THE MILLIONAIRE DENTIST PODCAST

EPISODE 56 TRANSCRIPTION

Announcer:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist podcast brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentist you deserve to be. Please be advised, we do speak with an honest tongue and may not be safe for work.

Casey Hiers:
Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hiers back at it again for the Millionaire Dentist podcast. Our co-host Jarrod Bridgeman joins me in studio. He's our Director of Marketing, and we're going to do a topic on marketing. I want to start, Jarrod, by talking a little bit about your background in marketing, what you do currently with marketing, but then we want to transition it to dentists and practice owners and how they market, how they should market, the do's and don'ts of marketing. So thank you for joining me and just start by telling us about your affinity for marketing and your story.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
The beginning of my career, I actually started in video production. So a lot of what I did was I was a content creator for local companies, corporations and marketing firms as well. And so over the course of the 10 plus years, I did that, I slowly taught myself, learned from these other companies, learned from these other firms and got to the point where I could handle it. And before I came here, I worked for another company as a creative director and ran their marketing department. And then I got offered a sweet job here.

Casey Hiers:
So when you started with more of a video expertise, did you see the need for marketing and that just naturally grew and evolved into people's really desperate need for good marketing?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Exactly. Yeah, Because a lot of the things, starting off, we were a brand new little tiny company, as me and a friend of mine from college and we started just a two-man operation and we worked a lot of local small companies and came to realize they needed help with the marketing of the video as well, like here's a video, what do I do with it now? So we started to offer an extra little service, okay, we'll come in and help you throw it on your website, we'll help you optimize your YouTube channel or any of those channels that they can be used on.

Casey Hiers:
Well, I'm thrilled to have you as a co-host on here, you have a wide bandwidth of expertise, and more specifically, a director of marketing who understands so many different ways and channels and avenues to help educate people. And obviously, for our listeners and our audience, practice owners and how to best market their practice, that's what we're going to talk about today. I'm going to throw this out there. A lot of practice owners with marketing, the range is vast. Some people spend $0, right? Less than 1% of their revenues. Others, we've seen it as high as seven, maybe 8% of revenues. I mean, some folks are spending 40,000, $50,000 at times, and sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but let's talk about going from marketing, a dental practice on a bus stop bench to now the digital marketing era and Facebook and all of that. I would love your perspective on that. And then, obviously, tied in for our practice owners who have evolved their marketing.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I come from a newer school of thought, I would say. I still see bus stop, as you said. I will still see mailers that come in my mailbox like, "Hey, John's dentistry's offering free whitening." I don't know, anything like that. Those can catch attention for people, but I feel with the modern age, people love to go online. They love to research who you are, what your company is, compare you to your competitors. And so, really, the best place to do that is online, it's Facebook, it's your website, it's LinkedIn or whatever your favorite method to use this, but it's come a very, very long way. No one hops onto the yellow pages, I mean, are there yellow pages anymore? [inaudible 00:03:53]

Casey Hiers:
I'm by no means Mr. Technology, but it's to the point now where you do recognize a good website or a decent website, but the ones that are, you recognize a bad one, it really does stick out now.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes.

Casey Hiers:
What are some characteristics or components that you would say of a good website presence, because some good digital marketing tips?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So in terms of a website, right now, the best thing is a clean site.

Casey Hiers:
What does that mean to you?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So clean to me means like when you open the page, it's not cluttered. There's not a bunch of-

Casey Hiers:
It's not an eye chart.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. There's not a billion buttons on there. There's, all the associations you belong in, they're all crammed around.

Casey Hiers:
One thing I like when I go to a website, I like to know what they do and what they're good at. And when I go to a website and I see jack of all trades, master of none, they do every procedure and every step. That's almost a turnoff to me. I want very clear and concise. Is that sort of what you're going at with a clean website?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes. Yeah, clean means both in terms of eye design and in terms of how well it's explained. If you click on somebody's website and it takes you 10 clicks to figure out what they do, people are going to be turned off by the first page, to be honest.

Casey Hiers:
We like instant gratification. We're going to get bored.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep. So your front page needs to say what you do. And then in terms of the design stuff, again, don't have it cluttered, like you can have multiple pages, have an About Me section separate. It doesn't need to be on your front page. Those are the big things. But again, this is from the designer, the designer eye, but white space is your friend. In terms of that, that means that for looking at a page, there's white on the website. Use that to your advantage of making sure people's eyes are drawn into the actual important information.

Casey Hiers:
I like that. How I want to touch on it now is those practice owners who marketing's important, they do a fair amount of marketing and who helps you set marketing budgets to our listener? Who helps you with strategy around marketing? And to take it to the next level, what happens if you're a practice owner who are marketing and your new patient flow is high but you're marketing the wrong patients, you're marketing patients that are on your poorly performing insurance plans? You're almost shotgun marketing and there's no strategy. Talk about marketing with no strategy. And if you're marketing the wrong people or patients, how that can negatively affect a practice owner in this instance, but from your expertise, what's bad marketing looks like, and how can you recognize it and overcome it?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I would say bad marketing, as you said, it's the shotgun or the let's throw stuff on the wall and see what sticks kind of idea. Now, to be fair, that isn't the worst concept to do, because especially, if you're just starting out, you may not know.

Casey Hiers:
It's okay for six months, learn from it, then get better.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Exactly.

Casey Hiers:
If you're still shotgun marketing and you're three, you might have an issue.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Exactly. And then if you're, as you said, if you're bringing in the clientele that's not appropriate for your practice or things like that, you're spending an awful lot of money and not gaining much in return. It's, in terms of website and Facebook ads, you can dig in and see, it'll tell you how much you are getting charged per click for someone to look at your ad. And so it's harder to do that in terms of physical ads, and postcards, mailers, things like that. And so it may not be a horrible idea that when people call, be like, "Hey, how did you hear about us?" That way, your receptionist can log that. It can be a simple spreadsheet, it could be something, but just know that, hey, John Smith heard about me because of the mailer, but Doug found out because of a Facebook ad. And that's the thing about marketing is-

Casey Hiers:
There's no one size fits all.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
There is no one size.

Casey Hiers:
But you need a strategy.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You need a strategy. And just simple, ask on the phone, ask them when they come in, "Hey, how'd you hear about us?"

Casey Hiers:
So there's maybe what 200,000 dentists and specialists in the United States, there's probably 200,000 marketing companies in the United States, right? I mean, there are so many. Let's talk about direction. If somebody says, here's this and says, "I want to spend a little time looking at my marketing and potentially make some decisions or have good strategy or find a good digital marketing firm or a marketing firm." Are there some tips you can give our listeners?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I would... Obviously, it depends on the size of your practice. Larger firms would probably need a bigger company.

Casey Hiers:
An all robust company, not a one, two or three man shop.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Exactly.

Casey Hiers:
Okay.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Now, the smaller guys, like if you're just starting out, like in terms of that, are you're looking to maybe restart your marketing, you can get the smaller company.

Casey Hiers:
You want to do some digital marketing, you're looking at all these companies, there're so many companies in every town, in every city, what are some characteristics of a marketing firm? Or what direction could you give somebody? And look, you're right, a new dentist has different needs than maybe somebody who is five years into it to somebody who has marketed, maybe using older strategies and wants to revamp their marketing. Maybe just give some direction or some areas to look for. And again, for a smaller or a newer place or somebody who wants to reignite it, a three-man shop isn't the end of the world. As you grow, you may want a more robust, even some geo-fencing technology that's out there in marketing, but just help our audience, may be some tips when determining who to use.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So, I would look into, obviously, with any business deal in general, you do want to research them as well. I would look into the company, speak with them and see if they even understand your business. I mean, you don't want to spend your time teaching them from A to Z. You want a company that's been like, it has dealt with very similar things, maybe had been a doctor's office, but they're familiar with the practices and stuff enough to understand your plight. And so they'll come in and work with you and research you and help you figure out your clientele base that you want. But I always want to make sure I go with a company that understands you and your business, or at least the genre of business that you're in.

Casey Hiers:
Is it too judgy to say if their website isn't impressive to move on? I mean, that feels judgy, but to me, if a practice owner gets on a website and doesn't like it, move on.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, that's 100%. Sometimes, the joke of it is like mechanics drive the worst cars because when they get home, they don't want to work on their own car, but with marketing and in video and design like, if they have a horrible website, what are you offering them? How are you going to make me look better if you can't make yourself look better?

Casey Hiers:
I want to pivot to, I talked to a lot of practice owners and new patients is important, finding the right patients are important, but knowing who you want to market to, sometimes, the person hiring marketing, if they're not real clear on who they want to market to, you're really wasting your money, because there's a lot of marketing firms who will take your money to market to anybody and they're not right for you. So again, just to reinforce it, as a practice owner, know who you want to market to, and be able to clearly communicate that. And if you are a high-end fee for service concierge, boutique practice, we love those. Those are great. Market yourself like that.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yep.

Casey Hiers:
If you take every insurance under the sun and there's no person that you don't want to have walked through your door, that's probably an easier way to market.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's much more of a blanket.

Casey Hiers:
But beware. Be aware, because that marketing can put you in a bad spot.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You can tell your marketing firm or if you actually have a part-time marketing person, or at some point, you'd like to have one, they can go in. And I'm going to bring on Facebook ads again because I was messing with those today. So it's on my brain, but you can go in and choose, oh, I want ages 30 to 40, or whatever you want to focus on, male, female, job titles, even you can dig in or set income levels. Nope, I only want people that I know-

Casey Hiers:
Almost all of those criteria really that you can tailor it to. That's good. And I've talked to people in certain areas or cities where there's a lot of attrition, right? There's maybe single people move in, they lived there for eight years. Then they moved to the suburbs. And so those practices, their marketing strategy is going to be much different than a rural area, because there are some rural areas and geographies within our country that some of that digital marketing, you might not need.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
At all. I mean, if you're the only dentist in town, you don't really need much other than you might stick your name on the town banner-

Casey Hiers:
For some awareness, right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Or something. Yeah.

Casey Hiers:
If there's four or five of you within a 15 mile radius, that's a different strategy. And so just hiring a marketing firm or a digital marketing firm without strategy, you could be just frivolously spending money. And all that's going to do is what increase overhead, which is part of the reason why you're marketing anyways, because you're trying to be more profitable.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Exactly. And so-

Casey Hiers:
It's almost like you're chasing your tail a little bit if you're constantly marketing to the wrong person or not sure. And then you need accountability, you need tracking.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Oh, and I would say like you should have a plan. Maybe you don't know the actual plan itself, but you should have a goal. What is your goal? Why are you hiring this company? It can't just be to make more money. You need, no, I want to make sure I'm focusing on this demographic, I want to bring in new patients or I want to work on retaining my current patients. You got to have an actual sizable goal that you can-

Casey Hiers:
Quantify it. You want to quantify results. Well, I wanted to hit this topic because, again, we know a lot of practice owners who need marketing, who don't do it, they don't know where to turn, or they're simply spending an incredible amount of money on marketing. And then when we talk to them about it, they're really unsure what it's really doing. And again, if things aren't hitting your scoreboard practice owner. And by scoreboard, we mean income, retirement savings, projection at net worth, that's your scoreboard. The things you need to be focused on are to improve that. If they're not, what are you doing? And so have a plan, be strategic, be real clear on what you want.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Exactly. Because I mean, if let's say you're that company that has $8,000 a month goal. Now, could you easily spend 4,000 and apply that towards other things you haven't tried yet and meet the same thing? If yes, then you just saved half your money each month. And you're still bringing the same amount of people. So don't be afraid to who-

Casey Hiers:
Do some AB testing almost.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Scale some stuff back and be like, you know what? This month I'm going to spend X amount of dollars on some internet ads. It doesn't have to be video. Again, it could be Facebook, could be Instagram, it could be digital ads, that this is more than the marketing firm sign, but there's digital ads, right? When you click on somebody's website, they'll see in the corner it's like Joe's dentistry over there. I would, most people are on social media sites. That's what I would focus on to be honest. And that's what most people visit Facebook hundred times a day. I'm on it all day long, don't tell my boss.

Casey Hiers:
Well, I don't have one. What's it called, the Facebook?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
The Facebook.

Casey Hiers:
Not familiar. Well, let's wrap it up like this. If you are doing marketing or want to do marketing, have a real clear plan to be able to communicate to whoever is marketing for you and then also be able to quantify the results. Don't blindly blow marketing budgets, and feel good about it. Make sure you can quantify it. Is there any other tips you would give to our listeners?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Those are the biggest ones. Have a goal and have a way to keep track of it.

Casey Hiers:
Very good. Well, Jarrod, I appreciate you being on here. As your expertise is marketing, I wanted to touch on this, but excited to have you as a co-host going forward, we're going to have a lot of fun. And to our listener, again, make sure your scoreboard is going in the right direction. If it's not, call us.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. Have a good one.

Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information. And thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist podcast is brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. To see if they might be a good fit for you and your practice, go on over to fourquadrantsadvisory.com and see why year after year, they retain over 95% of their clients. Thank you again for joining us and we'll see you next time.