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Dr. Luisa Schuldt (LS): Hi everyone. Welcome to Brush Up, presented by Oral Health Group, the dental podcast where we speak with industry experts to discuss a variety of topics such as technology, finance and practice management. Today’s episode is sponsored by MediaNV. I’m your host, Dr. Luisa Schultdt, a dual certified prosthodontist and periodontist based out of Fonthill, Ontario. Today we are discussing “marketing your practice” with Elizabeth Ogundare. Elizabeth is a dynamic and accomplished marketing professional with a proven track record of success in the dental industry. With over five years of experience, her passion for marketing and her dedication have earned her a reputation as a dental marketing expert. Elizabeth’s unique blend of creativity, strategic thinking and result driven approach has enabled her to make a significant impact in the dental practices she’s worked with. Born with a natural flair of her communication and an innate ability to connect with people, Elizabeth always knew she wanted to pursue a career in marketing. She’s a multifaceted marketing professional who excels in the dental industry. Her dedication to her work and her interest in fashion, wellness and keeping up with the latest trends make her an engaging and well-rounded person, poised to continue making a great impact in dental marketing. Thank you for joining us today, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Ogundare (EO): Happy to be here. Looking forward to this episode and discussing all things dental marketing.
LS: Wonderful. When a dental practice considers creating a marketing plan, what should the first steps to take be?
EO: For sure, that’s a really great question. I feel like there are several important steps to consider when developing a marketing plan for your practice. I would say the first one is to define your goals. You know, identify what it is that you’re trying to achieve through your marketing efforts, whether that’s, you know, increasing new patient flow, promoting specific services, or just building brand awareness. Another part to that is just understanding your target audience. You know you really need to do your research to identify who your ideal patients are and understand the demographic and their preferences. Thirdly to that is creating a budget. I typically recommend, you know, allocating about 2-5% of your annual revenue towards your marketing budget. This will help you to, you know, prioritize and choose the most effective strategies within your budget. There’s also choosing marketing strategies and tactics, so like, once you’ve done the work to clearly identify your goals, you’ve done your research about your target audience, and you now know the budget that you’re going to work with, you can now decide what channels will work best for you and how to allocate that budget. So whether it’s, you know, the digital marketing side of like Google ads, sponsoring local events, social media campaigns, and so much more.
LS: It sounds like there’s a good few components involved in this. Is this something that dentists can do on their own and for their own practices, or what added benefits are there if we bring in an expert?
EO: So I think dentists can certainly, you know, market their own practice, especially if they kind of have a good understanding of marketing principles and strategy. I don’t want to completely rule it out because it is possible, but the reality is it requires a lot of time and effort, and we kind of already know how busy running a practice can get. So in my opinion, I would highly recommend bringing in a marketing professional. That way you kind of have someone who’s dedicated to executing results-driven campaigns to achieve those marketing goals, and also someone who’s there to stay up to date with industry trends. The industry is always evolving and you need someone who’s going to stay on top of that.
LS: So you’d recommend an expert that specifically works with dental community. They have some added knowledge in that sense or…?
EO: For sure, yeah.
LS: We mentioned the channels earlier – that we have to choose the right ones for our goals. In general, what channels do you think work best for dental practices? Should it be social media, direct contact? You mentioned sponsoring events.
EO: For sure. Yeah, I believe there’s several channels that work well for dental practices. Of course, you know, these may vary based on the needs and goals of your practice, but one that typically works for all is, you know, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. These provide practices with the opportunity to really engage with their current and potential patients. I feel like it’s a great way to showcase your practice in a more personable way. You know, for example, creating social media content that highlights and celebrates dental assistants and the dental hygienist weeks and administrative days. Those are more the dental specific events that happen throughout the year that should be highlighted. And there’s other things such as like, you know, introducing new staff that join your clinic, celebrating birthdays and just announcing new services. Some other channels you know, direct mail, radio ads, billboards – it’s another great way to reach specific local audiences. And then there’s also the digital aspect to that. So whether that’s, you know, e-mail marketing, your Google ads, SEO and PPC are all really great channels as well to market your practice, so there’s not one-size-fits-all. It’s kind of based on the needs and goals of your practice.
LS: We like that you mentioned introducing your new staff members and doing some things that might not be top of mind – showing off your office values, being kind of more attainable or feel closer to your potential patients and current patients.
EO: For sure. And I think that having that personal touch is a great way to connect with your current patients and new patients before they even enter your clinic.
LS: So I guess in addition to the goals, making sure that that marketing expert that’s supporting us understands you know how our practice works, what our focuses are, maybe meet some of the team members, can really be of value as well.
EO: For sure. Absolutely.
LS: About Google reviews. How important is that as a component of this marketing strategy?
EO: Google reviews absolutely are crucial for marketing your dental practice. I think reviews in general are highly influential in even our everyday life choices. You know, whether that’s going to a specific restaurant or a resort for a beautiful vacation. The reality is reviews do matter, right? So I’ll always encourage reviews, you know, actively ask your patients to leave a review for you after their appointment, because they are your biggest advocates, and also having something as simple as a “leave a review” poster up in the clinic can be helpful. There are other platforms such as Recall Max, Podium, that kind of automate the process for you, so they’ll send out a text asking your patient to leave a review. And I’d say the other part to that, as well as responding to these reviews, you just want to make sure that you’re showing appreciation for the positive feedback and also address any concerns or issues raised in negative reviews. It really shows your commitment to patient satisfaction and great for brand reputation as well.
LS: I would assume that other platforms like Rate MD and others are just as valuable and we should be monitoring them.
EO: Yeah, for sure. Exactly, because it is such a huge part to it because, again like I said, people really do look to these reviews before making a commitment to a practice. And it says a lot about a practice when they are taking the time to respond to these positive reviews, and if there is anything of concern. Showcasing that they want to address these things does really showcase that they are committed to patient satisfaction as well.
LS: I think a lot of dentists still – and I include myself – still think that, you know, word of mouth is really important and it is. But world the world has also changed. The Internet is such a huge part of what we do every single day. Whether it’s going to a restaurant, going to a new store, or just going out for a hike or walk, choosing a new physician or dentist, world of information also needs to be included as part of the marketing strategy.
EO: Absolutely. I completely agree with you there.
LS: We’ll take a quick break for a few words from our podcast sponsor, MediaNV.
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Now back to the episode.
LS: Welcome back, Elizabeth. What about mistakes. I’m sure as you’ve advised some of your clients and worked with dentists in general, what are some of the most common mistakes or some of the, you know, most disappointing mistakes you’ve seen practices make?
EO: For sure. It’s a really great question and we kind of just touched on it there when you were discussing, you know, digital presence and how you show up online. One of the major things is neglecting the digital presence. I feel like many dental practices have failed to have a strong online presence. How you show up online is super important, especially since we are now living in a digital age. Having a professional website, you know, active social media profiles, and positive reviews are crucial. So neglecting these aspects really results in, you know, missed opportunities to reach and engage with potential patients. And for most people in every practice, the goal is to increase new patient flow. So we would want to show up strong and confident online as well. And then the other part to that is inconsistent branding. That’s one thing I’ve noticed, and I feel like you can really confuse patients and weaken your overall marketing efforts. Especially if you’re investing into marketing, you want to ensure that all your assets are aligned because you’re just wasting your marketing budget and your efforts. Because, you know, you’re telling one story but then if you look on another platform, it’s inconsistent. So it’s just very important to, you know, be consistent across these platforms because it really builds trust in your practice. And I can’t stress that enough. Thirdly, overlooking local marketing efforts. I would say get involved in your community engagement initiatives. This is a really great way to reach potential patients. In your area and ignoring these local aspects of marketing could limit practice visibility in the community and probably stump growth in some sort of way. Lastly, I’d probably say, you know, not tracking and analyzing results, right? We put so much time and effort into building marketing campaigns and allocating budget towards it, but it’s hard talking these results. It’s hard to determine, you know, what’s working and what’s not, so I would say continually track your referral sources and see what channels or campaigns are actively bringing in those new patients.
LS: Building on what you’ve mentioned a little bit already, you talked about having really clear goals and I think I mentioned kind of office values. I think a lot of the time we see our practice and we think that’s really clear, but then when we see that on different platforms, things are different. Our website doesn’t necessarily completely align with what we’re marketing. We might not notice that and having that extra set of eyes needed and with that background experience can be really helpful.
EO: For sure. And that’s why I had touched on it before and it’s doable – it’s possible for you to want to run marketing on your own, but there’s so many little details that you can miss because of how busy it is to run a practice, right? There’s so many elements to running your practice and marketing is just one and you really need a dedicated person to see all these little pieces that you’re missing and they can come kind of call them out and you know, align all of your assets to show up consistently across all platforms.
LS: With your experience in the industry and the practices you’ve helped in the past, is there any one practice or experience that sticks out in your mind that, you know, the impact of the advice you gave them really helped things turn around or you found this big crucial mistake that they were making that you could provide some good advice on? Do you have any examples you’d like to share with us?
EO: Yeah, for sure. So there was a practice that I worked with in the past, where they’re on Google, they’re showing up, their name and everything aligns, but the photos in their Google Business page shows the signage of the name that they were previously, before they did a whole rebrand. And it’s kind of like, OK, you’re kind of confusing patients here because you’re saying you’re ABC dental, but then when I go and look at the Google page, I’m seeing something completely different. So, just something as simple as taking a photo of the new signage and the new name and updating that just already changed the trajectory in the sense that they are now aligned with who they said they are, and there’s no inconsistencies there. And it’s such a small little thing, but again, those are the little things that people overlook because they think ohh, we’ve already changed the name, we’ve changed the signage at the demo practice, they completely forget the online assets parts. So having a marketing expert can help to find those little spots and fix them.
LS: Yes, so whenever undergoing, you know, a rebrand, remarketing, transferring a dental practice, and now the new person wants a little bit of a newer, different image, there’s huge value in having someone with knowledge in marketing collaborate and make sure all those mistakes don’t happen.
EO: For sure.
LS: Well, clearly you have a rich background in communication marketing. What brought you into the dental industry? What attracted you to it?
EO: Awesome question, because I always say I wonder how I stumbled into the industry. But I first started out with the company called the Dental Industry Association of Canada. And being a part of that association was awesome because you kind of got to see all the aspects of the dental world from the industry aspect. So I would go to these trade shows and I’d be like, wow, I never knew the dental world was so much fun and had so much life. And speaking to more people in the industry, I was like, OK, I need to take the next step into my career. What is something that I would like to pivot into? And hearing about practice marketing, I just love that you get to do so many things with it, whether it’s, you know, rebrands of the clinic, taking a clinic that had zero marketing to having a full marketing plan, and seeing the results over time. That’s one thing I would say I really love about marketing. Because you get to see all that data and see how your efforts actually come to light and come into fruition, and seeing a practice excel knowing that you help them build a marketing plan to increase that new patient flow is what keeps me in the industry. And also just, you know, my colleagues and the different doctors I get to meet here and there – everyone has been very welcoming and I’ve made some really awesome relationships and I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon.
LS: I noticed while reviewing your extended bio, you seem to also be very interested in the area of wellness and health, well-being, mindfulness, and these seem to be really important values within the dental industry. So that’s probably something that’s really great you bring to the table as well.
EO: For sure. I feel that’s probably why it aligned, because it aligns with my lifestyle of really being into wellness and mindfulness and just working in the healthcare industry kind of aligns with that as well.
LS: Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for joining us. Thank you for your time.
EO: Thank you so much for having me as a guest. I hope this episode is helpful to your listeners.
LS: Thank you so much for listening and thank you once again to our sponsor, MediaNV. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify and follow us on social media to be notified every time we post a new episode. Keep brushing up!