Latest / The Word of Mouth Podcast / Are Google Ads the Carbs of Dental Marketing? | WOM 020
Transcript
- Jeff: Welcome back to the word of mouth podcast, your weekly pod wait, sorry. Welcome back to the Word of Mouth Podcast, your weekly rundown of the business, marketing, and operational strategies shaping the modern private dental and orthodontic practice. I'm your host, Jeff Lunt. And I'm here with my co-hosts Sarah and Troy today. Troy: Nice to be with you. Jeff: Is Sarah frozen? Sarah: No, I'm here. Yeah, happy to be here. Jeff: No. Okay. I'm gonna say that one more time and then we can just kind of have some interaction there. ⁓ I'm your host, Jeff, and I'm here with my co hosts Troy and Sarah. Troy: Good to be with you. Sarah: Happy to be here with you guys. Jeff: Excellent. So today we're gonna talk a little bit ⁓ more about the inside out framework, kind of how it works, what maybe some misconceptions are and how to utilize it to grow your practice. Troy: ⁓ yeah, and it and the approach that we ⁓ took in coming up with this is really looking across the entire practice in in finding opportunities to ⁓ to increase revenue and increase profitability, recognizing that the advertising or the marketing is a piece of the practice, but it's not the whole practice and there are some other opportunities to ⁓ to make a practice more profitable. Sarah: Yeah, I think we've talked a lot on this podcast about the areas in which the dentists are feeling this squeeze, right? There's labor, there's an issue there are issues with marketing and how dental practices are marketing themselves. There are issues with dentist income and the income the practices are receiving. And so we just want to talk about since there are so many areas where dentists are feeling ⁓ these squeeze or this squeeze. There are lots of areas where they can ⁓ get creative and find ways to get out of this squeeze. Troy: I don't know if it's just me. I your word all that was all broken up. Is that just me that's are you hearing it okay, Jeff, or was that Jeff: No, I both of you are can you hear me? Am I breaking up? Troy: You sound good. Am I breaking up? Sarah: No. Jeff: so somewhat, but not too bad. Sarah: Was I that whole time? Jeff: ⁓ you were, but now you're not. But that's okay. I mean it will capture on your end, so we have that stuff. ⁓ and the video. Sarah: Okay. Right. Troy: The audio. Okay, anyway, I just yeah, I just wanted to make sure that it was not I just checked my internet in again and it still seems like it's doing okay. So anyway. I don't ⁓ we may want to well, no, never mind. You just keep on marching. So I'll quit so Jeff: What? We may want to what? Troy: Well, I I I don't know how that that seemed like kind of a rocky ⁓ start. So we are gonna have to just be a little bit mindful of filling the gaps but not jumping on top of each other. Although I guess the gaps go out, so never mind, that doesn't matter. So okay. Yeah, we can move forward. Jeff: Yeah, they're we can definitely ditch pauses and stuff. ⁓ Troy: Okay. Jeff: ⁓ yes, Sarah. ⁓ I think that the the cost squeeze that we're seeing dentists fill is one of the components, ⁓ the cost of labor, the cost of supplies, all of those things. We're also seeing ads get more expensive. ⁓ and so the cost of acquisition is getting more expensive. And all of this on top of the fact that insurance reimbursements are staying flat while all of these costs are going up. And so Dentists are getting paid basically the same that they were 10, 15 years ago, while at the same time having to spend more on those patients. Troy: Well, and I've probably a compounding factor there is that Google has ⁓ really it's been very easy to get to get more awareness, ⁓ but part of the product of that has been ⁓ really a commoditization where ⁓ more and more practices have sort of duplicated what others have done and the overall impact of that has been that ⁓ practices have become fairly interchangeable. They're harder to tell apart. And when there isn't differentiation between products, this isn't just in you know in the dental world, this is ⁓ marketing generally, if there isn't differentiation, then price becomes the primary basis on which ⁓ decisions are made. And ⁓ you know, so yes, there's a lot of infrastructure issues that ⁓ that are impacting that as well, but there is a little bit of a ⁓ some self sabotage in the industry as it relates to really not being able to differentiate from ⁓ from other practices. So Jeff: Yeah, I think some of that stems from an over reliance on Google ads. Google ads are great. They're a great way to To get patients, ⁓ we certainly do not advocate for shutting off Google Ads if that's the way you're getting your patient flow and things. But the way Google Ads works is it's driving everyone to the mean. It's trying to figure out what the best way to market your practice is. And unless you're very specific, very explicit rather, ⁓ and unless you're very explicit on who you're trying to attract, if you say, I just want dental patients, it will go to the mean. It will go to the people who respond easily to ads. And those are not necessarily the highest quality patients for the practice. And so that kind of ⁓ over reliance on Google coupled with sort of the normalization of social media and trends being kind of pushed out, ⁓ you kind of get this regression to the mean. And ⁓ I mean I we saw it over the weekend, there's those people who ⁓ climbed the Eiffel Tower and waved that black flag and now all of a sudden that meme is everywhere. It's flooded the market. And so unless you were the first to act, you're now part of the average in terms of using that as a marketing message, just kind of as an analog. Troy: Yeah, no question about it. And some of it ⁓ also relates to the fact that ⁓ promotions tend to get more click throughs, more engagement. ⁓ so ⁓ as people are looking at what's working as agencies that are focused on ⁓ primarily on Google Ads are looking at what is getting the most clicks, what is getting the most ⁓ engagement, it tends to be ⁓ promotions like cheap ⁓ cleanings and so that tends to be a strategy that they advocate ⁓ for a lot of their clients and while there's always a place for f for promotions ⁓ having that be a primary marketing source now is informing Google that you are a cheap cleaning provider and once Google ⁓ recognizes that that is the type of clients that you're are the type of patients you you're looking for, ⁓ even if it isn't, they that's who the ⁓ algorithm sends you more of. So it becomes a a bit of a a flywheel, self-perpetuating problem that the more kind of promotional based ⁓ marketing or advertising you do, the more you're going to get price-driven ⁓ patients clicking through. So that tends to drive down the the return on ad spend, ⁓ which again compromises that profitability and ⁓ and exacerbates that ⁓ that squeeze that so many dentists are filling. Sarah: Absolutely. I think the focus for dentists right now is qual ⁓ quantity over quality. And whether it's intentional or not, this is how Google ads are ⁓ this is how they're using Google Ads is to try and push that quantity when the real goal should be that quality, those higher end cases, because that's where the money's at in dentistry right now. And there are people looking for those high end cases. It's just finding those people rather than marketing to the mean, like Jeff was talking about. Jeff: Yeah, and ⁓ Troy and Sarah both ⁓ bring up great points that ⁓ with agencies kind of running the same playbook for dentists, you start to get a lot of the same mushy kind of messaging going out because they in order for them to scale their practice, they have to kind of do things the same. ⁓ and sort in order for them to scale their agency, they have to kind of systematize and do the same thing for a lot of their patients, which then leads to a lot of the same messaging being pushed out. And if it works for one agency, then other agencies are looking at that and they try and push out more of the same. And so not only is it Google that's kind of creating this regression to the mean, but it's also the fact that dental practices use a lot of the same agencies who use a lot of the same tactics. And so you do get kind of this ⁓ The squeeze from the standpoint of everyone's trying to be the best average. Troy: Yeah. Yeah, you when we were talking, Jeff, ⁓ in preparation for this, you brought up the ⁓ the idea ⁓ or or the analogy of ⁓ Google ads and carbohydrates from a dietary standpoint. I thought that was an interesting one. So ⁓ maybe share ⁓ share your thoughts on that. Jeff: Yeah, I mean carbs from a dietary standpoint are an essential part of the diet, right? They they help give energy, they it's a lot of glucose, and ⁓ from a biological standpoint they're absolutely essential. The problem is, is if that's your only part of the only part of your diet, carbs are very easily converted into fat. Fat conversely is not very easily converted the the other direction. And so When you have too many carbs, all it's doing is just socking away that those carbs for fat, which ⁓ from a nutritional ⁓ sorry. Troy: Hold up, Jeff. I I mean, I I would say instead of saying they convert to fat, they convert to energy, you know, and then excess gets stored as fa I mean yeah. Anyway, I that you may wanna I I'd say maybe sp give that one a little bit of a try. The the the the I think the the conversion to energy is really the story. That's why they're doing it. They're not doing it to convert to fat. They're c convert to energy, but it doesn't last long, so Jeff: Yes. Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. Yeah, I mean carbs from a nutritional standpoint are absolutely essential to everyday life. But carbs are primarily converted to quick energy. It's not kind of that long term ongoing energy that you get when you're in something like ketosis or ⁓ burning fat for energy. When you burn carbs for energy, it's really fast and then it's gone. And that's kind of what Google ads end up being. And as we know from all sorts of marketing around the health space, an over reliance on carbs in your diet is what leads to unhealthy outcomes. And it's because your body doesn't have time to kind of continue to create this perpetuating machine that's oriented around what your body actually needs, which is carbs, protein and fat. Troy: Well and and looking at protein, for instance, ⁓ you know, the contrast between carbs and proteins, ⁓ you know, proteins don't provide that ⁓ immediate energy boost ⁓ that a lot of carbs, especially ⁓ you know, processed carbs, give you this this great little rush. Protein doesn't do that, but protein is the building block for for for muscles. It it it's what you know is essential for sort of those those broader systems, not just in the moment. And so I it you know it's a not a perfect analogy, but an interest an interesting analogy for Google ads where yes, we can turn Google Ads on and your phone will ring. So there's that immediacy. And on the one hand that seems great, but the more reliant, exclusively reliant we are on Google Ads, a couple things happen. One There is no permanence. We're not building anything that has ⁓ sort of sustainability. As soon as you stop spending, it turns off. The second problem is a little bit systemic in in just the reality of the ⁓ you know, of the Google Ads ⁓ marketplace, which is one, there's actually only a small percentage of ⁓ of of prospective patients that are looking as a first gateway looking ⁓ at Google, searching for Google. you know, dentist near me or whatever. Fifteen to twenty percent of the marketplace is what is is typically a ⁓ reported in terms of that ⁓ the the percentage new of new patients that are using Google as a first search tool. So one, it's only a a fairly small segment of the market that you're you're going after anyway. And then making that even worse is it tends to be the more price sensitive segment of the marketplace. So you're All going after you're you're kind of going all in on a minority of the of the overall ⁓ available market, and you're tending to go in on the most price conscious, so you're going to get those that tend to bounce around based on promotions or or ⁓ aren't going to have the the same ⁓ probability of accepting treatment. So there's a place for carbs just like there's a place for Google Ads. We just have to be aware of the limitations and the dangers of ⁓ of relying too heavily on Sarah: Yeah, Trey, you brought up a good point. I think going back to that carbs analogy, using exclusively Google Ads is like eating a cookie three meals a day or three meals a day for the rest of your life. The problem's just gonna get worse and worse and worse. And you are just focusing on one thing. You do need a vi variety of fats and protein and carbs. And that's kind of what we're focusing on in this podcast is the variety of things you can do. Not just focusing on Google ads, but like you mentioned, Troy, the carbs are good. Jeff, you mentioned this as well. It is important. Google ads are a way to get people in the door. It's a matter of how you approach the Google ads and what carbs you're eating. ⁓ boy. I said it's ⁓ Google ads are still important, it's just how you approach them. Jeff: Okay, great. Troy: just said a long one. So I'll let you do it or I'm happy to jump in. So with one. Okay. I mean I think you want to pivot to, you know, that's the the inside out fract ⁓ you know framework or what we call the inside out framework. Jeff: Yeah, no, I'll I'll take it. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we call the inside out framework. ⁓ you work kind of from the inside of the practice and move out. and ⁓ there's really four pillars to the inside out framework that ⁓ we're gonna go through now, which are really the keys to not just having a carb based diet diet, but having a really balanced diet. Troy: Yeah, and and ⁓ th the way that this was d d derived was ⁓ from our experience in in operating ⁓ clinics, not in the dental world but i in in in the healthcare world and and seeing where ⁓ revenue came and where we saw that revenue leaking out. ⁓ and so that's one thing that ⁓ that maybe differentiate our our perspective from from many is it's you know this is really an operator first design. ⁓ the other thing is that we don't see that marketing is different than than kind of operational considerations, that there are some internal opportunities ⁓ to make the marketing more effective, to make a practice ⁓ more profitable and increase revenue. And then what we've seen is the better that practices get at really taking that holistic view, that's just it it's what compounds all of the efforts, both internally and on the marketing side. So ⁓ that really is what drove us to develop this this framework and and why ⁓ the pillars that we sort of ⁓ prioritize or focus on ⁓ how those were derived. Jeff: Yeah, and it really all boils down to getting referral like patients. So it's not necessarily only targeting referrals, but the best patients for any practice are always referrals. They stay the longest, they are the easiest to treat, they accept treatment the the most readily. And so creating a system that optimizes that referral like patient. ⁓ that they're not going to Google to search and try and pair and price shop, ⁓ they're they're the ones who are coming in and feel like they are connected to your practice. ⁓ that's really what this system is intended to target. Troy: Yeah, and and within it, ⁓ so we can jump into ⁓ kind of the four areas. ⁓ within it, the first one we identify as reactivating stalled patients. And ⁓ I know that a lot of practices, you know, kind of they take the approach of duh. Of course, we're reaching out to our past ⁓ past patients or patients that we haven't seen for twelve plus months, but as we have analyzed ⁓ practices and really started working with practices, there's kind of a a a passive, maybe an automated sequence that every free few months it's, hey, we haven't seen you in a little while. And while that's certainly better than nothing, what we're talking about here in terms of reactivating stalled patients is really some concentrated strategy and outreach to try to get them across the ⁓ that that ⁓ that inertia of inaction. That is keeping most of them out. Because there's really a a couple of reasons primarily that people aren't getting into the dentist. ⁓ One is it's just they're busy, they they continue to put it off, and they're just it it's not something that they're they're really avoiding. It's just isn't a high enough priority. However, there's another group. Where they know that there's some work that needs to be done, and either because of financial considerations or just kind of the dread of going into the dentist and having that work done, they're putting it off. Well, both of those personas can be targeted with messages that help overcome whatever it is that's keeping them from coming in. ⁓ the message of just, hey, we haven't seen you for a while, ⁓ you know, it doesn't speak to the latter in any meaningful way. You know, it doesn't overcome the dread of coming in and getting that work done. And even the the the person who's just kind of putting off, sure it's a little bit of a nudge, but there's some opportunities to be a bit more intentional in that. So when we talk about reactivating stalled patients, we're really talking about being very intentional in reaching out to them. And the reason why it's important is you've already paid to acquire that patient. And so That money's already invested. This is about getting more revenue on money you've already spent, which you know that increasing that ⁓ that ⁓ ROI is is always a good idea. It also and it can be extraordinarily effective just numerically. ⁓ a couple of examples. We ran a campaign for a gentleman ⁓ or for a ⁓ a practice and ⁓ within the first few weeks there were 57 additional appointments that were set from from this campaign. So this is not a small issue and it becomes kind of culturally something that you're doing. It also fills in so that there's less need to go out and acquire new patients, meaning you can cut off those channels or those campaigns that are producing low-quality patients. So there's it it's really a powerful lever. And it's also one that happens quickly. So that's why we put it at the top as pillar one, is it's a big mover for a lot of ⁓ for a lot of practices. Hello? ⁓ Sarah: Do you want me to start with pillar two or is there anything else we want to say about pillar one? Troy: He hey sir, do you will you just type speed test in your browser window? Sarah: ⁓ boy. Yeah. Troy: I mean open up a new window and do speed testing. Sorry, comma, we should have sent out a message, comma. Jeff Sarah and I Text you as soon as we're done. Sarah: I need a plug in my laptop. One sec. Jeff: What? Troy: She said she needs to plug in her laptop, I think. Jeff: Yeah, I mean we should be able to finish pretty quick, but who who is texting you? Okay. Troy: Yeah. That was Sarah or M's just texted me. Jeff: I think you're I don't know if it's frozen on your end, but your camera's frozen for me, but it doesn't matter at this point. Troy: Ugh. Well should I just quickly delete it again? Jeff: No, let's let's just finish. This is already gonna be kind of a journey to edit, so Troy: Well, do we want to just s redo it? I mean it might be easier to find a time and just re re record to be honest. Jeff: Okay, we can do that. If you want to do it on Monday. Troy: I mean up to you. Totally up to you. I'm just saying if it's going to be something that is a little bit of a cluster anyway, technologically we've it's been bad, so I I Jeff: Yeah. Maybe Sarah: We can we can just film outro and say, next time we'll talk about the four pillars. Troy: Yeah, that's true, Jeff. We could just ⁓ do you want to Jeff: Okay. Yeah. And then I can just insert it. Insert it. Troy: ⁓ I mean do you want me to just kinda do a a little bit of a wrap up ⁓ I mean so we can we can Jeff: Yeah, and I would just acknowledge that we've had some technological difficulties, so Troy: Yeah, okay. So we can actually if you want to go all the way back and just dump the whole reactivation, then we could really just be talking about that last ⁓ you know, I kind of finished up with compounding momentum or whatever, and then I'll just ⁓ or maybe if you want to say Jeff, this might be a good place to start. We're having a a little bit of technical difficulties, so instead of jumping into the four pillars, ⁓ we'll pick that up on our next Jeff: Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. absolutely. ⁓ it does seem like we are having a few technical difficulties. So due to that, we will probably just cut this episode here and then we'll in the next episode go into the four pillars of the inside out framework where we can dive into what strategies are working and how holistically dentists are creating practices. Troy: Our next one. How about that? Jeff: that grow sort of with that compounding flywheel effect. ⁓ so if you've made it this far and you've watched ⁓ watched us especially on YouTube where we've had some video technical difficulties, we appreciate it. ⁓ subscribe so you can be ready and notified when that next episode comes out about the four pillars. and find us on anywhere you get your podcasts, Apple Music, Spotify, Overcast, etc. and we wish you all the best with growing your practice. Let us know in the comments what's working for you now and we'll see you in the next one. Troy: Good deal. Well yeah, sorry, but Jeff: Now that's okay. Sarah: Yeah, sorry.