I Give Up on Facebook Ads!

I’ve previously written about frustrations with Facebook ads.  I’m really not sure why I keep trying, as I’ve not had ANY success with Facebook ads.  And, I mean NONE.  ZERO.

The lack of ROI notwithstanding, the submission process of ads to Facebook is a minefield of inconsistencies.

Many of my ads have been rejected because of the images.  Of course, since I’m a dentist, those images are often close-ups of SMILES.  Rejected because of smiles!  No kidding!

I’ve been told by the Facebook ad team that the smiles are:

  • Offensive.
  • Body shaming.
  • Pictures of body parts.
  • Before & after photos not allowed. (the latest rejection)

OK… so here’s a Facebook office page post I recently tried to “Boost” (turn into an ad).  REJECTED:

Rejected by Facebook because “before & after.”

Now, consider that the following ads have recently appeared in my Facebook news feed: Continue reading

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

My New Patients Inc Website – SEO, What Is It Good For?

Absolutely something!

To continue my story about the new website…  It’s been one year since the new website went online.

As I’ve mentioned before, I built my own website back in 1999.  I read many books about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and even wrote a full chapter about it in my book, “The Website Owner’s Manual for Dentists.”  I’ve written multiple articles on this blog about it, too.

Over the years, I spent a LOT of time tweaking and optimizing my website to show up well in the search engine results pages (SERPs).  And, it worked very well!  I dominated the local results for years.  But, in more recent years, my site was dropping in rank.  Competition has become fierce, and honestly, I had dropped the ball a bit, too.  My life is busy.

A lot of SEO is done in the design of the website.  By “design,” I’m not talking about the cosmetic features or how the site looks.  I’m talking about the structure / coding of the site… most of which is “behind the scenes.”  But, that’s just the beginning.  There is much that needs to be optimized beyond the structural design of the website.  And, that is an ongoing process.  It was time to delegate!

When I turned my website project over to New Patients Inc (NPI), it meant they were taking over all of it in terms of the technical details.  That doesn’t mean I’m not participating.  My involvement is still critical, as it is for all dentists marketing on the web.  You need to know what is going on, and you need to contribute to your online marketing message.

Why SEO?

There are three goals in website marketing: Continue reading

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The Corporate Scourge of Dentistry

Yeah, I said it.  I wrote that title.  I stand by it, because it’s true.  The corporate interests in Dentistry are a scourge to quality, patient-centered care.  When non-dentists are running the show and dictating treatment plans, it’s not a good thing for patients.  And, that IS what is happening.

Along came Bobby (not his real name)…

This week, a new patient came to my office.  He had a terrible toothache.  His partner told me he was up all night curled up in a fetal position.  The patient has early-onset dementia, and his partner is his advocate and caretaker.  The patient was quite lucid in our conversations, though he’d repeat himself a bit.  So, here’s the story…

The patient presented with a number of obvious dental issues.  But, he was in severe pain.  He had a missing bridge (left it at home), leaving his upper anterior teeth as exposed crown preps.  He pointed to the upper right premolars (his most posterior teeth on that side) as the source of pain.  I tapped on his teeth, and he winced in pain with all of them in the upper right quadrant all the way to the central incisor (#’s 4 – 8).  He explained he was certain that it was #5 by pointing to it.  I palpated along the vestibule and the area of the apex of #7 elicited a response.  The x-ray confirmed there was a large diffuse lesion over the apex of #7.

This is how the patient presented. The missing bridge was left at home. He reported it had come out a long time ago, and he would stick it in with denture adhesive.

While the other teeth MAY be causing problems (see #6, for example), I diagnosed Continue reading

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Posted in Case Presentation, Editorial | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

Today’s Clinical Challenge

This will be a “quick and dirty” case presentation.  But, I’ll update it as the case progresses.

Patient is a 53 y.o. woman from China, who speaks a little English.  Her boyfriend is a long-time patient in my practice.  She first presented with a toothache… actually multiple toothaches.

She had full mouth crowns done by a dentist in China about a year ago.  They are all splinted in segments.  Each arch is three segments – right, anterior, and left sides.  It was done for “cosmetic reasons.”

#’s 6 – 10 are splinted. #6 is blown out with recurrent caries.

Here’s the FMX:
(note the multiple apical lesions) Continue reading

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Posted in Case Presentation, What Happened Today | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

How to Create Your Own Compelling Dental Website Content

Over the years, as I’ve written and lectured to dentists about website marketing, the concept I have the most difficulty conveying to them is about the value of self-written, unique content.  Dentists resist the idea of writing their own content for a number of reasons:

  1.  They don’t think they can write well.
  2.  They don’t think they have the time to do it.
  3.  They don’t believe it will help.
  4.  They don’t believe it matters.

I will try to dispel those concerns… once again.  A couple of recent discussions on Dentaltown and Facebook inspired this blog post (and much of it is copied from my comments on those forums).

Tell me a story!

The human response to stories is primal.  Before the written word, life skills and education were passed from generation to generation through the spoken word, often in the form of stories, perhaps with some pictures drawn on the cave walls.  The same became true when humans began writing.  We are hard-wired by our DNA to respond to and internalize stories.

People relate to STORIES.  Stories about people LIKE THEMSELVES.  On your website, photos (of actual cases) and their stories are what will resonate with prospective patients.

Tell PATIENT stories.  In effect… tell your website visitor their FUTURE story.  By using photos and patient stories, your website visitors will RELATE.  “She’s just like me.”  “I feel like that guy did.”

But, I’m not a writer!

Continue reading

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Posted in Marketing, Websites | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Closing a Diastema – With Bioclear Matrices

Just a quick and dirty case presentation.

Anatomic Bioclear Matrix.

A new patient came to me last week for a consultation about “bonding” a space between her teeth.

She had been to a another dentist who had closed the space with “bonding.”  It fell out three months later.  She went back to have it done again.  That time it fell out a week later.  She was interested in ONLY closing the space.  Of course, I looked around, and could easily treatment plan a BUNCH of stuff.  There was evidence of wear secondary to parafunction (and possibly acid reflux), including significant attrition and “dentin pools.”  There were also other restorations that were fairly rough.  She needs a comprehensive approach.  But, over the years I’ve learned to address the chief complaint and THEN have the “comprehensive discussion.”

Bioclear Interproximator. These are silicone wedges used for diastema closure. You stretch them to make them thin and pass under the cured flowable composite increment (see photo #6 below).

She wanted to know if I could close the space with bonding and have it stay (not fall off).  Sure I can!

This case is nothing special, but it’s WAY better than where she started. Definitely not a “brag” case.  But good enough.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a true “before” photo.  I got excited about stripping the remaining old composite on #7 and #8 and got started.  Then I remembered to take the “before” picture.  So, part way through the stripping, I took a “before” shot.

Photo #1:  This is my “before” shot, though I had already removed most of the composite on #7.   At the gingival aspect, there was a horizontal “shelf” of composite laid across the papilla… the antithesis of emergence profile.

I didn’t have time to take photos of every step. But, here’s what I got! Continue reading

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Posted in Clinical Technique, Dental Product Reviews, Tips & Tricks | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Do We Need Consent Forms for Everything?

This quick article was inspired by a thread in a dental group (called “The Dental Place“) on Facebook.  Some dentists reported that they have a consent form signed for EVERY procedure they do.  For every patient, every time (even repeat procedures for the same patient).  Holy moly!  I rarely use consent forms, honestly.  But, that doesn’t mean I don’t use informed consent.

Informed Consent isn’t a form.

You know what will “protect” you FAR more effectively than a silly consent form?

A GOOD RELATIONSHIP.

And, it’s fairly easy.  Be nice.  Take the TIME to explain things (including potential risks vs benefits).  Don’t just mindlessly shove a consent form in their faces and have them learn, for the first time, about file breakage during endo… or a broken jaw from a wisdom tooth extraction.  That’s some scary shit without CONTEXT.

Informed Consent is a conversation.

Continue reading

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Posted in Practice Management | Tagged , | 7 Comments

NPI’s Concierge Online Appointments – A Review

One of the factors that lit the fire under me to update my old website with New Patients Inc was so that I could add some advanced features.  One of them was online scheduling for patients.  This is a concept that scares the crap out of some dentists, because they think they will be turning their schedules over to strangers.  This is not the case (at least in the case of NPI’s Concierge™).  I’ve discovered those fears are unfounded.  Read on!

What do you mean by online dental appointment scheduling?

To be clear, when I’m talking about online scheduling, this is NOT an “appointment request,” like we see on so many websites, including my previous website.  An Appointment Request is an email form the visitor fills out with his / her appointment PREFERENCES, which is then sent to the office.  Then the office must contact the prospective patient to finalize an appointment time.  In my experience, the attempt to contact the patient often resulted in an unanswered voicemail or email.  We’d contact them and leave a message, but many of them never followed up.  In the end… no appointment made.  Lead lost.

I’m talking about patients being able to schedule an ACTUAL appointment on a specific date at a specific time.

New Patients Inc Concierge™ Online Scheduling

Online scheduling button on my website.  See blue arrows (added).

When you add Concierge online scheduling, you will have a widget (a “schedule now” button) on every page of your website.  The Concierge widget is NOT an email form for patients and prospective patients requesting an appointment.  With Concierge, the patient is making an ACTUAL appointment, at ANY time, without having to play phone tag or email tag with the office.  That means if the prospective patient is up with a toothache at 1:30am and hops on Google to find a dentist, that new patient can make an actual appointment for the next morning.  What kind of edge does that give you over the other dentists?   😎  Think about it!

When would (now) be a good time?

With Concierge online scheduling, visitors to your website can make an appointment while Continue reading

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Posted in Dental Product Reviews, Practice Management, Technology | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

NPI Crusader – Online Review Generator

Several years ago, I wrote about the new trend of online reviews (2011).  I considered it a double-edged sword, at best, and I initially avoided getting involved in it.  As time went on, I realized the trend was here to stay and increasing in relevance (2012) to online marketing.  Hell, I was looking at reviews for restaurants and other businesses.  I’m using reviews to help make decisions as a consumer, myself!  How can I reconcile that with a reluctance to leverage reviews to help my own business?  It was impossible to deny the importance of online reputation.

Initially, my concern was the potential for bad reviews or even fraudulent reviews.  Naturally, this concern is shared by many dentists.  And, yes… it does happen.  However, it’s rather rare, and people are wise to it.  First, the saying “you can’t please everyone” is simply true.  What matters is a preponderance of good reviews.  Drown out the bad ones with good ones.  Consumers look, not only for the overall quality of reviews, but also consider the context and credibility of the bad reviews.

If you can’t beat’em, join’em!

I decided to jump in.  I began by simply asking some of our patients to post reviews.  I put up a couple of signs around the office encouraging patients to post reviews.  I got business cards that had a QR code patients could scan on their smart phone and go right to my Google review page.  It worked… a little.  A got a trickle of reviews over a long period of time.

This is on the back side of my business card.

Help!  I need somebody.  Help!

The next step was to use a review generating service.  Many such services have popped up over recent years.  The idea is to Continue reading

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dr. MacGyver – Episode 3

The One About the Broken Post

A new patient called saying a crown on her front tooth came out.  We appointed her the same day (that afternoon).  She has a current dentist, but he was on vacation, and the front desk did not offer to refer her to anyone on call.  So, she did a search on Google and found my website.  Woo-hoo!  There’s a moral to that story, already eh?

Tooth #9 had snapped off at the gingival level.  Half of the post was in the root.  The other half was in the crown along with some coronal tooth structure and composite build-up.

 

Can’t you just glue it back?

As you can see, this was not a matter of “gluing it back on.”  Though the patient had tried with superglue.  And, the patient was going on a vacation trip this weekend.  She had an existing temporary partial denture (all-acrylic with wire clasps).  So…  what options does Dr. MacGyver have?  In my opinion, the tooth is ultimately unrestorable.  There won’t be enough ferrule to do a new post / core and new crown with any degree of predictability.  What can we do to give the patient her smile back?

Is there some way to put the crown back on?  Or, can we add a tooth to the partial for the time being?  Maybe even attach the crown to the partial?  Will that work?  What about just bonding / splinting it to the adjacent teeth as a “temporary bridge?”  Hmmm… bonding to porcelain is unpredictable, and this tooth will likely be under some stresses.  Wait…  what about removing the post from the tooth and picking up a new post in the existing crown and then cementing it with Temp-bond?  That might provide enough retention for a temporary solution.  Well… why not just secure a new post in the root and then retrofit the crown to a new build-up?  Use the good “permanent” stuff.  Yeah… that’s the ticket!  Well…. IF I can get the post out of the root.

How are we going to do this?

Before I do all that, Continue reading

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Posted in Clinical Technique | Tagged | 6 Comments