109: Learn the Secrets of Patient Facing Dental Marketing with CMO of Smile Direct Club, John Sheldon

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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott and I'm so excited about today's interview. If some of you had seen episode 102, you got to see on there that I had Chris Thompson, he was VP of Sales for SmileDirect Club, and Dr. Reedy, who's senior director of professional education. And one of the things that we started to dig into is their marketing strategy. And I told them during the episode and afterwards we talked as I said, listen, something everyone would be really interested in is how you're doing your marketing. And they were kind enough to say, well, we could tee up our chief marketing officer, John Sheldon to be on your show. And I'm like, yes. So I'm so glad that we've got to this point. John, thank you for making yourself available that we can have this conversation today. And I'm going to give a little bit of background about John. You know, one of the things that I get excited about as this industry matures, all of you know that I'm very focused on. We've got to increase our marketing capability. We're at 40% penetration rate by some number. So if we got to 80%, we double the entire industry. You know, I was having this conversation with AJ Accerno, Dr. Accerno, and he said, emmett, we don't have a hiring problem. We have a revenue problem where we need to be able to increase our revenue to pay what we need to pay. So there's this mindset and focus, but there's other industries that have been doing this much better for a long time. And one of the things I'm excited about having John on is, yes, he's crushing it at Smile Direct Club and is the chief marketing officer. He's overseeing all the digital media, paid media, creative development, social media, communication tactics and all of the experience around the brand itself and very results driven. But what I love too Is he previously served as the chief revenue officer at FreshDirect, which was a food tech company and the northeast leading online fresh food grocer. And then he was also senior vice president of innovation portfolios for mastercard, driving innovation globally for that company and then head of strategy at ebay Enterprises marketing solutions. So to me, John, having you here is like having three, four different industry experiences. So John, thank you again for being on today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's going to be a lot of fun to talk about all the great work that the team is doing at Smile Direct Club.

Yeah. I'm curious, as you moved from these other industries into dental and specifically with SmileDirectClub, what was the contrast? I guess from your experience of where these industries were and where dentistry was, would you say, man, dental is just way ahead of these other industries? Or wow, we have a lot of ground to make up.

Yeah. So Emmett, I've been in and around launching e commerce businesses and digital businesses for 25 years. And for me, and I've done it in all kinds of different industries everywhere from auto to office supp, computers and of course the places that you mentioned coming into Smile Rec Club at the point of maturity, it was when I joined, they had already started doing a number of really great things. And David Katzman, who's our CEO, and Josh Chapman, who preceded me have really strong backgrounds in disruptive businesses and direct to consumer businesses. And so they started laying a great foundation for the team to build on that. I've been working on continuing to mature since I arrived at the company.

Well, one of the things that I'll just put out there is that people are going to have, especially dentists, different perspectives on how they feel about SmileDirectClub. The place that I think we can all align is we need to do better in marketing. And so if we can steal great secrets from SmileDirectClub or others on how to do this, we still have a problem that there's not enough people getting orthodontic work. There's not enough people getting preventative dental. So that competition isn't between dentists. If it was between dentists, we'd say we have 100% penetration rate. Everyone's getting it. Now how do we divide out the pie? Really, the competition is with every other industry. A lot of the ones that you talked about that you've been in is trying to take the hearts, minds and dollars from from the consumer and those hearts, minds and dollars end up going there instead of dentistry. So I'M glad you're at least now on this side of the table helping us get them into dental care. You have a saying which is creating irrational brand love. Can you kind of share your insights from that and how you're applying that to SmileDirectClub? How group dentistry, DSOs, individual dentists can use that, creating irrational brand love.

I mean, the whole point of the idea of creating irrational brand love is to create an experience so valuable, so transformational, which orthodontia can do. Right. Our doctor directed orthodontia can be truly transformational for consumers. And getting to enable them to tell their story, to bring that out to their friends. Right. You know, referrals is still the best way for our business too, to continue to grow is to create an experience so easy, seamless, enjoyable, pleasant, you know, fast and convenient and so on that they can't help but talk about it. My favorite spot that we have involves a woman named Chimani and the first line she has, and she said it without our prompting, it wasn't scripted. She said, SmileDirectClub changed my life. That's the kind of thing you want people to be saying about your brand. And she went on to, like, get a new job, meet a partner. You know, all these amazing things that happened in her life that started with a first step, which was getting the confidence that comes from a smile that she loves. And so, you know, that ability is one I want to amplify. And that's how you begin the process of getting people to really appreciate and love your brand.

Yeah. How important is it in today's world to get those customer testimonials and to broadcast that? I know I'm diving into, like real tactical marketing here, but is that a place that dentists and DSOs could be doing better is capturing? You know, let's assume everyone's got a great product out there if we don't tell anyone. Right. Is that something you would suggest or how would you prioritize some of the marketing that needs to happen in this space?

Yeah, I mean, let's just talk about for us for a second, then we'll translate it for dentists and folks in the DSO world. For SmileDirectClub, our product is a transformation product. The best way for us to talk about our product and our brand and our service is to do it through the lens and through the voice of a consumer. Because we were a disruptive company when we originally came out, we had to tell people about the new way of being able to straighten your teeth, even with the Doctor directed component of it, being able to have a credible voice, talk about what that process was like was really important. Again, there's both the rational and the emotional components of that that go through that you want that voice to be talking about. And we have some of the testimonial work that we have in the market that's quite functional in nature, and there's some that's quite emotional in nature and talks about the transformations themselves. I believe that dentists and DSOs can tell similar stories about health and about oral health, but also about the impact of oral health's value on an overall consumer, their health. Right. If you have a healthy mouth, it actually changes the rest of the health of your body in really important ways. Snoring and teeth grinding and all kinds of other highly impactful ways that your oral health impacts the rest of how you feel in the world. Getting their customers to be able to tell those stories about how working with Dr. Reedy or someone transformed some component of their life could be incredibly valuable to attracting people in. Talk about. The competition for SmileDirectClub right now isn't other orthodontic solutions. It is complacency. Right. It is the fact that I can always do this tomorrow and then tomorrow and then tomorrow. Right. What we have to do is create an element of urgency by pointing out all of the great benefits that occur when somebody gets that healthy smile that they feel great about.

Listen, I hope those who are listening or those watching on Facebook, you're stealing some of these key words that he uses. You know, I think one of the disadvantage that you've probably seen too, John, is when you go into different entrepreneurial industries, the technicians, the professionals are so passionate about the product and its features and functions that they forget the impact that they're having. Right. And the fact that you talk about SmileDirectClub as a transformational product is true for dentistry. Like, we can steal that and say, we're providing a transformational product. Are we doing a good job or are we like, well, the margin was off here. Oh, I got to get this feeling, you know, here's the problem with that. And then. And then the. We're expecting the patient to appreciate that kind of jargon and language when at the end of the day, what they really need to understand is the benefit piece of this. Right. And that's what's in your language that I think any dentist could start doing is, you know, if you walked into the morning huddle tomorrow and said, guys, we're a transformational company, what do we need to do to make sure our patients understand that? And frankly, can we all list out how we are transforming their lives? I think the stories exist. We're just terrible at telling them, right? We're just like, next, next, next. I don't know. Would that be something you'd say dentists could do, like Monday morning?

By the way, it's not just dentists. I think healthcare on a broad basis has this issue where the technicians are so good and they are really, really good at identifying and fixing problems. They forget to stop and talk about the context of how important what the work that they're doing really, really is. And so I think you're right on it, which is, I think dentists need to start talking about and by the way, helping their patients understand what the future looks like after going through. I mean, moving teeth isn't the most fun thing in the world or having fillings done. These are some of the people dread these things. But talking about what's on the other side of that, one of the questions that we sometimes ask in our smile shops is, hey, you know, thinking to the end of this, when you have that smile you love, how is that going to make you feel, right? And evoking that emotion from them. And by the way, what comes back is like mind blowing. I sometimes we watch videos in the shop. Sometimes I like tear up listening to what and I know we're going to help this person, right? And it's so exciting that on the other side of this, that feeling that they just commit mistake, they sometimes they break down crime, right? They're like, I just can't wait to smile in photographs again or hug my kid with a big broad smile without being embarrassed about my teeth or whatever it is. That connection that can occur, of course, through a smile and what that means to your relationships, we as professionals need to connect to that as well as being excellent in technicians at moving teeth and fixing teeth. And so it's the combination of those two things. They're going to take that 40% number you were talking about before and continue to expand it. One of the things I'm proudest of in our role at SmileDirectClub, because we are so active in terms of our marketing, is we are expanding the market. And you're right, you have to think of it as a big ten. We're not stealing from somebody else. We're bringing net new people into the market of teeth straightening, teeth whitening and et cetera that have never been in that space before. Of it's because of our price point and our convenience and the access to care that can happen from anywhere. But part of that is just we're able to kind of connect with people and help them envision what a future might look like if they have that smile and confidence that comes from a smile you love.

Yeah. I think so many of us aren't as comfortable with the reality that we're all making emotional decisions, not actually logical ones. You know, I was just over picking out a new television set, you know, and that always turns. Anytime guys are picking out technology, we always figure out how to make it a logical decision. Oh, look at the price point. I did this research and yeah, yeah, it's, it's got a little bit better picture because that will really help with my kids education online. You know, that's why we need a 75 answer, you know, whatever it is. But, but the reality is it was an emotional reaction. First of, ooh, I want that. You know, oh, that would impact me, right? And then I kind of logically go through it. If we start logical, we don't do good on treatment coordination. It's just not going to have. You've got to tie into these life events because frankly, that's what everybody else is doing. Not in dentistry. Every other is, hey, if you come to Home Depot, you can change your family connections forever, right? You can have this great project. You're not buying a drill that's at this speed and all of those things. You're buying this new experience or this new beautification, right? Like everything. When you start watching how the advertising, the marketing's working by those who are the best at it. I mean, it's just all connection, right? It's all emotional connection first. And I think what's awesome about dentistry is like, you know, I watched some of these perfume commercials and I'm like, okay, what was the message? What was I supposed to get their products so commoditized? But in dentistry, like, yes, we're changing the oral systemic health of people. Yes, we're changing their smile and the cosmetic and how they're going to feel and the confidence level and I mean all these things. And yet we kind of reduce it down to like, you have a cracked tooth, you want a crown on it. It's like we just got to do more to take it to the next level. I don't know what your thoughts on that.

Yeah, no, I think you're hitting the nail on the head. It's interesting. For the first hundred years of economics, it was all based on this myth of the rational consumer. That rational consumer doesn't actually exist. Behavioral economics, which has come into the fore in the last 15, 25 years, you know, really brings into the. It's not just the rational that people make decisions on. There are lots of other areas that, that help connect and, you know, that can help connect to their, their decision making. And you're absolutely right. I mean, I think, you know, it's not, it's not, hey, can, you've got a cracked tooth. You know, it's, what if you could enjoy your coffee again? Right. Do you remember the ritual of when you had your morning coffee without pain? Right. That's on the other side of letting me fix this. I think it's helping them envision what the outcomes are going to be in terms of the betterment of their lives. Not, I have a cracked tooth and now it doesn't have a crack anymore. I have a crown or what have you. I think that to me, it's that contextual awareness that we can communicate is really important. And the hardest part for the technician is some of this stuff takes time. And so you have to take the time to hear your customers, to understand who they are, to know what, what motivates them and know what they care about. That, that allows you then to turn around and make those broader connections and help them picture that future place that they live in. I think we do a great job of this in our, in our Smile shops. And now, you know, we're, we're, you know, what's happening is, you know, we're doing that as part of partner network inside of some of our partner shops and they're seeing how we're doing that. And some of them are picking. And so it's great to see them learning some of that stuff from the work that we've done in our shops and helping them make better, stronger connections with their customers as we refer them over for hygiene or for any work that's necessary, maybe in advance of getting their teeth straightened.

Yeah, this is true. When it comes to marketing, it's truly a rising tide, lifts the entire industry. You know, some of us have this perspective that the marketing guys sit there with a whiteboard and they come up with this like, brilliant Nike ad or whatever it might be. The reality is this world is built on iterations because customers change their mind, don't like this. You thought they were going to love this. They actually like this part better. How have you used like customer feedback to iterate and kind of shape your marketing? Because I have to assume that's part of as smart as you are, you're constantly looking as. Yeah, but does the customer really like this?

Well, I mean, first of all, the answer to how does it shape it? How doesn't it shape what we do in marketing? It touches every, that feedback touches every aspect of our marketing. I mean, we, you know, we're constantly measuring the effectiveness of our advertising, whether it's on TV or the digital marketing work we do. We look at who's opening emails, who's clicking on and what links are they clicking on, what pages of the site do they linger the most on and have the greatest impact on downstream behaviors that we really care about. All that detail really drives where we lean in and try to connect with those customers. But one example is when we started the business originally, it really started remote only. We did the teledentistry entirely remotely with the, you know, with the impression kit. And what we heard was that people want to talk to somebody. So we opened smile shops and sometimes people said, hey, I want to actually talk to my own dentist. And so we opened the partner network and we now have created three on ramps to working with SmileDirectClub to meet the customer where they are. And that's really the important part of what we're doing is helping bring more people into, you know, having this confidence that comes from a smile you love. But meeting them where they are and helping them kind of go through this journey in the ways that make them the most comfortable.

Yeah, I think having that sensitivity towards what are those on ramps into the product, you know. So, you know, for our listeners here, if you hear what John's saying, first of all, he's looking at his different channels, right? Hey, I'm doing this marketing. How effective? What's the conversion rates? He's looking at a funnel and saying, okay, this many are going in. How many are actually executing now? And all those different channels are meaningful, which helps him know. But more money into this. This one's just not working or the messaging isn't hitting the same as this messaging and then okay, great, now to onboard them. They like this, they don't like this part. Why are we losing on that conversion? You know, if you generate 60 million interested and you know, 2% are executing, it's like, okay, we got to solve that. That piece right there. So I just want to call that out is there's a real specific, very customer centric mindset that goes into marketing. I once had someone say, emmett, how do you get really good at marketing? I said, increase your empathy. If you increase your empathy for the customer and start getting really focused on, like, what do they hate? What would I hate if I was them? And I feel like everyone is competing against one group that's driving this cognitive dissonance, and that is Amazon. The level of convenience, the level of feedback that they're giving and getting. It's incredible. I mean, it really is. I got a shipment yesterday and I had these sausages, Duke sausages that I love. It was all moldy in the back. I went on my app, I said, I want to return it. I typed in the word moldy. They said, please don't read. I mean, it was all automated, right? Don't return it. We shipped you out. Two days later, I had a new bag. It was all clean, perfect, etc. They had built out so much around, okay, if the customer says, this one, we don't want to pay to ship it back. Number two, we need to just get them something very quickly. That's what we're competing against, right? I've heard you say the word convenient, you know, like five times. It feels like everything in my life, personally and for our consumers is around convenience. I mean, is that like the North Star right now? I know people want product quality, they want good outcomes, but now they have this, like, third point, which is. And I want it convenient, fast, easy.

Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, I don't think in the last 20 years, any company's had a greater impact on consumer expectations than Amazon. No question about it. They have completely driven beliefs about free shipping, speed, accuracy, breadth of offering, ability to take feedback to whole other levels, and they're super impressive in how they do that. I was competing against them for a bit when I was at Fresh directly and they bought Whole Foods. And it's an amazingly impressive organization, and we had to compete in areas that they would have struggled with because of their scale and so on, with unique products and with better curation and so on. But that translates over into our business, too, which is finding ways to hear potential objections from consumers and then address that, either in the service or the products that you put forth. My two best hours of my week are we do it. We're one where we watch people in our shops and just with their permission, of course, go through the experience and listen to what they're saying. Back to our Smile Guides and identifying. Every week, I identify two to three things that we should be starting to do differently as a result of that. We also do the same thing on the call center with people calling in to talk to our Dental team or they're doing the video calls and we're listening to what they're coming up with, what challenges they're facing as they go through treatment, and making really intelligent adjustments to our customer experience as a result of that. Two ways that we've done that in the last year that we've made major changes, probably two years now. One is we heard, you know, folks that didn't want to do teeth straightening where it was visible during the day when they were working like a chef, or maybe, maybe even some concerns about addiction because they do podcasts. And so we, you know, we did all the research and came out with our nighttime clear aligners that allow the customer to, you know, go from, go from there and only wear it for 10 hours at night instead of 24 hours a day. I mean, it causes them to have a little bit longer of a treatment plan, but for them, that's okay because it meets this other objective. Right? Same thing with launching our app, right? We listen to consumers, they're like, hey, give me an experience that is a little bit closer to something I touch every day. And so now once people register their aligners on our app, we actually take them through the experience and tell them what to expect at this particular point in the treatment, help them answer frequently asked questions. They can connect directly to a dental team member right through that app, whether it's through a video call or through chat. And so that allows them to have that convenience as they go through treatment in ways that they didn't two years ago and have never had. We're 24, 7 service in the U.S. right? Dental problems don't just occur 10 to 4 when the dentist office is open. They occur at all hours. And we have the ability to answer those questions at any time. And so that is another area of convenience that was brought on again, the amazonification, if you will, of healthcare and dental care.

Well, I mean, what you remind me of is we all have the same boss, and they are brutal. You know, their expectations are intense. And, you know, our boss is the consumer. Right? And here's how I want it, and I want it delivered on a silver platter this way and that way. And you always have the option to say no, but they will say no as well. Right? So, and that's where you end up at, at 30, 40% penetration rate and not at 80%. So I think sometimes we can get caught up on, well, but that's going to take longer. That wouldn't be as ideal as this, this and this. But what we're really competing against is okay, do we go for the ideal? At which point most people will opt out and say, well, I'm just not going to do it. Then it'd be more ideal if you came here, you did this, you do it took this long, we had this, and then we get this really ideal, or do we want to try to reach as many people as possible? I think there's some things for us to steal from that. So a couple of last questions here. When you think about DSOs, are there ones that you think are doing a decent job, ones that you would give feedback on how they could improve? You know, is there low hanging fruit for DSO marketing teams or dentists who are hiring, you know, marketing teams and consultants to have conversations around?

Yeah. I mean, so two DSOs that I think are doing a really good job. One is Altius Dental out of rural Texas. And they've done an excellent job of really focusing on access to care and they understand the value of marketing and the role and growing their practice. And they've been one of the folks that have really embraced the marketing toolkit that we've provided them as part of them offering up our aligners as part of our partner network. And they also have their own strategies that we're trying to find our ways into. And we've helped them also a little bit with some of the social media ideas that they're starting to go out into for the first time. And so, so they're stepping into it in really intelligent ways. I'm impressed with the work they're doing. Also seatedental, which is a DSO partner that we have out of Florida, we see some great content marketing and influencer marketing that they've done. Again, being in South Florida, that's an area where that influencer marketing can strike a real resonant chord. And they also kind of weave their offering of SmileDirectClub into their blog and influencer partnerships and so on. What's interesting in so many of the partnerships that we've had is they kind of concede that they're not good at marketing. I think there's a recognition that not all DSOs and not all dentists are highly skilled in that area. And so many of them are coming to us and saying, how can you help us? And we're trying to do the best we can to put together toolkits and other ways of actually adding services, you know, for SmileDirect in support of growing their practices. And that's an area I expect to be doing a whole lot more of. Over the next six months to a year.

So what do you think's the next low hanging fruit, you know, to increase customer retention through marketing or other things that someone could take away from this to start working on and focusing on.

There's just some really basic inexpensive things that Most dentists and DSOs can begin with that can have a huge impact on people being able to find them. Couple that pop to mind is making sure, you know, the directories and there's a lot of directories out there that they're up to date, right? Google, Yelp, you know, Bing, et cetera, that they just have hours are correct address and way finding is right. All the just a basic 101s of finding, you know, your practice, you know, is there so many folks don't have that right then in their own websites, you know, just doing, you know, 101 stuff as it relates to search engine optimization. Just have the right keywords on the site, you know, help answer questions that consumers might have, you know, be the best answer to find a dentist near me, who's the best dentist near me, right? You know, getting those kind of keywords and the reviews associated with that pulled together and just surrounding yourself, none of that costs any money. It just, just takes a little bit of attention to help, to help grow.

Well, you hit on something too, like customers have concerns. We know they have those concerns. Those who've been in the space, seen patients on a consistent basis, you could probably, you know, spit off to me 5 to 10 things you hear again and again every week. Why wouldn't you get ahead of those? Right? If those are barriers to entry, why wait till they get in the office, make it? Actually the reason they came to your office, right, is hey, you were the only website, you were the only one talking about my fears, my concerns, my frustrations, you know, whatever it might be. It was like I could tell you weren't scared to have that conversation.

I think you're dead on. I'll give an example. A practice, dental practice. I know the town was basically going to put fluoride in the water. The dentist very smartly put out a perspective on that up on his website. And when people went to go search on it because that person was local and had a perspective, boom all of a sudden came up first, becomes a much greater, better option for people because they talking about something that's highly relevant to that community. So that's a good one. The last one I want to point out is one that might cost a tiny bit of money, but it's really really today's day and age, we need to design websites and everything for mobile first. But to make sure you have an online scheduling tool, nobody wants to pick up the phone and talk to somebody to negotiate an available time. That works. Just get an online scheduling tool. I can't tell you how important that is. It's a major difference maker for us when we work with our DSO partners.

Yeah, thank you. I mean, it's another level of convenience. Right. I remember when we changed our call center to the patient communication center because we were starting to think ahead here of people actually don't want to call. You know, we're going to need to get two way texting, online scheduling, all these other capabilities that meet everyone's convenience factor now. Hey, John, this has been extremely helpful. I appreciate it. If, if people want to reach out to SmileDirectClub, I guess specifically you mentioned this partnership program. You mentioned some of them and the ability for them to take tools. Is there a place that you would send them? Is it to Chris Thompson or to a website that you have?

Yeah, I would go to SmileDirectClub.com and look at our Doctors in office partnership link. It's in the footer and that talks about really, you know, all the things that we're doing as it relates to working with dentists and DSOs to help them grow their practices, including the ability to offer clear aligner therapy.

John, thank you so much for being transparent, sharing some of your, your strategies. I hope that we take them back no matter how we might feel about SmileDirectClub and we help to lift the entire industry to feel better about dentistry. I think if we do that and we do that together, then it is nothing. But when. If you all want to continue this conversation, please come over to our Facebook site over on DSO Secrets. And until next time, keep smiling.

Thanks, Emmett.

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