Marketing Implant Dentistry

Description

A large percentage of skilled dental professionals lack the tools and comfort level required to market themselves and their dental implant practices effectively As a consequence, these dental professionals miss several opportunities to help patients and grow their business. Even those who recognize the need for marketing often don’t have the experience or training to do so effectively. Marketing Implant Dentistry meets this need by giving dentists the tools to better market and promote their practices and to gain case acceptance.

Marketing Implant Dentistry presents proven approaches for attracting dental implant patients and demonstrates the use of successful communication skills, including verbal and visual aids. This book details multiple examples of patient friendly and professional letters for use in targeting both new implant patients and professional referral sources. Readers will learn the benefits of adopting non-traditional approaches such as hosting patient education seminars, as well as cultivating professional relationships with the medical community (physicians) for the purposes of generating untapped referral relationships. Best practices in internet and social media marketing, specific to implant dentistry, are also demonstrated so practices can make the most out of these low-cost opportunities.

Contents

Foreword
Introduction

1 Visual aids and verbal skills 1
Physicians make great use of visual aids 2
Better to show empathy, not sympathy 2
Implants are worth more than replacing missing teeth 4
Everything begins with asking the right questions 4
The power of visual aids 6
Verbal skills 11
Work out the financials 13
Dental implant models 16
Elevator pitch 18
Could it be that your case presentation just sucks? 19
Implant animations 20
Leveraging your auxiliary staff for animation demos 23
Summary 24

2 Patient education seminars 25
Lasik eye surgery education seminars 26
Using patient education seminars to attract dental implant patients 27
Seminar location 28
The presentation 30
The body of your presentation 34
Presentation conclusion 43
The postpresentation process 45
Advertising your patient education seminars 47
Summary 49

3 Partnering with physicians for dental implants 51
A physician’s endorsement of you could be priceless 52
Speak in a language the physician understands 53
Unconventional methods can lead to extraordinary results 55
Targeting endocrinologists and orthopedic surgeons for patient referrals 56
Targeting the gastroenterologist doctors 58
Targeting otolaryngologists (aka ENT doctors) 61
Targeting plastic surgeons for patient referrals 63
Targeting obstetrician and gynecologists (OB/GYN) 64
Other healthcare providers to target 65
Keep your expectations realistic 67
Physicians need dental implants too 68
Comarketing efforts 69
Summary 70

4 Marketing full ]arch implant dentistry in your practice 71
Tissue ]borne dentures: The short ]term solution 73
Targeting your denture wearers first 75
Face ]to ]face with the denture patient 77
Immediate load/immediate function 79
Targeting removable partial denture and fixed partial denture patients for immediate load 81
Presenting the treatment plan for immediate load 81
The failing partial ]denture: Post ]op examination discussion 82
Consultation with the immediate ]load candidate 87
Making financial arrangements 95
Establish goals for immediate ]load production 96
Summary 97

5 Implant marketing for the surgical specialist 98
Who moved my implant? 99
Meeting the needs of restorative doctor 100
Sharing case reports with restorative doctors 103
Edentulous patient implant study group 105
Target your top two to five referral sources’ patient base 112
Patients and professionals are used to direct ]to ]consumer advertising 114
You too should go direct to consumer 115
Strategies for going direct to consumer 116
The prosthodontist specialty 118
Role of an implant coordinator 120
Expand your geographical range 122
Reducing clinical limitations is crucial 123
Summary 126

6 Database marketing 128
Automate your data entry as much as possible 130
Querying your removable partial ]denture patients for in ]depth insight 131
Collecting the right data through patient surveys is crucial 133
How you structure your survey is important 135
SurveyMonkey.com: Use it! 135
Tailor your marketing efforts to match your research findings 136
Automate your marketing correspondence 137
Define your missing teeth demographics 138
The numbers don’t lie 140
Build rapport year ]round 141
Target each demographic in your database for implants 142
Reactivate your inactive patients 143
Drop your buckets where you are 144
Summary 145

7 Internet presence 146
Website 147
YouTube 150
Google Adwords 152
Landing page (or squeeze page) 153
Social media 154
Rating sites 163
Summary 164
Works cited 165
Index 167

Author

Marcus Hines is the Director of Full Arch Solutions for BioHorizons Implant Systems, Inc. where he promotes full arch continuing education courses and provides practice marketing coaching to clients throughout North America, designed to target, attract and close full-arch dental implant supported cases. For more than a decade Marcus’ sales and marketing services has been concentrated around implant dentistry and has earned him such accolades as Rookie of the Year and Highest Total Implant Sales of the Year awards. Marcus is an author, blogger and social media marketing enthusiast.