A short talk by Gene St. Louis offering practical marketing advice for dental practices and small businesses, covering logo importance, external (Google/Facebook/mail) and internal marketing (new-patient experience, social media), and the need for ongoing testing and tweaking rather than expecting a 'silver bullet' solution.
Let's talk a little bit about marketing and logos and websites and external marketing and internal marketing. First of all, when you are looking at working with a marketing company, make sure when you're working on your logo that you absolutely love your logo. Think of a logo like a tattoo, it going to be with you forever and you might freshen it up a little bit, but you are going to, that's your brand, that's who you are. And so your logo, you have to love it. And until you absolutely love it, push back a little bit, Say, you know, I feel like it needs a little bit of this or a little bit of that. Realize that dealing with a professional, they're going to get that. If you're dealing with a friend, it's harder sometimes, right? Because you think, oh well, they're my best friend, I can tell them anything I want. Yes, but it's a little bit harder than when you're paying someone for that logo, in my opinion. Secondarily, I would say marketing externally. When you're looking at Google Ads, Facebook ads, what are you doing externally? In some markets, an external mailer may work extremely well. In other markets, many markets, Google Ads works really well. But again, that's linked to when they call, how are we answering the phone? The other thing that is really, really important, I think, is internal marketing. When they come in, are we giving them the new patient wow experience? Are we, do we have swag? Do we share with them our brand? Are we excited about our practice, our facility? Do we give them a tour? How is that new patient experience.
Then? How are we doing with asking them to follow us on social media? Do we even have a social media. I am amazed at how many younger dentists. Younger dentists will tell me, I'm not going to do social. And I'm like, why? Why would you not? Well, that's just not me. That's fine that it's just not you. Then hire someone to do it for you. Because guess what? Many, many people go on social media to find out reviews to look on. What does this person have on their social media accounts? Are they active, what are they doing? And so those are aspects that are really important in that marketing journey. Also, I think you need to also look at your marketing as an ongoing process. You've got to tweak it, you've got to work it, you've got, you're not going to dial it in perfect the first time. The other thing is the, if a company had the silver bullet on marketing, believe me, they would be the richest company. Everyone would go to that company because they knew everything that was right about marketing. No one has the silver bullet. However, if they're listening and they're trying and they're tweaking and they're improving and enhancing and we're getting better results now, you know, you're working with the right company. So I hope you. You learned something through this little conversation that we had, and I'd love to talk with you in more detail.
