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Wired for Success Alan A. Curtis, DDS, MS, Online Editorial Director, Orthotown.com

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Using Pictures to Market Your Practice

by Alan A. Curtis, DDS, MS, Online Editorial Director, Orthotown.com

Marketing your orthodontic practice is key to achieving financial and business success. As you market your orthodontic services you should provide potential patients a portfolio of both your orthodontic result and your patient experience. There are not many techniques that bottle your result and treatment experience better than great photography. Think about it for a moment, what physical products leave your office and illustrate to the prospective patient your level of quality? The list is short: smiles, retainers and photographic print outs are all physical products made custom by your office. Think about your other shopping experiences online or otherwise. A great real estate photograph, a Craigslist ad or an Amazon photograph all lead you to have confidence enough to pull the trigger and complete the transaction. Waiting to take photos after the patient pays for records is like asking a car buyer to pay for taking a test drive blindfolded! Many times the only impression dad gets after mom comes home from “shopping around” is your walkout packet with quote and excellent initial photographs. If the family is really on the fence about where to go, they might look at your Web site or Facebook page. Both your Web site and Facebook page should be filled with happy, smiling, raving fans having a good time as they receive the smile of a lifetime.

How to Market with Photos
First, start with the right equipment. Do your homework, go online and read all you can about dental photography equipment.

Both Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras are found as components in dental photographic set ups. (I am partial to Canon.) In my opinion, get high quality lenses and flash equipment, as these are the most important long-lasting components in your set up. Believe it or not, the camera body will age as fast as your personal computer whereas your lenses and flash will last long after you retire your camera body. I recommend buying your camera components a la carte in order to get the best price. Go to an Internet price comparison Web site like Pricegrabber.com and find all of the parts separately.
  • Lens: I recommend the Canon 60mm macro lens and the Canon ring flash Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX (Fig. 3). Get the cheapest Canon DSLR body you can find and your camera set up is complete!

  • Retractors: Double-ended Cheek Retractors (two per pack) – Orthopli.com #0118-D (Fig. 4).

  • Mirrors: Adult and pedo mirrors. Orthopli.com (Fig. 4).

  • Adult: PM3R-7 Angled Photographic Mirrors.

  • Child/pedo: PM3R-6 Angled Photographic Mirrors.

  • Memory cards: Get the smallest capacity you can find. This will allow you to purchase 10-15 of them and they will be less desirable to staff and patients to “borrow” if left on the counter. This also forces the staff to place no more than one patient per card.

  • Camera settings: For extra-oral portraits, set the dial to program mode and your lens to AF auto-focus. For intra-oral “mouth shots,” set the dial to M, manual shutter speed 1/80 sec and F-29. These settings allow for a large depth of field at a shutter speed that is quick enough to minimize hand shake.

  • Technique: Make your pictures stand out from the competition. As important as it is to standardize your pictures, taking the same clinical photos as your competitors minimizes your quality and diagnostic uniqueness. Choose a small number of unique pictures that you find especially diagnostic (overjet, incisal, soft tissue, blackout, three-quarter facial). And add these to your standard set (Figs. 5-7).

    Go to my YouTube video. Many of our readers have amazing libraries of before and after results, making the most of them to market your practice is another story. Be proud to show off your favorite cases. Post your favorites in a gallery on your Web page. Create a video morph of your before and after cases (http://youtu.be/H-YDr_gD_RI). Create a printed portfolio book using an online publisher like Shutterfly or Snapfish. Place copies of your book in your waiting room, consult room and in the offices of your best referrals.

  • Use non-clinical photography: Professional studio portraits of your patients can also greatly impress “shoppers” of the quality of your orthodontic treatment. Contrary to what you might think, it’s not always about price when it comes to shoppers.

  • Office art: Rather than spend money on cheesy generic wall art, fill your office walls with the beautiful smiling faces of your finished cases (Figs. 8-11).

  • Office events: If your office holds regular office parties or events, make sure you get excellent photographs of the event to capture the experience of what it is like to become a patient in your practice. Tell your patients to invite friends to the day they get their braces off! Invite your patients to share their excellent experience with the world by creating interesting content for them to share on social media sites (Figs. 12-15)!
A picture is truly worth a thousand words! How are you using your camera to market your practice? Share your ideas on http://www.orthotown.com/.
Orthotown Magazine
September 2025
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