Branding

Make Your Dental Blog Look Polished With Styled Stock Photography

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Jun 18, 2019 | Branding, Photography, Social Media

Blogging is a big part of dental marketing, but most dentists we talk to either haven’t blogged in a while, or they only post something when they think of it, usually quickly and without too much thought. However, a blog is a necessity when it comes to dental marketing, especially for SEO (you know, showing up high in the search results when someone searches “dentist near me” or something like that). Creating quality, consistent content that people will click on and share is super important.

Having a great dental blog not only attracts new potential patients to your website, but it can also shine a spotlight on your services. Blogs help build an immense amount of trust in you and the work you do. The more people find what they’re looking for on your blog, the more likely they’ll be to turn to you when they need help down the road or are ready to switch dentists.

Evergreen Content

One of the greatest things about a dental blog is how long-lasting they are. Once you hit post, those posts live in the world forever unless for some reason you decide to take them down. There’s no algorithm that will hide your blog posts or prevent people from finding them, and you can re-purpose them in so many ways: you can email them, post them on social media, turn them into an ebook… the possibilities are endless!

However, this also means you should be putting a lot of thought into not only the words you use, but also the imagery. According to social media marketing strategist Jeff Bullas, articles that contain images get 94% more total views. This is a staggering number, and it should be enough to convince even the biggest skeptic of the importance of including images in your blog posts!

Image Quality Matters

So, we all agree that blog imagery is important, but image quality is also crucial. Hastily shot iPhone photos just aren’t going to cut it. When you use grainy or low-res photos, it no longer matters how much research and thought went into writing your dental blog. That content isn’t going to be shared as much or even clicked on as often because of the poor imagery.

Don’t panic, though. This doesn’t mean you have to be a professional photographer or have super expensive equipment to have loyal followers or content that gets lots of shares and engagement. Many (and I mean many) business owners and bloggers turn to styled stock photography when they create their blog posts… and you can too!

Why Styled Stock Photography?

When we say styled stock photography, we’re not talking about your run-of-the-mill, often overly cheesy stock photography. You want to stay away from this kind of unnatural imagery, because you run the risk of devaluing all the hard work you put into researching and writing your blog post. That’s no good!

When you choose to use styled stock photography for your dental blog, you have so much more consistency and control over not only the tone of the post, but of your entire blog and image. Just like the rest of your branding, you want your blog to be fairly uniform. You don’t want images full of bright, neon colors in one blog, and then dark, muted tones on the next. When you go to share your blog posts on your social media feeds, everything will end up looking really disjointed.

Soiree Stock for Your Dental Blog!

Our sister company, Soiree Stock, was made with dentists in mind. Our styled stock photography allows you to find a large number of images in your preferred style. Often, you will even find that the images are categorized by theme, color, tone, and/or season. This makes it very easy to match the photography style to your brand, creating a cohesive look across all your platforms.

We have libraries full of dental-themed images that will work no matter what topic you’re covering in your blog post. We’d love for you to try it out for a month and see how much it changes your blogging process. Don’t stop there, though! These images are perfect for social media. Download as many as you want (you get unlimited downloads with your membership) and save them to your camera roll so you always have the perfect photo to post on social. It’s a much smaller investment than hiring an agency or even a contractor to do your social media. We think you’ll love how much easier it makes things, and how much time it saves you!

What Your Brand Colors Say About Your Dental Practice

by Dr. Jessica Emery | May 28, 2019 | Branding

How did you pick the colors in your logo, on your website, and in your signage? Was it just an instinct you had? Maybe you chose your favorite colors, or perhaps you even hired an agency to do your dental branding for you. Either way, your brand colors are communicating something to your patients and potential patients, whether you realize it or not. Most likely, they don’t even realize it… at least not consciously.

What are we talking about? Color psychology studies how colors can relate to human behavior. The theory is that every color has a meaning. Whether or not this is true can be argued, but it is kind of fun to explore what the various colors “mean” or communicate to people.

Let’s go through some of them and you can see what your brand colors may or may not be saying about your dental practice:

Blue

Blue often communicates peace, calm, and reliability. It’s also the most common answer when you ask people what their favorite color is! So many brands use blue because it’s a trustworthy color. Companies like the Gap, OralB, Facebook, and Ford all use blue prominently in their branding.

Yellow

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It’s a happy, optimistic color for many people, but in large doses, it can be overwhelming. It can also be difficult to read. Even though yellow is seen as a very positive color, it can agitate some people, so you want to be careful. Sprinkle it in but maybe don’t infuse too much of it in your branding.

Green

Green is great for brands that have to do with nature or money. It also brings up feelings of growth, good luck, fertility, and health. A lot of banks use green, as well as many health and fitness brands. Green is thought to be calming, which is why performers will sit in a green room before going on stage.

Red

Red captures people’s attention and is often associated with strong emotions like excitement, passion, energy, and even danger. The color red also has been rumored to encourage appetite, which is why you’ll see it used in fast food branding.

Orange

Orange is a fun color that communicates creativity and adventure. It’s a great option if you want to grab people’s attention, which is why you’ll see it used on street signs and in construction areas. Brands like Gatorade and The Home Depot use orange, possibly because it’s a more high energy color.

Purple

Purple is the color of royalty. It’s often seen as a magical, luxurious, and even powerful color. It’s often used to indicate when something is a premium product or service. It’s not a very common brand color because it’s the shortest frequency of wavelengths that is visible to the human eye, but brands like Hallmark and Cadbury utilize it prominently.

So, do you think there’s anything to color psychology? Do you think your colors are accurately representing your dental practice? We’d love to hear what you think! Join the conversation over on the Dental Soiree Instagram feed or our Facebook page.

What Does Starbucks Have to Do with Your Dental Marketing Strategy?

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Apr 27, 2019 | Branding

Who doesn’t love Starbucks? We are obsessed with their coffee, and so is everyone else on earth! USA Today reports that 4 million coffee drinks are ordered daily, and 60 million customers are served each week. On average, we visit the chain six times a month, though 20% of us are super loyal, and visit 16 times a month… you know who you are. 😉

Okay, so it’s clear we are all addicted to Starbucks. But what does that have to do with a dental marketing strategy? Well, because there’s a reason millions of us are paying a premium price for, well, bean water. Does Starbucks have better coffee than other coffee shops? Not necessarily. It’s the reputation they’ve build, the brand they’ve created, and the marketing they employ.

The Power of a Strong Brand

When you have a strong brand with a great reputation, people want to be associated with it. That’s step one, though it is a HUGE step that can take years and years to achieve. Once you have that captive, loyal audience, marketing becomes so much easier. You can create products, promotions, or messaging that appeals to your target customer (who you know, because they’ve been loyal to you for so long).

Often, that’s all it takes. If your idea is good and your content hits the mark, marketing is fairly easy. Of course, we all want to get to that point. Just like anything that’s difficult and time-intensive, it’s easiest to break the big goal down into little actionable steps.

The Four Elements of the Starbucks Experience

Circling back to Starbucks again (because as we said, we’re a tad addicted), they have found a way to create an experience we’re willing to go through some unpleasantness to experience. We’re willing to wait 5-10 minutes for our drink, and pay quite a bit more than McDonald’s or even Panera for our coffee. Why is that? Well, there are four elements that make the Starbucks experience amazing for customers:

Quality – Starbucks uses high-quality coffee beans and equipment so they can provide a consistent product time and time again.

Service – The baristas go through extensive training to be able to make everything on the menu and serve hundreds of customers an hour with a smile on their face!

Ambiance – There’s nothing like sitting in a Starbucks when you have some time to read or even to get some work done away from the office. It’s dimly lit, smells amazing, and has great decor. This isn’t your typical fast food lobby with flourescent lighting and vinyl booths.

Culture – People want to align themselves with the Starbucks culture, because they know their audience and their values. Whether it’s coffee trends, organic, sustainable ingredients, or environmental issues, the culture at Starbucks can sometimes be bigger than the product itself.

As a dental professional, you may find something to take away from the success of Starbucks. If people are willing to pay more and wait longer for coffee from a specific chain, why wouldn’t they go out of their way to visit one dentist over another, if that dentist had created a culture and a brand that resonated with them?

If you want to discuss how to go about creating a brand, or re-branding your practice to be more thoughtful and intentional, we’re your people! We have several different packages, and one of them is sure to fit your needs. You can reach us by filling out this form, and a member of our team will reach out. There’s never any obligation to chat, and hopefully we can help you find more clarity around building your dental brand!

Three Common Dental Branding Mistakes to Avoid

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Apr 4, 2019 | Branding

We don’t like to be negative, but when it comes to dental branding, we do see a good amount of mistakes being made. We’re not blaming anyone! It’s hard to keep up with the changing trends and it’s equally hard to make time to tackle even the smallest tasks related to branding or marketing.

Hopefully, this post will make it a little easier to pinpoint some small ways you can improve your dental branding strategy. Every little step in the right direction matters!

Ready to learn what not to do when it comes to your dental branding? Let’s jump right in!

Using Low Quality Photography – We’re not going to say don’t take photos with your smartphone. The latest smartphones have incredible cameras, and shoot great pictures! We’re talking about posting low-resolution, grainy photos, or photos with poor lighting.

Your brand needs to be polished and professional, and on platforms like Instagram (for example) the photos you use are pretty darn important. If you are too busy or aren’t sure how to take professional-quality photos, ask someone on your team or invest in great styled stock photography. We have tons of dental-themed images over at Soiree Stock that is perfect for this exact purpose!

Not Being Consistent – We’re talking about both how often you show up and how you show up. If every time you post on social media, it looks like a completely different brand (different colors, fonts, photography style, filter, etc.) people are going to be confused. Choosing a brand for your practice is an intentional process and once you go through it, you should do your best to keep everything consistent.

On a related note, you also need to be consistent with your content. On social media, this might mean posting three or five or seven times a week. On your blog, you might post a new article every week. Maybe you’re on YouTube and you have a routine of posting a new video every other week. No matter what schedule you are following, make it consistent. Regular content builds trust and it also keeps you top of mind for your patients and future patients!

Using Old Strategies – We get it. Branding and marketing changes ALL THE TIME and as dentists, we’re busy enough without having to keep tabs on the latest social media trends. However, there are certain things that are super important to stay on top of. Things like paid advertising on social media, hashtag usage, and SEO are all really crucial components of a great dental branding strategy. Knowing what to do (and what not to do) will really help your practice stay competitive online.

We see so many practices just posting on Facebook every once in a while, hoping that people will see their posts. On Facebook, if you’re not boosting your posts or consistently posting on a fairly regular schedule, very few people will see your posts… and it gets more challenging every time the algorithm changes. We’ll give you a hint… it never changes in our favor. Social media is becoming more “pay to play” than ever before, which means dental professionals need to keep an eye on the strategies that really work.

Dental branding can be a lot of fun, but it does require some time investment on a consistent basis. At the end of the day, all that effort is well worth it if you have a full calendar and lots of patients raving about your practice to their friends and family!

If you want to learn more about branding, we have a workshop coming up in Chicago that we’d love for you to attend! The Get Social is being held June 1 and 2, and it’s being hosted by Dr. Jessica Emery and Dr. Anissa Holmes, two passionate dentists and branding experts. Learn more about the workshop!

Why Hashtags are Part of an Effective Dental Marketing Strategy

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Mar 24, 2019 | Branding, instagram, Social Media

Whether you love them or hate them, there’s no denying the power of the hashtag. Posts with at least one Instagram hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than posts without a hashtag, so if you want to get more likes on Instagram and get on the Instagram Explore page (where people outside of your own network can find you and follow you), hashtags are essential. They are an absolute MUST when developing your dental marketing strategy.

Hashtagging 101

Instagram hashtags are the best way to get your Instagram posts (and your dental practice!) discovered by a new audience, and because you choose the hashtags you want to tag, you can target them to attract the right kind of patient. If your dental practice focuses more on orthodontics, you can target people looking for that kind of content using hashtags. Similarly with pediatrics, cosmetic dentistry, more high-end dentistry, whatever you want!

Since hashtag research can take a bit of time and effort, it can be tempting to just add some common ones to your post and move on. But hashtags like #smile or #teeth are way too popular to be effective. You might think that because a lot of people use these hashtags, they’re good ones to add to your post, but that’s not automatically the case. Because so many posts have these general hashtags, your post will be buried minutes or even seconds after you hit the publish button.

On the other hand, you don’t want to use hashtags that are too niche, either. Hashtags like #fundentistsinmiami probably don’t have any posts, so while you would be easily found if someone did search for that, the odds of someone typing in that exact hashtag are pretty slim… unless you start using it on all of your content and promote it as a branded hashtag for your practice. However, if you’re going to do that, you’re much better off using your dental practice’s name in the hashtag (more on this in a minute).

Find the Sweet Spot

Instead of using the most popular Instagram hashtags, it’s better to use the top Instagram hashtags for your industry that have an engaging community behind them and are specific to your audience. You can use Instagram’s search function to search hashtags you want to use. This will show you how popular the hashtags are. We have found that hashtags that have 10,000 – 400,000 uses perform the best. For example, #miamidentist might be a better one to use than #fundentistsinmiami because 19,922 people are using it. People are searching for it, but not so many people that your post won’t be visible in the top few spots for a while.

This can be a time-consuming process, for sure. We recommend sitting down every few months to create a few sets of hashtags that you can mix and match with your photos. Unfortunately, Instagram does not necessarily “like” it when users attach the same exact set of hashtags to every post. There is a rumor out there that it actually causes your posts to be seen less, which is definitely not what you want. Be sure to switch them up and add relevant hashtags to each post.

Looking for a Shortcut?

If you’re thinking all this sounds like way too much, you’re not alone. We hear this from dentists all the time! Building a dental marketing strategy is a lot of work, but having one is absolutely necessary for growing your brand and your business. If you’re looking for a shortcut, we can help! We offer a monthly membership over at our sister site, Soiree Stock. As a member, you will get unlimited downloads from our styled stock photography website. We create content specifically for dentists, so you’ll find lots of photos that you’ll love. You can use them on social media, on your website, your blog, whatever!

In addition, we’ve recently decided to include the Soiree Bundle with all Soiree Stock memberships. The Soiree Bundle includes 30 social media captions and 30 researched and targeted hashtag sets each month. You can mix and match them, tweak them as needed, and post away. Your dental marketing strategy is literally as easy as copy, paste, post. Our memberships are affordable, and there’s no obligation. You can cancel anytime. If this sounds like it could be a lifesaver for you and your practice, you can get more information on the Soiree Stock website!

What People Are Saying About Our Most Popular Dental Marketing Package

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Feb 21, 2019 | Branding, Dental Soiree, Social Media

At Dental Soiree, we are ALL about getting amazing results for hard-working dentists. We are owned and run by a cosmetic dentist, Dr. Jessica Emery, so we know first-hand how challenging it can be to stand out from the crowd on social media. Dentists are absolutely necessary, but they’re often not the most exciting accounts to follow online. That doesn’t have to be the case! We love creating gorgeous imagery and engaging content for dentists, and our dental marketing packages get great results for our clients!

Our most popular dental marketing package is our Socialite package. This is our full-service creative branding package and it includes a full day photoshoot in Chicago where we create branded photography for your practice! We do your hair and makeup, gather customized props and help you develop a social media strategy. We’ve also traveled to other cities to do photoshoots in some of our clients’ hometowns! It’s so fun to give people the full soiree treatment and deliver several months’ worth of content that they’re able to use to instantly transform their online presence.

So What Do Our Clients Think?

We could talk all day about how much value is included in our Socialite package, but we thought we’d let our happy clients do the talking for us 😊

These are direct quotes from some of the amazing dentists we’ve been lucky to serve in the past few years:

Working with them is one of the best decisions I have made.

“As a busy entrepreneur running a dental office, we have long looked to share who we are as an office to potential clients via social media. Despite the number of dental marketing agencies out there, we haven’t found any that catered to our individuality. Then we found Dr. Emery, the founder of Dental Soireé. They have surpassed our expectations! Their visit to your office and understanding of your office’s vision is so amazing… they really want you to succeed. The whole team is very responsive and you are in constant communication with everyone. They are a pure pleasure to work with – like having an extended family for your practice.”

I would recommend them to everyone!

“Dental Soiree is a group of professional, fun, and innovative people! They really know what they are doing. They helped our business with many tricks of the trade in the social media world. And as we were having a new website created, they helped us with videography and photos that were outstanding!”

Dental Soiree is ahead of its time.

“BEST team ever!!! Unlike every other dental marketing firm out there, Dr. Emery and her team assure all their services are completely customized. They took their time to get to know our practice and we identified specific goals for our marketing plans. I traveled to Chicago for a full day of content creation, with an amazing photographer and videographer. The session also included a professional Stylist and a hair/makeup artist. WHAT A FUN FUN DAY!!! The team took care of every single detail of the day! The team exceeded all my expectations!! Their energy and creative vision inspired me to bring unique advertising ideas back to our team. I feel blessed and truly honored to be part of Dental Soiree’s journey. The experience was unforgettable!!!!”

Let’s Talk About YOUR Dental Marketing Goals!

Want to experience the Socialite dental marketing package for yourself? We’d love to chat about it and create a custom experience for you! You can contact us here and we can have a no-pressure conversation about the investment and timeline for this package.