Internet dental marketing Archives

Dentists Frustrated by the Limitations Dental Boards Put on Dental Marketing (video)

December 12, 2018 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

The purpose of state dental boards is to make sure that dentists stay in line both professionally, clinically and ethically. They make sure dental marketing stays in line too.

The Wealthy Dentist asked dentists if they feel that state dental boards unfairly restrict dental practice marketing. Two out of three dentists said no – dental boards are just protecting the public’s best interest. But one out of three dentists was frustrated by the limitations dental boards put on advertising and other dental marketing efforts.

Watch the Video to hear more of what dentists have to say –

What are your thoughts on state dental boards and dental marketing?

Filed Under: Dental Videos, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: ADA, Dental, Dental Advertisements, Dental Boards, Dental Marketing, dentist, dentistry, dentists, Internet dental marketing, marketing

Some Startling Facts About Dentists Using Google Plus for Dental Marketing

December 12, 2018 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

When a new social media platform like Google+ is launched on the Internet it’s easy to understand why dentists might become overwhelmed and want to ignore this new dental marketing vector.

But a social media service launched by a company as large as Google has the potential to impact you and your dental practice marketing, whether you understand it or not.

Here at The Wealthy Dentist we believe that ignoring Google Plus would be a huge mistake for any dentist seeking to create new relationships with dental patients and potential new dental patients through social media.

We do understand our dentist’s social media angst, so we decided to conduct a survey asking dentists if they are using Google Plus.

We were excited to see that 36% of the dentist respondents are currently using Google Plus, but 48% are not.

“I haven’t done a thing with Google Plus since I got on,” confessed one orthodontist.

Another 16% are planning on using Google Plus at some point in the near future.

Here are some dentist comments:

“I don’t trust GOOGLE! Their products are useful, however, I can’t buy the excuse of a bunch of computer geeks not knowing they are disabling security systems and collecting/selling way more personal information than they want us to know!” (General dentist)

“Google Plus doesn’t seem to have any impact as of yet though, not enough people using it as with Facebook.” (Oregon dentist)

“Love it – it’s better than Facebook.” (California dentist)

“I don’t know that we need it.” (Oklahoma dentist)

“What is Google Plus?” (Georgia dentist)

“Definitively need to spend some time looking into this.” (Illinois dentist)

“We are finding that we don’t like the recent changes to Facebook so we are ready to look at using Google Plus.” (Pennsylvania dentist)

“I think it could confuse ability to monitor your own website results.” (General dentist)

“How can Google Plus help my dental practice?” (Florida dentist)

Bottom line — if you can’t see the dental marketing value in engaging with your dental patients on social media, then Google Plus probably won’t grab your attention.

But if the prospect of engaging with your patients and exposing them to more of your services through social media, it might be to your benefit to get to know Google Plus.

Filed Under: Dental Surveys, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: Dental Marketing, dental survey, dental surveys, dentist, dentistry, dentists, Google plus, Internet dental marketing

Dental Marketing with Facebook

December 12, 2018 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

Does your dental practice have a Facebook Page?

If so, are you leveraging your dental practice Facebook Page to attract more new dental patients?

If not, maybe now is the time to consider it as a part of your overall dental marketing plan.

With the Facebook IPO launch last Friday, Experian Hitwise, the company that measures traffic and activity by people on the Internet, released their updated U.S. data showing the impact Facebook has online with its growth over the years.

Here are 15 stats from the May 18th IPO:

Facebook.com received 9% of all U.S. Internet visits in April 2012.

Facebook.com received more than 1.6 billion visits a week and averaged more than 229 million U.S. visits a day for the year-to-date.

1 in every 5 page views in the U.S. occurred on Facebook.com.

Facebook.com has received more than 400 billion page views this year in the U.S.

The average visit time on Facebook.com is 20 minutes.

The Facebook.com audience skews more female (56%) than male.

Facebook.com became the #1 ranked website in the U.S. on March 9, 2010.

The term ‘Facebook’ is the most searched term in the U.S. and has been for the past three years, starting the week ending July 18, 2009.

Facebook-related terms account for 6% of the top searched terms in the U.S. and Facebook-related terms made up 4 of the top 10 U.S. searches (among the top 100 search terms for the 4 weeks ending May 12, 2012).

Facebook.com users are highly loyal to the website; 96% of visitors to Facebook.com were returning (defined as visited within past 30 days) visitors in April 2012.

10 states account for 52% of visits to Facebook.com – California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina based on year-to-date average.

The top states where users are more likely to visit Facebook.com versus the online population are: West Virginia, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Alabama based on year-to-date average.

The New York City DMA provides the largest volume of traffic to Facebook.com and the Charleston, WV DMA is the area where users are most likely to visit compared to the online population.

Facebook.com is the top social networking site in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Brazil, France, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore markets.

Facebook.com is the top overall site in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. Facebook.com ranks 2nd in the U.K., Brazil, France, and Australia.

Facebook Pages have proved to be more successful for many brands over Facebook advertising. For this reason, just before the Facebook IPO offering GM pulled out of their Facebook ad campaign.

Facebook Pages appear to be more successful at engaging dental patients than paying for a Facebook ad. This is most likely because Facebook Pages feel more personal to the general public than Facebook ads.

The Internet Dental Alliance has been helping dentists maximize their Facebook presence for years. IDA dental websites are more than just Facebook compatible – they’re designed to look great and attract patients within your Facebook profile.

Stop by the Facebook Marketing for Your Dental Practice Page on the IDA website today.

To view the Hitwise stats see: 15 Stats About Facebook

Filed Under: Dental Marketing, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: Dental Marketing, dental marketing with Facebook, dental practice marketing, dentist, dentistry, dentists, Facebook, Facebook pages, Internet dental marketing, marketing

Are Dental Website Patients Better…or Worse? (Video)

December 12, 2018 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

Online dental marketing can attract new patients to a dentist’s office.

Internet patients sometimes have a different profile from other new patients.

“The majority of our big cases the past few years have come from the internet,” said a Minnesota dentist.

“Referral patients have more trust from the beginning. Online patients are typically younger and not as financially able to afford treatment,” said a general dentist.

We conducted a survey asking dentists about dental website patients: Are patients who find a dentist online different from patients who come in via more traditional methods?

Jim Du Molin and Julie Frey talk about this survey about patients acquired via online dental marketing:

One third of dentists responding to this survey said they don’t see a difference.

However…half of those doctors feel that online dental patients are more likely to follow through with treatments, while the other half think online patients are less likely to follow through with treatment.

One in five dentists said that word-of-mouth referrals from current patients are the best type of dental patients to follow through with treatment.

Overall, the results suggest that patients are pretty similar, regardless of the dental marketing methods that were used to acquire them.

“Online patients are generally young, looking for the best price and not dentally educated. Anyone who chooses a dentist based upon online reviews sees dentistry no differently than a gas station or a supermarket,” said a Massachusetts dentist.

“Online patients have done their research and know a lot about our office before becoming patients. They are certainly more likely to follow through with recommended treatment,” said an Ohio prosthodontist.

“For me, a cold online lead is not unlike a patient who drove by and saw my sign. They are a tougher sell then a true internal referral. A Facebook referral can be close to an internal referral when referred by an existing patient,” said a Georgia dentist.

“Dental website patients ask more questions, are younger and more tech savvy, tend to believe what they read online, are less critical in their thinking, and are so wed to their smart phones that they’re not big conversationalists,” said a California dentist.

Online dental marketing doesn’t have to replace traditional marketing avenues like direct mail and internal marketing.

Dental websites are an additional way to capture more new patient leads.

Filed Under: Dental Videos Tagged With: dental video, dental website, Internet dental marketing, online dental marketing

Dentists: Can Copyright Law Protect You from Negative Online Reviews?

December 12, 2018 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

Online dental reviews can be a problem for dentists when negative reviews appear, especially when they feel the review is possibly retaliatory or bogus.

A few thousand doctors have taken matters into their own hands by working with a company called Medical Justice, that created a way to use copyright law to go after negative online reviews.

For about $100.00 a month, Medical Justice protects its doctors by going to online review sites and demanding any bad reviews be removed due to “a breach of copyright.” The company instructs doctors to have their patients sign contracts that assign away the copyright in any future review the patient might be compelled to write online.

Techland Times reports that Medical Justice claims what they’re doing is not only protecting the doctors from unfair bad press, but also from bogus reviews. “Some sites say, we don’t know if you’re telling truth, and we don’t know if they’re telling the truth — it’s the Internet, so deal with it,” contends Shane Stadler of Medical Justice.

Moco News writes that by having patients assign copyright in any reviews to their doctor, Medical Justice is hoping to help doctors get around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (an “arcane nuance of cyberlaw,” according to Medical Justice’s website), the law that protects web services from getting sued over content posted by their users.

It is being reported that Yelp has refused to honor a doctor’s take-down notice based on copyright infringement, and another online review website called RateMDs created a “Wall of Shame” to identify doctors who are using the copyright contracts.

Sound unreasonable? Do you think it’s irrational to demand dental patients sign a copyright assignment form when they visit a dentist office?

For more on this story see “Doctors Now Using Breach of Copyright to Quash Bad Online Reviews“ and “Can Doctors Use Copyright Law To Get Rid Of Negative Reviews?“