The Digital Dental Divide

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It’s 2012 and before you know it 2013 will be on our doorstep. But what does this have to do with anything – besides us all getting older? The fact that with the movement of time comes great advances in technology – not only in advanced tools and knowledge to improve the oral health of patients, but how dentists and others do business, market to reach customers, connect with colleagues and engage in educational opportunities.

Dental Group Highlight: The Seattle Study Club

I wanted to take a moment to share a great dental organization with you – The Seattle Study Club (SSC). Many of you I’m sure have heard of this club, but if you haven’t let me give you a little background.

The SSC is the creation of Dr. Michael Cohen, DDS, MSD. Dr. Cohen helped form the advanced educational organization through a lot of hard work, passion and devotion to the field of dentistry. He keeps very busy, as an accomplished continuing education (CE) author, textbook editor, visiting clinical professor at the University of Washington, conference lecturer and by maintaining his private practice in the Seattle area.

Online Marketing Tips For Your Practice: Enhance Your Patient Relationships and Help Build Your Business

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Let’s face it. The dental business can be a very competitive industry. You are often vying for patients with a handful of other offices in town and if you are located in a large city, you are competing in an even tougher environment with more practices, and large chains with bigger marketing budgets.

It is difficult to build your brand from referrals alone and the yellow pages is not the golden book it used to be, so I figured why not offer some ideas and tips surrounding the important, very relevant topic of online marketing.

A Boost to the Bottom-line – A Roundup of Marketing Tips and Hints for the Dental Practitioner

It is a risky market out there and no doubt dental offices across the nation have had a few rough years staying afloat. Luckily, however, the economy has been on a slow, but steady path of economic recovery – which is good news for everyone, including dentists and those involved in the dental industry, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

According to the United States Department of Labor employment rose by 227,000 in February. In addition, we’ve seen the Dow rise above 13,000 in recent days as stocks have rallied on good news from many industrials and the banking community.

Chicago Dental Society Midwinter Show Bound

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We’ll be headed to the Windy City for three days of great lectures and courses led from some of the best in the dental community during the Chicago Dental Society’s 147^th Midwinter Meeting.

It’s a great show that 3M ESPE has been a part of for years, and I’m looking forward to the always-vibrant city of Chicago, especially with this year’s slogan of ‘Teeth and all that Jazz.’

If you’re unfamiliar with the event, the Chicago Dental Society (CDS) has been hosting the annual Midwinter Meeting since 1865 – and it’s been growing ever since. According to the CDS, the mission for the event is to “disseminate dental information and advance the profession of dentistry.”

Social Hour

Social media. What do you think of when you see those two words?

Those two words have changed much of how our society communicates with one another. If we only look at Facebook, just one of a myriad of social media outlets online today, the company reports it garners 800 million active users, 50% of whom log in every day. That’s a lot of consumers.  And, it’s a lot of professionals, too.  We have a 3M ESPE Facebook page and we have a very steady flow of traffic viewing our content and interacting with us, as well. Of course, these are dental professionals, which is our target audience.

Are you targeting potential patients on Facebook? Would you gain referrals if your patients “like” you?  Have you mapped out an overall online marketing strategy that includes social media? According to The Media Audit (Oct. 2010), one third of US consumers spend >3 hours online every day.  If you’re not planning for this you might be missing a potentially huge opportunity.  And nobody “likes” that.

The Most Unlikely Places

Back in 2003 I was on vacation in the South of France with my family.  We’re at the beach and my kids start playing with some other kids, so the Dad of these children and I start chatting. He goes right into the ‘what do you do for a living?’ conversation (a pet peeve of mine) and I explain that I work at 3M in the marketing function.  Well, that was all he needed to proceed with talking my ear off about all that he and his company could do for me, yada, yada, yada. So I come back from the vacation and find an invitation to something called LinkedIn in my e-mail from this same guy. So, I accept his invitation and move on with life.

Skip ahead to 2007/2008 when LinkedIn became mainstream and I still have my one contact – the ‘what do you do for a living?’ guy; however, now I start to realize that this website might actually have some utility, so I start on a quest to see how many people I know (I’m at 518 and counting).  Every person who is connected to me I’ve either met in person or have had some sort of phone/e-mail communication with over the years (so I’m not padding my numbers!). How many people do you know?  Do you use LinkedIn? 

According to Hubspot’s State of Inbound Marketing Report 2011, LinkedIn outperforms Facebook and Twitter for generating the most conversions (i.e., acquiring a customer through this channel) for business-to-business companies.  Does it work for business-to-consumer, too?  Is it a tool you’re considering for your practice?

Happy Thanksgiving

I’d like to wish a very happy Thanksgiving to you, my readers. We’ve surpassed the 18-month mark and the interaction here continues to grow and prosper. Thank you for your comments and insights; I certainly do appreciate and enjoy the interaction. 

I know 3M ESPE is also thankful for our loyal customers. We truly appreciate your business. 

My best wishes to you and your families for a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

What’s Your Story?

“Not long ago, one of my long-standing friends lost his job. He had always been self-conscience about his smile, but had never done anything about it because he made his kids’ teeth a priority. But now that he was looking for a new job, and after several months without success, I offered to help him with his smile…”

And so begins a great story from Dr. John Weston about the power of dentistry. We’re all involved in a very exciting industry/profession that can really make a difference in people’s lives. Do you have a story to share?

Stat: 21% of survey respondents said that reading a blog helped them decide on a product/service. Source: Jupiter Research, October 2008

Pa$$woRd Pr0tEcTED!!

How many passwords do you have in your life right now? There’s one to login to your computer, another for accessing iTunes, another for accessing your bank, another for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter – and so on and so forth.  I personally get crazy mad having to remember all these passwords, so you write them down and then you have a list of your passwords floating out there, which basically defeats the purpose of having passwords in the first place. 

Now, I understand the importance of having this information secure, so I’m not advocating less security.  And, to be honest, I had the importance of these pesky passwords stamped into my brain by an article I read online not too long ago (undoubtedly after inputting my subscription password). In the article, they mention just how quickly a hacker can break down your encryption if you use a simple password structure – in this instance it was “moose44”.  Apparently, this would take a hacking software less than a second to crack. Now, if you change that password to “moose44!.!.!.!” it now will take approximately 200,000 centuries! 

Perhaps this doesn’t pertain to dentistry, but it might just save some of your important documents from the hands of a hacker. How secure is your password system? Check out this online calculator and test out how long your chosen words would last under scrutiny.  G00d 1ucK!>!