Dental Marketing

New Patients Inc - DentalTown January 2012

2012-01-25T19:58:00.000-08:00

New Patients, Inc
Corporate Profile on Dental Town
Read More

Dental Marketing Summit Series: Part 4 Proper Design: What You Like vs What Works & Why

2012-01-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

New Online Dental Marketing Summit Series - read one of our participant reviews.

Social Media Marketing Trends for 2012

2011-12-30T07:49:00.000-08:00

21 Social Media Trends to watch out for in 2012.

1. Social media marketing disappears

Social media is going to be integral part of everything we do when promoting our business. This will make social media an integral part of marketing and it will not be a separate activity. Much like SEO or email marketing, social media will be just one tool in the box.

2. Integrating social media to corporate websites

Brands start large scale integration of social media content into their digital properties. Big brands will use social media connect and user generated content to get closer to customers. This will help them get most out of true fans and brand advocates by linking their web properties to conversations.

3. More support through social media

The integration of social media will lead to people reporting their problems in their channel of choice. Social media integration lets some of those problems be handled by the peers. However, companies should find ways to avoid their social media channels becoming a glorified helpdesk.

4. Social CRM will make inroads in larger organizations

Social data will be added to the CRM systems to find trends in sentiment and indivitual preferences of customers. The goal is to engage the customer in a conversation and give value that binds them tighter to the brand. As brands lose control of online interaction social CRM will help them react and predict how conversations are taking place. Findings from IBM showed that in the next three to five years, 81% plan to focus on customer analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.

5. Social media will influence more sales

Social media integration will allow customers to get real user opinions before making purchase decisions. Social commerce is not web shop on Facebook. It’s a digital property where people can make their decision based on marketing materials from the brand and augmented with feedback from existing customers in a form of ratings, reviews and comments.

6. Social commerce on mobile devices

We will lead into a new era in eCommerce where you can directly purchase from your Facebook account. With proliferation of mobile platforms social commerce will become popular on mobile devices. Facebook’s Open Graph will also let you directly purchase with Facebook credits based on recommendations by your friends.

7. Social media budgets will grow

Most companies will increase their social media budgets. This includes in-house spending on and outsourced services. Part of the investments go to boost their own social presence through blogs and product reviews. Rest goes to external sites like Facebook.

8. Social media advertising will grow

Social media channels are looking to turn a profit so they are looking for ways to get at your advertising budget. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others are looking into way to display more marketing messages to their users. This will increase budgets dedicated to social media advertising.

Social media advertising will grow to $5 Billion in 2012, 25% of that vill be locally targeted social advertising.

9. Social media ROI is a must

More result oriented. Still less than half of the marketers measure results from social media. Social media ROI is a hot topic but less than half of the marketers report seeing it. We see that the budgets will grow and social gets more important in the brand’s marketing mix. This means that C-level will demand results. Dollars in sales. It can be as easy as direct sales from Facebook or a bit more vague as in conversion rate of people from social channels is higher than average.

In the course of our conversations with CMOs worldwide, an overwhelming consensus emerged. The vast majority of CMOs believe there are three key areas for improvement. They must understand and deliver value to empowered customers; create lasting relationships with those customers; and measure marketing’s contribution to the business in relevant, quantifiable terms.

10. Rise of the branded content

Next to advertising there will be a push be in the user’s stream. This means brands need to create content that is good enough to be curated and shared. Content has longer shelf life, can be reused in different channels, has higher perceived value for customers. This means that content creation budgets may in many cases exceed the social advertising budgets. It wouldn’t be surprising if some brands will kill advertising in favor of content creation.

11. Content Curation and Discovery

Information explosion has created an attention deficit and people want to have a quick overview of what’s important and easily find what they need. Aggregation and content curation are going to be very important and brands start filtering information to give value to their customers.Brands will integrate curation into their IT or use third party services. News aggregation apps like Flipboard and magazine apps will find a market in corporate circles.

12. Tabletizing and mobilizing websites

Not exactly a social media thing but businesses start to make their sites mobile. Like 10 years ago companies made websites because everybody else did, now they will make their sites mobile because everybody else does. People will use more social networks’ messaging instead of regular email and IM.

13. Social gaming will grow and spill over to real world

Social Media Games have more players than prime time TV shows have viewers. In-game ads and branded game items will become important promotional tools. As social media will become more mobile so will social gaming. This means that games that are hosted on social networks, such as Zynga and EA on Facebook, will be playable on mobile devices. These kinds of games will be played on-the-go – when you’re traveling by bus, sitting in a boring lecture, waiting for your lunch. Social gaming will be integrated with real life to physically perform tasks offline that have effect in the virtual world. Engage real friends, go to locations, flash mobs, etc. The potential growth of mobile social gaming will be huge.

14. Location! Location! Location!

Location based services will be everywhere. Local information, reviews, coupons, loyalty programs and more. All tied in with your social graph. We are moving towards an era of real-time need for information. More and more people will be checking for recommendations about nearby restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. Location based services will be part of many marketing campaigns. Near-field communication chips in mobile devices get more common and will pave the way to the new era of “tap & pay” commerce. Loyalty programs will start moving towards NFC and location based solutions. NFC will be a convenient way for you to connect, share and react.

15. Most social media usage will be on mobile devices

Social media is happening in real time and people share content when it’s happening! As smartphone penetrations reaches majority and tablets become increasingly popular, sharing content will move towards mobile devices. Smartphones gives us extra depth into personalization – we can share what we want, when we want. The limits are fading! You will always be connected with social media, no matter where you are!

16. Group buying sites will add location based services

Let’s face it, it is a brain dead model. Grow a huge list by offering really cheap deals and then sell that list to businesses to get really cheap deals. Group buying will not go away but businesses will understand better what it is and use it accordingly. To spell it out: businesses buy an opportunity to let potential customers sample their offering at a hugely discounted rate in hopes of repeat business. New layer of value can be added by integrating with location based services that will alert users to deals when they are in the neighborhood.

17. Interacting with live TV in social media

Live TV shows will react to user interactions such as votes, suggestions, etc. We have the ability to change what’s happening by providing real-time feedback on social networks. TV is going to be everywhere through mobile apps.

18. News will be social

News websites will gradually be replaced by applications integrated with social media technology such as Facebook’s Open Graph. While this won’t happen instantly, we’re going down that road as we speak. People will be reading news from their dedicated applications such as iPad’s Flipboard or Washington Post Social Reader. We will take in a lot of recommendations and read the same things that our friends are reading.

19. Mobile apps will become more social

All of the successful new mobile apps will be deeply integrated with social networks allowing you to share and engage more than ever before. We will be taking in a lot of suggestions and recommendations from our friends, colleagues and other trustworthy peers.

20. Your social media footprint will grow

Frictionless sharing capabilities and social gestures will make our lives increasingly visible on social networking sites. Music, TV shows, check-ins, purchases and more will be automatically posted to social media sites. Always connected, always sharing! If you don’t share, your friends will. Some may rise privacy concerns but most people will ignore the implications and their lives are going to be more open than ever before.

21. Facebook will break the 1 Billion people mark

Where does that more than 1 billion Facebook users come from? The countries with more than 20 million people and Facebook penetration below 20% will add most of this growth in 2012. Add the potential growth of other countries and you get to a cool billion or 1.1 billion even. And that does not include China.

Above article from: Dreamgrow.com

New Patients, Inc.

Dental Marketing Services

QR Codes - 2012 Marketing Trends

2011-12-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

QR Codes

Quick Response or QR codes in 2012 will be near ubiquitous both online and offline in the U.S. to easily send people with mobile devices to online destinations.

QR codes are increasingly being used on billboards and various signage as nearly 50 percent of U.S. mobile users have a smartphone. Mobile devices themselves are ubiquitous with their users and are used often in tandem with using other media, such as magazines and television.

I envision these pixelized matrix barcodes present in the corner of all televised programs, especially news. Viewers will then be able to receive and share the latest updates on that televised news or programming with their mobile devices online. Television use will also be the medium which will explain how to use QR codes as its being used, so it takes hold in the mainstream understanding.

Ultimately, QR codes will then replace or be in tandem to URLs on all offline advertising and even online. This will cause search engines to rely less on text links and factor in interest from QR code use. Google and Bing can directly acquire this information from mobile users on their operating systems, Android and Windows Phone 7, respectively.

Above article from: www.SearchEngineWatch.com

Contact New Patients, Inc. if you would like to learn more about using QR Codes for marketing your dental practice.

New Patients, Inc.
The ad agency exclusively for dentists
Dental Marketing

Dental Marketing - New Patients, Inc.

2011-12-27T14:22:00.000-08:00

New Patients, Inc. is a full service dental marketing company, exclusively for dentists. In short, dentists hire us to manage their marketing budgets. This makes perfect sense. Our clients focus on the patients in the chair. We focus on getting the right patients in the chair.

We have been promoting dentistry to the dental consumer since 1989. We provide dental marketing services to individual dentists all throughout the US & Canada.

Our recommended dental practice marketing strategies are driven by real statistical result data from our own dental consumer testing (since 1989), along with independent consumer testing that we have paid for. We don’t put our client marketing budget at undue risk. As a company we risk our own money in the form of a consumer testing budget. We test compile, analyze, and then adjust our forward strategies based on statistical fact. Our dental marketing solutions are not grounded in theory or vague, general marketing beliefs. This provides our clients with real, quantifiable, dental practice growth.

You might be wondering what tools we use to generate new patients for our clients. The quick answer to that question is, all of them. We have deployed advertising for the purposes of attracting new dental patients in every conceivable promotion medium. We can attract dental patients internally through your own patient base. We can attract the right kind of new patients externally as well. We work in direct response mediums (mail), every form of print media imaginable, and all forms of mass media (radio, television, billboards, yellow pages, etc). Successful dental office marketing isn’t about doing one thing really well – it’s about doing everything really, really, really well.

Some dentists call us to find out if we do internet dental marketing. Of course we do. We have a world class internet division within our company. We handle everything from the initial website, to initial positioning, Search Engine 0ptimization, managing social media marketing, as well as producing our website video to improve website visitor conversion into new patient phone calls. Dental marketing online is an important piece of an overall marketing plan, but it is just a “piece” of the entire puzzle. Many of our clients like the fact that New Patients, Inc. can handle all of their needs, including their dental marketing online.

Some dentists believe we are dental marketing consultants. We do provide dental practice management services and advice, but not the services with which you are likely familiar. The perception of our company as a dental practice management company probably stems from our published dental marketing books (Unlimited New Patient Series), our dental continuing education events & courses (Marketing Summits), and the way we generally conduct business. New Patients, Inc. DOES work with many dental practice management consultants. Many refer their clients to us. But dental practice management consulting is not our business. Think of New Patients, Inc. as the company that dental practice management firms choose when their clients are in need of an effective new patient acquisition strategy and implementation. That’s where we come in. Dental practice management consultants typically do not do practice marketing and we do not provide traditional dental practice management services.

So, now you know more about New Patients, Inc! We are the company that you can start with, on something as simple as developing a dental logo. We can also be your dental office marketing partner for the rest of your career – no matter what the ultimate growth objective is for your practice.

We hope you find our website informative and useful. If there is anything we can do for you, please feel free to contact us.

Online Continuing ED Course for Dentists

2011-11-29T15:34:00.000-08:00

Marketing Summit For Dentists
Now Available Online!
Available December 1, 2011

Howie Horrocks and Mark Dilatush have produced a 7 hour (seven, one hour segments) continuing education series called the Dental Marketing Summit Series. The online series is available now on DentalTown, in their online CE section. You can go directly to the courses by clicking this link. The series is produced in full video as opposed to the PowerPoint/audio option. If you are not currently a member of DentalTown, you will need to register first. Registration to DentalTown is free.

The cost of the online CE series $160. When you complete the series and successfully complete the CE test questions, we will ship you Unlimited New Patients – Volume 3 (retail $167). The CE series and the book compliment each other wonderfully to create a lasting and impactful learning experience.

This Series is the online equivalent of our LIVE Marketing Summit Series. The descriptions (below) of what you will learn in the live presentations fully apply to the online series.

Our mission is your continued success.

Visit our main website to learn more about us and our online marketing course for dentists.

New Patients, Inc.
The ad agency exclusively for dentists
Dental Marketing

Marketing a Business with Video

2011-11-27T08:28:00.000-08:00

As more people use the Internet in search of information, online video becomes increasingly important for reaching and connecting with followers, fans and customers. Video's rise in power as a marketing tool is due to its attractiveness to web surfers. By adding a smile and a friendly voice, you can build rapport with your customers faster and help them relate to your business on a more personal level.

Video connects customers on a deeper level because it covers and reaches out to different types of learning styles: the visual where people learn by reading or seeing demonstrations of a product or service and the auditory where people connect by listening to audio.

Videos also help sites show up higher on the search engines. Browsers and search engines are becoming savvier and are spending less time reading endless web pages of text. Instead, they are picking up on keywords tagged on videos appearing on sites.

As a growing business, it is important that you integrate video into your online marketing efforts. Even if you start with a basic video tip on how to best use your product or service, just get it recorded and post it to YouTube, your own website and/or blog. Although most people like humor and creativity, they also like messages that help them save time or money or makes their life easier, and that's what you can provide.

Above article created by: Entrepreneur.com

New Patients, Inc.
The ad agency exclusively for dentists
Dental Marketing

Dental website video marketing

2011-11-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

Alternate Media Marketing for Dentists

2011-10-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

New Patients, Inc. promotes dental practices in all viable media that have proven successful over time. We have years of experience, testing, and statistical data for every medium. We use this evolution of truth to guide our client strategies, designs, and deployment.

What are alternative media?
Alternate media could be almost any potential promotion medium that we haven’t already listed on our website. Just because it doesn’t have its own link on our website, don’t think for a moment that alternate media do not work!

Examples of alternate media:
Building banners, car wraps, mall pylons, transit station signage, community/cultural newsletters – the list is nearly endless.

What should I do if I have a potential alternate media in which to promote my practice?
The short answer is, call us first! Tell us about your situation and this potential new advertising media. Give us all the specifics you can. We never say we’ve done everything (everything is undefinable), but you would be surprised at the breadth and scope of our experience promoting dental practices through alternate media. Call us.

How can I learn more?
Feel free to give us a call at 866.336.8237
Have NPI build a free marketing plan for your practice – click here to take client survey
Order our latest book – Unlimited New Patients – Volume 3

New Patients, Inc.
The ad agency exclusively for dentists.

Marketing Plan For Dentists

2011-10-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

What is a marketing plan?
A marketing plan consists of market data, a marketing budget, budget allocation, priority promotion mediums, deployment strategies for each medium, line item costs, and a time line of when to implement each component within the plan.

How do I get a marketing plan built for my practice?
That’s easy. Just click this link. You will be taken to a client survey. The answers to the questions in the survey tell us how marketable your practice is, where your annual marketing budget should be, if you have any current brand equity from prior promotions, and what promotion assets you may already have in place. There is no cost or obligation to you to have this work done. We are not the company that will spam you or send you bundles of unsolicited faxes for the rest of your life. That’s not the way NPI does business.

Do I have to do research on my market area?
No, we will do that for you once you have completed your client survey. We will run a demographic analysis, targeting analysis, and competitive analysis of your area. If you already have a website for your practice, we may also run an optimization analysis on your website to see if there are any opportunities for improvement.

How long does it take to receive my marketing plan?
Usually 4 to 5 business days. We deliver the plan initially to the email address you provide on the client survey. Then, we print and mail the plan to you through the US postal service.

What do I do after I receive my marketing plan?
If we haven’t already scheduled a good day and time to discuss the plan over the telephone, we will. Just let us know a suitable time in your schedule. During that phone call, we will explain every detail within the plan and answer any of your questions.

How can I learn more?
Feel free to give us a call at 866.336.8237
Have NPI build a free marketing plan for your practice – click here to take client survey
Order our latest book – Unlimited New Patients – Volume 3

New Patients, Inc.
Dental Marketing Services for Dentists

Dental Website Design

2011-10-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

New Patients, Inc. has a world-class internet division. Here, we share our thoughts as you consider which company you will choose to build and manage your future internet marketing strategy. Feel free to check out the SEO, Social Media, Mobile Website & Web Video links as well. They are all related to internet marketing.

Having a great website is only the beginning of your journey toward effectively promoting your practice on the internet. Like many journeys in life, the first steps are usually very important. The quality of your website is no exception.

What makes a website good?
Simply put, a good website drives high-quality new patients to the telephone. Those patients call you to book their first appointment. That is the only true measurement of a good website. Dentists do not ask us to develop the prettiest, the most unique, or the largest/most robust websites. Dentists ask us to develop websites that get their phone to ring! That is where we are focused. Our websites are graphically very pleasing, but they are pleasing with a purpose.

Why are NPI-created websites more effective?
Because NPI knows what the consumer wants to see and hear. Of potentially greater value – what the consumer does NOT want to see or hear. Everything we do here is statistically tested. As an example, on every NPI-designed website, you will see the marketable attributes of our client’s practices front and center on every page on every client site. Why do we do it that way? Because the tracking statistics clearly tell us that this navigation method is what the dental consumers want when they visit the website of a dentist. There are literally dozens of examples like this. NPI websites might look different from the basic, canned, normal dental website. There are many reasons why, mostly driven by statistical testing.

Is just having a website ever enough to generate consistent new patient flow?
In some of the more rural markets in the US & Canada, you may be able to gain position with a website itself, without optimizing the site or adding specific strength elements like social media or video. To be honest though, those market areas are rare. Most dentists are in more competitive internet markets. Therefore, most dentists will want to build a more effective/competitive internet presence. In these cases, who you choose to build, position, and manage your internet presence will be vitally important. The closer you are to a competitive dental market, the more your competition is devoting to the search engine optimization of their own practice website. The NPI internet department gets a big kick out of beating other search engine optimization firms as we drive our client sites higher and higher in ranking. The NPI internet department gets a really BIG kick out of dominating 5 of the first 10 search positions for a client. When we help a client take up half of the real estate on a search engine result page, it warms our hearts!

What else needs to be considered regarding a strong internet presence?
You may want to plan on optimization (SEO). You may want to deploy a search engine marketing campaign (SEM or pay per click). You may want to improve conversion of visitor traffic into more new patient phone calls, and produce a series of First Impression Videos. Your market may be the perfect market for a mobile website. You may design external promotion that can drive mobile website traffic through the use of QR (quick response) codes.

No matter what your internet marketing future, NPI can build and manage everything for you - all within reasonable marketing budget guidelines.

What if I already have an ineffective .com website?
Most dental websites are ineffective, so don’t feel bad. But we do understand that you paid good money for your existing website, and you would rather give yourself a root canal than consider that money wasted. Give us a call. We do have a trade-in program for old websites that might take the sting out of your initial website investment.

Why should I consider a mobile website (a .mobi site)?
Well, you really shouldn’t consider one unless you already have a great .com website, consistent traffic, and consistent new patient phone calls coming from your .com site. Those would be your first priority.

But if you already have those in place (or are on your way there), a very likely next expansion of your overall internet strategy might be a mobile website (.mobi). Why? Sixty-eight percent of the world population now has a mobile account! Surfing the internet via smart phone is growing at a 700% per year clip! Dental consumers are looking for dentists on their smart phones, and if they find your .com site – they’ll hate the experience! If they find your .mobi site – they will LOVE the experience. In addition, the search engines recognize mobile surfers and automatically position .mobi sites higher in a search done by a smart phone. There are plenty of reasons to own a .mobi site for your dental practice.

How can I learn more?
Feel free to give us a call at 866.336.8237
Have NPI build a free marketing plan for your practice – click here to take client survey
Order our latest book – Unlimited New Patients – Volume 3

New Patients, Inc.

The ad agency exclusively for dentists

Dental Marketing

Social Media Marketing - Why?

2011-09-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

Is Social Media and online marketing important for your business today? Check out this amazing video that runs through some amazing stats!!!

Above video produced by: FastAccessWebsites

Dental Website Marketing - Social Linking

2011-09-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Better website ranking through social links:

An Excerpt from our Unlimited New Patients - Volume 3

Participating in social media can help you rise higher in the search results.Every time you or someone else in a social network posts about your practice in a blog or on Twitter or writes about it on someone’s Facebook wall, it has a positive effect on your search engine ranking. This is because a few of the top search engines have recently agreed to index social media data, which means that this data is now included in relevant search results. When someone searches for a dentist in (let’s say) Google, Google will not only retrieve and display a link to the dentist’s own website, but any social media activity that includes the search terms the surfer used in their original request.

What this means is that your name and practice information could show up in four or five search results instead of just one. This is a SIGNIFICANT marketing advantage for dental practices in competitive internet markets (particularly larger cities). Take our Manhattan example from earlier in this chapter. How cool would it be to have five out of the first 10 search results for “Manhattan dentist”? You would practically own the entire first page of results!

Click here to read our entire article in our dental marketing newsletter Issue: #17

New Patients, Inc.
Social Media Marketing for Dentists
Dental Marketing Services

Dental Marketing Article

2011-09-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Highly targeted pay-per-click ads on Facebook.

An Excerpt from our Unlimited New Patients - Volume 3

We know. We just spent the first half of this chapter telling you to use pay-per-click sparingly, if at all. But that's when it'ssearch engine pay-per-click. Facebook offers pay-per-click marketing that you can carefully target to a specific demographicand geographic group, making it a very sophisticated and effective way to connect to your target market.

As with a search engine pay-per-click campaign, you DON'T need to hire someone to run your Facebook ad campaign for
you. You can set up a campaign on Facebook in about 10 minutes. As you set up your campaign, you can target Facebook users by geography, age, gender, keywords and by the kinds of things they 'like' or
become a 'fan' of. This allows you to choose exactly who you display your ads to, and to craft specific
messages that are relevant to those people.

As an example, let's say you want to promote dental implants. You can target adults in your practice area who are over 45 years of age, so that the right people receive information that's of interest to them. By clicking on your ad, they will be taken straight to the page on your website that features your dental implant services.

You can run limitless simultaneous campaigns targeting different groups. For instance, while you're targeting people 45 andup with dental implant ads, you can target mothers in your area with an ad that promotes your kid-friendly practice: "Wii,Xbox, Playstation. Your kids will love going to the dentist." At the same time, you can run an ad targeted to people whosekeywords indicate that they are headache sufferers: "Persistentheadaches?"

The cost per click of Facebook ads are quite reasonable, and you can set a daily budget limit. You can also view the numberof daily impressions (or views) that each ad receives, and see how many viewers clicked on the ad to visit your website.This kind of targeted ad campaign can be very cost-effective and produce great results.

Click here to read our entire article in our dental marketing newsletter Issue: #17

New Patients, Inc.
Social Media Marketing for Dentists
Dental Marketing Services

Dental Marketing Experts

2011-09-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

Social media: how to get results without tweeting like a twit

An Excerpt from our Unlimited New Patients - Volume 3

The big 'buzz' these days in dental marketing is social media. Social media websites include MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and so on, plus about a thousand other more obscure sites with
weird names like Fark, Reddit, Ning and Plurk.

There are now groups of dentists organizing continuing education events so everyone can get together to discuss how can dentists use social media to promote their practices and find more patients. The three of us find it amazing that you could get a crowd of dentists in the same place in the same time to discuss social media - but heck, why not?

We're delighted that dentists are taking the initiative and staying on top of new developments in the online world, but we'd like to put things in perspective.

Between all the blogging and 'friending' and 'liking' and 'tweeting,' and who knows what-all, it's easy to spend hours each day on social networks. But is it the best use of your resources? In our experience, you aren't going to get a ton of new patients from your social interaction on social media sites. Yes, you can create an account for your practice and gain fans of your practice. You can ask your existing patients to "friend" you or become a fan of your practice. You can also copy your blog to the various social media sites to keep everyone informed and current. That's all good stuff, but hardly a viable opportunity to generate new business when you look at how much time it will take you to set everything up and add new content on a continual basis. You still want to save a bit of time for dentistry, don't you?

With that caveat, there ARE two excellent ways to use social media to improve traffic to your website, and neither of them will suck up hours of your time.

Click here to read our entire article in our dental marketing newsletter Issue: #17

New Patients, Inc.
Social Media Marketing for Dentists
Dental Marketing Services

New Patients Inc - Who We Are

2011-08-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

New Patients, Inc. is a full service dental marketing company, exclusively for dentists. In short, dentists hire us to manage their marketing budgets. This makes perfect sense. Our clients focus on the patients in the chair. We focus on getting the right patients in the chair.

We have been promoting dentistry to the dental consumer since 1989. We provide dental marketing services to individual dentists all throughout the US & Canada.

Our recommended dental practice marketing strategies are driven by real statistical result data from our own dental consumer testing (since 1989), along with independent consumer testing that we have paid for. We don’t put our client marketing budget at undue risk. As a company we risk our own money in the form of a consumer testing budget. We test compile, analyze, and then adjust our forward strategies based on statistical fact. Our dental marketing solutions are not grounded in theory or vague, general marketing beliefs. This provides our clients with real, quantifiable, dental practice growth.

You might be wondering what tools we use to generate new patients for our clients. The quick answer to that question is, all of them. We have deployed advertising for the purposes of attracting new dental patients in every conceivable promotion medium. We can attract dental patients internally through your own patient base. We can attract the right kind of new patients externally as well. We work in direct response mediums (mail), every form of print media imaginable, and all forms of mass media (radio, television, billboards, yellow pages, etc). Successful dental office marketing isn’t about doing one thing really well – it’s about doing everything really, really, really well.

Some dentists call us to find out if we do internet dental marketing. Of course we do. We have a world class internet division within our company. We handle everything from the initial website, to initial positioning, Search Engine 0ptimization, managing social media marketing, as well as producing our website video to improve website visitor conversion into new patient phone calls. Dental marketing online is an important piece of an overall marketing plan, but it is just a “piece” of the entire puzzle. Many of our clients like the fact that New Patients, Inc. can handle all of their needs, including their dental marketing online.

Some dentists believe we are
dental marketing
consultants. We do provide dental practice management services
and advice, but not the services with which you are likely
familiar. The perception of our company as a
dental practice
management company probably stems from our published
dental
marketing books (Unlimited New Patient Series), our
dental
continuing education events & courses (Marketing Summits), and
the way we generally conduct business. New Patients, Inc. DOES
work with many dental practice management consultants. Many
refer their clients to us. But dental practice management
consulting is not our business. Think of New Patients, Inc. as
the company that dental practice management firms choose when
their clients are in need of an effective new patient
acquisition strategy and implementation. That’s where we come
in. Dental practice management consultants typically do not do
practice marketing and we do not provide traditional dental
practice management services.

So, now you know more about
New Patients, Inc! We are the
company that you can start with, on something as simple as
developing a dental logo. We can also be your dental office
marketing partner for the rest of your career – no matter what
the ultimate growth objective is for your practice.

We hope you find our website informative and useful. If
there is anything we can do for you, please feel free to contact
us.

Top Ten Ways to Destroy your Practice Promotion

2011-08-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

We're not really sure who invented the "Top 10" format of communication. It could have been
David Letterman, maybe it was ESPN - who knows. But dentists seem to like this format, so we
decided to use the popularity to help our News You Can Use readers.

Top Ten Ways to Destroy your Practice Promotion

Last Edition we talked about #10 - no budget.

This edition we are going to talk about #09: Improper budget allocation

Budget allocation ties directly in with establishing a reasonable and responsible annual promotion budget.Allocating the budget to certain projects is the next logical step. Once you have a budget calculated to the promotion of your dental practice, what are you going to do with those dollars?

Unfortunately, that decision is usually dictated by which ad rep happens to call the ofﬁce or take you outto lunch! It might be the Yellow Page rep, the local newspaper sales rep or even a radio station rep. There isn't enough room in this News You Can Use edition to completely discuss proper budget allocation. In general though, you start with internal projects, a solid website/internet presence, targeted external mail projects, and response tracking on at least your mail campaign. These three projects (if done properly) represent the least risk to 95% of the dentists in the country. This is where you start using your annual budget - on the mediums that statistically represent the least risk to your budget.

Over time, the call tracking will tell you how they are performing. You will visually see (and can listen in on the conversations if you want to), the impact of your marketing dollars at work. As long as things are progressing as planned, you are well on your way toward a consistently producing promotion foundation for your dental practice.

As the practice grows, revenues will rise (assuming you are attracting the right patients), and there will be more room in your annual budget. Assuming your foundation is producing, you then allocate some of the budget into the print media and ultimately mass media (radio, TV, billboards, etc). It is almost never a good idea "jump around" or allocate a large percentage of your budget in a mass media if you haven't already been successful generating new patients from the prerequisite mediums. If your dental practice is a small solo practice, expanding into alternate mediums might take more than a year or two. OK, that's ﬁne. As long as the foundation is producing a positive result and revenues are moving forward, do not expand beyond your top budget range. Of course, there are exceptions to this. You may be more risk tolerant than most dentists, or, you might have an aggressive growth strategy. You might be in an incredibly underserved area and want to take advantage of the opportunity before ten other dentists open up their practices in the area. But for most of you, stay within budget and allocate that budget in a least risk ﬁrst order.

In the next installment of News You Can Use, we will discuss #08 in our Top Ten Ways to Destroy your Practice Promotion. Number eight is, Not Understanding the Dental Consumer Market.

Got questions? Want to learn more? Think we're crazy?
www.NewPatientsInc.com
5935 Edmond Street
Suite 105
Las Vegas, NV 89118
Office: 702-221-2184
Fax: 702-252-3958

Dental Marketing - New Patients, Inc.

2011-07-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

WHY CHOOSE NPI - New Patients, Inc.?

Unprecedented Consumer Research & Testing
Figuring out what works and what doesn’t work is an extremely expensive and exhausting process. If every dentist in the country were to duplicate the testing and tracking we have done – you’d all be broke! NPI has been testing (using our own money – not client money) every conceivable variable in every promotion medium in the US and Canadian dental markets, since 1989. We also commission (pay for) completely independent, professional, large-scale consumer research on a regular basis.

Why should this be important to you?
The simple answer is – reduced risk. Reduction of risk means your marketing budget will generate more - more of the time. You win!

More of the “right” patients – better return on investment
Beyond a shadow of doubt, we have proven that there are “segments” in the dental consumer market. Most dentists think everyone wants a deal – not true! Are there patients out there that would choose a healthcare provider based primarily on price? Sure there are. But are there also new patients out there that would never choose a healthcare provider based primarily on price? Absolutely! The top half of the dental market is the most difficult to attract. This is the portion of the dental market that requires all of that research, testing, and statistical analysis. When you are able to consistently attract them, it ensures up to twelve times the long-term return on your investment.

Reputation – Peer Respect
Building a rock-solid reputation in dentistry as a marketing firm is not easy. It takes hard work, consistent results for clients, a lot of time, and a lot of integrity. There are, simply, no shortcuts. If you don’t already know one of our clients (which would be unusual), we have a library of testimonials for you to page through. Feel free to ask for more if you need them.

One marketing company for your entire career!
This one may not get you excited right now, but wait until you have four or five projects going on, all at the same time! Wouldn’t it be nice if there was one company that could handle your website, your optimization, a mail campaign, and maybe a radio campaign in the future? What if you had a company at your disposal that could blend your designs, orchestrate your deployment, and coordinate all of your promotions? That’s what NPI is. That is what NPI does. When we started New Patients, Inc. our vision was to be a dentist’s marketing firm from startup to retirement. We are happy to say that our vision is also our day-to-day reality.

Conserving Marketing Budget Resources ($’s)
We can conserve costs by producing in bulk. We can conserve costs through skilled negotiation with media outlets and proper media analysis. We can re-allocate underperforming media to performing media more quickly. There are dozens of ways NPI can help conserve your marketing dollars.

Innovation
There are literally hundreds of ways you can use your marketing dollar to promote your practice. Unfortunately, many are more useless than useful! Many dentists needlessly waste a LOT of money trying new things. Identifying emerging media and testing them for cost effectiveness and predictability is part of what NPI does. We are always looking at new and innovative ways to drive dental consumers to client practices. So when you hear about some cool new way to promote your dental practice – check here first. There is a very good chance we’ve done it, we have measured it, and we have a predictability index on it.

How can I learn more?
Feel free to give us a call at 866.336.8237
Have NPI build a free marketing plan for your practice – click here to take client survey
Order our latest book – Unlimited New Patients – Volume 3
Attend a Marketing Summit

Marketing Plan For Dentists

2011-07-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

QR Codes & Mobile Website Marketing

2011-07-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

QR Codes Part 3

Here's where it gets really, really fun. This edition of our e-newsletter is part 3 of a series, all related to QR codes. This is the last part of the section on QR codes. You now have your smart phone ready. You now understand that your market is the mobile web user. Last edition we gave you one example of how a dentist could use a QR code to promote their practice. In this edition, we throw our imagination at you!

A QR code on the wall in your reception area and your operatories to drive existing patients to your FaceBook page - where they can "like" you!

A QR code on your walkout statements so existing patients can go to your FaceBook page and "like" you when they get home.

A QR code on carefully selected referral brochures, driving all of your best patients to Google Reviews so they can brag about their visit and improve your website ranking.

A QR code on the back of the whole team's uniforms, driving traffic to your mobile site.

A QR code on the center field signage you pay for at the Little League fields.

A QR code on the sidewalk or wall signage right outside your suite so people visiting the other suites can learn about you.

A QR code on the local gym bulletin board.

A QR code on the back of coffee mugs that you give existing patients who work nearby your dental practice so they can introduce your practice to their co-workers/friends/family.

Are you thinking about how you might use QR codes to help promote your practice yet?

A QR code on your printed treatment plans that drives the patient or patient's spouse to a web video of you explaining the procedure (general overview of the procedure, not specific to them obviously).

A QR code in a bus, in a train, at a bus or train station - driving traffic to your mobile site.

A QR code on a mobile billboard you rent (if you don't practice in a downtown area, you won't understand this - if you do practice in a downtown area, your mind is racing right now!)

Obviously, we could go on and on. The point is, if you have a mobile website for your dental practice - QR codes can be used to drive mobile phone users to your practice mobile site, to your social media sites, or anywhere you want them to go. The possibilities are nearly limitless.

Got questions? Want to learn more? Think we're crazy?

Got questions? Want to learn more? Think we're crazy?

You can reach Mark & Howie at:
Howie: whh@newpatientsinc.com
Mark: markd@newpatientsinc.com
Check out our latest dental marketing book.
Learn more about our dental marketing education courses.

New Patients Inc in Australia

2011-07-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

New Patients, Inc. is pleased to announce that we are now offering our extensive dental marketing services to dentists in Australia!

Below is a testimonial from our first client in Australia!

"Thank you Mark and Howie. And thank you to NPI for your work with me, so far. Very appreciative of the fact that I am your first Australian client.

Special mention must be made for Sharron Swan, who heads your SEO department. She has been very responsive to my needs - considering I had NO web presence prior - we are already number one on certain key phrases. Her monthly SEO reports are detailed and highly informative, demonstrating real value.

The mailers have started going out, and the calls have commenced - BRING IT!"
--
Dr. David J. Lee

myhillsdentist.com
facebook.com/djleedentist

QR Codes & Mobile Website Marketing - Part 2

2011-06-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

QR Codes - Part 1
Now that you have your phone ready to scan QR codes (our previous newsletter), let's take it to the next level of application, specifically for a dental office.

Let's say you have a office in a busy, downtown area like the financial district in San Francisco. There are hundreds, if not thousands of commuters, with smart phones, walking the streets every day, to and from work. Pretty good marketing opportunity huh?

Let's say you want to promote Invisalign as a service to all of those commuters. You pay for signage space at the local trolley stop right down the street from your practice. On the signage, you have a catchy phrase with a QR code.

We guarantee scanning this

Will make you smile!

There will be thousands of commuters each day, walking by this sign, wondering where the code will take them. None of them realizing there is a dental office just 5 doors down from the trolley station. Certainly, they don't realize this dental office can straighten their teeth without braces. And most certainly, they don't know that getting straight teeth is affordable and within their means.

Go ahead, scan the code with your phone to see where it goes.

Which brings us to another really important and useful characteristic of QR codes. Every time a QR code is scanned, you can get a statistical report of how well your signage (or wherever you put your QR code) is working!

If the placement isn't working - move your placement! You won't waste hundreds of dollars a month wondering if it is working or not!

Next edition of this newsletter - we get real fancy with QR codes!

Got questions? Want to learn more? Think we're crazy?

You can reach Mark & Howie at:
Howie: whh@newpatientsinc.com
Mark: markd@newpatientsinc.com
Check out our latest dental marketing book.
Learn more about our dental marketing education courses.

QR Codes & Mobile Website Marketing

2011-06-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

QR Codes - Part 1

Funny looking things, aren't they?

They look like the static noise we used to get on our old tube television screens.
Oh well, I guess we have given away our age!

These funny square images you are seeing pop up all over the place are called QR codes. QR stands for Quick Response. In short, a QR code can take a mobile phone user ANYWHERE you want them to go.

If you want to try this for yourself, grab your smart phone. Go to www.beetag.com. Click on BeeTagg QR Reader and download it to your phone (it's free). Once you install it, it will be available to you on your phone's desktop (or whatever your brand of phone calls the area where all of your applications are).

Click the BeeTag reader application on your phone. Your phone will change to a camera type image. Move your phone toward this document on your PC screen until your phone captures the left QR code above. Now look at your phone. It is probably asking you what you want to do. My phone has an option to "Open Browser". Your phone will have something similar. Choose that option.

Your phone should have taken you to NPI's mobile web page for our latest book (Unlimited New Patients, Volume 3). For practice, see where the QR code on the right takes you.

Now that you have your phone ready, in our next edition, we will start to help you find ways to promote your dental practice with QR codes.

Mobile Dental Website Marketing

2011-05-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

Mobile Websites for Dental Offices!
WHY??

Mobile search is growing FAST!
68% of the entire world population has a mobile account.
More humans own mobile accounts than wired accounts.
Mobile searches through the internet are growing at 700% per year!

What kind of patients are searching for dentists on their smart phone?
New patients that work in an environment that monitors their internet use on their work computer
(basically, every workplace)
New patients in town on travel/holiday
Seasonal patients – patients that may live in your area part time
Contract/Government workers

How can this be a competitive advantage for me?
Less than 1% of dental practices have a mobile website.
Google positions mobile sites (with .mobi extensions) with priority above .com sites if the person
searching is using their mobile phone.
If you practice near lots of businesses
If you practice in or near a busy, downtown area
If you use QR codes in any of your other external promotion

Visit our main website to learn more about our dental marketing services!

Marketing Summit for Dentists - Boston

2011-05-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

You CAN control your practice growth, even in this economy!

New Patients, Inc. presents The Marketing Summit with our next summit in Boston on June 24 & 25th. There are a limited number of seats available so signup now! Click here to learn more about our dental marketing summit specifically for dentists!