Latest / The Word of Mouth Podcast / Google Ads are the New Yellow Pages for Dentists | WOM 023
Transcript
- Jeff: Welcome to the Word of Mouth Podcast, the podcast for independent dental practices who want to grow without handing over their entire budget to Google for ads. I'm your host, Jeff, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Troy. Troy: Good to be with you again, Jeff. Jeff: Awesome. So today we're going to talk a little bit about dinosaurs of their industries and how it relates to dental practices. Troy: Yeah, so the the example that really becomes pertinent for dentists is the yellow pages. And for those old of those of us old enough to remember the yellow pages, it was how we found local businesses in the in the world before the internet. And for dentists, is what we're speaking of specifically, it was the staple of their marketing. And they spent significant amounts of of money in you know, either a larger ad or as color became available, color or or you know, even more if they wanted to get, say, the back cover of the yellow pages. So huge investment in that marketing channel. Jeff: Or even changing their name. I mean there there was investment not only from money and a monetary standpoint, but changing their name to be ACME or AAA Dental. and Troy: Yeah, a A one dental or whatever it might be. Jeff: Yeah, exactly. To try and game the system and become higher up the the food chain in terms of who shows up first. And that shifted largely and yellow pages kind of became irrelevant. They do have an online presence, but I bet most of our listeners don't actually recognize that. And that's because they aren't a r relevant because they lost out to Google. And for a long time, all of those strategies, paying more to be shown first, paying more to be on the back cover, changing your name, all those things were kind of standard practice in dental marketing. And the yellow pages didn't always Troy: Well and and just Yeah, and and just to be clear, when Yellow Pages emerged, they were revolutionary. I mean, this was something that was a really big deal for small businesses generally, but for dental dentists as well, that they suddenly had the opportunity to pay a certain amount of money and know that everyone in that marketplace that was looking for a dentist, at least there was the potential that they would see them. They were in the only place That people specifically looking for a dentist were were gonna go look. So it was revolutionary and it worked great for a lot of years. Jeff: Yeah, and the dentists that got on board fast and paid to be in there, they saw the best results. The ones who were trying to pay the most to be in there at the end when Google was starting to take over, they were the ones who kind of missed the boat and then now they're paying a bunch of money for something that's super competitive, super expensive, and much less effective because of advancing technology. Troy: Yeah. And the the there was also a lot of concern as yellow pages started to wane and we saw that each year the the yellow pages would get a little bit thinner as more as more businesses generally moved to digital. But there were still some who felt like it's what they knew and pr and and if we're looking at those that maybe bought the back cover. They had invested so much in achieving that because only one dentist or one business in a given market was able to get that kind of, you know, preferred location. And so there was a lot of sort of investment bias that they had committed to a particular channel. And by golly, they were going to stick with it, even when there were some evidence that things were you know, were going away from from that particular channel. Jeff: So the dentists who were committed to the yellow pages, they'd invested their time, their effort. That's what they knew. That's where all of their patients were coming from. Outside of referrals, it was the most trusted source of patients. And so they when they started seeing that decreased ROI, the patients weren't coming the same way they used to, the same way they did last year or the year before. They changed their name. They went to triple A dentistry. they went to A1 dentistry or they paid for a better ad for color or to be put higher up or a sponsored post or a sponsored ad. or a sponsored area of the page where they could get better visibility in that particular method of acquiring patient. Troy: And and the thing is that the the signs were all there. You know, if you interviewed a bunch of dentists in say 2010, you would have heard from them, yeah, our marketing isn't working as well as it used to. You know, things are really competitive. We're just not getting the same traction that we did before. So there was a lot of awareness generally that the marketing that they'd been relying on, say for the last 10, 15, 20 years. was no longer as effective as it had been. And for those that saw that reality and moved, good on them. You know, they recognized that that was not a a a problem with with font size. That wasn't a problem with, you know, where their ad was located. It was a problem with the channel that they were in, that that particular channel was starting to die. And that You know, now looking back we can kind of laugh at it and say, kind of weird that, you know, you kinda think of that last dentist that, you know, somewhere there was that last dentist who cut a big old fat check to yellow pages, you know, hoping that that was going to be, you know, the thing that kept the new patients coming in. And and it was evident to everyone else that it was a you know, that it was literally the dinosaur and and and had died. So, The the question or what makes this an interesting case is we're starting to see some of those sti those same signs. And I shouldn't even say starting. They're very evident that something is changing about a channel that the majority of of dentists have relied on. Jeff: Yeah, and we can even go back before Yellow Pages. It used to be all word of mouth. That's what made Yellow Pages revolutionary, is now you could pay to get in front of the right audience. Whereas before it was all about networking. It was all about building those relationships. And the dentists who resisted the market shift to paying for their to acquire new patients. They were the ones who missed out on that first wave of acquiring those patients from the the yellow pages as that adoption ramped up. And then we see as the yellow pages started to go down, there was a new opportunity to create organic to create organically driven patients by getting on the top of Google. And before Google ads were really a thing, that was accomplished with SEO. So you see this historic shift from organic acquisition to paid acquisition, back to organic acquisition with SEO, back to paid acquisition with Google Ads that took over the scene and now you could pay for the same kind of channel that you had originally with SEO. And we're starting to see another shift following the same pattern. back to a lot of more of the organic acquisition with the advent of AI. Troy: Yeah, and and you know, I think that yes AI is part of it. I think that just culturally we're also shifting to where we're we have more interest in kind of some more relationship driven business decisions. But before we jump too much into what the now is looking like, it it's really interesting, Jeff, as we look at what has now become obvious after looking back at at what happened with yellow pages, that the whole industry was aware that there was a problem. It wasn't working as well. And year after year after year, it worked worse and worse and worse. Look at the parallel. I mean, we've talked with hundreds of dentists, and there has not been one who has told us that their digital first strategy, you know, particularly Google Ad first strategy that generally relates to you know, general search terms. No one's told us, yeah, it's still doing great. Or, you know, much less, yeah, things are getting better. Every single one, every single dentist that we've talked to has expressed frustration that over the last few years they just seen the cost per acquisition keep going up, up, up, and the patient quality that they're getting going. you know, the opposite direction. And so again, when we look and we say it's happening to everybody, the solution to that can't be pay more into that thing that's working worse. You know, that there there has to be a different solution. it can't be, you know, if we just get the right keywords or search terms, or maybe we just need to change our offer a little bit, drop it another ten dollars for cleaning or whatever. If if that's what you're trying to do to fix a problem, you're you're kind of missing sort of the yellow book signs that there's something that is fundamentally changing and not in a good way for continuation of that marketing strategy and channel. Jeff: Yeah. I think that that AI does play a big role and I wanna go there simply because I think that paid acquisition will eventually come back. AI, the biggest problem with AI right now is no one has figured out how to monetize it. You see Chat GPT starting to try some ads and people are very resistant to that. And so there's a technology that's taking over. AI is driving people back towards relationships and interpersonal interaction. They don't like the fakeness that comes from interacting with AI-generated content or what they perceive as a computer or robot. And so there's this shift that's coming that we see and everyone feels, everyone knows about AI and can can talk about the trends. And yet we still see so many dentists adopt and marketing agencies are the same way. Adopt this, just do more, just pay more, or just have a better strategy. We have kind of our unique approach to Google ads that ultimately it it goes back to the yellow pages and blockbuster. Just renting out more movies is not ever going to bring Blockbuster back. It the the market moved. Blockbuster Went out of business as a result. Troy: Yeah, and and I think that again, I look at AI more as a little bit of an adjacent versus what really is the core that's driving. the issues with with with Google ads. I mean Google Ads was all about copying whatever worked for someone else. You know there the it didn't reward innovation. It didn't reward differentiation. It r really rewarded kind of a the the median. and so what I think is driving a lot of And and I guess maybe two points. What is driving a lot of moving away from, especially as it relates to to to local businesses, away from just general search terms is it becomes so difficult to differentiate and make a decision based on the information that's available on that platform. Everyone looks the same. I mean you look at websites and sure the photos might change and aesthetically they look a little different, but everyone Is saying, hey, we're your family friendly, affordable dentist. Well, if I go to a pl to a format, if I go to a a channel, and and the white page or sorry, the white pages, the yellow pages were much the same way. If I go to a place and there is no way for me to really to differentiate between who I'm seeing, it just makes it harder for me to, you know, to make a decision. And so, you know, that is why word of mouth has always been so important. But why it's even more important now is really i it's the tiebreaker in the sea of of you know the of ubiquitous sameness. and so I think that AI affords us the opportunity to ask deeper questions, which is one of the appeals there, is we're getting out of the constraints of the Google search to actually be able to Dig a little bit deeper into what matters to me. But I think as an adjacent to that, or as a big part of that, is this reality that yes, we're still trusting reviews, but it used to be pretty easy if you went and said, they've got a hundred five-star reviews. They must be awesome. Well, now everybody has 500, you know, five-star reviews. And they don't say anything. And so, you know, that's My inclination, Jeff, is that there's a few different there's a confluence of a few different things that is really resulting in people that are very cost sensitive or looking for you know, a dentist that's a commodity, they'll still go to those channels. It's not like the Google Ads is dried up completely. But for general dentist search, that's why we're seeing more people saying, hey. It's all I know I'm gonna spend more there. So prices are going up. It's it remains very competitive. At the same time prices or sorry, patient quality is going down. And you know, that's just not a sustainable combination for a dentist that isn't looking to be just a commodity dentist. Jeff: Yeah, I think any dentist out there will say their best patients come from referrals, and that's because the referral is telling that or the referr is telling the referral everything that they love about that dentist in particular. What makes them dis different than other dentists they've had in the past, whether it's the way that they're treated in the office, the kinds of treatments that are offered, the technology that's used, but it's coming directly from someone they know, like and trust. And that's just hard because everyone, like you said, gets to kind of the same place. And business practices, the availability of information has accelerated that. Everyone knows they need to be getting reviews. And so everyone gets a bunch of five star reviews. And now those reviews are effectively useless because everyone knows that everyone's just asking everyone for a five star review. And so you get this kind of Yeah, you get the sameness that just exists across the board on Google because everyone's figured out how to put their best foot forward there. But where the rubber meets the road is that individual Troy: U and Jeff: messaging. Troy: Yeah, and and I was just gonna say, you're exactly right, Jeff. And they know what Google wants. You know, I mean that's part that's that kind of SEO piece is everyone saying, yes, from a conversion standpoint, I suppose I want to get more reviews so people will buy from me, but so much of it is driven by I think that Google wants me to get a bunch of reviews and the more the merrier. So they're not even looking to try to get authentic feedback on how their business is doing. It is The Google algorithm is driving the content I choose. They're cho that's driving my, you know, my desire for for reviews. It's even driving some of the promotional decisions that I make. You know, so when when all of the decisions are being made by the same algorithm, once people know what the algorithm wants, of course, you know, they're the natural thing is for everyone to coalesce around those same. factors, which means they're all doing the same thing and it's just it's difficult to tell them apart. So now what people are looking for is if they hear from someone I've had a good experience to the extent they trust that person, that is an authentic representation of experience where they know that anything they'd go and look at online may or may not be. Sure there's a probability if they've got a lot of reviews that they're doing a good job. But it's just so much there's such a higher trust level when it's somebody that you actually know that you have a relationship with that is saying, you know, thumbs up on this place. I I you know, I've been there, I like it. that that's that's always carried weight. We're just in a place now where it's carrying more weight because the alternative of the of the kind of online presence, people are becoming just increasingly skeptical about that. Jeff: Yeah. I heard somewhere that the democratization of information, so historically Google, YouTube and now AI increases the level of the average, but decreases the overall level of creativity and differentiation. And so you you get the average dentist who historically performed much worse than the above average dentist, is now performing at roughly the same level because they're following the same advice. That advice just exists everywhere. The ones that really differentiate themselves are doing things that other practices aren't doing and isn't just generic kind of best practices for Google or for marketing advice generally. Like what promotions are successful? If you go to YouTube right now, I bet you'll find five videos that have a hundred thousand views that say this is the best marketing advice for dentists. And then if you go to Facebook ads library where you can see what ads are being run, I bet you find that that specific offer over and over and just rinse and repeat. And it's because the information exists, people believe the peop the things that they hear online, and then that stuff gets applied. And so then it creates this meta marketing ad avenues where the dentists that are really succeeding, really standing out, have to do things that don't just exist as as advice for free everywhere online. Troy: Yeah. Well, and and so, you know, now we get down to and what does that mean? Well, I think two things that that as we've talked about it, Jeff, that I think emerged. First and foremost is the differentiation that we're talking about doesn't mean putting on a you know a a monkey suit and running all over you know, Facebook or anything. It it it means recognizing who you are authentically, who you are as the practitioner and who you are as a practice. recognizing who you're for, like who is the ideal patient for your practice and identifying where are they, what matters to them, how can we communicate with them in a way that demonstrates that authenticity, that connects with them in a, you know, in a in a more meaningful way. The the the thing that we always say is, you know, within a few miles of dentists are you know probably 20, 30, 40 times, 100 times more potential patients than they could ever service. So stop marketing to 100,000 people if you're looking for 2,000 people. Identify who the 2,000 people are to whom you're the best fit and that they're they're the best fit for you. Tailor your marketing, tailor your channels to that community. So that's one is authentic authentically. Talking to seeking out the people that are the best fit for your practice. And the second one is, and maybe this should have been the first one, is if you continue to spend more, if you're talking to you know different agencies and thinking, boy, the last two years things have really fallen off. I need to get a different agency. If they are pitching just a refinement of the same strategy, if they're telling you we just need to tweak your keywords. and spend more on Google ads and and we're not bad mouthing Google ads. There is a place for but if that's the only strategic suggestion that they're making Really, really take a hard look and think about the question of am I one of those people that is holding on to the yellow pages when it's clear the yellow pages are not the way forward? So those those would be a couple of observations that I'd have, Jeff. Jeff: Yeah, and I'd like to make another kind of final observation on this is that if you do what ninety percent of people won't, you'll be able to have what ninety percent of people can't. And ninety percent of people, ninety-nine, ninety-nine point nine percent of people are running Google ads and their agency is telling you just need to put more dollars in, or we just need to refine, like I know you're feeling it right now, but we're gonna we're gonna have things come around for your practice. And the ninety-nine percent are doing that. The one percent, the people who are really succeeding, are focusing on other channels. They're looking at local networking opportunities, the non-scalables that really do grow a business. The thing that I think a lot of people, the trap that a lot of small business owners fall into these days is understanding that there are economies of scale now that are beyond what has ever existed before. The misunderstanding that they have is that they don't need those. Like you mentioned, there's a hundred, two hundred, five hundred thousand people that are in a fifteen minute radius of a lot of these dentists who would fill up their practice with 1500, 2,000 people. And if they had the right people, they could make more money than they've ever made with a thousand patients, a thousand of the right patients. And so doing more of what's not working. And trying to go for these like hyper scalable approaches is just not the way to grow a dental practice. It's the way to grow a Fortune five hundred tech company out of Silicon Valley. But when you're when you're a small dental practice and you only need you have a capacity for a number of patients you can effectively help, you just don't need to attack these with these crazy scalable marketing avenues. Troy: Yeah, well and and I will say the challenge that is out there, and it's just the reality, is the things that we're talking about are more difficult. They take more time, they take more involvement, they take more creativity. They are not something that is very easily handoffable to, you know, an agency out of India or whatever. they require true marketing, not just merely advertising. And that's why you see a lot of resistance to it, is it does require a little bit of you know good old elbow grease to make these things work. However, and this is the key, this is what's really important, those advertising things, the the the the the most recent iteration of Yellow Pages, the Google ad focused and maybe Google ad exclusive marketing strategy. It ends when you stop paying. You know, there there isn't continuity to what you're building there. The things that we're talking about and the strategies that we deploy are intended to be sustainable and they're intended to be compounding. And so that's the work. You put in the work now, you invest that time in creating those relationships, in authentically connecting with. with a community that aligns with with you and your practice, that perpetuates. That's a flywheel. and so yes, elbow grease now, but long term benefits for building those things. And a great moat as you know, we we talk about the the idea of a marketing moat where you protect yourself by having those authentic connections. And and so hard work now, but long term rewards down the road. So Jeff: Yeah, the relationship driven patients are the ones who stick around even if they see a forty-nine dollar cleaning special. The commodity-driven patients, I I've talked about this before, but my wife's aunt is one of those, and there's nothing wrong with them. They're just a different kind of patient profile. But she hasn't been to the same dentist for a single appointment in over twelve years. She just finds the one who has the best new patient special and goes there. And That's great. That's all she wants is just a cheap cleaning on her teeth. She doesn't want that relationship dentistry. But we'd see with some of our clients, in fact, there's one in particular that comes to mind where he has a single patient that's referred twenty-three additional patients who are all lifers. They're all staying there as long as they live in the area and are able to go to that dentist. And so it's it it it comes from that dentist being a great clinician, but it also comes from the relationship he built with that. single patient that's just blossomed. Troy: Yeah. Well, and so we will be talking in upcoming episodes about some of those strategies. We'll be diving into some of these other things. And one that's really interesting, Jeff, I know that you're that you have a a a passion for it is membership plans that that a lot, if not most dentist or dental practices have now that just aren't being deployed very well as as a a client acquisition and client retention or patient acquisition and patient retention tool. And so there are things like that that are opportunities to be done the right way to help solve some of the problems that we're talking about with kind of a chapter closing on what was the, you know, the marketing approach for the last, you know, 10, 15 years. Jeff: Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up because that's exactly what we'll be talking about on our next episode. And I am super passionate. You'll see me get fired up. You think I'm fired up about Google Ads and AI. I am I am so passionate about membership plans as a way to create a relationship. And I have personal experience with that. I've spoken about it last week with Dr. Mike, but I'm excited to talk about it with you from more of a marketing perspective as opposed to the the clinical perspective. So if you want to Troy: Looking forward to it. Jeff: Yes. So if you want to get that episode, make sure you subscribe, come to us. We're on YouTube or anywhere where you listen to podcasts. Make sure to hit subscribe and so that you'll be notified. We do send out an email as well if you want to go to our website and register for that. That we'll announce when that episode comes out. But we're here every week. So appreciate you being here and we'll look forward to seeing you next week to talk more about the membership plan.