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Dental Marketing Checklist​

For NEW Dental Practices AND for Practices that are NEW to Marketing

Free Strategy Session with Varun Tandon

This checklist is created from experience.

I am Varun Tandon, expert at growing Dental Practices through Online Marketing. MY expertise is in targeting the right patients through the right Digital Channels & bringing them into your practice.

​We focus on your ROI - Return On Investment to make sure you are profitable.

Varun Tandon

(310) 504-1344​


Get an in-depth plan for your Office!

Schedule a FREE Breakthrough Strategy Call:  http://cal.rockintech.com/varun_tandon

Building a Website - Sound Advice

Be 100% clear about your goal for the website

- Informational
- SEO - Search Engine Optimization
- PPC - Pay Per Click

➢​ Be 100% clear if you will advertise prices online or not.

➢​ If you don’t ​have a marketing budget, go with a very simple Informational website.

➢​ Do not​ try to do Search Engine Optimization on the cheap ​(SEO). You will end up getting frustrated with no results.

OR worse, if it turns out to be a BAD channel for your location, money is wasted.

Website Hosting Options

1. Shared Hosting or WordPress Hosting

➢​ Shared or WordPress hosting works well for information websites

​➢​ ​We recommend: Bluehost.com OR InMotionHosting.com

- They both are excellent providers with 24 hrs Customer Service.

Cost: $4-$7 per month

​Bluehost : bluehost.com​​
Inmotionhosting: inmotion-hosting.evyy.net​​​


2. Cloud Hosting

​➢​  We  recommend their Cloud option ONLY IF you are doing Search Engine

Optimization

➢​ It is much FASTER which helps with rankings in Google/Bing/Yahoo search engines 

We recommend Bluehost.com Cloud Hosting: bluehost.com​​​

Cost: $10 per month (cheapest you will find ANYWHERE)




Phone Call Tracking

➢ You MUST have phone call tracking to record and track “where” potential patients call from. The Call Tracking number should be on your website to start with.


➢ THEN​ anytime you invest into any advertising channel, you MUST have separate phone number for each AD channel... which does not cost much.  - AD channel can be: Google Adwords, Direct Mailers/postcards, ValPak, Facebook ADs, Organic rankings etc...

➢ If you can’t track where people come from, how would you decide later on where to spend ​your money?

We Recommend: CallTrackingMetrics.com​ - Checkout how Phone Call Tracking works.

As an Agency, we get much better pricing with many Call Tracking Vendors. 

Online Reviews System

1. Claim your Business Pages - that matter


➢ Claim your Google Business page (Google My Business​), Yelp​ profile and
Facebook​ profile - Now!​

Claim Google Profile: HERE

Claim Yelp Profile: HERE

Create a New Facebook Page: HERE


2. Monitor and Requesting Reviews

OPTION 1: ​Review Software with Front Desk Involvement. Have your Front Desk

request reviews when a patient is "checked out". Using a system (like Rockin Review Software), your front-desk can send a Review Request thru Text message and/or Email.

Cost of Software: $50 per month


OPTION 2: Automated. A Review request system that syncs with your appointment calendar. An automated text/email is sent out requesting reviews. 

We get 50% off on BirdEye.com​ ~ $125 per month


It is important to start building [raving]  reviews on these profiles/pages...and quick. ​Don't be afraid to ask all new patients to leave review.​​

LiveChat - for later or now?


​LiveChat increase patient leads by 20% or MORE


➢ Remember that percent, so when the time comes to spend marketing dollars, you are ready to invest in LiveChat on your website.

DO IT YOURSELF: Recommended LiveChat software for your Front-Office: LiveHelpNow.net

➢ When you are ready to SCALE, it would be better to automate that part and
outsource it to an external company.

Talk to me about Outsourcing it, I have options for you to choose from!

Online Scheduling Requests Options


Why do you need this?
To give your website visitors an EASY way to request or make appointments.

1. A Simple Website Form

➢​ Include the following fields:

- Name
- Email
- Phone Number
- Preferred Date and Hours 

➢ ​Do NOT add additional fields to this form... Visitors will not fill it out if you do.
➢​ For WordPress, we recommend Contact Form 7 OR Gravity Forms.

2. ScheduleOnce.com

➢​ ScheduleOnce will allow website visitors to pick 3 time-slots that works for

them.

➢​ This platform works really well for high traffic offices that do NOT want to expose their real schedule online.

Cost: $19 per month

3. LocalMed.com 
➢​ ​Syncs with the 'Schedule' function in your PMS - patient management system

➢​ ​As an Agency, I have a partnership with LocalMed to get you discounts on setup as well on your monthly charges.

➢​ ​You don't need to use this IF you have "Open Dental" patient management system. they already have a cheaper version for you to use on your website.

Secure Forms for Patient Information

​➢​ For Open Dental users, this secure web-form functionality comes built-in (just another reason why Dentists love "Open Dental")

➢​ But, if you are not pleased with the option your Patient Management System provides, this is a great secondary option.

We recommend: Formstack.com

➢​ It's Hipaa Compliant
➢​ Secure & Easy to Use

➢​ Your front-desk can easily export the form and then import into your PMS (patient management system). 

Cost: Between $30 to $39 per month

Try it For Free: formstack.com​​

Google Analytics Tracking

➢ Your website must have Google Analytics tracking...EVEN IF you don’t look at it
for a year, set it up.

➢ When it’s time to invest into marketing channels, this will give you a baseline of how your website has performed overtime.

Run a Design Contest


 Run a Design Contest to get GREAT Design work done on the cheap.

Step 1. Run a design contest for Logo, Flyers design here: 48hourslogo.com​​​​​

Step 2. About 30-50 designers will compete and submit their designs according to your specifications - content, colors etc.

Step 3. You will pick the design/designer you like most. 

You have unlimited revisions until you are happy.

See Sample Flyers for NEW Dental Offices and Dental

Implants here: https://goo.gl/hwXRNd

Choosing a Practice/Patient Management Software - PMS


 

We recommend Open Dental

OpenDental.com

➢​​ Every Open Dental user (Dentists) I have spoken to LOVES the software.

➢​​ It is the Cheapest and one of the MOST Reliable software for Practice Management.

➢​​ It integrates with most other software (as they are Open Source)

➢​​ We got Custom reports you are use with Open Dental.

Try it out for free here: opendental.com/trial.html


Choosing a Software for Patient Appointment Reminder


​ 

Reminder Call - supports Call, Text and Email reminders to patients 

ReminderCall.com​​

➢​​​ This is one of the cheapest and reliable we found.​

➢​​ They have integrations with a few Patient Management Software - PMS

  • DataCon
  • Diamond Dental
  • Dolphin Management by Patterson Dental
  • Eaglesoft by Patterson Dental Supply, Inc.
  • PracticeToday
  • Open Dental

Starting price is $15 per month​​

Check their website for complete list of integrations​​​

Three Questions to Ask Each NEW Patient

Train/Require your staff to ask each patient the following 3 questions and note it in the Patient Management Software

 1. “Did someone REFER you to us? If so, who? We would love to thank them!”     ➢​ If it’s a person, thank them personally. They are talking about you...they             will get you more referrals.

2. Follow up question on #1 - “How did you HEAR about our office? Did you find us on Yelp, Google, Facebook or another source?”                                                 ➢​ This will correctly identify what source is bringing you the most money overtime.

​3. ​​“What is your current MARITAL status? I would love to keep this in your patient records”
➢​ A lot of offices don’t collect this specific piece of info. This will help your
future marketing campaigns by a lot.​​

Setup Referral Sources in your PMS

➢ Setup your Patient Management Software to have Referral Sources.
-​ Ask your Patient Management Software (PMS) support on how-to do it.

➢ It’s a one-time setup - add the following to start with:
- Yelp
- Google/Bing ADs
- SEO - Search Engine Optimization
- Facebook
- Instagram
- Postcard Mailers
- Patient Referral
- Community Event
Add more here....

Over the years, you will have great data to decide what marketing channels to invest more $$$​ into.

If you Haven’t Bought your Office Yet...

Four Key marketing aspects to look at when deciding on a location:

1. City/Zip-Code Population Density
➢​ Look at population density and general population of an area - this helps
with Search Engine Optimization.

➢​ If the population is too low, Search Engine Optimization will not be a
channel you could use.



2. Traffic Flow​ - checkout freeways/roads, congestion to figure out where you would want to advertise.

➢​ Ideally, choose a location going away from traffic AND a location coming in from a higher density.


3. Area Demographic - Do the vast majority of the people in the area have Dental insurance? 

➢​ Get to know the people in the area and what (if any) Dental Insurance is prominate...do you offer it? Another thing to consider is Medicaid...is the area a high Medicaid area? Do you offer it?


4. Office Accessibility- Will you office be easy to get to...can it be easily seen?  Accessibility and viability are key!​

➢​ Are there any physical barriers (Rivers, freeways) that may separate the area and make accessing your office a bit more difficult?

➢​ Is your office freestanding or in a complex, can people easily see it or can it be missed?


Note: There are MANY more pressing factors that take precedence in picking an office location, these are to be kept in mind or part of your checklist.

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