Howard: It is just a huge honor for me today to be podcast interviewing Justin L. Morgan, known as ‘The Dental Marketing Guy’.
Justin helps dentists understand how and why patients select a dentist. Justin is different from other marketing guru’s, he’s a teacher first. Justin believes that as a Marketing Consultant, it is his responsibility in order to depart actionable marketing knowledge. His invisalink support group is a community of dentists, editors, publishers, and influencers in the dental industry. Justin believes that if you don’t understand consumer psychology, all marketing tactics you apply are a gamble. If you’ve ever been confused about how and why people choose a dentist, how and why some websites rank higher on Google, or what kind of message you need in order to take dentistry from required to desired, the Dental Marketing Guy is the guy you want to connect with.
I love that, dentistry from required to desired. That is so damn cool. So Justin, I love your website. I called you to be on the show. I’m a big fan of your fifteen hundred posts on Dentaltown. You’ve edumacated so many damn dentists. What I like most about your website, which is just Dental Marketing Guy. Is your… you’ve got this Youtube video which I think we should splice on… Can we splice this video on the end of the podcast?
Justin: Oh absolutely. Yeah.
Howard: Yeah. I really love that video and so many dentists think and fear and (inaudible 01:31), they think they’re competing with the guy across the street. And you so eloquently say on this video that your competition is people’s discretionary income. I mean… I mean I was talking to a friend of mine who basically doesn’t have a dime, and they’re going to spend thirty-five hundred dollars on a trip to Disneyland. I mean people… our competition is Disneyland, big screens. We’re going into the summer months. You won’t believe how many poor people will drive all the way from Tennessee to the Grand Canyon, and stay in a nice hotel and all that stuff. So it really just comes down to what you value. Right?
Justin: Right. Those things are appealing because, hey, let’s face it’s fun, it’s pleasurable, it’s nice. I think dentists forget, in the day-to-day grind that dentistry tends to be associated with pain, and discomfort, and fear more than a lot of dental professionals realize, and you might intellectually realize it but how much does that change the way you do dentistry? I mean clinically whether or not the patient is a victim of dental phobia, clinically it doesn’t change the way you do a root canal. But if you think of it from an empathetic standpoint, and this is how I… I apply this towards SEO. Is we’ve got to think about what people actually want when they’re there, we’ve got to put ourselves in their shoes.
So when they go to Google, when they step into your practice, when you answer the phone, or your front office manager answers the phone. What exactly do I need to hear to take a positive step in the right direction for my dental health? And so that’s… yeah. That’s really huge. I think it’s Las Vegas, it’s Porsche, it’s not other dentists. Everyone’s talking about DSO’s, DSO’s, DSO’s, oh they’re going to ruin dentistry. Well there are KIA’s and there are Bentley’s. And Bentley’s are not for… they’re not worried about KIA’s. If a KIA lot opens up across the street from a Bentley lot, they’re not worried.
So there’s definitely a market for great dentistry, and a great patient experience. And what I try and do is I try and display that on the website, I try and get that… show Google the proof that you’re an authority. Show Google… in your case, Howard, it’s not difficult because you founded dentaltown.com, you speak publically, you do… you do all these things that easily make your website rank in Ahwatukee. It’s very easy because you’re earning links, you’re earning buzz, you’ve got PR basically because of what you do. And what I try and do is I try and take the dentist who is not creating dentaltown.com, and give them some authority as well, get them links from, for instance dentaltown.com. Find reasons to create content that is cited and worthy of being cited by credible sources like Dentistry Today, and Dentistry IQ, and all that.
So that’s… one thing that I do that’s totally different from other SEO companies is, I actually focus on what’s called content creation, content marketing. And that involves delivering the message that’s authentic, that the patient needs to see. And then, at the same time, creating what’s called back links, which is where… if dentaltown.com links to your dental website, that helps boost your Google rankings a great deal because a lot of people don’t understand SEO, but it’s basically a foot race.
So if you’re in a town with three dentists, you probably don’t need to do… you don’t need to hire me, or you might just need a couple of hours of consulting and then you’ll be at the top . And that’s pretty easy. But if you’re in Charlotte, North Carolina; Anchorage, Alaska; Miami, Florida you probably want to look into SEO. So that’s… that’s where things get competitive, that’s where you have to decide. Are you going to go all in? Or are you going to just back out because the playing footsie with SEO isn’t… it’s not… it’s not a great strategy in my mind. Paying three hundred bucks a month and not knowing what you’re getting, and not understanding it at all. It’s not a great strategy. So what I try and do is I try to lift the veil on it. I try to be transparent. And I actually teach dentists, ‘I say, here’s the problem is you don’t want to learn SEO. That’s okay, but when you hire a company without knowing what you’re getting. And watch how fast you turn into a student of SEO, after you’ve burned your money, after you’re not getting new patients from it. All of a sudden you’re going to be reading the SEO blogs, you’re going to be trying to educate yourself. How do I avoid this problem again? And so that’s when I created The Invisalinks Course which is where we talk about how to create links, and how to create great content that drives people to take action into your practice.
Howard: I think that you could split the United States into half, I think half really are afraid of pain and fear of the dentist. And the other half is really afraid of the cost of the dentist, but the dentists get focused on same day dentistry and equipment. And when you talk to any… like say a plastic surgeon just does boob jobs and tummy tucks, and all that. They never advertise about their equipment or that they’ve got a CBCT, or that they’ve got a laser. And they don’t talk about any of that stuff, it’s something only dentists do and I… there’s nothing wrong with same day dentistry, there’s nothing wrong with equipment, lasers and all that stuff. But I think the number one thing to focus on is pain and fear, and the number two thing to focus on is cost. Do you take their insurance? Do you have an in-office dental insurance plan?
And then another thing I want to comment on what you said is, you said there’s a big difference between KIA’s and Bentley’s. But my read of consumers is that dentists always diagnose the patient’s pocketbook. And if you look at IKEA, which you only have one in Arizona and it’s right by my house, it’s like four miles up the street from me. Around a IKEA is all the most high-end furniture shops in the world. So all these people go to IKEA and they might want a low-end this or that, but then they’re going across the street and buying the most high-end mattress, or table. And just like poor people sometimes go to Taco Bell, two taco’s for a dollar. And then sometimes they go to Macayo’s sit down restaurant, two taco’s for five dollars. That’s a five hundred percent. And I’ve seen so many poor women, over the last thirty years, who so valued their teeth and wanted top dollar for their tummy tuck, eyelid surgery, their dentistry, or whatever. So… so I… markets jump back and forth.
But you threw around a term, and you throw this term around a lot. And I think ninety-nine percent of the dentists don’t understand the term, and that is content marketing. Why do you add the word content? Why not just marketing and advertising? Why are you saying content marketing? What is that?
Justin: Eventually content marketing, probably in the next ten years, will just be marketing. Right now content marketing… I define… here’s the definition, it is the creation and promotion of content that your ideal patients actually crave. So here’s an example, and I posted about this on Dentaltown just a week ago as of filming right now, there’s a myth in video marketing, and content marketing. That when you create a video, that video on the homepage of your website needs to be under ninety seconds, or needs to be under two minutes, or whatever the arbitrary number is. Well, the truth is if your video’s good, if it tells a great story, if it’s engaging, if it matches searcher intent. If I go to Google and I see this video, and I’m… it really helps me make a decision about whether or not I know, like, and trust you as a dentist, or if I can begin to go down that journey. That video can be longer than that. It’s just a matter of are you wasting a single second of people’s time? Are you boring people? And so we’ve created videos that are three, four minutes long, and the stats show, people watch them. Because it actually is entertaining. So what most marketing companies will say is, ‘well don’t have the video go over ninety seconds because people have short attention spans.’ But then they’ll go home and watch an entire season of ‘House of Cards’, so how… where did the ADD go? It didn’t go anywhere. It didn’t go anywhere. Your content sucks, that’s what it was.
Howard: I know a guy that watched the entire deal of ‘Breaking Bad’ in one weekend. I mean he binge watched like twelve shows on Fri… Yeah. So, yeah. Sorry to interrupt. You go on.
Justin: No. no, that’s common. Because content marketing is… it’s about creating content that your patients and prospective patients actually want. I mean they don’t know what they want. When they enter dentist Charlotte, or (inaudible 10:54) or whatever, they don’t know what they’re looking for. They’re looking for a dentist, but they don’t know how to differentiate. And so content marketing is the creation and promotion of content that actually helps them understand what they’re getting into, what to expect. And kind of learn a little bit about your story and who you are, and what makes you different. I mean that’s content marketing. So… yeah, that’s my definition, is the creation and promotion of content that your ideal patients actually crave.
Howard: I’m a big fan of your posts and I really enjoyed spending time with you in Vegas. But another term you throw around that I just really don’t think ninety-nine percent dentists understand is backlinks. I mean I know you’ve already explained it once, but I don’t think they haven’t… I don’t think anyone… I don’t think there’s many dentists who truly understand what you mean with backlink. Like when you say there’s a backlink from Dentaltown to your website, how the hell would you create a backlink from a Dentaltown to your website. I mean I don’t even know how to do that.
Justin: Okay. Okay. Well you’ve been very successful at it. So let me explain it.
Howard: Only because I attract and retain successful people to work for me. When you hire people you want to surround yourself with smarter people, and that takes a humble person with high self-esteem. Most people don’t want to be… when you get someone in management and that… on your management team that wants to hire dumber people so they look good. That’s a common… very common problem. You want to hire… I always call it ‘The Mack Truck Effect’.
In MBA school they always said… they showed us how many tens of thousands of businesses gone under because one person died. And the most common one is like it would be a small business, it’ll do like three million a year and it will be like a small little factory in Maize, Kansas. They’ve got one salesman who sells three million dollars a year these parts. And then they’ve got a bunch of machinists and all these other guys. And that one guy drops out of a heart attack. And then they hire a young buck, who comes in and just does a great job and does two million his first year. But the break even point was two point two and they go under. And in MBA school they’re like, ‘why in the world did you have this whole company resting on one guy?’
So every person on your team needs to be able to be ran over by a Mack truck, and every person in your management team… when they hire I say, ‘I want you to hire someone, that if you’re t-boned in an intersection, this person will be better than you.’ And that’s how you build great companies. But sorry to interrupt.
Justin: Yeah. Yeah. No. No. No. That’s… that’s a great…
Howard: But… so what is a backlink? And how does someone make one?
Justin: Well here’s the way I explain it. There are certain people we need to really empathize with. We need to align ourselves… this is part of The Invisalinks Method. Is I’m being transparent about what I do on a day-to-day basis as an SEO. We need to align ourselves with Google. We need to align ourselves with the patients, the prospective patients who are searching for you. And to do that we have to put ourselves in their shoes. So the first thing is, the algorithms at Google are designed by PHD’s. The engineers at Google they have PHD’s. And those PHD’s, of course, they went to college. And when they went to college they wrote essays. And when they wrote essays, if they made any bold claims at all, they had to cite their sources. So when they cite their sources the essay is credible, it’s worthy of thought leadership. If they’ve got a bold statement, if they have strong opinions, they can cite their sources. And hopefully they get an ‘A’ on that essay. Especially if they’re making the algorithms at Google. And so that logic is carried over to Google.
So when you’re blogging, when you create a website, when you say things like… I’m just pulling something out of the air. Serac is the best… like you said all this talk about technology and equipment. You’ve got to cite a source, show an authoritative source, link to an article on Dentaltown.com or something like that, a credible ADA, Dentistry Today, something like that and support what you’re saying. Otherwise, if you don’t have to link out, if you don’t have to create a link to another site. Then what you’re saying really isn’t that interesting, it’s not… it doesn’t need support because it’s plain Jane. It doesn’t need you to link out. Now a backlink is when someone links to you, when you become the authoritative source. So if you’re a dentist in a city of, let’s say, fifty thousand people and you’ve got twenty competing dentists, let’s say. If you’re the only website that’s getting linked, that’s being cited by bloggers on Dentaltown.com, that’s being cited by authoritative articles at Dentistry Today, Dentistry IQ, Dental Economics, all the… dozens of other blogs. I mean all the other guests on your show, most of them have blogs that can link to your dental website. When you become the informational resource, when you have that content that is supporting what they’re saying. When you align yourself with editors and publishers, bloggers and journalists, and they cite you as an informational resource to support what they’re saying. Now you’ve become the authority and Google has no choice but to say, ‘you know what? They’ve got the content, they’ve got the links, it’s clearly authoritative. They’re more authoritative than any other dentist in town, we have no choice but to bump them up.’ And so that’s the logic about building backlinks. Is, first of all, being link worthy creating content that earns links. Does that make sense?
Howard: Yeah, but you… if you go to Dental Marketing Guy, you actually have a course on this on your website. Talk about that course. You have an online course.
Justin: Yeah. Yeah. And what I do is in a step-by-step video series, I teach how to do this. How I do it. And why have I earned links from… and how have I earned links from Dentaltown, Dentistry IQ, Dentistry Today, salesforce.com, des.com, cio.com. And all these different marketing websites, these authoritative marketing websites. And how am I doing that? Well… and how do you do that, more importantly? And in my industry to rate number one on Google for dental SEO expert, it is far more competitive for me to do that than it is for you to rank for dentist your city. So I’ve already got the blueprint that Google likes, they say. I don’t say I’m the best dental SEO expert, Google does. And the reason is, is because I keep getting cited by these authoritative thought leadership pieces. As…
Howard: On your website you list everybody but me. You list as seen on Entrepreneur, DPR Dental Products Report, Dentistry Today, Resident Media, MOZ, Delivering WOW, Dentistry IQ, Yapi, Techno, CIA, AADOM. I love every one of those groups, but you left out Dentaltown.
Justin: How is Dentaltown not on there? You know what? I’m actually doing a website redesign right now. So…
Howard: My gosh. I can’t do anything about it because I see you have (inaudible 18:28) so I know you can kick my ass thirty-eight different ways in under a minute. By the way, I don’t want to deviate but you do have (inaudible 18:37) I wrestled through high school… it’s probably the only reason took my grades serious because if you made a ‘D’ in catholic school, you were kicked off the wrestling team. And all my boys wrestled year round from age five to fifteen.
But we’ve got a huge fight coming up Floyd Mayweather, August 26, who’s forty years old and forty-nine and zero. Fighting a young Conor McGregor, who’s only twenty-eight, who’s got two championship belts. I know you’re an amazing student of fighting. So I’m going to lock you on video, so now no matter what you say people are going to go back and say, ‘excuse me Justin, on your podcast on June 21st.’ If you had to bet your car on that fight right now, what are you thinking about that fight? How do you analyze it?
Justin: Well there’s no question Floyd Mayweather’s going to win. So…
Howard: Really, is it that obvious to you?
Justin: Yeah. Yeah. It’s extremely obvious. There’s a number of advantages that Conor has, size and strength, punching power, a lot of advantages. But none of it… he’s not going to touch Floyd.
Howard: Well you know we just did a podcast yesterday with a dentist who grew up Golden Glove boxing in Floyd Mayweather’s father’s gym, and I remember as little Floyd junior in there when he was eight years old. And he said the one thing about Floyd is that you’re not going to hit him. He moves around you just don’t hit him.
Justin: Yeah.
Howard: And then he just hits you. And you don’t hit him. So you don’t even think it’s a fight?
Justin: No, it’s going to be a trainwreck, and it’s just a matter of how much damage is there going to be.
Howard: Seriously? You’re that bullish on that?
Justin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean… the thing is Floyd doesn’t have knockout power. So will it go the distance, I think, is the real question. But everyone has a punchers chance, and Conor McGregor hits very hard. So if he did land one it’s possible Floyd might go down. And I think that one percent chance is what the intrigue is. So, I say there’s no chance, but really in reality there’s always a very minute chance.
Howard: A punchers chance. I like the way said it. But it is sad about MMA when the only way you make any money, is you’ve got to leave MMA and go back to boxing. I mean… I mean… I mean Conor’s going to make… they’re each getting paid a hundred million dollars. And Conor McGregor… all the people in UFC combined… do you think combined all the other ones will total a hundred million dollars?
Justin: Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. Yeah, the economics is really interesting, in the next few years I think that might change.
Howard: Nice. Okay, let’s get back on topic, sorry I had to ask you that. Whenever I see you I see those (inaudible 21:28) I know you’re a trained killer for over a decade. You also talk on DentalTown a lot about velscoping your keywords. What does that even mean? What is velscoping?
Justin: Well it’s the first step in my process. So just a velscope… just like NOR, not all your listeners may use velscope but they can understand the concept. It’s a very close examination.
So what most dentists… let me talk about the wrong way, the way most dentists approach SEO. Is they read somewhere online, or they hear from someone, another dentist or whoever. They read an article that you’ve got to have SEO, you’ve got to do it, you’ve just got to do it. And that’s totally the wrong approach.
The truth is just like a dental patient going into your practice, they could have oral cancer, they could have a ton of caries, they could need all on 4 , they could have serious needs, or they could have no needs at all. Okay. And so what velscoping your keywords is, is diagnosing your unique situation. First question is, how many people are actually using Google in your area? If we don’t have the answer to that, if you’re just shooting in the dark and saying we need SEO. That’s crazy. That is crazy.
The dentists I work with appreciate the scientific approach, they don’t just say, ‘we need SEO’. Just like a dental patient doesn’t say, ‘we just need All on 4’, not everyone needs that. So the first step is, how many people are using Google to find a dentist in your area? And then once we’ve qualified your area. And it’s not based on the number of people in the city, it’s based on the number of people searching on Google. And then the second thing is well what is it going to take to get you to the top? What did those top three dental website do? Because it’s not… it’s not random, it’s not arbitrary. A lot of people think it’s luck. It’s not luck, it’s very scientific. So we figure out how many people are searching to find a dentist in your area, and what is it going to take to get you there. And until we have the answer to those two questions you’re just flying blind.
Howard: So you also talk about six questions to ask for the world’s most credible testimonials. A very interesting thing is, anybody who’s been a in office dental consultant in the last ten years. I’m sure I know or have had dinner with… but the only thing they all have in common is, they say when they go into the office, usually they go in for the first day, observe, see what’s going on. Then they go home that night write up a diagnosis treatment plan, and then the next day they present it to the staff. They all agree on one thing, no one has ever been on that day one and ever seen anyone ask a patient for a referral. I mean they just don’t do it. And then you’re talking about now asking people to write Yelp reviews, Google reviews, a testimonial. I mean, dude, no one… I mean, I think every one of them consultants has seen a unicorn crash into a car three times for every time they’ve seen a dentist ask for a referral. So is this some unicorn theory you’ve got going on, or do you really think they’re going to ask patients for referrals and testimonials, and Yelp reviews and all that stuff.
Justin: Well there’s some programs that make it easier. There’s some programs that automate it. You’ve got Maui Bob’s Five Star Review System, you’ve got Birdeye, Yappi. There’s a number of programs out there that automate the system.
The other low hanging fruit is let me call your patients and ask for you. I can ask these six questions. And here’s what happens. And here’s why this is so important. You don’t need very many of them, you only need a handful of happy patients. To call them on the phone, or have me call them on the phone, or Skype interview like this and to ask these six questions. And what the net result is, is you get a real testimonial when you construct it, I call it a reverse testimonial. We start with the negative. We start with the problem. We start with the objection. So… do you want me to give you an example? I can give you an example of how…
Howard: Yeah.
Justin: So if we’re… if we’re talking about a restaurant in Ahwatukee. Right. You might say, ‘oh, there’s this hole in the wall place. Looks kind of sketch, you’d never think it, but it’s got the best food ever’. You noticed how I started with the objection. I started with the fact that it’s kind of sketch, it’s a hole in the wall place. I started with the negative. That doesn’t make me a negative person. That just makes me real. Because I know when you see this restaurant, when you drive by, and if I tell you, ‘oh my God it’s the best food ever, and oh…, and the service is amazing’. And then I drive by, and I see a hole in the wall place, looks kind of sketch. I’m going to think back to your testimonial. I’m going to think back to your referral, and I’m going to say, ‘Howard never mentioned that sort of thing, I wonder how credible his testimonial is. I wonder how credible his word of mouth referral is’.
But when you frame it with the objection first, as soon as you put yourself in the shoes of the person who… that’s where they are, they are at the objection. They are not at the solution yet. So for instance if I say, ‘well, I heard great things about Doctor Farr, but I really wasn’t sure about it in the beginning. Dentistry is expensive and I was concerned about the cost, and I had no idea if I had cavities or what they were going to recommend. Well what I found out was, it is kind of expensive. It’s more expensive than other dental offices, but they got me financing with Carecredit and they treated me great. And they didn’t try and sell me on anything unnecessary. And they totally left me in control’. What that does, when a patient leaves a testimonial like that is it’s authentic. It’s real. It’s the way we refer in real life.
So most dental offices have testimonials, and Google reviews, and Yelp reviews that talk about the dental office like it’s Disneyland. And they talk about he dentists like he’s some sort of cult leader. I mean that’s not where people are at. People go, ‘maybe he’s great but I’m just not convinced’. But when you start with the negative, when you start with the objection you become relatable and so that content really helps with SEO. It helps a great deal with SEO. Because Google loves the fact that people actually read these testimonials, they don’t just skim over them. They hook them in and they say, ‘oh, wow. This person I can relate to’. So that’s the idea behind the six questions.
Howard: When you say cult leader. You know where the word ‘cult’ or ‘occult’ comes from? Culture. It comes from the word culture. It’s a succinct form of culture. So a cult, it’s a very different culture in Italy than Greece. It just is. It’s very different in Ireland than as Wales or Scotland. But, yeah, it’s interesting how words change like that over the years. So how do you… how do you read these… it seems like on Facebook… okay, but first of all we were talking about marketing.
Talk about… if some guy… I know how my homies think. You’re talking all this intelligent, high educated stuff. But I know my homie, he’s thinking about bone grafting and he wants a better bonding agent. All he want’s is ten more new patients a month. That’s how his walnut brain works. So if he called you… if he went to dentalmarketingguy.com, or emailed you justin@dentalmarketinguy.com and… can I give your phone number?
Justin: Yeah. Yeah.
Howard: Or called you at 805-996-0304. That’s 805-996-0304. And said, ‘Justin, dude look I don’t want to learn any of that stuff. I just want ten more new patients a month. I’m already paying all my bills. I’m paying my rent, equipment, I’m paying everything. If I had ten more new patients a month, probably half of that money would drop to my bottom line’. What would you tell that guy?
Justin: The first thing we need to do is determine whether or not my services are a good fit for you, which means velscoping your keywords. If you want ten new patients per month but there’s only ten people per month searching on Google- that’s not going to work out in terms of SEO, because not all of them are going to click your website, not all of them are going to call you when they do. So that’s important is knowing what you’re getting into with SEO. Whether SEO is a good fit for you is determined by how many people are actually searching in your area for a dentist. And then from there, how well does your website convert those searchers into patients.
So those are the things we need to look at. We need to first say, ‘okay, are Justin’s SEO services really worth it?’ And so I turn away probably one out of ten docs who say, ‘look I’m going to do SEO’ and I say, ‘that’s great but I just don’t think it’s going to get you the ROI you need’. It’s not going to get you those ten new patients because in your town there’s only ten, twenty searches per month. So that’s very important. Is not being sold a bill of goods, not being sold a cookie cutter system and saying, ‘you know what? Will SEO get me there?’ Now once we’ve determined, let’s say… let’s say there are only twenty people per month searching. Then you’ve avoided the headache of going through SEO for eight, to twelve, to two years… eight to twelve months, two years maybe before you realize, ‘oh my goodness, it doesn’t help me get those ten new patients per month’. So we help you avoid that by velscoping your keywords. So that’s the first step and if it turns out that there’s a thousand, or two thousand, or five thousand people searching on Google, well if you want ten new patients per month, guess what? Google’s also not for you if there’s five thousand people per month searching in your area for a dentist. Because you’re not going to get ten new patients, you’re going to get a hundred. So we have to qualify, we have to see…
Howard: Well how does he… how does he find out how many are searching for a dentist in his area?
Justin: I teach that in my course and it involves… there’s a couple of steps. I can give you some free quick tips on how to do that yourself. There’s semrush.com, SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. And semush.com this is like the… I call it the quick and free exam. Like the Walmart dentist fresh out of the sixty-nine dollar oral exam, this is like that version. And essentially all you’re doing is looking at a bird’s eye view rough, take it with a grain of salt, number of how many people are searching for a dentist. And so you’ll enter ‘dentist’, ‘your city’, ‘your city dentist’ and you start from there. Take that number with a grain of salt. But if there’s ten to twenty searches per month showing on there, the reality is it would probably be worth it to get the real hard geometrically accurate data. And from there we use Google Adwords. So we just run some Adwords and hopefully get calls right off the bat, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. But the point of running Google Adwords isn’t to drive leads, although that’s a nice side benefit, the point is to get some raw data on how many people are using Google. Because when Google… when you run Google Adwords they give you the real data, so they tell you how many people are searching in real time. So that’s more the velscoping… that’s the deep intensive, let’s be really sure version of velscoping your keywords. But the quick and free version is fine, I mean go ahead and do that yourself it takes two seconds semrush.com enter ‘dentist’, ‘your city’ and there you go. See how many searchers there are.
Howard: So what are all the services that you do at Dental Marketing Guy. You talk about all these things. Is it mostly doing things to get more people to go to your website?
Justin: Yeah. It’s…
Howard: And is that… is that in the other things you’re talking about. Is that also… do you do like Google Adword campaigns? Or… talk about what you actually do.
Justin: At the time of this filming I’m actually in the process of getting recertified for Google Adwords. So that’s coming down the pipeline. But right now what I do is everything surrounding SEO. Everything surrounding getting you new patients through your website and from Google specifically. So that’s my focus. And so that can involve web design, video production, photography, things of that sort. But often times I can work with your already existing website. We can create great content on that website, and that’s one of the things that differentiates me from a lot of SEO companies is I’m willing to work with your website.
Howard: Did you know that I’m certified for Google Adwords?
Justin: I didn’t know that.
Howard: Yeah, I bought the diploma on eBay for nine dollars. And I also bought a black belt, and eagle scout. I’m looking for a degree from Harvard, but I haven’t found it yet. So you also… on Dentaltown you talk about the Seven Red Bags Dental Marketing Strategy. What is the Seven Red Bags Dental Marketing Strategy?
Justin: Yeah. The Seven Red Bags, as I call it, are the… essentially every consumer decision, every decision that we make is… whether it’s an iTunes ninety-five cent download, or a new home. Every decision we make is actually based on the same process. We actually do it very quickly for the small purchases. But the truth is when people search for a dentist they are going through these Seven Red Bags.
And so the first thing you need to know is the problem. What problem… because they’re not just contacting you just for fun, they have a problem. And so in your marketing you want to identify what that problem is. So you want to face it head on. And that doesn’t mean being negative. It’s like the video testimonial, or the Google Review questions, the reverse testimonial.
What you need to do is figure out what is the problem. And you say that in your message, so that the problem for dental implants page is going to be different from the problem for your home page. And segmenting that message is really important. Once you identify the problem, and you have to talk to your patients to figure out what that problem is.
You have to sit down with a real patient and find out what you did that caused them to choose you as a dentist. And so you kind of retroactively see what that problem was. And we often assume that we know the problem. But sometimes… if it’s worded in the way that your patients actually say, it may be… it’s just going to come out so much better than the… the way a clinician word it.
So what I do is with the content creation to take it back to content marketing, is that first red bag is to actually discover what’s the problem in the patient’s own words. And that’s the key, is in the patient’s own words what is the problem? And once you get that, then you move quickly to the solution. Most dentist just talk about the solution and they talk about it from their perspective. But when you start with the problem, then you introduce the solution, and it’s geared towards the right target profile, which is a fancy word for ‘that patient’. That real patient who actually told you what their real problem was, and what they found out as a result of choosing you as a dentist. Now you have the attraction factor. You’ve attracted them because you talk about the problem and you gave them the solution. And that’s the way that you attract someone.
And then the next four red bags are for risk assessment. And that goes into testimonials, and risk reversal, and things like that. You can find this all on my blog. And maybe we can link to the blog post that talks about The Seven Red Bags more in detail. But ultimately it’s about presenting the problem in a way that’s in their own words, not your words, not my words. Because you can hire a fancy copywriter to write great content quote unquote great. But if it’s not in the words that your target profile, your ideal patient, the patients who stay, and pay, and refer, the patients that you get along with, the patients that have great personalities. Those patients are going to attract more of those types of patients. So we want to use those ideal patients to… you want to use their words, not our words, their words in the content of your website.
Howard: Hmm, that is very interesting. By the way I’m a big fan of your Youtube channel. You have a lot of very cool Youtube interviews with Lois Banta, I love her. Linda Miles, my God everyone’s consultant, mentor and idol. I mean you really have a great Youtube channel.
Also, I want to explain to my homies that we have a very robust blog system on Dentaltown, we’ve got a magazine but when you’re reading like Justin’s blog on Dentaltown, if you like it reach up and click to share it on your social media. We’ve just started that new section where you can share it on your Facebook, your Twitter, your Linkedin, your Pinterest, your Google Plus, and that’s… that’s a really neat feature that’s starting to really take off. And I think that’s really cool. If you read an article online on Dentaltown and you like it, share it with your friends.
I want to go into some specific things. This is Dentistry Uncensored so I’m going to ask some bad uncomfortable questions. I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything but how come whenever you’re on the dental marketing forums and people talk about advertising on Facebook, or Google Adwords, or whatever. It’s all constructive, and fun, and informative but it seems like every threat on Yelp, nobody’s happy. Just like there’s no happy campers when they’re discussing it. Why is Yelp so like that? And what would you say to someone who called you up and said, ‘should I pay Yelp on some’, I don’t even know how it works, ‘on some monthly fee for Yelp?’ Are you for or against that? Or what are your thoughts on that?
Justin: I was just on the phone yesterday talking to a client about the fact that his five star reviews are, almost fifty percent of the time, being filtered. And his proposed solution… or his question to me was, ‘should I pay Yelp?’
Yelp has been litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, about whether or not they’re racketeering. It’s a legitimate claim, because if it was a meritless claim it wouldn’t have made it all the way to the top of our jurisprudence system. So ultimately the Supreme Court sided with Yelp and they are not racketeering. But that doesn’t really set the bar very high. I think, to not be a criminal organisation, that doesn’t make them a good business.
I believe that as long as Yelp is relevant and as long as consumers, dental patients, believe Yelp reviews, as long as they see them as credible and worth considering- you should attempt to build content, in the form of reviews, from your patient on that platform. The moment people stop trusting it, it’s not going to be an issue. But the fact is dentists don’t like Yelp because they have some questionable business practices. For instance, if you pay them there’s a lot of correlation data which isn’t causation but it’s pretty darn close. And a lot of people theorize, and perhaps justifiably so, that Yelp is intentionally filtering good reviews. And intentionally leading bad reviews for businesses that are not paying them. Now that is definitely questionable, but for whatever reason, the courts have decided that they’re not doing this in a racketeering… in a fraudulent way. So we’ll leave that as it.
But my job is to help you attract new patients and it’s up to the consumer. It’s up to the patients. If they trust Yelp reviews, go get Yelp reviews. The moment they stop trusting Yelp reviews, then you don’t have to worry about it.
Howard: I’ve really been watching the Yelp soap opera on Dentaltown for years. But it seems like now the other four letter word, besides Yelp, is now Uber. That is really a soap opera unwinding right before our eyes, isn’t it?
Justin: Uber.
Howard: Yeah.
Justin: The taxi service? The car ride…
Howard: Yeah. The board just basically fired the founder and CEO and he’s got all kinds of lawsuits against him for sexual harassment, blah, blah, blah. I don’t even think that’s the big issue. I think the big issue is that their driverless car program, I think a lot of people think they hired a guy from Google who came with all the Google knowledge. And I think he’s going to get investigated for fraudulently obtaining, what do you call that? Proprietary information, or stealing intellectual property from Google.
Justin: Wow.
Howard: And that is a serious, serious no, no. So that is crazy drama that I’ve been following closely.
Justin: People talk about that on Dentaltown?
Howard: Yeah.
Justin: Wow.
Howard: Yeah. It’s a big drama. So, what… dentists have a disease to where... their whole life they’ve always been getting ‘A’s’ in calculus and physics when the same guys in the dorm, other guys were getting ‘C’s’, and ‘D’s’, and ‘F’s’, and flunking out. And so they kind of… they kind of get this sense that they’re always the smartest person in the room. And I see a lot of them want to do their own marketing. And you look at some of their websites and they’re showing titanium implants sticking out of a jaw, where you know there’s people hurling up and can’t even look at these photos. It’s like, ‘dude, they don’t want to see before and after gum drop surgeries with sutures and blood and you’re…’
I remember the first time I saw in the first day of oral surgery school. One of my best friends passed out, I mean he saw when the tooth popped out and he dropped to the floor and it was a thump. I mean everybody thought he was hurt or broke something.
What do you think about all these dentists that are do-it-yourself marketers? Who are always posting on their website, ‘don’t do do-it-yourself ortho, don’t do do-it-yourself anything. You need to come to a dentist’, but then when it comes to marketing there’s a lot of do-it-yourselfers. I mean you can tell by so many of the direct mail pieces that come to your house, the yellow page ads, some of the billboards like, okay nobody who does this for a living made that. You obviously did it yourself. What do you think of the do-it-yourself dental marketers?
Justin: A lot of dentists think about my Invisalinks method, my dental SEO course. The first and only dental SEO course. A lot of dentists think that it’s just for DIY. But the truth is although probably about sixty-five, seventy-five percent of the dentists do want DIY SEO. The truth is many of the dentists just need to understand it.
I mean would you ever have gone to dental school without having been shown the step-by-step process, with successful case studies and examples of it working? And yet, in SEO it’s like everything is behind… you’ve got to get… you’ve got to get a lanyard, you’ve got to get a credential pass, and then there’s some doors, and then you’ve got a security guard, you’ve got to enter it’s got to scan your iris. And like… like it’s all big, some big mystery how SEO works.
We’re just going to show you what’s working for dentists all over the country. And then once you grasp it, you can do it yourself. You can hire your dental assistant to do it. But the fact is you’re probably going to hire me to do it. Because you might as well do what you do best and delegate the rest.
Howard: And when dentists call you, what percent of the time, when you do the first view of their website, what percent of the time do you just give it an A, B, C, D, or F? Write down A, B, C, D, F when you see a dental… the average dental website that you see.
Justin: That’s interesting. I don’t think most dentists want me to do that. I think…
Howard: The humble ones do. I mean the best dentist is always humble, hungry, they’re scrappers, they’ve got to work. I mean forget nine to five. Everybody that I knew that built a two to three million dollar office, they didn’t work nine to five Monday through Thursday. They worked ninety-five hours a week for a decade so they can live the last three decades like no man has. You work ninety-five… You work nine to five, you’re probably going to be underfunded on your pension at sixty-five. But if you work ninety-five hours a week for a decade, you will crush it.
And all the ones I see crushing it they’re not the arrogant dentists that know it all, it’s always the humble one who can sit there and listen to his patients, his supply chain, his vendors. When he gets a rejection from an insurance company, he didn’t write him a profane letter. He says, ‘I’m going to have lunch with that Delta CEO, I’m going to take his butt to lunch. And I’m going to get to know my value chain, I’m going to get to know my Benco lady’. They’re humble.
But when I… when a dentist emails me, it’s always blah, blah, blah, blah, thanks a lot, Craig. But it will be like craig@smileytoothdental.com, so I always just take off the… put a www in front of the at sign and go to the website to see who I’m talking to. So I look at a lot of websites everyday and my God, I think ninety-five percent of them were bought five to ten years ago. And there’s no way they could be search engine optimized. I mean there’s just a still shot, there’s no video, there’s no blog. I’d say ninety-five percent would only satisfy the question, yes I have a website. End of story. Check.
Justin: Yeah. And you know what? That’s how a lot of dentists approach SEO. And that’s… that’s what I’m trying to help dentists avoid. Is if you wanted to have the checkbox website, if you want to have the checkbox SEO, the checkbox whatever, direct mail whatever. You can do that. That’s your right. But in a competitive landscape, someone’s going to out do you. Someone’s going to out do you and you’ve either got to go all in, or get the heck out. In my opinion.
Howard: And do you think you should own your own website on like a wordpress document or do you like these cookie cutter cut and paste websites that you can get?
Justin: It’s wise to own your own website for a number of reasons. I mean if I was run over by a truck, my dentists have access to everything. So that’s smart. I mean any time you use the word cookie cutter, I tend to shy away from that. So I think that it’s important… and this is very controversial, but I actually, and I design websites, I don’t think web design is that important. I don’t think that… I mean you need to have the usability, you need to be mobile friendly, you need to be responsive to tablets and all that.
But I think it’s the content of the website that really matters. I think it’s the message. I think it’s your video, whether you’re endearing and instill a sense of familiarity and trust. I think that’s what really important. Fancy logos and design and everything, that’s great. I mean there is a halo effect there. There is an effect where if he’s got a good website, he’s probably a good dentist. And that’s the way consumers think. So that’s important. But not nearly as important as the content on your website. I mean that’s really the message on your website it needs to be authentic, it needs to be real and it needs to… it needs to answer their objections, it needs to answer their questions. Which is where those reverse testimonials come in, is relatability. Let your patients create your content for you.
Howard: Do you… do you think… I see a lot of marketing now where a lot of people still do the www dot today’s dental dot com. But some people now are just doing their name dot com, they’re just leaving off the www dot and then they’re having their domain name. Do you think that’s okay? Do you think everybody gets it? Or do you think that’s taking a little too much for granted?
Justin: What I do is what’s called a… we have an official version in Google Search Console, that’s the program that Google uses, its lesser known from Google Analytics. But actually in my day-to-day life it’s more important than Google Analytics. We have a primary version and then the other version, the http, or the www version, it all redirects to the one version. So that’s more of a technical issue, I don’t think it’s really that… yeah, I don’t think it’s… whether they enter www or not, they should go to the same website.
Howard: Okay. So what else do you think my homies should know. I’ve only got you for five more minutes. That was the fastest fifty-five minutes I’ve done in a long time. What else do you think they should know? If… again just do this forget what you do, forget about dental marketing strategy, they just want ten more new patients a month. Do you like direct mail? Do you like Facebook ads? Back to that I just want ten new patients a month, what if they called you up and said ‘what do you think about direct mail? Or this little coupon package that comes to all the houses… Valpak or PostcardMania, dental PostcardMania or whatever. What do you think about all that? There’s dentalpostcards.com.
Justin: The easier it is for the doctor down the street to copy you, the more likely it is to be an unsafe bet. So if you are going to do direct mail, and direct mail is the wild card. I mean you go on and you see, ‘I’m crushing it with direct mail’, ‘I didn’t get a thing’, and you see post after post after post. The juxtaposition from one direct mail in one city to another is crazy. So what I do is the scientific approach with SEO. And I say, ‘let’s velscope your keywords so you know what you’re getting into’. That’s the problem with direct mail, is you really have no clue what’s going to happen before you shoot those mailers out.
Howard: Well that’s a profound deal. Because I’ve said this many times. The term I cannot stand the most in business is United States of America. Because no one says that about Europe, no one says the EU, no one compares Germany to Greece, or Italy to London, or Paris to Denmark. And right now like in dentistry, America is a dozen different countries flying under one flag.
Like in several markets right now, if you put a dental office and you list a practice for sale. You’ll get three offers today and one will be above your listing price. And then you go to other markets, and there’s dental offices that have been sitting there for two years. So the key to marketing is measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring and you can’t compare New Orleans to Anchorage, Alaska. I mean you just can’t. I mean America always has simultaneous areas of boost and...boosting… feast or famine. Oil might be going up or fracking might be going down, solar might be going up, coal might be going down. The overall wash is a nice one and a half to three and a half percent average growth rate for the last century but in any given market you’re in your own country. So it really doesn’t matter what’s going on in San Fran, what matters is what’s going on where you live, your zip code.
Justin: Right. Yeah. So I think lifting the veil on velscoping your keywords, you’ve just got to know what you’re getting into.
Howard: But I do see biases though. Because I’m fifty-four, you’re a different generation. I think millennials hate direct mail just because they personally hate direct mail. And I also think they’re all obsessed with what’s going on in Yelp, because they use Yelp. No one my age, of fifty-four, I’ve never seen anyone over fifty use Yelp before. And I hear millennials when they go to the mail they think someone cut down a tree, a spotted owl died, this should be banned. You know what I mean?
Then I’ll go meet a dentist who says, ‘well I just mail this postcard to everyone in my zip code over sixty-five. It says ‘Got a denture? try dental implants.’ Nine ninety-five. Call this number’. And they’ve run the same damn postcard to everyone in their five, six mile, seven mile radius that’s over sixty-five. And they just get one or two… if they just get one case on a mailing they crush it. I mean like and All on 4 is twenty-five thousand an arch. I mean how many people have to come in for an All on 4 to get your money back on your direct mail campaign? Now if you’re doing that direct mail campaign for dental sealants on six years old, maybe you’d have to get closer measurements but if you’re doing All on 4 cases you only need one.
Justin: Right. Right. Yeah. And that’s why I have doctors who contact me all the time about I want to do more All on 4 cases let’s do some SEO. And I say, ‘well hold on a minute, how many people are actually using Google to find All on 4?’ And so that’s part of velscoping your keywords is we really get granular, we get into the nitty gritty of what does Google actually bring your practice? So I try and be a teacher of these things, I try and be a consultant more than a service provider at least in the beginning of when dentists contact me. I’ve got the let you know what you’re getting into.
Howard: you know, another hot marketing tip that I keep hearing over and over. About once a month someone will tell me this hot tip. Is they will be… they know the shoppers, the shoppers, the’ll go the lowest fee for a simple extraction. Because nobody, almost nobody, comes in and gets that simple extraction. Usually they’re going to get a lot of extractions, partials, dentures, implants, whatever. And when they’re in these every expensive retirement communities like Boko Ritone, they’ll say, ‘home of the… home of the seventy-nine dollar extraction’. And then in comes seventy year old grandma and came in for the seventy-nine dollar extraction, and now she’s getting two arches and All on 4 for fifty thousand.
Grocery stores do it with milk and bread, they sell their milk at cost just so you come in there and buy something from the frozen department. But hey, I’m a big fan of yours, you’ve edumacated me so much on your threads. I really adore you ,I respect you. I think you’ve added so much value to Dentaltown with your fifteen hundred posts. I met you several times. My son, Ryan, thinks the world of you. I think the world of you. I just want to tell you seriously dude thank you so much for coming on my show today and talking to my homies. I know they really appreciate it.
Justin: Thank you so much for having me.
Video: How can dentists gain more patients?
First understand what your prospective patients want. Your would be patients are looking for dentists they can know, like and trust. The higher the cost of a dental procedure the more trust the patient needs in order to accept treatment. Custom professional photography and video production are powerful ways to display who you are, and promote trust on your website. Working with a dental marketing expert who knows the hidden fears and apprehensions of patients is the first step in building a bridge to those that need your services most.
Second, know your target market and who your competition is. It’s not other dentists, it’s commercial advertising for discretionary spending. Your prospective patients are being enticed by new cars, vacations, and cafe mochas. Dental avoiders, those who know they need a dentist but just can’t choose which one is right for them. They are your target market. It’s up to you to help enlighten them to the lifestyle enhancing habit of visiting your practice. It’s up to your website's content to build rapport and trust.
Third, know where these dental avoiders would view your website. By being in the right places your marketing budget would have the most leverage. Having a strong online presence is essential in today’s competitive marketing landscape.
Finally, don’t work with just anyone. Justin Morgan is the one and only Dental Marketing Guy. His years of marketing experience and laser focus in helping dentists increase patient’s acceptance will save you years of trial and error, unsuccessful marketing efforts. By working with the Dental Marketing Guy, you’re electing to work with someone who understands the three key points we’ve discussed.
Contact Justin today for a complimentary analysis of what it will take for you to accomplish your goals. www.dentalmarketingguy.com.