Run Your Marketing Like a Marketing Agency

Every “money-making ten-year-old last week, dental he son professional approached Blake marketing shares envisions me machine.” this with aspiration; an the automated Even idea just my

of starting a dog-walking business. Within minutes, I set up his business with a landing page, automated follow-up, text and email capabilities, online scheduling, payment processing, an affiliate referral program, learning management, a customer portal, a membership program, a calendar, and more.

Over the past two decades, I have worked with hundreds of dental marketing agencies, some big and some small. I have also worked on the marketing technology stack with many dental practices and DSOs. The goal is always the same, “an easy and automated marketing system that gets a strong ROI.”

Through my years of experience, I’ve found seven key players behind a successful marketing operation.

A centralized communication system that manages all patient interactions from one platform across all practices and all means of communication with patients—emails, SMS, phone calls, and social media. A system that simplifies communication workflows and ensures no patient query goes unanswered. More recently, AI is heavily being used to manage this at scale. Having your communications centralized and automated enhances the patient experience and frees staff to focus on other critical tasks.

Let’s face it: we can’t keep track of everything unless we have a system, ideally an automated system. The more automated and integrated your marketing, the better. Automating marketing

funnels facilitates lead nurturing and conversion processes for dental practices. Any tool you use should make it easy to create landing pages, email campaigns, and SMS marketing strategies with minimal effort. This ensures consistent communication with potential patients and boosts conversion rates. The key for DSOs is to oversee multiple locations effectively and repeatably to scale marketing efforts.

McDonald’s and other multisite businesses have been successful because they created repeatable processes. The same goes for marketing. Building a “snapshot” of the ideal marketing process and content for one practice and seamlessly replicating that work across multiple practices significantly reduces the time needed to set up a robust marketing system. This efficiency enables practices to establish effective marketing strategies in several hours rather than weeks.

Only some CRM and marketing automation tools are HIPAAcompliant. Make sure whatever tool you use is compliant. Integration with dental practice management systems is a must for automated marketing, but you want to ensure your vendor has a secure way of handling patient information.

Comprehensive CRM

Effective patient contact management is paramount for dental practices. Most practice management systems have limited or out-of-date data on patients. An integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system provides a robust solution for cleaning and updating patient information. By tracking patient

interactions, managing appointments, and collecting feedback within a platform, practices gain valuable insights into patient behavior and preferences, enabling them to effectively tailor their services and marketing strategies.

In the digital era, a practice’s online reputation significantly impacts its success. Integrated reputation management tools can automate review requests and review monitoring to help practices gather and showcase positive patient testimonials, building trust and attracting more patients.

Businesses are all moving to subscription-based products, but when you add them all up, it can get very costly and complex. Successful marketing requires a comprehensive suite of scalable tools. Ideally, you want all of that in one platform, reducing software costs and simplifying training and implementation processes.

6TH ANNUAL DEW LIFE RETREAT EARLY Save Now November BIRD Through 14-16, 2024 SIGN-UP April

REGISTER HERE

In Conclusion

The widespread adoption of marketing automation in the dental industry reflects a broader trend of leveraging technology to enhance patient engagement, streamline operations, and improve marketing efforts. It is important to find a tool that can grow with you so you can run your in-house marketing like an experienced marketing agency.

With a background in Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, Travis is recognized as “The Technology Guy” in the dental industry. He has pioneered electronic referral systems, online scheduling platforms, and patient file-sharing apps within dentistry. Travis is a sought-after speaker, educator, and consultant on technology implementation in dental practices. Connect with Travis on LinkedIn or subscribe to his Dental Venture Capital newsletter for insights into the intersection of technology and dentistry.