I am working on a leadership presentation that I am giving in January at the Rocky Mountain Dental Convention. I am also giving an abbreviated version of this presentation at the American Dental Association's New Dentist Conference (NDC) in July. The NDC planning committee asked my friend Rita Zamora to follow me with a presentation on Social Media and Leadership. If you don't know Rita, you should! A link to her facebook site is
Dental Relationship Marketing.
My presentation will challenge the participant to look inward for personal exploration by identifying their core values and purpose in their lives. See
What do you stand for?
Rita and I had a discussion last week about what we are respectively planning to present. After speaking with her, I had a profound revelation about what social media really is. Through our conversation I discovered that social media is an outlet to tell/show the world what you stand for (Core values) and how you spend your time (Purpose).
I love social media. I use it often. We have a facebook site for the practice
Facebook -TCDOdenver, but it is only one aspect of how we portray ourselves to the world.
In order to remain a viable business, we need to have a constant stream of new patients entering our practice. For this reason, we market ourselves. We are always looking for new ways to market our practice. Currently, we do a lot of asking our existing clientele for referrals, we market to referring dentists, we have a website, we have a decent following on facebook, twitter, and linked in. And lastly, we have an ad in the local neighborhood newspaper. When I feel inspired, I blog.
Our top referral source is our existing patients, followed by our referring dentists.
It seems every dentist that markets themselves have the same theme in their advertising. "We have the best new technology, comfortable setting, comprehensive care, affordable, etc." I am sure that every dentist believes that the marketing they do accurately portrays their practice.
How does one stand out when everyone looks the same?
Potential clients search for a dental office that they think they will feel comfortable in. Consumers are more educated today than they ever have been. They have a wealth of information at their disposal. Patients will choose to call based on their current needs and the identification of values that they find from their research.
Sound familiar? Same as social media. People will choose you based on identification of similar values. Your "marketing" has created a persona of you and your office. Now the most important question, does your "marketing"-based persona match the true persona of you and your office? Does the true experience for your patients, match the expectations of that patient based on your marketing?
Consistency breeds trust. Inconsistency creates distrust.
The educated consumer is looking for consistency. They will not move forward with their treatment without trust. It is very hard to have a good relationship without trust.
We have chosen to place an ad feature in a new magazine in Denver called "Reign". It is a magazine that is geared towards the same demographic that we are looking to attract as patients - People that truly value their health and life and want to experience life to the fullest extent. Here is a link to the ad we placed.
http://issuu.com/reignmagazine/docs/reign_holiday_2012/107
I feel it is an accurate representation of who we are (core values) and what we do (purpose).
Marketing with Integrity
I can't end this without mentioning other people that we work with that coach us to live in integrity. They say it takes a village!
Kim McGuire -
Fortune Management of Colorado
Bob Frazer -
R. L. Frazer and Associates
Wendy Phillips -
Big Buzz Brands