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Four Ways Specialists Will Grow Dental Implant Business in a Down Economy

Marcus : November 3, 2011 4:59 am : Dental Implants, Immediate Load

by Marcus Hines 

Since patients usually purchase dental implants with discretionary funds, many specialists have not fared as well in this sluggish economy. Patients are not accepting implant treatment plans as they have in better times. Therefore, marketing of dental implant services must become a daily effort of any specialist wanting to grow their dental implant business.
If you are like most specialist you rely on surrounding GPs for 90%+ of your implant referrals. But to maintain in this economy you’ll need to expand your marketing strategy. The upside is this: with baby-boomers now officially beginning to retire there has never been a bigger pool of patients that can benefit from and afford dental implants. 
Here are four (4) ways you can begin to increase your dental implant patient flow:
1.       Patient education seminars—Begin holding patient education seminars right in your waiting area. If your waiting area is too small, consider using space at a local library, or renting a small facility at a nominal cost. The goal here is to educate your patient base and the general public on the rationale of dental implants and to invite each attendee to receive a free personal “verbal consultation”. You’ll want to view this as more of a community service and be in it for the long haul. But when done right, you will set yourself up to receive a steady stream of new patients that come to you direct for your advice on dental implants. In turn, you will refer these patients to your most skilled, top GP referral sources.
 
2.       Market implant dentistry through medical professionals—Orthopedic surgeons have never replaced more knees and hips for fifty, sixty and seventy-somethings. ENT doctors can’t help but notice many of their patients are wearing dentures. A high percentage of these patients see their gastroenterologist because of gastrointestinal disorders, which by the way, may in part be caused by their inability to properly chew their food. These same individuals are also missing multiple teeth. The point is that in this economy you will do well to help your local medical colleagues to better understand how your dental implant services may add value to their patients’ overall health. Through this process, countless medical professionals will discover that they need dental implants too. Include local medical doctors on your dental implant newsletter mailing list, attract them to your Facebook “Like” page, and invite them to attend your patient education seminars.

 

3.       Make referring dental implant patients to you more affordable—The easier, more profitable a specialists can make restoring his/her implants, to the masses of its referral base, the more implant patient referrals they will receive. It’s as simple as that. Look to provide at least a closed-tray or open-tray impression coping and a lab analog for each implant placed. Providing a restorative abutment is even better. Most laboratories will return the impression copings with the finished case to be sterilized and reused. If you have an implant coordinator they should establish a system for knowing if a GP has the required impression copings for each case, or if your office will need to re-issue new impression copings for any new cases. While this process must be affordable to you, you will want to chalk this cost up as a dental implant marketing expense.  That said, I do not encourage you to use discounted implants or after market parts (for the purposes of saving money) for multiple reasons. Among the most important, competent, local support from an implant company is very important for a specialty office and comes at a price. This will take a paradigm shift for many specialists, but doing so will pay off in the long-run through more dental implant patient referrals.

 

4.       Social media networking—You don’t understand what all the “social media” fuss is about? Look no further than the United States Post Office, Blockbuster Videos, or Borders Book Stores for business models that were incapable of leveraging the internet for sales. It’s not enough to have a nice website. As a small business you must look for ways to routinely engage your dental implant prospects and patient base.  Social media networking allows you to gather a captive patient audience and market your dental implant services. There are more than 750 million people of Facebook. As an established specialty practice, your goal should be to generate a following of at least 2000 Facebook followers. Each day you send a brief helpful hint about treatment modalities, latest research, video testimonials, etc. You can even create a private professional group where you invite referring doctors to be a part of this group where you dialog on cases, studies and promote your study group, etc. The list of ways to leverage social media is almost infinite. In a down economy you’re wise to make social media work for you.
These four techniques will be considered “nonconventional” by most. Nonetheless, we are living in unusual times. Those that choose to continue along the path of status quo can at best expect to experience a downturn in their dental implant offerings. The specialty practice that seeks out ways of performing more dental implant procedures, even in this stagnant economy, will undoubtedly find themselves embracing fresh tactical marketing approaches that leads to more dental implant cases. Best of luck to you!

 

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Anatomy of an Effective Dental Implant Study Group

Marcus : August 16, 2011 12:52 pm : Uncategorized

 by Marcus Hines

How many study group meetings have you hosted that were less than productive? You covered the expense of bringing in a reputable presenter. The attending doctors were all impressed with the subject matter and even expressed their gratitude. But prior to their departure they were sure to ask “where do I sign for my CE credits”. You noticed sometime after that the net return on your study group meeting(s) have yielded you little to no new implant case referrals from multiple doctors in attendance. Here are three (3) basic but key steps you can immediately take to make your implant study group more productive:
1.       Make personal contact following the meeting: You’ve went through the effort to host a meeting, now what? A quick follow up phone call from you, the hosting doctor, will speak volumes of your appreciation for having each doctor take time away from their schedule and make your study group a priority. Depending on the size of the meeting, you’ll want to make the conversations as brief as possible. “Hi Tom, this is Mike Brown. Listen I know you’re busy I just wanted to be sure and take a moment to thank you for attending our implant study group last night (or last week). I hope you were able to take away some helpful hints. Hopefully you’ll join us for other meetings we have scheduled for the future. Thanks again Tom.” Keep it short and simple for two reasons: 1. The doctor may be quite busy at the time, and 2. It’s far more important that you have time to make contact with every doctor on your list within the following week, than it is to hold a 30 minute discussion with any of the doctors at this time. Undoubtedly these quick calls will lead to a need for more indebt discussions and meetings and that’s great, but schedule a time at a later date to satisfy those discussions. 
 
2.       Schedule a follow up meeting: If your study group meeting is non-exclusive, undoubtedly some of its attending members are doctors that do not routinely refer dental implant patients to you. These are the doctors that you will want to plan a face-to-face meeting with following your study group. If the opportunity presents itself during your “quick follow up phone call” as outlined above, by all means use that opportunity to schedule a one-on-meeting with such doctors. Otherwise, within two to three weeks maximum, a simple follow call to the doctor to invite them to lunch or dinner will obviously net you the meeting you’re looking for. Generally the doctor you invite to lunch will almost always accept this invitation.  Do not relegate this effort to a staff member to coordinate. This invite must come directly from you, the hosting doctor. Once you do meet, use this opportunity to learn more about the doctor: What’s their philosophy on dental implants?  What do they like about the implant surgeon(s) he/she uses most? Are they performing their own dental implant surgeries, and if so do they see themselves as being limited when it comes to some of the larger cases? What would it take to work together on an implant case, etc? Use this opportunity to also highlight what referring doctors like most about you and your practice philosophy.
 
3.       Seek support from dental implant representative(s): If you will leverage the relationship of your local representative in a way that is mutually beneficial, it places you at a huge advantage. Make it clear to your implant representative that you’ll need them to play a role in cultivating these relationships. An experienced implant representative will usually know something about some of the doctors involved in your study group that you have yet to establish a relationship with. Ask your representative questions like: Have you worked with this doctor before? What’s their experience level?  Based on what you know about the doctor how do you suggest we begin cultivating a relationship, etc.? Have your representative schedule a lunch-and-learn with the doctor and his staff to present impressive information about the implant system they represent.  There has to be a compelling story behind the implant system and the representative should be experienced in order for this to work best.  Your representative should be sure to advocate your practice as an exceptional surgical resource for dental implants and forward you any additional helpful hints they learned about this colleague. Your implant representative should eliminate any concern a restorative dentist may have about the costs associated with their implant system, ease of use, etc.
Maximizing the potential of a dental implant study group won’t happen simply by having well attended meetings with relevant topics and respected presenters. You must do your part to get the most out of every meeting. It helps substantially if you have an implant coordinator in your practice to manage these and other related efforts. Look at your study group meetings as an effective way to stay in front of your referring doctors and to attract prospective referral sources. But how you respond to all attending doctors in the coming days following your study group meeting will make all the difference in the net increase of dental implant procedures you will perform as a result of holding well run study group meetings.
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5 Strategies for Marketing Dental Implant Services in Slow Times

Marcus : August 2, 2011 4:12 pm : Uncategorized

by Marcus Hines

According to a recent survey by Go-To-Market Strategies only 42% of businesses adequately fund their marketing budget.  After servicing the dental industry for more than 18 years, and having worked one-on-one with hundreds of dentists, I have to believe the percentage of practices that adequately fund their marketing budget is much lower.  That said, there is hardly a better time to place sufficient resources into marketing than when times are slow.   In more prosperous times patients tend to find your practice, but in slow times you must do what is necessary to drive patients to your practice.  Here are five strategies you can apply to drive dental implant patients to your practice:

1.       Post card mailers:  Perhaps there’s never been a better time to use postcards to target those demographics that are most likely in need of dental implants.  Baby-boomers are now between the ages of 47 and 65, suffer from multiple missing teeth and base on their above average networth baby-boomers are most capable of paying for your dental implant services.  This group of individuals can be targeted very well through the use of direct mail/postcards.  Of all direct mail methods (postcards, catalogs, fliers, larger letter envelopes, and #10 letter envelopes), at 42% postcards garner the highest read-rates.  Your message on dental implants can be conveyed very adequately through the use of a postcard.  The key is not to attempt to say too much on a postcard.  Your postcard should include and image of an individual (or couple) with an attractive smile.  Ideally the individuals on your postcard will be roughly between the ages of 45 and 65, and your message should speak to dental implants, health, confidence, smile, and fixed/permanent teeth.  You will want to use stock images from a royalty-free company; royalty-free meaning once the image is purchased you can use it as often as you like without paying again.  There are multiple royalty-free stock image companies such as www.thinkstockphotos.com or www.photospin.com.  Your offer should include a free dental implant consultation and/or an invite to a free patient education seminar that you’ll host and present on the subject of dental implants.  Use your postcard mailings to also push traffic to your website as well by having your website address be prominently printed on your postcard mailer.  Review the direct mail section of our website http://www.marketingimplantdentistry.com/direct-mail/ for more details on best practices in direct mail.

2.       Website Search Engine Optimization (SEO):  Your goal is no doubt to have an impressive website for those who specifically type in your URL after noticing an advertisement or receiving a postcard in the mail from you.  But in an era where over 80% of all website traffic flows from search engines, good luck with being found on the internet if your website is not optimized.  Therefore, you must do everything possible to have your website land on the first (or at least the second) page of the major search engines including Google, Bing, and Yahoo.  By doing so, when prospective patients search key phrases such as “dental implants” or “implant dentist”, you place your practice in the best possible position to be noticed by the general public.  Assuming your website looks moderate, your implant content is comprehensive and easy to understand, and you have a seamless call-to-action, you will attract new patients that have a primary interest of receiving dental implants.  There are various companies that will provide SEO services for you.  One of the most effective ways for you to improve your own SEO is by blogging on a routine bases.  If you would write an article/blog on the subject of implant dentistry once a week, this will go a long ways toward optimizing your website.  Your blogs should be simple, informative and educational and should have key phrases like “dental implant teeth” as peppered throughout your blog.  By blogging routinely you continue to add pertinent content to your website that is viewable by all visitors.  It is this relevant information that will also help to optimize your website, land you on the first pages of Google, Bing and Yahoo, helping you to attract more new patients for the purposes of receiving dental implants.

3.       Social media networking:  What email was in the early 2000s, social media is in the 2010s, a true marketer’s dream.  It is an amazing thought how few dental websites have a Facebook “Like” page and Twitter page attached to it.  And usually if they do have either or both, frequently they are inactive.  While implant dentistry continues to grow, there is less than 10% market penetration.  This has much to do with the fact that most practices have several patients that do not have a good understanding of dental implants.  Active use of the four major social media networks; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn will give you the ability to stay in front of your patient base.  You will want to uses these social media networks to make daily posts on various procedures including of course implant dentistry.  Your Facebook “Like” page, Twitter and YouTube channel/page should carry the same consistent theme as your website.  Make relevant posts on both Facebook and Twitter on a daily bases and upload patient testimonials to your YouTube page and use Facebook and Twitter to push traffic to your YouTube videos.  If you do not have a LinkedIn profile established, go to www.LinkedIn.com and establish one immediately.  LinkedIn is the ultimate and largest professional network.  The average individual on LinkedIn earns more than $94,000.  As one example, there are all types of groups on LinkedIn that you can become active in as a respected dental expert.   LinkedIn can monetized when done right, but be careful about over self-promoting on LinkedIn as its main purpose is to network…   As of today there are more than 750 million people actively using Facebook and about 20 million adults actively using Twitter.  YouTube gives you the ability to communicate with video like no other and your ideal implant patients can be found on LinkedIn.  No one in business should ever ignore this many people.  As a full-time practicing dentist it is nearly impossible for you to keep up these efforts long-term.  You will want to either hire someone to manage your social media network, or outsource it, but in the modern marketing world where technology such as smart phones, iPads and Skype are cost effective and commonplace, there is no excuse for not using social media for the purposes of promoting implant dentistry to your patient base and attracting new patients to your practice.

4.       Patient education seminars:  Free patient education seminars are a great, non-threatening way to welcome those most in need of dental implants to your practice for the purposes of gaining a better understanding of exactly what dental implants are all about.  The mistake dentists often make with patient education seminars is that they present their information as if they are presenting to professional colleagues.   This is wrong.  To be effective a patient education seminars must be very layman, should not show graphic images (no surgery), should show mostly before and after slides (with a compelling story behind each patient), and should not last longer than one hour.  You should be prepared to show a variety of cases; a single tooth implant replacement in the anterior region, a single/multi-unit tooth implant replacement in the posterior region, an overdenture removable and fixed implant supported prosthesis, and the ill effects of bone loss caused by missing teeth.  This is an opportunity to showcase to the general public exactly what you have done to help similar patients improve their smile; replace their removable prosthesis, to chew and grind their food properly, and to restore their waning confidence.  You have to market these seminars within your surrounding community.  An effective postcard mailing campaign to the general public can be effective.  Television and radio commercials should also be considered but will require a larger marketing budget.  There is no substitute for getting in front of the right demographics with the right message.  You must also promote these seminars to your patient base as well.  If you are a specialist you’ll want to make these seminars known to each of your referring doctors in an effort to attract their patient base.  When done right, patient education seminars can bring meaningful new traffic to your practice.

5.       Internal marketing:  It’s always interesting to witness how commonly dental professionals focus such great efforts on attracting new patients to their practice while at the same time doing very little to direct their patient base toward receiving the dental implant treatment they need.  One area you can begin to improve in the area of internal marketing is by routinely mailings to your partial-denture and full-denture plate patients, on a monthly bases.  If it was once your understanding to advocate fixed bridges, removable partials and full-denture plates, you now need to educate these same patients on the fact that there is a better alternative.  Your patient education brochure should compare and advocate dental implants vs. the aforementioned traditional procedures.  This brochure should be easily mailed out each month to this group of patients that you’ve treated in the past.  You should also have adequate models to demonstrate to any patient in person.  It’s one thing to tell a patient what they need.  It’s altogether different to show them what they need.  Implant models will give you the ability to show patients the purpose and function of dental implants based on their needs.  One resource you can use to purchase dental implant typodonts is Kilgore International; their website is: www.KilgoreInternational.com.  Another key internal marketing strategy is to be sure your staff members are each on the same page when it comes to understanding and advocating dental implants.  At any given point an influential staff member will be alone with your patient.  The verbal skills and body language of that staff member will speak volumes, and good or bad can have a major influence on the patient’s decision making process.  As a part of our dental implant marketing consulting services, we will train your staff members on the rationale of dental implants and verbal skills geared around influencing patients to accept your dental implant recommendations.

Whether it’s through the use of postcards, SEO, social media networking, patient education seminars or internal marketing, growing the number of dental implant procedures over the next 12 month period will require the application of proven marketing efforts,especially in slow times.  Consistency is even more important than how profession your marketing materials may look.  A marketing effort can look good, but you must have systems in place that are designed to consistently promote your dental implant services if you are to have meaningful growth.   If you are serious about doubling or even tripling your dental implant business, develop a marketing strategy, establish a marketing budget, and hire an experienced, competent employee to carry out these and other dental implant marketing efforts, or outsource them to a company that’s capable of getting them done for you.

 

 

 

 

 

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5 Reasons to Advocate Immediate Occlusal Loading Into Your Practice

Marcus : July 26, 2011 2:07 am : Dental Implants, Immediate Load

by Marcus Hines

The literature defines Immediate Occlusal Loading or Immediate Load as a clinical protocol for the placement and applying force on dental implants, with a fixed or removable restoration in occlusal contact with the opposing dentition, at the same clinical visit.  Some of the busiest dental implant practices we know of have embraced Immediate Occlusal Load (immediate load) with open arms.  This is a wise choice because having the ability to perform immediate load procedures is one way an office can  separate itself from many others.  With multiple studies proving this treatment modality is predictable (between 96 and 100% successful), there really is no good reason for refusing to make it available in your practice.  Here are five reasons I believe you will benefit by making immediate load available to your patient base:

  1. Predictability.  Assuming the protocols are followed, there is no good reason not to offer this procedure in your practice.  In a 2 to 60 month follow up study conducted by Drs. Marco Degidi and Adriano Piattelli, 422 implants were placed and immediately loaded in edentulous arches with only 6 implants failing (98.6 success rate).  Immediate functional and non-functional loading of dental implants: J Periodontology 2003;74:225-241.  Another study conducted by Drs. Carl Misch and Marco Degidi (over five years) in completely edentulous jaws with fixed prosthesis proved to be 100% successful, in 31 arches and 244 implants.  Clinical implant dentistry and related research 2003:5;17-27.  Study after study has been performed on this protocol with promising results.  The one caveat is to keep in mind that all implants are not created equal in this regard.  Use an implant design that is proven successful in immediate load.  The aforementioned studies were each performed using the BioHorizons dental implant system.
     
  2. Patient demand.  Clinicians not familiar with immediate load tend to think “what’s the rush.”  But there are many patients that are otherwise unable or unwilling to wait it out for 4 to 8 months before they can experience having a fixed implant prosthesis.  For example, Sue is a 62 year old active mother that’s about to marry off her only daughter in two months.  Her 7 year old removable partial denture won’t cut it for her, and she insists on never wearing a tissue born complete denture because that represents old age to her.  The prognosis of her remaining teeth is poor.  Assuming Sue is a good candidate for immediate occlusal loading, why wouldn’t you encourage this protocol and let it serve as an advertisement for your practice to her closest friends, family and associates who would all know exactly what Sue’s mouth looked like before?  Believe it or not, some patients will refuse to receive dental implants all together because of the interim 3 to 6 month waiting period required by many offices.  We’ve also been made aware on multiple occasions where patients have left one office to be treated in another simply because the first office refused to provide a fixed implant prosthesis immediately following the implant surgery.
     
  3. Separate your practice from the pack.  Virtually every office that offers dental implant services is capable of offering a delayed-load approach by informing the patient that it will take 3 to 6 months before the implants can be restored.  But not every dental implant provider is willing or able to encourage immediate occlusal loading.  We do encourage you to seek training for immediate load before you begin offering this service in your practice.  A very good course on this subject is offered in Washington, DC.  You can visit the AIID website at http://www.aiidstore.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=27852 for a list of upcoming dates.  As you become experienced and comfortable with this protocol you will place your practice is a separate category, giving you ways to market dental implants in your practice that you never had before.  As a specialist this gives you the ability to market immediate load to your referral base and surrounding prospective referring dentists; study groups, white-papers, newsletters, live surgeries, all on the subject of immediate load.  Some referring dentists will still refuse to offer this service, yet in the end will be intrigued by your innovation and look to you as the authority.  This gives the restorative dentist/prosthodontist the ability to market their immediate load restorative skills to various surgical specialists.  The restorative dentist can now serve as a local authority on this protocol.  And because the restorative phase plays such a vital roll in the success of immediate load, this is a surefire way to receive more patient referrals from the surgical specialists that embraces this concept.  Oral surgeons and periodontists will insist on referring these candidates to a restorative doctor that’s capable of successfully carrying it out.  The ways in which you can use this protocol to attract patients and separate your practice is quite remarkable. 
     
  4. Better patient experience from start to completion.  Following osseointegration patients tend to complain more about the process of having their dental implants restored when they are left to wear some form of a tissue born immediate overdenture vs. a fixed provisional implant prosthesis.  Because their teeth were removed at the time of the implant surgery (or shortly before), 3 months later the tissue born immediate over denture may not fit very well without multiple follow up visits for denture relines, costing the restorative dentist more chair time.  This can result in the patient becoming impatient knowing that this type of prosthesis, in their mind, is not what they signed up for.  And so they complain to their friends and family and often times contemplate whether or not they should have elected to go through this process at all.  On the other hand, a patient that’s been given a fixed implant prosthesis immediately following the surgery will always have a fixed prosthesis throughout the process.  This  eliminates the need for the dentist to waste valuable chair time relining the immediate tissue born denture.
     
  5. Greater perceived value.  There’s no question that the perceived value for immediate occlusal loading is much greater than the alternative.  When given the choice many patients will pay $35,000+ for a full arch implant restoration if it means they can have a fixed prosthesis immediately following the surgery.  Yet the same patients may not pay $28,000 for a fixed implant prosthesis if it means waiting a full 4 to 8 months before receiving the fixed implant prosthesis.  We live in a society where like no time in the past our cell phones give us the ability to perform countless functions including power-point presentations, GPS guidance, and real time face-to-face communication through Skype.  Dentists can prep a tooth for a crown and instead of bringing the patient back in two weeks for delivery, the crown may be delivered at the same visit in a matter of 30 minutes with spot on accuracy.  We gladly pay a premium for a superior product or service, but we have also come to expect the exceptional in all areas of our life.  Implant dentistry is no different.   Performing this procedure predictably requires additional training, additional pre-surgical treatment planning, patient compliance, etc.  For these and other reasons, the clinician should not hesitate to charge a higher fee for this procedure because there is a greater preceived value to the patient.

 In summary, immediate occlusal loading is here to stay.  Multiple studies have proven this protocol to be as predictable as delayed loading.  Having the ability to offer immediate load to qualifying patients, with confidence, will yield a higher case acceptance from some patients given their set of circumstances and motivation.  There is a group of patients that will willingly pay a higher fee to receive a fixed prosthesis on the same day as the dental implant surgery.  Based on the aging demographics of our society, most dental professionals experienced in implant dentistry would benefit their practices by seeking out quality continuing education on this subject.  And any office actively offering immediate load in their practice should use both internal and external marketing methods to promote these services and separate themselves from competing colleagues.

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