - you will be focused around the process of what you do to ensure that there are no unforeseen problems, am I right?

You will be sure to have prepared the margins of a crown with a 50 degree chamfer, your crown margins will have <25 micron space, you will ensure the Pentamix doses your Impregum correctly in the 8:1 ratio.

Do you know what, most people don't care! But because YOU do (and as a technician I count myself in the same 'techy' group of people as you) you assume that all the 'tech' stuff turns others on as much as you, and you assume that it's this same 'techy' stuff that convinces a patient to come to you rather than the practice down the road.

But this 'techy' logic only appeals to a certain group of people - the scientific, the engineers, the 'techy' people - most people make a purchase decision based on emotion, then justify this decision with logic.

So here is a simple exercise... list all the 'techy' stuff you do or have... you know the things I mean Diagnodent, Wand, CEREC, Microscopes, Lumineers, Invisalign.

Once you have the list, go through each one and ask 'What is the emotional benefit of this to the patient?', 'How will it make the patient feel?'.

You should now have a long list of emotions, now list the Values that underpin those emotions. Trust, Love, Care, Loyalty, Friendship etc. You will find you have lots of 'techy' things, less emotions and even fewer values - probably 4 or 5.

Values are the level at which we connect with another human being, emotion is the level at which we make the purchase decision, logic is the level at which we justify that purchase decision.

Now ask, how can you represent those value? What image, what design, what language, what single line message represents those values. THIS IS YOUR BRAND. If we can encapsulate all of this in to a logo, font and design then we can represent your values all the time, and we can make sure you connect with your customers all the time.

Branding is not about a fancy logo, it is about representing what you do, the emotions that come with that and the values that underpin it. No values and no emotion means fewer sales, and that's not good for business!

It's always easier for me as a dental internet marketing and website consultant to work on developing an eMarketing strategy with a practice that has a strong brand, it's not a service I offer myself so here are a few suggestions of people I have spoken with:

Cathy Johnson design
Corona Dental
Mint Design

So, what do you think about branding and design? Do YOU feel it has a place in dentistry, or is it all about the dentistry itself?

Managing a pay per click (PPC) Google Adwords campaign for dental practices

2010-04-22T16:36:00.002+01:00

In this blog post I will highlight some of the common mistakes I see with Dental Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns and go through some simple quick fixes to get a better response and return.

What is a PPC campaign?

Very simply, in a Google search there are 2 sets of results. The natural results and the paid results. The paid results are either at the top in a beige box, down the right hand side or both, and have the heading 'sponsored links' - these are the results of people paying for a PPC campaign

To me there are 2 main ways of using these sponsored links, either to increase your brand awareness or to initiate an activity. Now remember, each time someone clicks on your ad you will pay - so if you are anything like me, you don't have the budget to spend on JUST increasing brand awareness without a definite action to follow... do you?

The problem is that many of the ads I see just increase brand awareness, that is, they do not initiate an activity in any way. A typical example of this is when you click on a sponsored link it just takes you to the home page of a website...and there the actions stops...

A far better way to use PPC ads is to drive people to your website and prime them for an activity within the ad.

So in your advert, mention 'call us about XYZ'... then send them to a page that answers the specific problems that they were searching for and make sure your phone number is big and prominent. Or, mention in your advert 'have an email consult about XYZ'... then send them to a page that answers the specific problems that they were searching for and make sure your email address is big and prominent. Or, mention in your ad 'download your free guide about XYZ'...then send them to a page that answers the specific problems that they were searching for and make sure your free download form is big and prominent.

Always, always, always send the visitor to a relevant page in your website that has a strong call to action. If, after clicking on your Google advert, a visitors needs to spend more time on your site looking for what they want, and then even more time finding out how to contact you then you increase the chance of loosing that visitor and wasting your online ad budget.

Think of your ad a step in the patient journey that starts with a search online...

They realise they have a dental problem
They do a search online
They see your ad and click on it
They visit your website
They call/email the practice
They come in to see you
You welcome them and amaze them with your service
They sign up for treatment
They have treatment
You WOW them with your after care

Each part needs to flow smoothly with no resistance, there should be a smooth flow from the moment the patient identifies their problem and does the online search to being on your dental practice website, your ad needs to be relevant to their problem and most importantly so does the page you send them to.

Look at this search for 'dentist in london' and look at all the sponsored links... so many of them are not relevant to that search term, there are links for invisalign, cosmetics & veneers, if a patient searches for 'dentist in london' then give them what they want... a dentist in london!... the patient journey has a hiccup with these practices the second the ad is shown...

So, how have you made PPC campaigns work for you?

Dental 'Online Marketing' Course now booking

2010-04-12T19:05:00.000+01:00

I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you to a brand new and exciting course I am running this year, take a look at this video it explains it all....

If you can't see the video, watch it on YouTube

Prepare to revolutionise your dental 'online marketing'...

This is more than a single day course, this is a whole new way of thinking about your marketing, your dental practice and the internet. The day will be part presentation and part facilitation with YOU deciding the content and the direction the course takes to be most relevent to YOU.

Book now and prepare to never view marketing the same again...

What is included in the course?

All the usual stuff... detailed course notes, tea, coffee, cakes, lunch... you know the score! BUT you will also benefit from:

A marketing review of your dental practice website with a detailed report of what changes to make - worth £100
Search Engine Optimisation review of your website - worth £100
One half hour coaching call with Mark, one month after the event to discuss how the implementation of course material is progressing - worth £120
The entire cost of this course refunded if you decide to enrol on Mark's eMarketing coaching program*

This is not an ordinary course!

The day will be broken in to 3 sections:

Presentation: Covering Marketing Fundamentals for Improved Responses

Facilitation: Working through YOUR challenges and putting together a plan - facilitated by Kevin Rose from Azimuth Dental

Workshop: Looking at how to achieve your plan and practical help for overcoming technical fears and problems

BOOK ONLINE NOW

What will be covered on the day?

Presentation: Marketing Fundamentals - 1 hour

Presented by Mark Oborn MBA LBIDST

The science of empirical marketing - You practice evidence based dentistry don't you? Well, now practice evidence based marketing.

The golden rules of marketing to attract Attention, Interest, Desire and Action

Understanding what your patients really buy from you... and it's not teeth!

Why the classic 'selling' marketing model is outdated, why it antagonises patients and what you need to do about it

How to get patients to buy from you rather than you selling to them - the art of making a profit by 'unselling' and building relationships

How to attract more patients than the practice down the road by building relationships

Understanding the psychology of the selection process that new patients will use when looking for a new dentist, and then how to step in to this process to influence it

How to get a higher response from ALL marketing communications

Facilitation - 2 hours

Kindly facilitated by Kevin Rose from Azimuth Dental

Kevin will faciliate this section working through your key issues and challenges facing marketing a practice online, he'll help you to highlight:

What have you done already
What is preventing progress
What needs to be done now
What are the key milestones for success
Who will make this happen

Once Kevin has helped you identify exactly what needs to be done, we can move on to phase 3, the workshops...

Workshop: The Internet - 3 hours

Presented by Mark Oborn MBA LBIDST

Subjects selected from the facilitation previously could include:

The Social Networks

Promoting your practice on Facebook and Twitter

Using video and photo sharing sites to get patients to your practice

How to be seen as the expert dentist in your local area

Your Website

Understanding Headlines and trigger words to use on your website and other advertising

How to ethically get your website visitors to give you their details

Making use of the principles of relationship building online to ensure your patients are pre-educated BEFORE they come to the surgery

How to produce interactive online patient newsletters and accurately monitor readership

Developing a robust online marketing strategy

How to combine offline and online marketing in to a formidable force

Understanding why a blog is the most powerful tool in your marketing strategy and how to use that tool effectively

BOOK ONLINE NOW

What Happens after the course?

First and foremost you get implementing and seeing a BIG difference in the responses to your marketing!

During the course you will write down implementation miles stones, so one month after the course we'll chat, I will go through the implementation mile stones that you generated during the day and we'll discuss how they are going. At that time I will also go through your existing website from 2 perspectives:

Marketing robustness
Search Engine Optimisation

We'll discuss implementation for these and how you will ensure that any problems are solved.

This is more than a single day course, this is a whole new way of thinking about your marketing, your dental practice and the internet. Book now and prepare to never view marketing the same again...

Where: Fallow Fields Hotel, Bagpuise, Oxfordshire

Who for?: Anyone responsible for marketing in a dental practice

Dates:

1.Wednesday 9th June

2.Wednesday 15th September

3.Friday 19th November

Fee:

Book & pay for Two Places or more, one calendar month before course date - £250 each BEST VALUE OPTION

Book and pay for one place, one calendar month before course date- £300

Book Two Places or more - £300 each

Book a single place - £350

BOOK ONLINE NOW

See you on the day,

Mark Oborn

Getting Return on Dental Marketing - a follow up

2010-03-31T17:23:00.000+01:00

In my last blog post on ROI I used the term 'opportunity cost' instead of the term 'direct cost of sales'... so to all the accountants out there, I do, most humbly, apologise for my innacuracy!

In response to my reckless use of the wrong term I had 2 comments on the blog, both of these raise further issues with calculating ROI that I believe add weight to my argument that calculating ROI is important but is not necessarily easy to do and should be used as part of an armoury of measurement tools. I reproduce the comments on my blog here, please take a moment now to read them as I think they both make great points.

Comment 1- made on Facebook

In your note you mention "opportunity costs", stating the opportunity costs of invisalign might be $1300 for aligners. Perhaps this is the "language barrier", but in America we would describe this as the cost of goods sold, or overhead. None-the-less, overhead needs to be considered, and if your overhead is $1300 for aligners you need to charge signifcantly more than $1500 for an ortho case, regardless of what marketing source generated the lead. The cost of marketing the case, would also be defined as overhead.

Opportunity costs would be the cost of revenue lost, due to your time or resources spent using social media. i.e. you spend ten hours a week marketing your practice and you bill out $1000/hour, your opportunity cost for that week might be $10,000 of production. I hope this clarifies the example above for anyone familiar with a different definition of opportunity cost.

Best regards,

Fritz Soberay

Comment 2 - made on the blog itself

I think you are referring to direct costs of sales, rather than opportunity costs. Opportunity cost relates to the benefit that you may have missed out on by spending on X rather than spending on Y. For example, putting £1000 in Yellow Pages advertising and generating £3000 profit may seem like a good idea, until you realise that the same £1000 spent on SEO generates £5000 of profit. Your opportunity cost of spending on Yellow Pages in this example is £2000 (the profit you have missed out on by not going for SEO). Mike Busby

Both Fritz and Mike make great points, what do you think?

Dental marketing ROI, is it all it’s made out to be?

2010-03-30T14:12:00.000+01:00

‘You gotta get dental marketing ROI’ is bandied around quite a lot today, and that includes by me also. It’s massively important to ensure you are getting a return on your marketing investment and the only way to measure this to calculate your expenditure and revenue. But measurable ROI is not the be all and end all, here are a few examples...

Measure the right figures.
You must measure your opportunity costs as well as turnover. An opportunity cost is a cost that incurs as a result of an activity, so if you spend £200 on marketing to get a £1500 Invisalign case the temptation is to say you got an ROI of 750% - WOW! But if your opportunity cost for that Invisalign is to pay out £1300 for the aligners etc then you actually made an ROI of 0%...oops! (figures for illustrative purposes only)

Measure the right referral source.
If you get a patient in to your practice that says they have seen your website the temptation is to allocate ROI to the website. But what if that patient was directed to your website via a referral from a friend, or newspaper advert you did, or a radio advert you ran, how do you allocate that?

The temptation is to allocate to the website, and stop all other advertising, but it may be the other advertising that is getting people to the website in the first place.

If your marketing is effective you will be EVERYWHERE and patients may not remember where they saw you first

Not everything is measurable.
You can’t directly measure in £s an increase in practice perception.
You can’t directly measure in £s an increase in awareness of your practice.
You can’t directly measure in £s development of your ‘tribe’ of loyal patient followers on the social networks.
You can't directly measure in £s your status as an expert in the local area as a result of your total web presence.

You can measure increased revenue, but what was it that actually generated that revenue? Often it is a multitude of things, especially if you are an active marketeer using a variety of media.

Summary
I'm a big fan of ROI, and recommend you measure everything you can and calculate genuine ROI (taking opportunity costs in to account) but don’t get too hung up on it, be aware of the pitfalls and accept that not everything in life can measured…

Stay sharp,

Mark

making the Dentistry Shows work for you with Facebook and Twitter

2010-03-21T10:40:00.002Z

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

I got to number one in google in 42 minutes

2010-03-03T17:42:00.008Z

This is a 'proof' post.

People often say to me 'I want proof that what you're saying works'.

If a new client employs me to work on their dental practice online marketing, I will insist on them writing a blog, the number one reason is it is a great way to build relationships with patients, but here is the second reason...

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION...GOOGLE LOVES BLOGS.

So guys, here's the proof.

Time 16:41 this afternoon I write a blog post for the lab on 'Functional Bite Blocks'

Time: 17:13 I get my daily email from Google Alerts for my name (yes, I have an alert for my own name so I can monitor my internet presence), guess what, Google has seen my blog post already.

So I go straight to Google and do a search for "Functional Bite Blocks"

Number one in Google in 42 minutes.

Proof?

You got it...

Now go write your blog.

If you'd like help setting up a blog then call me on 07769 898798 or email info@markoborn.com or visit www.markoborn.com for further details of my online marketing services.

Get some Google Alerts set up

2010-02-23T19:56:00.000Z

Over the past few years I have set up lots of Google Alerts for key words for my websites, each day I get an email from Google telling me the new places it has seen my chosen key words.

My alerts used to include only websites, but over the past few months particularly I have noticed a big upsurge in Google indexing Facebook and Twitter.

Here's what I recommend, set up some alerts. At the very least set one up for your practice name to see who is talking about you, then set more up for your key words and look to see where they are appearing.

Once you do this you will see all manner of places that people are building traffic to their websites through, especially Facebook, Twitter and the video sharing sites. Only today I got a Google Alert telling me it had indexed the term 'Dental Marketing' on a Facebook Fan page, guess what, it was me that used that term and the link points directly back to me... result.

So get some Google Alerts set up, so you can see what Google is up to, then get writing content everywhere you can that includes your key words.

If you'd like help getting the online marketing ball rolling just give me a call on 07769 898798 or email me on info@markoborn.com

stay sharp dudes,

Mark

"Build Relationships NOT Transactions"

2010-01-31T18:05:00.006Z

Look at the world today, we are a connected group of people organised in to a series of tribes...

Tribes that are young and want the film star Hollywood look.

Tribes that are older, have some money to spare and want to look younger but want it with a faultless service.

Tribes that have old amalgams and are concerned about their health and well-being.

The list goes on and on...

My question for you to answer now is 'what is the best way to reach these tribes?'

Do you simply SHOUT THE LOUDEST and pay for the biggest ads in the local press, do you offer unrelenting SPECIAL OFFERS that are outlined in a fancy star to grab their attention or do you perhaps use lumpy mail, post it notes on flyers, stamps instead of franked mail and every other trick in the book to get your prospect to buy from you and enter into a transaction?

You know what, the answer is yes.... do those things because they work, BUT NOT for a transaction, do it to build a relationship. These are not prospects you are dealing with, they are patients... patients want relationships with their dentist... in fact the world as a whole want relationships, this is why Facebook is one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

When you do your special offers and use all the tricks to get that flyer opened make sure you build in a mechanism that helps you to develop a relationship with that person. If all you want is a single transaction (e.g. 2 for 1 whitening) then that is what you will get, some people will respond but many won't, the ones that don't out way the ones that do and it is often these that want the relationship not the transaction.

Relationship marketing is great for long term growth, building your brand and here's the killer... getting patients to buy FROM you rather than being SOLD TO.

Transactional marketing is 'selling to', relationship marketing is 'buying from'. Can you see the difference? Which would YOU prefer?

There are many ways we can use technology and the internet to help us build a relationship, so make sure you encourage your 'prospects' to join YOUR tribe on your:

Facebook Fan Page
Twitter stream
Blog
Friendfeed
Linked in profile
Website discussion forum

Tribes love the sound of the jungle drums, so get your jungle drums beating a catchy rhythm, get them to join in with YOUR rhythm and interact with them.... they'll love you so much more than if you just try to sell them the latest special offer.

More SEO for Dental Practice Websites

2010-01-21T12:05:00.001Z

Hi,

A few blog posts ago I talked about key words and their importance for getting your website found, there is so much more about SEO for dental websites that needs to be said... the following video discusses the issue of using mulitple key words.

I have given examples of the most commonly searched phrases for a dental practice, make sure your practice is optimised for these phrases if you want it found!

If you can't see the video here, please watch on YouTube.

Stay sharp guys!

Mark

A TV Channel for your dental practice!

2010-01-12T11:00:00.000Z

Hi,

Imagine having your own TV channel dedicated to YOU and YOUR practice, well I'd like to introduce you to ustream.tv and a LIVE broadcast I will be doing on 18th January at 1:30pm.

ustream is your own free internet TV channel for your practice, you can pre-record programs or do scheduled live broadcasts... you could do pre-record programs giving help and advice on each of your product/service areas, then at regular times each week run a live broadcast and hand out special offers to those that view.

Live broadcasts have the advantage that viewers can interact with you via Twitter, they simply put their Twitter ID in to ustream and can then type live to you and all other viewers... PLUS, as they will be talking via Twitter, their posts to YOU will also been seen by their Twitter followers who may also become interested in what they are talking about and join in the broadcast... a snowball effect could easily start!

Here is a quick video I made of ustream, click to watch on youtube if it you can't see it below.

To see this live I am doing my first ever LIVE ustream broadcast on 18th January at 1:30pm UK time. I will give an overview of ustream plus talk about how to get your dental practice website to perform for you.

To join in (go easy on me, this is a trial for me as well) simply click www.ustream.tv/channel/dental-and-website-marketing and click on the RSVP button, then on Monday 18th
January at 1:30 click on the link I will post on Twitter OR check back directly to my ustream page where you will see the broadcast and be able to log in and chat.

There are a couple of pre-recorded programs already there on choosing 'dental key words' for your dental practice marketing.

Any questions about the broadcast simply comment on my blog and I will respond.

Until 18th January at 1:30pm....

stay sharp,

Mark

Key Words - Their importance for Dental Web Marketing

2010-01-06T17:03:00.004Z

A common theme

When you do conventional marketing, by that I mean flyers and leaflets etc you may look for a common theme to 'tie' them all together... a way for people to recognise your business amongst the daily influx of this type of marketing.

One way to do this is to use repeating images, fonts, design and logos, these become the 'glue' that bind your campaigns together in the minds of the reader, they see your logo, recognise it from last time and your business gets logged in their 'psychie' for when they need a dentist... or at least that's the theory.

So, how do we do this online? How do we find a common 'glue' to hold your online marketing strategy together? Well the answer is key words.

Key words are your online logo for the search engines, they are a common theme that should purvey everything you do online. As a logo gets registered in the minds of your readers, so key words get registered in the minds of search engines. A logo gets you noticed, key words get you noticed.

Key words are essentially what people type in to search engines to find web sites, so if I live in Dartford and want an implant dentist, I am likely to type 'Implant dentist in dartford' in to a search engine. If you have a practice in Dartford then 'Implant dentist in Dartford' should be one of the key words or phrases that you concentrate on... but how and where? The answer is two fold, onsite and offsite.

Onsite

Each page on your website should be optimised for a different key word or phrase, implants, cosmetic, ortho are all possibilities. Your key words should appear in 5 main places:

Page title - this is what the web browser will show as the very top as the title
Page file name - this will be the page itself i.e xyzdental.com/dentalimplants
Headings - each page should have headings and these should contain your key words
Text - the same words should be repeated in the main text up to a maximum of 5% of the page content (use www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php)
Meta Tags - not seen by you , but hidden in the code of the page

Offsite

You should seek to get as many inbound links to your website as possible from as many relevant websites as you can, but be selective. Get links to specific pages using specific key words. So if you have a dental practice in Dartford and you specialise in Implants, then you need to get links to your web page that talks about implants (not necessarily your home page), BUT the link should be in a specific format...

DO NOT use links like this. "To find out more about dental implants in Dartford click here."

Instead use links like this "Please visit our website to find out more about dental implants in Dartford"

This way the search engines will see the text in the link i.e. 'Dental Implants in Dartford', they will follow that link and end up at your website, they will read the title, headings, meta tags and headings in the page you send them to and see that indeed your web page IS about dental implants in Dartford...

...suddenly the search engines have found the common theme that glues your online strategy together, they can instantly recognise you and they can register you in their mind... they can register you on their searches because they finally know what your website is about.

Summary

This is NOT intended to be a comprehensive guide to getting your website found and certainly this is only a few ways to use key words... but its enough to have HUGE impact on your web marketing strategy and will go a long, long way to getting your website found.

Stay sharp,

Mark

A Christmas Message from Mark the Dancing Elf

2009-12-15T07:16:00.003Z

Hi all,

I have a Christmas message for you, please click to view

stay sharp,

Mark

The Best Viral Marketing by IKEA and Culture Buzz

2009-11-25T17:24:00.000Z

I have Facebooked this, Tweeted this and now I blog it. (Thanks SO much to the lovely Sylvie Sturrock for putting me on to this).

Watch this video then THINK, THINK, THINK !!!

http://www.culture-buzz.com/IKEA-Invents-Facebook-Tag-Marketing-2418.html

So, how could you use this brilliant idea on YOUR Facebook page... comment on this blog and let's brainstorm together...

Mark

I haven't got time to write a blog!

2009-11-16T21:42:00.005Z

I haven't got time to write a blog!

wow, how may times have I heard this? Too many times unfortunately.

If you haven't got time to write a blog, what you are REALLY saying is "I haven't got time to talk to my customers and people that might become my customers"...

... so let me start by sharing what I believe a blog can do in your practice or business. A blog can:

Be linked to Facebook to automatically update your practice FB Page
Be linked to Twitter to automatically tweet helpful guidance for your patients
Sit on its own website and merrily create links to your own website and increase your websites search ranks on Google - OR
Sit within your website and merrily assist with on site SEO and increase your website's search ranks on Google
Be emailed automatically to your patients and prospective patients to provide useful advice on looking after their teeth, therefor providing a valuable educational resource
Send prospective patients to 'lead capture' websites where you can gather their details for future marketing
Be found within Google searches for dental blogs
Be listed in Blog Indexes to be found by prospective patients
Inform patients and prospective patients of special offers at the practice
Build relationships with patients and prospective patients
Ensure your main website looks 'lived in' and informative
Allow patients and prospective patients to engage with you by adding their own comments - vertical marketing
Allow patients and prospective patients to engage with one another by adding their own comments - horizontal marketing
Become a rich resource of 'what's going on' at your practice
Take the part of an online patient newsletter
Provide a way for prospective patients to listen to what you have to say on their terms
Generate revenue for your practice by leveraging the above

This blog post took me 5 minutes to think about, then 15 minutes to write and is written once every 2 weeks... so are you still going to tell me you don't have time talk to your patients?

Get blogging today with these resources:

Create your blog
Blogger
Wordpress

Allow email subscriptions to your blog
Feedburner

Build a database PLUS send your blog to twitter
Aweber

If you currently write a blog why not comment on this blog post and let us know your blog URL, we can then all subscribe - there are currently 202 readers of this blog so you should get a few more readers to yours!

More details are on my dental marketing website.

Stay sharp,

Mark

The Ultimate Tweet-up at the BDTA Showcase

2009-10-27T11:00:00.001Z

"Make those virtual relationships real..."
BDTA Showcase 2009 Meet-up

Hi,

I'd like to warmly invite you to meet-up of all 'virtual' dental professionals at the BDTA Showcase in November. We're going to meet on Panadent's stand H02 at 11am and then again at 3pm on both Friday 13th & Saturday 14th November - you chose the time that is most suitable for you.

If you'd like to come and meet up all those people you talk to on Twitter and Facebook but have never met, this is your golden opportunity.

We can send you an SMS message 10 minutes prior to the meet-up, just to remind you of the time and venue - if you register here it will make it much easier for us to keep all names and number in the same place.

It'd be great to see you all at last, and finally put moving faces to those static Facebook and Twitter profile pictures.

The Dental Event 2010

This little meet-up has been organised by myself, Richard Charon BDS , Kevin Rose and Mike Samuels RMIP MIMI. We all run our own successful businesses (2 of us are dental professionals) are manic Twitterers and have come together as purveyors of fine Dental Sedation, Dental Marketing, Dental Coaching and Dental Photography.

In January next year we will be running a dental event to die for!

4 presentations with (6 hours of verifiable CPD) are planned on each of our specialist areas, these are...

Dental Sedation, The treatment of anxious, fearful or phobic patients by Richard Charon

How to prevent anxious patients ruining your day both, emotionally and financially
How to treat gagging patients especially for critical impressions.
How to get increased treatment option acceptance for people who would otherwise decline advanced work.
How to greatly improve patient/customer journey, including those only mildly anxious but needing lengthy or "demanding" treatment.

Dental Marketing by Mark Oborn

How to get your practice noticed amongst the internet 'noise'
How to get new fee paying patients through the door
How to use the internet for marketing your practice
How to use Social Networks to market a dental practice

Dental Business Coaching by Kevin Rose

How to achieve elegant communication with your patients
How to improved relationships, loyalty and mutual understanding with your patients.
How to have confident patients that can make informed decisions about buying the services available from you

Dental Photography by Mike Samuels

How to take high quality photographs
How to achieve consistency in scale, colour, exposure and focus
How to standardise and repeat photographic results
Improve existing techniques
Fulfilling requirements of further educational study (Masters etc)

This event will take you on a journey... allowing you take control of your practice, remove frustration and have a clear idea about what makes a successful dental practice in the UK today.

Venue and date to be announced at the meet-ups at the BDTA.

All this for the price of a few tubes of composite!

As a special offer for the BDTA Showcase only we will be offering a 25% booking discount for early bird bookings - this will reduce the price of tickets from £200 to £150, this is an amazing bargain to get 4 speakers of such quality with such a huge amount of valuable information for the price of a couple of tubes of composite!

Early Bird booking is ONLY available at the BDTA showcase, so please come and visit us for tea or coffee, if you register here it will make it much easier for us to keep all names and number in the same place.

See you at the best time to suit you - 11am or 3pm on either the Friday or Saturday at Panadent's stand H02 - we'll be there at all those times... so see you then!

Mark

"Getting people to stay on your website is easy, isn't it..."

2009-10-22T18:34:00.005+01:00

I heard somewhere recently that the average time a person spends on the first page of a website is 10 seconds, I've checked on Google to see if I can verify this but can't find any specific data. What I did find though was a forum where people posted the length of visits to their websites... kind of a self help group for geeks like me! This forum certainly would indicate that it's not long... typically, it seems 60% of visitors leave in the first 30 seconds.

"My website's sexier than yours.. na, na... na, na, na"

The current trend seems to be scrolling flash animations. Like this. And this. I know these examples aren't dental businesses, but you get my drift don't you.. scrolling animation showing the surgery, you, your staff, your services, a smiley face etc, etc.

I have a problem with this technique. I believe that most (not all, but most) websites that are designed like this serve only to fulfil the narcissistic desires of the business owner and to provide bragging rights "Have you seen my website? Oh it cost me £000s and it looks SOOOO sexy!"

These images are lovely and really do look good, they provide an excellent opportunity to brand a website... but beyond that I am a bit lost...

An alternative?

Let me propose for you an alternative. I believe that text sells. A well written and placed headline will grab attention and hold it far better than any image, no matter how well designed.

Let me share some stats to back up my claims. I have looked at the average time spent on all the websites I manage... none of them have scrolling images and the average time spent on the landing page is 3 minutes 31 seconds... compare this to the seemingly normal time of less than 30 seconds and you have to ask is there something in this? (by the way don't tell me it's because the sites are not navigable and the visitors are taking 3.5 minutes to work out where to go... they aren't, as most of these sites only have 1 page... so I KNOW they are reading the content!)

So what makes a good headline

A headline is the first thing a visitor sees on your website. Get it right and they'll stay and read the rest of the page... get it wrong and they'll leave instantly.

A headline should ideally do as many of these things as possible:

Grab the visitor's attention
Let them know you understand their problem
Fulfil a desire
Engage the visitor
Remove their pain
Make them desperately want to read more

Tricks to writing a good headline

Here are some tricks I use to generate great headlines that keep people on the web page reading more.

1. Write your headline then put 'so that' after it, what follows 'so that' is the true headline!

Example: 'Have whiter teeth today' goes to 'Have whiter teeth today so that you feel more confident around the opposite sex', the true headline is therefore 'feel more confident around the opposite sex'

2. Phrase the headline as a question. Questions force the reader to think about what you have said and answer in their own minds, you have then started an interaction with the visitor without lifting a finger!

Example: 'Having white teeth is great' becomes 'How much better would you feel if you had whiter teeth'

3. Use emotion. People buy with emotion and justify with logic, the headline should have emotion and the text have logic so they can justify the decision they have just made.

Example: 'Are you worried your dentures will fall out when you eat?' then in the text put lots of logical evidence as to why your dentures/implants mean that dentures don't fall out

4. Use an ellipsis and leave a headline unfinished. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) in our brains is concerned with making sense of the world around us and it gets frustrated if it can't make sense, so if your headline is not complete, the RAS desperately looks for completion and stimulates the reader to read on to find out what the headline is all about.

Exaxmple: 'Imagine what would happen if you could eat, chew and smile with confidence...'

5. Put the headline in quotation marks. Building relationships online is the key to successful websites, putting a headline in quotation marks makes it look as though you are actually saying the words and speaking to the website visitor.

Example: "Why is it that some people are fearful of the dentist?"

6. Phrase the headline as You... never We, or I. The website should be all about the visitor, not YOU.

Example: 'We are the best dental practice' becomes 'You will be seen by the best dental practice'

7. People tend to love 'How to...' headlines. 'How to...' headlines are great as they instantly show the visitor that you understand their problem.

Example: 'How to eat, chew and smile with confidence with our new denture stabilisation system'

8. Use the imperative mood to ensure your visitors take action.

Example: 'Put an end to grinding your teeth' or 'Get more done in a day by spending less time at the dentist'

More headlines

Headlines are important for your website to get people to read the content, but also consider these as headlines also:

Emails
Blog posts
Twitter Posts
Facebook Page status updates
Newsletter titles

Headlines are all around us, and if you want to engage with your readers and get them to read the content of your website, blog or newsletter then you'd better get them right! Don't rely exclusively on the scrolling image thing, it's trendy, gives you bragging rights, is GREAT for branding, but leave it without a great headline and you might just as well not bother.

Stay sharp until next time,

Mark

Dental Practice Marketing Video

2009-10-08T21:25:00.003+01:00

Hi, I found this great FREE video production program online recently and thought I would share it with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOi3Dp5W9QQ

Of course I made a video with me as the star!

Everyone is Doing Business on Social Networks

2009-09-25T09:24:00.003+01:00

It's unsual for me to write 2 blog posts in as many days... the idea of social media spam comes to mind! But when I see something great I feel an overwhelming urge to share... and this is something REALLY great.

The video below was posted on the Marketing Donut blog, their blog post and this video is SO good, I just had to share it with you.

If you can't see the video, click here to watch on YouTube.

Social Networks and the Internet are MASSIVELY underused by dental practices... even if you have a website and are on Facebook and Twitter the question remains...

ARE YOU MONETISING THEM?

I'm currently working with dentists all over the UK to develop robust eMarketing strategies, they get their hand held through the confusing internet maze with detailed monthly reports on eMarketing ROI so they can monitor, measure and monetise their online presence. We'll work together for a year, with monthly eCoaching sessions so that you can get on with the business of being a dentist while your marketing machine trundles away in the background providing you with patients.

With an investment from as little as £300 per month you can start to see real ROI from your online presence and Social Network marketing.. let's talk today 07769 898798 info@markoborn.com

Enjoy the video, STAY SHARP & MONETISE!

Mark

How to Screw-up Your Dental Practice Marketing

2009-09-24T13:07:00.004+01:00

Forgive me, this blog is another rant...

As a dental laboratory owner I get to phone loads of dental practices daily, most of the time the conversation is first class... but sometimes I can't have a conversation at all because the answerphone is on... BUT WORSE still is that some surgery's answer phones are FULL and I can't even leave a message! The scary thing is this happens to me DAILY.

Unbelievable.

Do they think a new patient is going to phone back?

Do they think that existing patients are going to be happy they can't book an appointment to get them out of pain?

Even more unbelievable is that these are often the same surgeries that call me to ask for help with their marketing because the practice is underperforming. They don't need help with marketing, they need a very big mirror.

There is no point paying anyone to do any marketing at all if the basics aren't right. Forget a beautiful website. Forget gorgeously designed flyers. Forget having excellent calls to action... and most of all, FORGET MARKETING ROI!

Rant endeth.

Breath in slowly.... hold... breath out slowly... and relax...

... back to work now.

When your dental marketing stands out, what next?

2009-09-21T20:19:00.009+01:00

The ethos of this blog is to share great content and to help you to build your dental business and make it stand out from the rest. So let's assume you do everything I say, follow my every word and revolutionise your dental marketing... what's next?

What's next is that you need an equally remarkable practice experience for your patients AFTER you have got them to your surgery; now, every once in a while a website, blog or business flashes across my radar that stands out - I've shared them with you before... www.clientattraction.com was one (I liked the squeeze page if you remember)... and in this blog I'd like to share with you another great website that I believe will assist you in developing your practice... Azimuth Dental a dental coaching company.

The main reason I like Azimuth is that their guiding principles match mine... namely to help our clients build a relationship with their patients that is so well formed and based on trust that the need for 'selling' is eliminated.... my business is focused around doing this before the patient visits the surgery and Azimuth's focus is on when the patient arrives at your practice.

Azimuth also share my philosophy - 'connect and share'.

Connect and Share
Gone are the days in business where everyone holds their cards to their chest, not showing or sharing anything with anyone. Today's businesses are about relationships and developing those relationships to a level that is meaningful. Once this happens there is no need for this constant push to SELL SELL SELL - patients should buy FROM you not be SOLD TO - marketing is an interaction, not an action and reaction

Did you get that last sentence? Marketing (and modern business) is not an action and reaction, it is an interaction - and this is what I like about Azimuth, they take this message on board and live by it - take for example their dental coaching website. Members can join, then simply connect with one another and share... kind of like a dental Twitter.

Each member of their website can 'follow' another and be 'followed' back - this encourages a level of interactivity and exchange that is often so lacking in business.

A Challenge for you
This idea of getting your customers/clients/patients to connect and interact is a powerful idea, I recommend you read Seth Godin's book 'Tribes' to find out more. I also challenge you to think about your business, and to ask "In what ways do I connect and share with my customers?" - think about the interactions with your customers and forget about the selling for a bit.

Azimuth have also just added 3 more members to their service delivery team - it's great to see a young company embrace a new way of doing business and growing because of it. I've learnt a lot over the past few months that I have been interacting with Azimuth on Twitter, Facebook and their blog and look forward to learning more...

Stay sharp guys,

Mark

P.S. Azimuth have just launched a Free Dental Event "How you can stop trying to sell to your patients and still have a business" on 17th December, I'll be there and look forward to seeing you too! Please have a look at the website then email kevin@azimuthdental.com to book.

I do not take any form of inducement to include any company in my blog posts, so please don't ask!

Dental Business Cards, SEO & Writing A Dental Blog!!

2009-09-14T10:33:00.000+01:00

Dental Business Cards, SEO & Writing A Dental Blog... seems an odd mix, so what do they all have in common?

I'll take (Search Engine Optimisation) SEO first.

SEO
Optimising a website to appear top of a Google search, or even to occupy every search result for a chosen key word, is the holy grail of most websites... getting to the top of a search means you get found and once your site is found you can work your marketing magic and close a sale (Yeh I know that's bit of a summary, but closing a sale from a website is a topic for another blog post perhaps).

But have you heard of 'long tail key words'? Long tail key words are long searches or phrases that people type in to search engines to find answers to their problems or stuff they are looking for. Examples could be:

implant dental laboratory in london
dental surgery specialising in veneers
marketing consultant for dentists
cosmetic veneers for short teeth

Now the thing is, many websites are search engine optimised (SEOd) for searches based on short key words, such as

london dentist
veneers harlow
implants northampton

This isn't a problem, but research has shown that if a person types a very specific phrase - a long tail key word - the conversion rate is VERY high, a high conversion rate means a high ROI, and we all like that don't we! The conversion rates are higher as it looks as though your site has been tailored exclusively for them and their search criteria.

So optimising your site for Long Tail Keywords is a great way to get good response rates.

So how do find out what long tail key words are good?

Just do a search on Google and you will find loads of clever (and probably very good) software to buy. I prefer not to buy anything I don't have to, so I use a website called statcounter. This is a free bit of software that sits on your website gathering data about what was typed in to the search engines to get to your site, it's not the most sophisticated software by any means, but it provides the beginner with just enough data to get going.

Now here comes the link for this blog with Dental Business Cards... look at the results for the past week or so for my blog...

11.36% of visitors ended up at the blog by typing Dental Business Cards, a complete accident on my part. I didn't plan it this way, I just wrote an article on Dental Business Cards because it seemed like a good idea... but it got picked up by the search engines and is a great example of a long tail key word/phrase.

And now this is where the Dental Blog part comes in.... I suggest you:

Write a blog, write lots of articles and get that blog networked around the internet (A whole other blog post I fear)
Instal Statcounter or similar
Once you know the phrases that draw people to your blog... USE THESE PHRASES AS BLOG TITLES!

Wow, yeah, do you get it? This is a MEGA way to get people to read your blog and get it found... write blogs that contain your long tail key words/phrases, you'll inevitably write more engaging content as people WANT to read it, and when they get to your blog after typing such a specific phrase only to find YOU have written a blog about THEIR specific problem... guess what, so long as you have good mechanisms in place, you'll get higher conversion rates.

If you do this, you know your blog will be found and you know what search terms people will type to get there AND you know that once they get there conversion rates will be higher because you have been so specific

Of course you need to write the blog and get it networked a bit to increase the chance of search engines finding it, if you need help with this... just call (07769 898798), email, Tweet or Facebook

Until next time,

Stay sharp,

Mark

How to design a dental website

2009-09-04T12:33:00.004+01:00

On my continuous travels around the internet I get to see loads of dental websites. Many suffer from the same problems, here's my top 10 list of common mistakes:

They place aesthetics over function.
Missing or weak 'calls to action' i.e. tell the visitor in no uncertain terms what they gotta do now, tell them nothing and guess what, they'll do nothing!
They talk about products and services not solutions to problems
They make no attempt to counter prospective patient objections
They are too generic and do not make the dentist look like an absolute expert in their field... more of a 'jack of all trades' (whitening, implants, cosmetics, ortho, botox etc)
No analytics are running. Who visited the site? Where did they come from? What are the 'hot' pages on the site? How long did they spend on the site? Who is linking to the site?
Weak 'copy' (the text is not compelling)
There is no up to date content on the site so the site looks dead, e.g. Blog or Twitter feed
The site is no mechanism to gather targeted data from prospective patients in order to market to them at a later date with information they are interested in
The sites don't have any emotion. People buy with emotion and justify with logic, tap in to the emotion first!

Now here are my top questions you should ask yourself when reviewing or designing a website.

'What does my site DO'? What is it's purpose?
Once I know what my sites DOES, how am I going to measure it's performance - what metrics best reflect what my site DOES
How am I going to convert visitors to leads i.e. add visitors' contact details to a database
How am I going to convert those leads to patients?
How can I ensure people keep coming back for more?
How can I use my site to start to develop a relationship with the visitor?

Measuring site performance is crucial. If you know how much your ad campaign costs, then you need to know % conversion to leads and % conversion to patients and then average patient value. Without this data you are throwing your hard earned money away!

Here are a few resources you may find useful.

Article on calculating ROI

Perry Belcher Video on the law of consistency

Short article on how to write a compelling headline

So now the home work. Pop over to your website and take a fresh look, look at each of my top 10 mistakes and ask yourself... 'Am I doing this?'

Any advice required, just reply to this email or make a comment on the blog and I'll answer for all to share....

Stay sharp,

Mark

Make becoming a patient in your dental business FUN!

2009-08-18T09:23:00.010+01:00

Hi there,

Here's a wee question for you... When does your 'patient or customer journey' that so many people talk about, start? The minute they walk through your door? The minute they make an appointment? The first time you speak to them on the phone?

I believe the journey starts the split second they FIRST make ANY contact with you... your website, your advert, your business card or a recommendation. I believe that your 'surgery experience' should say something about you and reflect your practice THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS OF BECOMING A PATIENT or CUSTOMER. Throughout the process that leads them to make that first physical contact with you.

I'm not going to give you a 1,2,3 step by step guide on how to improve your patient journey, but I would like to share a few little tricks I have learnt along the way. These tricks work for me and have produced some encouraging comments from the people that have experienced them...

Video
I would strongly encourage you to buy a flipcam and record some videos. Video messages always seem more personal than written text, you can use your face and body language to engage with your prospect much easier than you can with written text.

Use videos for marketing on your website, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter - if you make an amusing video people may even send it to their friends and you could have a viral video on your hands. Remember, the video of Susan Boyle's audition on Britains Got Talent had more views than Barak Obama's inauguration ceremony because of the power of viral video marketing.

Remember in your video marketing message all the same rules apply... pain, your unique solution, direct call to action.

Right, so with your video call to action what do you get them to do?

I would suggest you encourage them to enter their details in a form in exchange for a Knock 'Em Dead Offer (KEDO) from you. This offer could be money off vouchers, or an eBook help guide to help them on the journey to solving their dental problem.

When they submit their form they will then need to verify their email address (you know the kind of thing, you enter your details on a website and get a little message which says 'we want to make sure you want our email, we have sent you a verification message, please check your emails and click on the link we have sent you'.)

My suggestions is to make THIS part in video. So when they click on submit, to send their details to you, have a video message of YOU saying the text above, brand it to look like your main website... it is a great way of starting to engage with your prospect.

Right, next step....

When they click on the link in the email to verify their email address send them automatically to another video of you saying 'Hi, thanks for verifying your email address and requesting more information from us blah, blah, blah'

This really looks great, think about it, it all happens in the space of about 5 minutes. They watch a video of you talking about their dental problem, they start to feel they trust you as you look great and have trusting eyes! You tell them they can get more info from you, they enter their details, click submit and get another video from you. They then pop over to their emails, click verify and get another video. All the time, slowly, slowly you are building trust, building that relationship so by the time they actually come to the surgery they feel like they know you already!

Some might suggest this is a long process, it's not... remember YOU need to motivate them to enter their details with a seriously good KEDO. If the KEDO is not powerful enough they won't go through this process.

In this litle series of videos, why not let a story unfold. yu could start by being outside the surgery walking towards it, next video is of you in the reception area, next video is in the surgey itself. It all builds familiarity and trust for the patient.

Powerful stuff huh?

So what's the result... well, you have started to build trust and familiarity AND you have got their details for further marketing activity AND you can measure conversion rates from marketing activity AND you can now measure ROI from marketing activity!

Setting all this up is quite simple and requires minimal 'techy' knowledge. I use a company called Aweber, to manage the links, forms and emails for me and I simply upload the videos to my own webspace. If you want help setting this up, just give me a call on 07769 898798 or email me info@markoborn.com

Stay sharp,

Mark

P.S. For YOUR free guide on eMarketing, including how to create engaging emails and how to get your website to the top of a Google search please visit my dental marketing website.

How to use a dental blog and squeeze pages in your marketing

2009-08-06T14:18:00.003+01:00

In this blog post I will show you (via the medium of video) how to set up a dental blog to be used for dental practice marketing. I will talk specifically about how the blog should be managed and how it can be incorporated in to your marketing strategy to drive patients through your door.

When used well a blog is THE single most important tool in your eMarketing tool kit... so don't spanner about and use it properly.

I will then talk you through the use of squeeze pages which are an excellent way of ethically marketing to prospective patients. Squeeze pages allow you to build data warehouses of people interested in your practice... powerful stuff!

The video is about 10 minutes... but take some time out to watch it to the end as this could be the best 10 minutes of time you could invest in your practice.

If you can't see this video, then click to watch it on YouTube.

The link to my simple guide on setting up a dental blog and squeeze page is here. In the guide I will show you:

The best way to structure a squeeze page
How to word it for the absolute best results
The importance of social proof
Some simple cheap and effective software to manage you prospective patient database

So make sure you download your guide and make your dental marketing more effective.

TTFN

Mark

Make your dental marketing stand out

2009-07-28T10:37:00.002+01:00

This blog is a rant.

Do you want your marketing to work better than it ever has before?

Do you want your dental business to stand out from the crowd so your customers SHOUT from the roof tops 'I HAVE TO GO TO THIS DENTIST'?

Yes? Then you'll like this rant.

Rant begins:

1. Stop being ordinary. Ordinary is the easy & lazy option.

2. Look at your competition and DO THE OPPOSITE, this means:

look at their websites, now do something different with yours
look at their ads in the press, now do something different with yours
Call them up after hours and listen to their answer phone message, now do something different with yours
Subscribe to their blog, read it, now do something different with yours (you do have blog DON'T YOU!)
Look at the outside of their practice, now do something different with yours

3. Work through every 'contact' you have with a new prospect and track the journey to becoming a patient. Now for every 'contact' they have with you smack 'em between the eyes with something different. No, I mean SMACK 'EM BETWEEN THE EYES so you stand out. So they just shout WOAH, I wasn't expecting that.

4. If you think to yourself 'I am a dentist and dentists do things like this' you are making yourself blend in. If you blend in game over.

5. Sack your web designer (Thanks Tony Gedge for that one!) All they want to do is make a pretty website. Pretty doesn't sell. Pretty blends in. Pretty doesn't SMACK 'EM BETWEEN THE EYES.

6. Sack your marketing company. Often all they want to do is make pretty adverts and stationary. Pretty doesn't sell. Pretty blends in. Pretty doesn't SMACK 'EM BETWEEN THE EYES.

7. Buy Seth Godin's book 'The Purple Cow' and read it cover to cover. Have a pen and notepad at the ready.

8. Look at all your marketing and ask 'what does it do?' Most marketing from dental practices fails to have a definite, firm and unequivocable CALL TO ACTION. This means on your marketing:

Give people a reason to visit your website 'Download your FREE guide to XYZ in 10 easy steps NOW from our website www.XYZ.com'
Tell prospective patients what to do at every step, and then guide them simply and easily through every step to becoming patient, telling them what to do each time. e.g. click on this link, call the surgery now, send an email now, come to our oipen evening. Don't leave it to chance and hope they do it. TELL THEM EXACTLY WHAT TO DO

Rant ends.

To the practice that inspired this, you know who you are - and I still love you :-)

Stay Sharp guys,

Mark

For a different and Smack 'em Between The Eyes approach to dental practice marketing just give me a call 07769 898798 or email me info@markoborn.com for a review of your current eMarketing strategy.

Market segmentation for dentally targeted marketing

2009-07-20T08:20:00.005+01:00

Yes, yeh, that old chestnut again... targeting!

But wait, in this blog post I am going to share with you a great online technique AND a software program that can manage this very effectively for you.

Before I get going, you may want some revision on targeting, so here are some previous posts I have written on this subject.

Now to the practical stuff.

If you have started down the road of eMarketing, you may have a sign up box for a newsletter, or a 'contact us' form on your website, some surgeries have a 'fill in this form for your free consultation'. This is all great and is a good start to getting your website working effectively for you.

But if you do this, you are missing a trick... these people are NOT segmented, you have no idea if the person that fills in the form is interested in whitening their teeth, if they have dental pain, if they have dentures which keep falling out or teeth that are crooked and misaligned.

So the purpose of collecting their data (to market to them and get them to come to the practice,) is weakened, as you are unable to speak personally to them about their specific problem. The more specific you can speak to your prospects, the more compelling your marketing message will be.

Now lets look at an alternative.

Step 1:
Set up a small single page website that is dedicated to ONE problem. It could be dedicated to patients with dental phobia, or with crooked teeth, or with dark discoloured teeth. The site should be highly optimised for the search engines and speak specifically to the people with THAT specific problem.

There should be no other distractions on the site... simply talk about their problem, talk about your unique solution, then offer a Knock Em Dead Offer (thanks Chris Barrow for that one). The best offers are in the form of a free help guide download or a simple 4 email eCourse on how they can go some way to solving their problem. The offer should offer instant gratification by helping them... this is why eMarketing is so powerful as this is possible by using downloads etc.

Step2 :
On this page put a sign up form to your eCourse or download. Now make sure that this form puts the data of the people that subscribe on to a specific list. A list that ONLY has people that are interested in solving that particular problem. Aweber offer a great service for this, their software is $19 per month and allows you to 'list build' in this way.

Step 3:
ALL future marketing that goes to these people can now be highly targeted. You know what their dental problem is... so show them loads of great ways of solving it by coming to your surgery.

Step 4:
Provide a link to your main website. In a recent Chris Barrow blog post he says this is:

The door opener.

The sprat to catch the mackerel.

Start by giving people what they want – it will get them in the door – and then you can weave your magic.

This is an excellent way to describe what we are doing here. We target our marketing to specific people, gather their details by offering a KEDO, then you weave your magic with the other services you offer by placing a link to your main website... but only after they have provided their details and added themselves to a specific list of people with a particlular dental problem.

Step 5:

ALL future marketing that is related to this specific dental problem then needs to direct prospects to your new single page website. So if you do a whitening offer in a local publication.. DON'T GIVE THEM YOUR REGULAR WEBSITE, instead, point them at your new single page 'Whitening' website... here you talk specifically to them, gather their details and measure your Return on Investment much easier.

Summary:

All this ensures your marketing is co-ordinated across all mediums (online, printed, publications) it allows for easier ROI calculations and is far more effective than using you main website for specific marketing excercises.

If you want help on setting this up or want your website SEO'd then please just give me a call 07769 898798 or email me info@markoborn.com or visit my dental marketing website

Until next time,

Stay sharp,

Mark

Social Proof

2009-07-12T11:24:00.003+01:00

How many of you guys have testimonials displayed in your surgery?

What about on your website?

And in your marketing literature?

I would hope that most (if not all) answered yes to that question... testimonials are part of a phenomenon that's called 'social proof', and there is a rule for social proof that states:

people follow the most common course of action

Goldstein, Martin & Cialdini 2007 "50 Secrets from the science of persuasion" Profile Books, London, ISBN 9781846680168, p18

Now this is a phenomenon that can be exploited and used to our marketing advantage, if our customers are aware of the number of people we have helped then it becomes easier to sell our products and services.

For example, a communication that says "Over 200 people this year alone have benefited from our Invisalign "Invisible orthodontics" program" is much more powerful than "Our Invisilign Orthodontic program can help you".

Do you see what I mean?

Beware of negative social proof
The law of social proof says that people follow the most common course of action right... cool, glad you've got it... BUT if we inadvertantly tell our customers that the majority of people do the opposite to the activity we are trying to promote, then guess what.. our marketing is back firing... BIG TIME.

Here's the example Goldstein et al cite in their excellent book.

The Petrified Forest National Park in the USA were having a problem with visitors stealing little bits of the petrified forest, and bit by bit the National Park was being eroded away by visitors.

So they decided to put up a sign which read:

"Many past visitors have removed wood from the park, changing the natural state of the Petrified Forest"

This is negative social proof as it is saying that MANY visitors have stolen, making it look like the most common course of action.

Goldstein et al decided to run an experiment an monitor the amount of wood removed with different signs... I won't bore you with the details, but they marked pieces of wood and recorded the amount taken by visitors when they were shown different signs. To monitor the effect of different signs they used another sign which read:

"Please don't remove petrified wood from the park"

The first sign with the negative social proof resulted in 7.92% of visitors removing wood, the second sign with no social proof resulted in 2.92% of visitors removing wood. They showed people follow the most common course of action EVEN IF THAT ACTION IS NEGATIVE!

So how does this relate to dentistry?

Well, how many times have you quoted research to your patient with negative social proof similar to "research has shown that 75% of patients don't floss, this results in a a higher carious rate" - this is negative social proof.

You may have been trying to tell the patient to floss, but you have told them that 75% of patients don't... so you have actually told them the most common course of action is NOT to floss... so you have done the complete opposite!

Marketing messages with negative social proof will convince the reader to follow the most common course of action, so what should you do now?

Take a look round your surgery, look at the posters on the wall... is there negative social proof that is harming your marketing
Think about what you say to patients, are you using negative social proof to tell them to do the opposite of what you intend?
Look at you current marketing literature, is all social proof positive? If not reword it to be so

So have you got any examples you are willing to share with the readers of this blog? Go on, be brave and comment!

I look forward to hearing your own experiences, cheers for now.

Stay sharp,

Mark

For more advice and help on dental marketing please visit my website

An entire MBA in one blog post

2009-06-18T09:42:00.014+01:00

Self promotion can often seem a bit crass.. but you know what, I have studied for 4 1/2 years on my MBA, given up 15 hours a week for that time with NO break... yes, back to back courses for the entire time with not one break... 4 Christmas days spent writing essays... so on this occasion I don't care if it seems crass, I recon I have earnt it!

So, what is this blog post about?

Well, I thought it would be good to share some of the things I have learnt... an entire MBA in one blog post... an entire MBA in 3 lessons, is that really possible? Well let's see shall we...

Lesson 1:

Tenacity

What this experience has taught me is that things that are worth it are worth working and fighting for. An MBA with the Open University is not a degree in business, its a degree in tenacity. Focus... Head down and work.. no distractions, just work. Now that's a lesson for business is it not?

The thing which kept me going was the final goal, everything lead to the final result and this provided the motivation. Without that final goal and 'reason to be' I would have given up many times.

So where is your business going? What is your 'reason to be'?

What are you trying to achieve?

Your business is a work in progress right, so what will it look like when its finished?

Answer those questions and now you have a reason for your business. Now focus... head down and work.. no distractions, just work to achieve that goal. Things will get tough, but don't stop, just keep going.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

Andrew Carnegie

Lesson 2:

Just do it

I used to come up with lots of reasons why I couldn't do something. "I can't start this new project because I haven't quite got enough money" or "I've got this brilliant idea that I know will be a success but I just can't get it going".

Enough, no more - now I just get on with it. 4 1/2 years ago I decided I wanted to do an MBA, there were loads of reasons why I shouldn't... I have 4 kids, I have a business to run, it's going to cost >£10,000, plus loads more reasons NOT to do it.

I could easily have procrastinated for the last 4 1/2 years and still be no further on. But I didn't, I just got on with it, and now it's done.

How many things have you put off in the past, that if you had just started you would be reaping the rewards by now?

Richard Branson has often been quoted as saying that 'it's not that only the priveledged few have great ideas, it's just that the succesful people do something about those great ideas' and in a recent interview with LBC, Deborah Meaden from Dragon's Den was promoting her new book and when asked for the single biggest tip she could give for a successful business she replied "Just get off your backside and do it!"

Lesson 3:

Treat success and failure as the same thing

How do you view failure? If you fail do you get down in the dumps and depressed? If someone in your company fails do you come down on them really hard and punish them?

A massive lesson I have learnt is to treat success and failure in the same way. They are both outcomes of an action and certain questions can be asked.

If a project fails ask the questions:

Was the project designed well?
Could the failure have been prevented by researching more before hand?
Did the project fail because some people didn't participate as much as they could?
Was the desired outcome realistic in the first place
Were the same mistake made repeatedly?

If a project succeeds ask the questions:

Was the success due to the project being designed well?
Was the success down to good research?
Was the success due to people working well together?
Was the desired outcome realistic or too easy?
Were the sucess due to fortunate circumstances outside of peoples control?

Similar questions huh? You see, by treating success and failure in similar ways we learn.. and that is the key. To develop a dental surgery where people learn, where people aren't afraid to fail for fear of what you will do, but are willing to take a calculated risk and try something new and different. Something new and different could give you that competitive advantage you crave, so the question is... do you foster an environment in you business for something 'different and new'?

And when you think about it failure is just an outcome you weren't expecting... so failure doesn't exist, failure is simply a word we use for feedback on how you should do it again differently next time.

Charles Kettering of General Motors (who lead the company to the height of its success) said

'I have been wrong 99.9% of the time. It's not a disgrace to fail... you must analyse each failure to find its cause... you must find how to fail intelligently. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. One fails towards success'

These are probably the 3 biggest lessons I learnt throughout my studies, sure there were loads of great business ideas too... but these 3 things stand out the most.

So, where now?

I challenge you to answer the questions I pose above and feel free to leave your thoughts on this blog in the comments section.

As ever, stay sharp

Mark

For more information on dentist marketing and dental web marketing services please visit dental business website

FREE Webinar "How to turn your dental website in to lead generating machine"

2009-06-14T17:15:00.002+01:00

In a recent article in the business section of the TIMESONLINE Theo Paphitis commented that...

"Those who are brave can steal market share in the recession.

“While larger enterprises are cutting their overheads in order to survive, more light-footed small businesses with lower overheads can give it their all.

“Good website design is better value than it has ever been and while it will cut your margins, pay per click and affiliate campaigns can reap rewards.

“Unless you're a specialist, get advice from trusted professionals.”

Read the full article

Never before has great web-design and optimisation been of benefit to a dental surgery, here are some of the advantages of web marketing:

It can be ultra low cost
It can be automated to ensure you spend more time in your surgery
It can generate a high number of high quality leads very quickly
Return on Investment can be easily measured

So here is a great opportunity to find out...

How to get your website found time and time again
How to appeal to the right patients
How to drive those right patients to your website
How to compel those right patients to contact the surgery
How to do all this automatically while you spend time being a dentist!

Participation on this 1 hour webinar is free and requires no knowledge of computers. All you need is a computer connected to the internet, everything else is automated.

DATE: TUESDAY 14th July 2009

TIME: 1800 (UK time)

VENUE: In front of your computer with a relaxing glass of wine

Places are limited to 20, so please book early

To register simply enter your details here and tick the box 'Webinar'. As an added bonus I will also send you my FREE eBook on eMarketing your practice.

Please visit my dental marketing website to book

The perfect dental business card

2009-06-03T21:20:00.008+01:00

It's strange how sometimes you make a quick comment without really thinking about it, and all of a sudden it turns in to something bigger.

Well that happened to me recently, I put on Twitter a short little 140 character message about how I thought a business cards should be designed... and all of a sudden I pick up a host of new followers (10 today), it gets re-tweeted 3 times and I get a flurry of direct messages giving me other ideas ... so I thought I would elaborate in this blog post about my thoughts on business cards.

Thought 1:

What are business cards for?

They used to be a way of simply exchanging ones details with someone else. I've always had business cards, because that's what one does! Mine were always a bit boring, just Name, Address, Phone, Email etc... you get the picture.

Thought 2:

Can the same thing be achieved in other ways?

With modern technology.. oh yes! If someone asks me at a conference nowadays for my details I can instantly email them from my crackberry, ALL the miriad of ways of contacting me are then in my email signature. I could also SMS them my contact details direct from my mobile phone, I could give them my web address where once again the mirad of ways of contacting me are there... and failing all that, when they get home they can simply google my name and find me in 0.44 seconds.

The old classic business card is therefore dead in my opinion, it's function has been superceded by modern technology.

Thought 3:

Should we forget about business cards then?

No. People still ask for them and like to 'collect' them in their neat little holders.

Thought 4:

Can I still have that little bit of card that looks like a business card, but turn it something that DOES something!

aha, what if we could give someone a little piece of card that they THINK is a business card, but in actual fact is a robust way of marketing directly to them, developing a relationship with them, gaining permission to market to them with a measurable 'return on business card investment'.

This is the way I think business cards should be designed.

You need to understand your market and target customers, what problems are your customers trying to solve by using your business? As a dentist your customers are trying to solve problems with discoloured teeth, or gaps or any number of other dental issues. Think about your customers now... what problems are they trying to solve?

Now you know the problem, what emotion does that evoke? Fear, worry, stress? Now you have the problems and a related emotion THIS IS what goes on one side of your business cards.

"Do you fear your smile lets you down?"
"Do you worry your teeth are too dark?"
"Is your uneven smile preventing you from doing the things you love?"

This way your cards instantly talk to the prospect, you instantly create a link in their mind to their problem. Now on the other side you put your name and contact details AND POINT THEM TO YOUR WEBSITE where they can download a free guide you have written that goes someway to solving their problem. Once on your website they will need to fill in their details, you will then email them their free help guide. Tell them to put the reference 'business card' in to the form.

Now you can:

Market directly to these people as they have given you permission to by providing their details

AND

Measure the return on investment from your cards.

This is the perfect way of combining offline and online marketing and uses the benefits of each in a unique way.

For more marketing advice on for a dental surgery or dental business please visit my dental marketing website.

Stay sharp,

Mark

GUEST BLOG BY TONY GEDGE

2009-05-19T21:07:00.003+01:00

This blog post is a guest blog by Tony Gedge from Marketing Pirates of Dentistry. As usual, your comments are most welcome. Stay sharp, Mark

THE NEW

RETURN ON

INVESTMENT RULES
for private dentists

Video and Free Report

Tired of cosmetic dentistry in decline? Tired of waiting for patients to magically appear? And sick of patients cancelling treatment plans? If so, get your FREE New Return On Investment Rules For Private Dentists Video & Report and discover how you can quickly and easily change your family’s security.

This never seen before information is from a recent "State Of Private Practice Recession Survey." NOTE: Enter your correct email as this is where the New Return On Investment Rules For Private Dentists video and report will be sent to

Get your report here

The private practice profession is tougher than ever right now. There are fewer patients to go around. And the old stuff that used to drive traffic isn't working anymore. TRADITIONAL MARKETING IS DEAD!

Things have DRAMATICALLY changed. It's a New and Improved Economy out there. And to succeed in today's new and improved economy, you're going to have to learn NEW (Return On Investment) RULES of private practice marketing.

This brand new dental renegades of recession video and immunity to recession emergency survival tool kit reveals The New (Return On Investment) Rules of private practice marketing and shows you exactly what you need to know toattract, retain patients, how to get existing patients spending again and double your sales and profits in the new and improved economy. This is smart advice for creating and executing a return on investment plan that will work for you.

You'll access the NEW (RETURN ON INVESTMENT) RULES video immediately and receive a free report via email.

About The Author

Tony Gedge is founder of Marketing Pirates of Dentistry and provide instant high return on investment through profitable ‘done for you marketing’ systems and strategies. That your team can implement. Leaving you to start enjoying private dentistry again.

Providing Extreme Value To Our Members. We Care About Your Success.

Making sure you don’t get ripped off by “peddlers of advertising and marketing” that doesn’t work anymore.

“There Are Opportunities Like Never Before

For Those Who Will Be Innovative”

“Thank you and your team for a really enjoyable stimulating couple of days. I learned a shed load of information so again thank you.
You have amassed a massive amount of very useful information and are very good at collating it (Spelling mistakes and all)

I am excited about what you do and can see how it can be applied very beneficially to change how any business works. Dentistry is changing irreversibly and there are opportunities like never before out there for those who will be innovative.

---Dr John Barry, Multiple Practice Owner, Multiple Entrepreneur and Former CEO of Isoplan

“Thanks For Your Hidden Gems”

Even though I haven't attended the seminars I have learnt a lot from the Auto Pilot Marketing System For Private Dentists and information from the printed newsletters.

I want to say that I want to personally thank you guys for your hidden gems.

---Dave Basrai, Chafford 100 Dental Centre

Do something remarkable with your dental surgery or laboratory

2009-05-17T11:27:00.005+01:00

What is it that you do in your dental business that can be remarked upon?

Is what you THINK you do so compelling that your customers/patients simply HAVE to talk about you?

As technical dental professionals we get caught up in the DOING. We get caught up in what's technically or clinically right or wrong. We get caught up in things our customers just don't care about!

Most patients are not interested in whether the ceramic used is feldspar/quartz or lithium discillicate. Most patients aren't interested in whether you use an Ankylos implant or Nobel Biocare... what they are interested in is the result. However, is the result going to be enough for them to be running home to tell EVERYONE about your services?

Well, in some cases yes, particularly with large reconstruction cases... but what about the regular work you do...

... are they going to be running home to shout from the roof tops about the direct composite you just did distally on an upper 7?...

... are they going to be telling people at the party they are going to tonight about the excellent root treatment you just did? (surely they must, after all you just spent £3000 on an endo course AND you took a week off work to do that course... they must care about THAT, mustn't they??)

Now, I ask the question again "What is it that you do in your dental business that can be remarked upon?"

and

"Is what you THINK you do so compelling that your customers/patients simply HAVE to talk about you?"

In most cases I recon NOT, so what's the answer?

Paddi Lund is a great exponent of this, many people totally miss the point with Paddy Lund, I am not going to get in to all the things Paddy does, however here are 3 things:

He has no signage on the pratice other than a small brass plaque which says "Patrick Lund Dental Happiness, by invitation only"
The front door of the practice is locked
He has an old fashioned coffee machine. It is one of those machines that spluts and spurts and has loads of levers and buttons which need to be pressed to make the perfect coffee. He uses this to make a coffee for each of his patients. It's not a coffee machine, it's a piece of theatre.

Now, what do his patients run home to talk about? His RCTs or his direct composites? No, they go home and tell a story about their experience..

"Guess what, I went to the dentist today and...can you beleive this... his front door was locked...when he let me in he made me this stunning coffee from this fantastic machine, this machine etc etc etc"

Paddy has done something remarkable, something about which to be remarked; he has created an experience where he defies his patient not to talk about...they simply can't resist telling their friends.

So what can you do? Here are some thoughts:

Create an unusual entrance lobby (In my new lab we are building a doodle wall, everyone that comes in will be invited to doodle on the wall. I will provide water colours and inks; each person will be encourage to take part and be creative. Nothing to do with making teeth, but something about which to remark!)
Have an unusual work of art, and site it so that patients see it. Encourage them to interact with it or comment on it. Or even make it!
Greet them in an unusual way, anything that is unexpected
Change your answer phone message to someting they are not expecting
Send unusual or amusing recal letters
Have theme days in the surgery - what about a 70s day, all patients to come in 70s gear and play 70s music all day..I defy any patient to NOT talk about it!
Create a customer service extravaganza on your website... live chat, feedback options, patient's only area where they can book appointments, anything to engage and interact with your patients
Promote your patient's businesses by Tweeting about them on Twitter

YOU may not like it, but often the wackier the better... do anything to MAKE your patients go home and say to their friends...

"You'll NEVER guess what happened at the dentist today..."

And finally go and buy Seth Godin's book "The Big Moo", it will change the way you think about dental business marketing and what is important to your customers.

So the question now remains open to you... what are you going to do? Why not comment on this blog post and join in the discussion.

As always, stay sharp.

Mark

Don't take your foot off the gas

2009-05-09T16:08:00.004+01:00

As many of you know we have recently moved the laboratory from central London out to Hertfordhsire. It's taken hours and hours of time and effort (every member of staff worked an 85 hour week last week to get the move done), we are all exhausted...I am exhausted.

The result of this has been that I haven't interacted on Twitter, Facebook or done anything with my marketing website this past 2 weeks, and what I want to share with you in this blog is the result of that inactivity.
As you can see it resulted in a 32% drop in website visits, evident from the downward slide on the graph and the stats above it.

My Twitter followers also have all but stoppped. When I tweet regularly I typically pick up around 2-5 followers per day. This week I have only picked up 3.

This shows that in order for your marketing to be successful you need to keep going, you simply can't take you foot off the gas...and it's especially important in today's environment. You need to stand out, you need to be doing and saying something that can be remarked upon.

By being remarkable you stand out and you begin to connect with your followers/patients.

Marketing is an interaction, not an action and reaction.

You can only interact using multiple messages aimed at specific people, if you don't interact you aren't marketing anywhere near as effectively as you could. This is what I did over the last 2 weeks, I stopped interacting and I can measure the direct result.

You can't expect to interact with only 1 or 2 messages, this goes for offline literature marketing, or online social network marketing.

So I urge you now to get cracking again, get your foot back firmly on the gas. Interact. Join in. Do something which can be remarked upon. Then measure, measure, measure, act on those measurements and measure, measure, measure again.

twitter marketing

2009-04-29T19:34:00.001+01:00

Hi, I thought you may be interested in this eCourse I am running from 25th May (Don't worry if you are away, it is delivered via email so will be there when you get back!)

Course Content:

Delivered via 6 daily emails.
1. How to utilise the FULL value of social networking on Twitter by understanding marketing principles
2. How to set up and manage a Twitter account
3. How to make YOUR message on Twitter more compelling than others
4. How to utilise the full power of Twitter using other applications to find and communicate with new patients and add value to your surgery's offering
5. How to integrate Twitter in to a social network marketing strategy
6. How to design and measure an online targeted marketing campaign

To register, simply follow the link from my home page http://www.markoborn.com

Stay sharp,

Mark

Don't use your company name on Twitter or Facebook

2009-04-12T10:31:00.004+01:00

My lovely wife is studying for a psychology degree at the moment. There is often an overlap with business in the things she studies….well this week she has been looking at identity. This is particularly interesting for me when thinking about social networks and how they can be used for business.

It seems more and more individuals, and companies, are jumping on to the social networking band wagon. Many dental surgeries already have their own Facebook groups and even their own Facebook identities.

However I see some problems here. Problems with identity.

Social networks build relationships, they enable people to connect in new and exciting ways; they allow them to share information, help each other out, provide links to web resources and promote other people and build other people up.

With the small businesses that most of the readers of this blog run, our customers buy from us. They don’t buy from XYZ Dental Surgery, they don’t buy from XYZ Dental Laboratory…they buy from Dr XYZ (Dentist) or Mr XYZ (Dental Technician).

This is an important point. In small business people buy from individuals, not faceless organisations. People won’t buy from people they don’t like. People WILL buy from people they do like.

So if we marry these principles… (1) People buy from people they like and (2) social networks are there to connect and share, why oh why do so many surgeries insist on using their surgery name, or labs insist to using their laboratory name as their Facebook profile or even worse, their Twitter name.

Now think of me as a potential customer.

If I am a potential customer of your business, how can I start to build a relationship with a Facebook or Twitter profile that uses a company name? How can I build a relationship with a Facebook or Twitter photo/avatar of your surgery front door or logo?

Social networking is about being SOCIAL. Companies aren’t social…YOU are.

By all means set up a company Facebook group or page…but have YOU as the administrator. As a customer I can then have a relationship with YOU and find out more about your company at the same time.

On Twitter you just can’t be a company…sorry! If you do, you are totally missing the point.

So lets get personal, show me your character, help me out, show me you care about me, point me in the direction of some great resources, but above all build a relationship with me and I might just buy from you…not your company, but YOU!

Stay Sharp,

Mark

For more information on building your practice with social networking please visit my dental business consultant and dental marketing website.

Share and share alike

2009-03-31T20:19:00.005+01:00

I have 4 children.

4 children means me breaking up squabbles quite a bit.

4 children means lots of squabbles about sharing.

And that's what I want to talk about in this blog post...sharing...and with 4 kids I'm an expert at sharing :-)

Sharing is also what web 2.0 is all about. Let me give you an example.

Earlier this week I picked up a new follower on Twitter, whenever this happens I try to take a look at their profile and if they look interesting I send a direct message thanking them for the 'follow' with a little comment about them, their website or blog.

So, this new follower was Richard from Warlingham Green Dental Clinic. As usual, I looked at his

website and sent him a direct message. I always try to make a relevent comment so I complimented him on what I thought was a very good website, lots of pain and great copy that leads to a logical conclusion...'enter your contact details here'.

He also has a really great 'tag cloud' at the top of the site which acts as a navigation feature. I love this, I think it is a really great way of navigating through a site and different! My mind immediately started racing...how can I use that? How can I alter my site to have better navigation? I love the colours he uses, could I use those anywhere?...and so on...

When Richard replied to my direct message to him, he said he got the idea of the tag cloud from me! WOAH, I didn't see THAT coming.

Here are our tags clouds together.

Mine:

And Richard's improved version:

The point is that I didn't recognise this as being a direct copy of mine....because it wasn't. Richard had taken the essence of it, improved it, manipulated it and used it for himself. I can now use Richard's new version and do exactly the same thing again.

Web 2.o is allowing us to share, creatively swipe ideas and improve BOTH our websites together.

So I challenge you now to share.

I challenge you to share without worrying that you will lose out.

Share on Twitter, share on Facebook, share on your blog, share everywhere...this is the new internet...I challenge you to make it the new you too.

Mark

Straumann UK e-marketing seminar in association with Mark Oborn

2009-03-23T15:12:00.001Z

Hi,

Just thought you may be interested in this presentation I am doing for Straumann UK on e-marketing.

It will address the following:
The 3 biggest secrets to marketing success that the professionals won't tell you
The 3 biggest mistakes that people make when taking marketing online
How to use social networking sites as referal bases
How to become the first dentist a patient thinks about when they want treatment
How to target your marketing to the people that really matter
How to integrate your marketing in offline and online formats so one complements the other
How to get your website working HARD for you and generating leads

Please book directly with Straumann on 01293 651230

Regards,

Mark

Target, Target, Target

2009-03-19T06:43:00.003Z

I know I have written about targeting your marketing before...but this is such a crucial area I thought I would revisit it and give some examples of where it can be used.

I was reviewing a prospectives customer's website yesterday as part of my e-marketing system...it was a really nice looking site, well designed and well laid out...clearly written by a web professional. However it was clear to me that the surgery had not been through a targeting process.

The website was written very broadly with little focus, the descriptions on the pages were broad, the meta tags on each page were broad and the text within the pages was vague.

Now lets get one thing clear here... if you want to get to the top of a Google search you need to be specific about the target you are going to address! This is a vital, simple but often overlooked point...let me explain.

When a prospective customer does a google search they will often be searching to solve a specific problem...this is true of when ever a person does a search to solve a problem...offline or online.

As an example, lets take 'loose dentures'. If this is the problem that needs solving then that is what your patient will search for. If you offer a unique solution to this problem then bingo...there is a match.

If you take 'loose dentures' as your target market and you wish to optimise your site for this then these words need to be repeated in the page title, the description, the meta tags and the main body text. 'Loose dentures' is the target market, so 'lose dentures' get repeated everywhere and becomes your tag.

You then also use these tags in your Youtube videos, your Flickr photos and as tags on the website itself.

Without deciding on a specific target for your marketing you can't decide on your tags...without specific tags you ain't gonna do well on a Google search and your lovely site won't get found.

So before you spend £££s on a new website, get some marketing advice, spend time deciding on your specific target market, what are the wants and needs of that target market, decide which words that target market would use to search for your services, then optimise your web presence (not just your website) for these keys words.

So, if you have got to the top of a Google search with your health care business...how did you do it?

What kind of target markets are there and what words would they search for?

How could you break down your market so each segment can be targeted?

As always, please comment on this post (you then get a bit of luv shown back with a link to your on blog, website and Facebook page).

Cheers for now,

Mark

Share a little love!

2009-03-13T12:45:00.004Z

The world is changing it seems to me. It wasn't that long that everything was so commercial... everyone out for themselves seemed to be the mantra.

But the advent of the new social networking (Web 2.0) phenomenon seems to have changed that, there is so much FREE stuff out there that no-one wants to pay for anything any more. The music industry has suffered massively by this... people just download what they want off the internet now, then share with their friends, they simply aren't buying CDs etc in the numbers of a few years ago.

So that leads me to this blog post....share some love! Here's the deal...I have installed some new code on my blog, in the comments section.

If you comment on any one of my posts, you can now link this to YOUR Facebook profile and show a link to YOUR blog with your latest post. This means if you comment on my blog, people will be able to link to your blog and connect with you on Facebook.... Share some love with me (by commenting) and you get a little love back with some free links.

This encapsulates the ethos of Web 2.0 it seems to me, sharing, spreading the word in a mutually beneficial way.

Once you have commented on my blog, I can then see the link and visit your blog and comment back.... we all share a little love together!

So all you need to do is visit the original URL of my blog and comment (you only need click this link if you are on a syndicated site or reading this on an email subscription).

So what do you think?

How else can we share a little love?

I look forward to visiting your blog, commenting and sharing a little bit of web 2.0 love!

Mark

Is your marketing painful?

2009-03-08T10:20:00.007Z

We live in such a Politically Correct (PC) world now don't we?

We live in an age where competitiveness at school is often discouraged and non-competitive games are the norm...'it's the taking part that counts you know!'

But you know what....I believe this fear of upsetting someone filters through to our marketing, diluting it and making it so unappealing that it becomes ineffective.

Let me explain. With our marketing we are often trying to attract new customers (prospects) to our business...agreed? Well when a prospect decides they want to use the services of a dentist, chiropractor, optometrist etc they have a problem that needs solving...it could be an ugly smile, or a tooth missing, or a bad lower back..agreed? Good we are all agreeing so far then!

Now we know our prospects have a problem that needs solving, let's define a problem.

A problem exists when there is a gap between 'what is' and 'what ought to be'

This gap may not be well defined for the prospective patient, for a dentist they may just be unhappy with their smile but not know what the exact problem is. For a Podiatrist they may not be able to walk long distances but not know exactly what the problem is. So the 'what is' is the patients current situation and it is their 'pain' that needs solving by your professional services.

Now, the role of marketing in my opinion is to work on that gap. To highlight the 'pain' (not physical pain, but emotionlal pain) and to highlight your unique solution to that pain. In other words you are making the gap between the 'what is' i.e. their 'pain' and the 'what ought to be' i.e. your unique solution to be as big as possible.

The bigger the gap, the more compelling the need to solve the problem. The more compelling the need to solve the problem, the more likley the prospect is to contact you surgery/clinic.

So, is your marketing painful? You need to be prepared to highlight to the prospects their pain, it kind of goes against political correctness slightly, but it IS necessary. When highlighting the pain concerntrate on the emotional attachment to the consequences of that pain.

Some examples are:

You wish to attract patients to a dental surgery for tooth whitening.

Highlight the pain = dark teeth

Highlight the emotional consequence = embarassed to go out

Now this is what you need to highlight in you marketing...

'Embarassed to go out?'
'Embarrased about the colour of your teeth?"

Next give your unique solution to this pain.

Did you answer yes to the questions above? Then come down to XYZ surgery and experience the amazing results of the 'XYZ surgery super tooth whitening system' so you can go out at night and smile with confidence

So in your maketing you have highlighted the pain, given your unique solution (the XYZ surgery super tooth whitenign system) AND made the 'what ought to be' as obvious as possible with some emotional attachement.

Now clearly the marketing needs FAR more that this, we need a compelling reason for them to contact you, it needs to be more focused, there need to be many more mechanisms for conversions etc etc

But you get my point huh? Don' be afraid of reminding your prospects of their pain, and remember to give them your unique solutions to their pain.

Here are some resources.

Marketing PAIN blog

Marketing PAIN BLOG 2

Both of these give really great examples of Pain, and how it can and should be used in marketing

Marketing pain for a law firm another great article on pain point marketing, read this and look for ways to convert this to your own business

If you would like any further advice or guidance on your own marketing simply give me a call - details at the end of this post,

Speak soon,

Mark

This BLOG is part of my health care marketing consultancy to dentists, chiropractors, optometrists, podiatrists and osteopaths. Please contact me directly to see a dramatic increase in the number of new patient enquiries at your practice. info@markoborn.com or 07769 898798