Having a dental website, blog, newsletter, Google+ page and Facebook page are all important factors in keeping your dental practice in front of your dental patients.

Some dentists are still not convinced that Facebook is an effective Internet dental marketing tool.

Last week, Facebook started the process for its highly-publicized IPO. In anticipation, the online competitive intelligence service Hitwise just released their 10 Key Statistics about Facebook, comparing the Facebook audience with that of other social networks.

Here is what Hitwise found –

1. Facebook captures 1 in every 11 Internet visits in the United States.
2. 1 in every 5 page views occurs on Facebook.
3. The average visit time on Facebook is 20 minutes.
4. Facebook’s audience skews slightly more female than the online population as a whole.(Female is 57%, male is 43%).
5. The ages of Facebook visitors are indicative of the website’s strength in the marketplace, with relative parity in distribution of its visit share by age vs. the online population (Ages 18-24 is 18%, 25-34 is 23%, 34-44 is 21%, 45-54 is 19%, and 55+ is 20%).
6. Facebook wins 499,949,430 visits from the most affluent income group versus YouTube’s 223,732,591 visits and Twitter’s 15,166,795 visits.
7. Facebook became the #1 ranked website in the US on March 9, 2010.
8. “Facebook” is the most searched term in the US and Facebook-related terms account for 14% of the top search clicks.
9. Facebook users are highly loyal to the website; 96% of visitors to Facebook were returning visitors in January 2012.
10. Internationally, Facebook ranks in the top 2 websites in every market except China, where Sina Weibo, Baidu Zhidao and Renren are the dominant social networks.

Hitwise further states that “Facebook is the largest website in the US and a top performer in numerous international markets. The fan base of the site is loyal and spends a significant portion of their time online on the social network. Facebook’s influence is seen in the presidential elections, digital shopping habits and beyond.”

Last June Hitwise concluded in their Facebook Fan Acquisition and Analysis that 1 Facebook fan is equal to 20 additional visits to a business website over the course of a year. If you have 500 Facebook fans, this means an extra 10,000 visits to your dental website a year.

Hitwise wrote, “The figure of 1 fan = 20 extra visits to a website uses a unique methodology that combines Hitwise data with data from social media experts Techlightenment. We took the top 100 retailers ranked in the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category and bench-marked visits to those websites against the number of fans those brands had on their Facebook page. We then also looked at the propensity for people to search for those retail brands after a visit to Facebook using our Search Sequence tool.”

Here at The Wealthy Dentist we firmly believe that your dental marketing plan should include a Facebook page. With dental patients spending more time online, dentists should increasingly be looking to use Facebook as a part of their dental marketing.

Facebook fans can play a role in dental patient retention and procurement by helping to drive dental website traffic, boosting dental practice awareness, demonstrating dental treatments or acting as a customer testimonial billboard.

On the other hand, 22% say it’s easy for new and current patients to find them online.

In addition, 48% of dentists say they’d like to improve their dental website search engine results placement.

All dentists want their dental website to show up at the top of the search list whenever someone searches for a dentist. A search-engine optimized dental website seeks to accomplish this goal. It involves a well-researched, geo-targeted keyword strategy for use in your dental website’s content.

The result is a more visible ranking for your dental website in the organic search results on search engines like Google, which brings more visitors to your dental website.

Here are some additional comments from dentists on their dental practice visibility online –

“It’s good, I get a lot of patients through the Internet. You can’t get complacent and must be on top of things, it’s ever-changing.” (California oral surgeon)

“I am never satisfied. It takes constant work. I am hopeful that I will get so busy so I can afford to delegate it. I do enjoy the game and play fairly well. If I was in a large market there is no way I could handle it.” (Missouri dentist)

“I’m looking at providers now because it seems more people are using the web as a means to get the things they want and need, including dentistry. Feel I need to give it a try.” (California dentist)

“We must update and change it to keep it current so we will be found.” (General dentist)

“There are only two of us in town so easy to find me!” (Texas dentist)

When local prospective dental patients search for dentists, you want them to find your dental website quickly and to understand what kind of dental treatments you offer. You want to stand out from your competition with a dental website listing that appears at the top of search engines.

Check out IDA’s New Patient Marketing Machine™ that targets the specific categories of high-value new patients you want to attract to your dental website. Each IDA website is targeted at one Primary Dental Market, and optionally for up to 3 Secondary Dental Markets to help your dental practice become easily found on the Internet.

Mathew Broderick and Honda may be hoping so.

In 1986, director John Hughes debuted the American teen coming-of-age comedy film, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

It quickly became one of the top movies of 1986 and has since enjoyed a cult following.

This year Honda has enlisted actor Mathew Broderick for their Super Bowl XLVI commercial to promote the Honda CR-V. The Super bowl ad pokes fun at Broderick’s Ferris Bueller character by showing him faking the flu to skip work and spend the day enjoying the sites around Los Angeles.

Several classic details from the “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” movie are included in the commercial, such as the use of the song “Oh Yeah,” a valet calling for “Broderick. Broderick,” and a parking attendant taking Broderick’s Honda for a joy-ride.

Today’s Friday random video is the Super Bowl commercial, “Matthew’s Day Off“ –

What is your favorite Super Bowl commercial?

9 out of 10 dentists use Facebook as their preferred place to network online.

While Facebook is facing criticism over their often-disputed privacy policies, most of the dentists using Facebook use it for both professional  and personal networking.

“We are at the beginning stages of our Facebook dental marketing. We are using it as an informational, personable and promotional platform. We are giving our patients useful information, keeping them updated on what is new in our office, and giving away prizes for liking our page. We also give patients $5 off their services when they check in!“ responded one dentist.

The Wealthy Dentist decided to survey dentists to ask what sort of social networking they do online, and whether it was for personal or business purposes.

Dentists use the following social networking sites professionally -

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Blog
• Google Plus

And for personal use?

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google Plus
• LinkedIn and blogging were used the least

Here are some dentist comments:

“We have a business Facebook page which does well for us. I update it regularly and have a couple staff that like to write updates on the wall, too.” (Ohio prosthodontist)

“I haven’t yet figured out what to make of Twitter.” (General dentist)

“I still prefer word-of-mouth recommendations most of all.” (Arizona dentist)

“I really do not have the time or inclination to follow through with these media platforms.” (Massachusetts dentist)

With Facebook about to make a public of offering, which is estimated to bring in about 10 billion dollars, it is time for just about every dental practice that is serious about dental marketing to get on the Facebook bus!

6 out of 10 dentists also include Internet dental marketing in their annual budget, while 5 out of 10 allot a portion of the budget to internal referral programs.

Email newsletter marketing and Yellow Pages advertising remain in the dental marketing budget for 53% of the survey respondents, while 30% still include radio advertising and direct marketing.

Less than 10% factor TV advertising into their yearly dental marketing budget, reflecting a national trend towards developing a a media plan that does not include TV advertising.

“We hired a dental marketing firm and are getting better results.  We think that marketing is the key to getting the number and type of patients you want. Return on investment is good,” said a Virginia dentist.

“We are very happy. Our marketing has shown consistent growth of over 100 new patients a month for the last 4 years. The newest being the low cost, proprietary CRM that we have implemented that is above and beyond anything I have been shown before,” said a general dentist.

Some dentists feel dental marketing costs are too expensive, with one pediatric dentist saying, “It’s too expensive. Everybody raises prices for dentists because they feel we have more $.”

On average, dentists employ eight different dental marketing tactics to achieve their marketing goals.

What dental marketing vectors are the most effective use of your yearly dental marketing budget? Let us know in the comments!

If you want more how-to advice to address the dental marketing challenges facing dentists today, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Survey was conducted by The Wealthy Dentist.

Google has just announced that it is introducing three new features to connect Google+ search users to their social networking profiles when they search the web.

According to Google when a user is signed in with Google+, they will receive personal results and profiles of people they know or follow. They will also be able to expand expand their results by discovering people related to their search.

Included in search results will be Google+ profiles and pages, personal photos and posts, and items that have been shared with the search user on Google+. This will mean that whatever Google+ circles a user belongs to and interacts with will have an influence on the Google search results returned.

This marks the beginning of more personalized Google search results.

Also added is a People and Pages feature where Google matches search queries to posts on Google+ that are linked to compatible content. This means when someone writes about a subject on Google+, and people in their circles Google search that subject, the comments and links are displayed automatically on Google’s page one for the Google+ users.

Google has also added the ability to see shared topics by Google+ power users on the right sidebar of the search results page, offering search users the option to connect with them on Google+. All of these are reasons why you want to add Google+ to your dental marketing plan.

Google+ just hit sixty million users and is still in its infancy.

It is important for you to create a dental practice brand page on Google+, and become an active user. Begin asking your dental patients if they are on Google+ and consider offering some incentives for patients who add your practice to their circles.

Internet experts feel more businesses will now be forced get more involved in Internet marketing and hire established internet marketing companies to ensure that their business will be found on the Internet.

Internet dental practice website design has become a major dental marketing strategy for many of The Wealthy Dentist subscribers. How many new patients you obtain from your dental website is determined almost entirely by one factor: your website’s position on the major Internet search engines including Yahoo, MSN and Google.

The Wealthy Dentist is here to help you with the ever-increasing changes in dental marketing.

Using the right dental marketing phrases can create a connection with new dental patients and establish credibility.

The following video is being shared by Purplefeather on YouTube to illustrate how the power of words can change your marketing message and engage your readers.

Alonso Alvarez Barreda created this short film originally called, “The Story of a Sign.” It was the winner of the NFB Online Competition Cannes in 2008 and was produced in Mexico/U.S.A. The music is by Giles Lamb. The director is Seth Gardner.  The cast is Bill Thompson and Beth Miller.

Some of the most powerful words used in marketing are you, free, save, easy, health, and guarantee. Does your dental marketing include powerful words that connect you with your dental patients?

Lord Dental in Fort Worth Texas probably wishes they had gone the Internet dental marketing route after resident Jill Dominguez received their mail piece and thought it was a scam.

The mail piece outlined the upcoming changes for children enrolled in the Texas Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and how they will be managed after March 1st. It included an advertisement for the services of dentist Leyla Lord.

Upset, Jill Dominguez wrote to Dave Lieber, the watchdog reporter for the Star-Telegram. She stated, “Nowhere on these forms does it say ‘solicitation’ or ‘advertisement’ or any such thing.” Dominguez felt the mailing could be a violation.

Lieber contacted Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Texas health commission who told him,“Our rules do limit direct marketing for health plans and providers, and this mailing violates that rule. We’ve contacted this dental office to let them know. The state rules that apply to our managed-care organizations and providers are new territory for dentists, so the dental office may not have been aware of these rules.”

Goodman further states that, “Direct marketing is defined as marketing that targets an individual. It’s someone calling you, knocking on your door or sending a mail out directly to you. Direct marketing doesn’t include radio, TV or print ads because the audience there is broader. When someone hears a radio ad, they know that the ad wasn’t meant specifically for them.”

The state then contacted Lord’s dental practice after Dominguez’s complaint.

It turns out dentist Leyla Lord’s husband is an attorney and he responded to the claim that Lord’s dental practice was using direct mail marketing for advertising her dental practice by saying, ”The mailings blanketed the 76103 ZIP code as a way to alert his wife’s patients and others in the neighborhood about the change (when Texas moves to a managed-care system).”

In response to Watchdog Leiber’s quote of the Texas law, that a dental practice “shall not conduct any direct contact marketing except through enrollment events,” Lord’s husband pointed out the ridiculousness of the “direct contact” statement and asked what it means.

I guess it means you better be careful what you mail to your dental patients in Texas. Stick with Internet dental marketing. It’s safer.

Read more here: Fort Worth dentist’s mailing opens a whole can of worms

According to the 2011 State of the Cosmetic Dentistry Industry survey from the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, more men got comfy with cosmetic dentistry in 2011.

Respondents to the cosmetic dentistry survey were asked to indicate the percentage of their patients in 2011 by gender. Three‐fifths of cosmetic dentistry patients were female (60%), and two‐fifths were male (40%) representing a 7‐point swing toward males from the 2007 survey.

However, if cosmetic dentists used Internet marketing for more new patients in 2011 they further out-performed the competition due to the biggest change in the factor driving demand at cosmetic practices: the increase in Internet usage by patients. This factor rose 25 points since the 2007 survey.

Not surprising as more dental patients turn to the Internet to find cosmetic dentists.

From the AACD report

Other interesting survey results were:

–Of cosmetic dentists who offered financing, 78% of respondents reported that third-party financing options helped patients get to a “yes” decision.

–At the high end, 3% of practices indicated an average amount of $20,000 or more spent on cosmetic procedures per patient—the same as indicated in the 2007 benchmark survey. At the other extreme, 6% of practices reported average patient costs of less than $500—a 4‐point increase since 2007. The modal (most often indicated) categories were $2,500 ‐ $4,999 (19%) and $5,000 ‐ $9,999 (15%), both down several points since 2007.

–The average practice reported total revenues for all dentistry procedures (both cosmetic and non‐cosmetic) in 2011 at $1 million, comparable to data collected in 2007. Compared to the 2007 survey, the lowest category (less than $500,000) has increased by 6 points; offset by the 6‐point positive swing in the $1.25 million to $1.99 million categories. The “more than $2 million” category remained unchanged since 2007 at 8% of those reporting.

–Dentists saw a revenue increase in 2011 in crown and bridge work procedures, direct bonding posterior and anterior procedures and dental implant procedures.

–On average, 49% of dental patients were between the ages of 31 and 50. The number of patients age 20 and younger grew significantly in 2011 to 17% from only 5% in 2007.

–Dental patient issues of primary concern were appearance, cost and longevity of treatment results.

–The average number of dental laboratories used was 3.15, an indication of lab loyalty over the 2007 average of 3.5 labs used. Esthetic considerations was the top concern (79%) in selecting which dental laboratory to use, with procedure or specialty not far behind at 64%.

–When asked to indicate the number of patients their practices had for cosmetic dentistry procedures in 2011 (counting multiple visits by the same patients as one visit), 4% of practices had 1,000 or more patients—a marked decline since 2007 when 16% of respondents reported 1,000 or more. At the opposite end of the spectrum, 11% had fewer than 25 patients. The average number of cosmetic patients per practice in 2011 was 247, down significantly from an average of 485 in 2007.

However, when looking at specific cosmetic dentistry procedures, participants in the survey overwhelmingly
believe that revenues generated from cosmetic dental treatments have either increased or stayed the
same year over year, and their expectation is that revenues will continue to increase or stay the same into next year.

To view the complete results from the AACD survey, click here (will open in a pdf)

Dental insurance may be one way to attract new dental patients, but a new dental marketing player has emerged in 2011: daily deal offers.

According to Dan Hess, CEO and founder of Local Offer Network, approximately 9% of all offers on daily deal websites in November 2011 were for dental work or some form of medical treatment, up from 4.5% in the beginning of 2011.

USA Today reports that approximately one out of every 11 deals offered online is for a health care service, according to data compiled by DealRadar.com, a site that gathers and lists 20,000 deals a day from different websites.

Dental deals are the most popular among users of daily deal websites.

Many attribute the growth of the use of daily deals in the healthcare sector with sites like Groupon, is the fact that 45 million Americans under 65 have no dental insurance coverage, and another 46 million have no health insurance coverage, according to CDC statistics. The daily discount deals offer many uninsured Americans a way to visit the dentist or doctor.

Some argue that a one-time visit to the dentist because of a deal coupon does not create a lasting dentist-patient relationship, or attract the right type of dental patient. Good long term dental marketing studies are hard to come by in dentistry.

However, the economic potential can be great.

The owners of Robust might agree. Robust is a wine bar and cafe in St. Louis, Missouri that ran a Groupon deal for $18.00 and sold 4200 deals for a potential $75,000 in revenue to be shared with Groupon. As important as the revenue was to Robust, their Groupon deal gained national news attention with tons of free marketing for their business that they never would have been able to afford.

Dr. Gregg Feinerman, an ophthalmologist who runs Feinerman Vision Center in Newport Beach, Calif told USA Today about his experience with Groupon, “We reached a whole new demographic who otherwise wouldn’t find us.” He offered a 58% discount on Lasik eye surgery. “It’s a better way to market,” he said.

He used Groupon as a way to bring in patients under 30-years-old with the hope that they would recommend his services to friends and rate him on review website Yelp. A good review might persuade someone else to visit his office, Feinerman said. He charges $5,000 for the surgery on both eyes; a price that he said can be “overwhelming for 20-to 30-year-olds.”

Is this brilliant marketing or just clever pricing?

Feinerman approached Groupon about listing the eye surgery for $3,000. Groupon, which is based in Chicago, pushed him to lower the price to $2,100. Dr. Feinerman got exactly the type of patient he was looking for in Thomas Cho. Cho, 29, bought the offer and after the surgery wrote a review on Yelp. He gave the vision center five stars — the highest rating on the website.

Cho said in an interview that his health insurance plan only covers 20% of the regular price of Lasik since it is considered a cosmetic procedure. He would have paid about $4,000 if he had used his insurance discount. Cho decided to buy the Groupon, paying $2,100 initially. After consulting with the doctor, he upgraded his surgery to an all-laser procedure for $1,000 more. At the time, Cho’s credit card issuer was offering a 20% cash back promotion on Groupon purchases. In all, he saved more than $1,300.

We have written extensively on Google Offers and Groupon ad design and strategy. Now it is time to hear back from you as to both the short and long term results of the new dental marketing vector!

For more on the USAToday story see: Uninsured turn to daily deal sites for health care.