Marketing

Behind the Scenes on a Dental Soiree Photoshoot

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Jan 7, 2020 | Branding, Dental Soiree, Marketing, Photography

One of our absolute FAVORITE things to do here at dental soiree are our branded photoshoots! We love getting to know dentists and their teams, and we especially love it when we get to travel to their practice to take all kinds of photo and video content of their dental home!

Dr. Emery is also a fan of doing photoshoots for herself every year or so. It gives her TONS of fresh content to use all over her social media channels, websites, marketing materials, ads, etc. We thought it would be super fun to take you behind the scenes of her latest one so you can see what the process is like!

Here are some awesome videos we got of Dr. Emery’s 2019 photoshoot!

Dental Soiree Photoshoots: A Behind the Scenes Look

In this video, Dr. Emery models the most eye-catching outfit of the day! This one is ALL about smiles, which is kind of what she’s come to be known for.

For this look, Dr. Emery changes into a cozy pink sweater for some photos with fun, heart-shaped balloons!

In this video, you get to see Dr. Emery’s husband and her adorable kids join the fun while Dr. Emery gets some photos on the steps of the lakeside mansion.

You can see the rest of the videos from this amazingly fun shoot over on our YouTube channel. If 2020 is the year you want to step up your content, we are here to help! We have several openings for branded photoshoots in the first quarter of the year, and we also have our Dental Branded Bootcamp launching soon! It’s a great way to learn how to market your practice so you can make more and work less!

Do This Quick End-of-Year Dental Marketing Assessment!

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Dec 22, 2019 | Branding, Dental Soiree, Marketing, Social Media

The new year is right around the corner… can you believe it?? Before 2019 comes to an end, I would love for you to participate in this quick end-of-year dental marketing assessment with me! I put this together to help you reflect on your year. It brings back all kinds of Seventeen magazine nostalgia for me, and I hope it does for you, too!

After taking this assessment, I hope that you will think about your dental marketing goals for 2020. After examining what worked, what didn’t work, and what got pushed to the backburner, you will be able to see where you might need to invest more time and resources moving forward.

Ready to dive in?

End-of-Year Dental Marketing Assessment

This year, I posted consistently on social media for my practice.
1. Yes, I posted at least three times a week! (3 points)
2. I posted occasionally but I probably need to do more. (2 points)
3. I really didn’t post that much. (1 point)
This year, I focused on my SEO by upgrading my site and blogging regularly.
1. Yes, I am all about that SEO life! (3 points)
2. It was important to me, but it didn’t happen as regularly as I hoped. (2 points)
3. I meant to do it, but I didn’t 😬 (1 point)
I did a great job of showing up online by sharing photos of myself and doing video content, e.g. live streams, Instagram Stories, and/or YouTube content.
1. I’ve basically got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame now! (3 points)
2. I did a little of that (and overcame my fear of showing my face online). (2 points)
3. I know I need to do this but this year, it just didn’t happen. (1 point)
I sent out emails to my patients that were more than just appointment reminders.
1. Yep, I did that 🤗 (3 points)
2. I sent out one or two emails. (2 points)
3. I did not do any kind of email marketing whatsoever. (1 point)
When it comes to prioritizing dental marketing for my practice, I rate myself a/an ____ on a scale of 1-10…
1. 8-10 (3 points)
2. 4-7 (2 points)
3. 1-4 (1 point)

Okay, let’s see how you did!

12-15 Points

You’re a dental marketing rockstar, and you know what you need to be doing to stand out online! Keep doing what you’re doing, but always be thinking of new ways to innovate. It’s easy to let things slip, especially when we get busy. Always think about how to incorporate new trends, technology, and hashtags into your content. Use new, competitive keywords when blogging and make sure your website is always up to date, fast, and gorgeous.

If you want to invest in your practice, we would suggest the Dental Branding Bootcamp! This isn’t a 101 course, it’s for people who want to level up their dental branding using tools like paid advertising, great storytelling, and in-practice productivity hacks!

9-12 Points

For the most part, you know what you need to do to market your practice, but obstacles are standing in your way. In the new year, let’s work on eliminating those obstacles! If you are low on time, consider investing in done-for-you social media bundles. You can have content to post every day without having to come up with the captions, hashtags and photos all by yourself.

You also might want to consider outsourcing your blog writing and website upgrades to a contractor or agency. We always think we have time for these things, but dentistry is no joke and often, we don’t even have enough time for the things we actually enjoy doing!

5-8 Points

It’s totally okay to be a little lost when it comes to dental marketing. Whether you just need to brush up on dental marketing basics or you just need to find the right tools to get you started, we’re here to help! You can pick our brains anytime over on our social media feeds.

We also have openings for branded photoshoots in the first quarter of 2020! This is a great way to get tons of amazing photography of you, your practice, your team, and more. You’ll always have something to post, and we’ll give you lots of pointers for using the content all over… not just on social media.

Do you have questions about dental marketing? We’re here to help! Contact us anytime or find us on social media @dentalsoiree!

Why We’re Doing a Dental Branding Bootcamp

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Dec 4, 2019 | Branding, Dental Soiree, Marketing

If you’re following us on social media or signed up to receive our emails, you know that last week, we opened up pre-registration for our new Dental Branding Bootcamp, which is launching in January 2020! We are SO excited to share this incredible bootcamp with the world.

As you probably know, we’ve done mini online courses before, and of course, we’ve done some in-person workshops here in Chicago, but we’ve never done a bootcamp! It’s been on Dr. Emery’s bucket list for YEARS and we are so so so excited that we’re finally going to be launching it in just a few short weeks (as of the time we’re writing this post).

So, why did we want to do this? A few big reasons, actually…

Why Create a Dental Branding Bootcamp?

Reason #1 – Dentists Need All The Materials In One Place

This is the thing we’re most excited about when it comes to the Dental Branded Bootcamp. It’s literally everything you need to run a successful practice. It goes way beyond social media marketing (although that stuff is in there because it’s soooo important). Dr. Emery discusses her tips for having successful and productive team meetings, how to outsource tasks to team members and get great results, how to run a profitable FFS practice, and SO much more.

You don’t want to have to buy a bunch of individual courses or go looking for these materials on the internet, filtering through other people’s blog posts to find the little nuggets of wisdom. We wanted it to be a one stop shop for busy dentists who just want to know what they need to do to attract more patients to their practice.

Reason #2 – Dentists Need To Dive Even Deeper

Like we mentioned above, social media marketing is awesome, but with algorithms changing all the time, it’s becoming clear that we can’t just rely on these free sites to market our dental services. We need to also understand email marketing, blogging, storytelling, video marketing and all of the other avenues of branding that are going to help you meet your goals.

We’ve created social media courses in the past, and we think they’re still super valuable, especially if you struggle with what to post and how to use the apps, but we knew we wanted to dive way deeper. That’s why we created this super intensive, super value-packed branding bootcamp.

Reason #3 – Dentists Need Advice From One Of Their Own

Of course, we’re not the first to create a branding bootcamp. We know that you have options when it comes to learning these things, but here’s the deal: dentists need advice from someone who really gets it. Dentistry is unlike any other industry out there. It is SO important that you learn branding from someone who really knows the ins and outs (and the MANY unique challenges) of running a dental practice.

If you’re going to spend money on this information, you might as well spend it on a bootcamp that was made specifically for dentists, by a dentist. You don’t want to have to do the additional mental work of taking the generic branding advice you get in another bootcamp and trying to make it work for dentistry. We knew there was a need for continuing education on dental branding specifically.

As we continue to run our practices, we’re facing new challenges all the time. It’s important to stay abreast of all of the new technology, techniques, and updates as it relates to dental branding. You can work fewer hours while making more money, you just have to know how to brand and market your practice, and how to create an AMAZING experience for your patients as well as your team.

If this sounds like something you need, we’d love to see you inside the bootcamp! It doesn’t officially launch until January, but you can pre-register anytime by clicking here!

Three Fun Dental Marketing Strategies to Try!

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Nov 14, 2019 | Marketing, Podcasts, Social Media, Technology

The year is coming to an end more quickly than I think any of us can wrap our minds around! The life of a dentist is busy, busy, busy which means time just flies. Did you accomplish everything you wanted to accomplish in terms of marketing your practice this year?

If not, I want to share some fun dental marketing strategies you might not have tried yet. You still have time to give these fun ideas a try in 2019. You never know, it might give you that boost you need to head into 2020 feeling on top of your game.

Here are three fun dental marketing strategies you can implement today to market your practice online:

Influencer Marketing

This is something we have been really testing the waters on a lot lately, especially with White Haute Teeth Whitening Bar. The idea of hiring an influencer might seem a little bit intimidating, but it’s pretty simple.

There are people in your community with popular social media channels that align with your ideal patient. Look for those people! Sometimes, they’re a mommy blogger or a YouTuber with a decent following. Ask your younger team members… there’s a good chance they know who’s worth following.

Once you find someone, simply reach out to them! Find out what it takes to get them to visit your practice, receive a service (like teeth whitening) and post about it online! Influencer marketing is only going to get more popular in 2020 (mark my words) so get out in front of the trend and try it out now!

Podcast Interviews

Being interviewed on a podcast is a really great way to reach new people. Your local community might have some podcasts. Try checking with your chamber of commerce, then pitch yourself to the podcast hosts and let them know what topics you’d like to discuss that would be interesting to their listeners.

If you can’t find anything locally that would make sense, reach out to other dental influencers and see if you can talk about your practice with them. It might not reach people in your area, but you can post a link to your interview (or better yet, audio snippets of your interview) online to further establish your authority.

This works really great if you have a specialized area of expertise that you want to underscore with your patients and potential future patients.

Get Ready for Voice Search Technology

Now that almost everyone has at least one smart device in their home, marketers in the know are starting to think about how to be ahead of the game when it comes to voice searching. 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020, according to comScore.

So how do you prepare for this new trend? Of course, big money brands like Nestlé and Tide are making entire sections of their website that you can interact with using your voice. The rest of us can still get ahead of the curve by writing website content (including blog posts) in a more conversational tone, since these are the words people are going to “search” using their voice.

Think about the words you would use to search for your services, then make sure those words and phrases show up in your content. Just remember not to go overboard. It’s still super important that your words sound natural.

Do you have questions about these (or any other) dental marketing strategies?

The soiree squad is here to help! You can reach out to us on Instagram or contact us directly with your questions anytime!

Instagram is Removing the Public “Like” Option

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Nov 9, 2019 | instagram, Marketing, Social Media

Recently, our much beloved app, Instagram, tested something crazy in several major countries like Canada, Japan and Brazil. They took away the public “like” option. Well, they took away the ability for users to see how many likes a post has, we should say. Now, it looks like this change is going to spread to a portion of the app’s users in the United States this week, and this has some marketing gurus freaking out a little.

If there’s no public “like” option for people to engage with, how will anyone know that you’re worth listening to? Those hearts are like currency! Of course, you’ll know how many people engaged with your photo using the “like” button but no one else will know. How will this impact your dental marketing strategy? Let’s dig into it a little bit…

The Reason for the Change

Facebook (the company who owns Instagram) stated that the reason for the change was to remove pressure and social competition. Many of the app’s users are younger individuals. In fact, the average user age is currently 25-34 years old as of August 2019 (in the United States, this age group makes up 36.1 percent of the app’s users).

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced the change on his twitter feed. When Bloomberg News asked for the reason behind the change, he said, “The idea is to try and reduce anxiety and social comparisons, specifically with an eye towards young people.”

This social comparison has created a real issue among users, especially younger users of the app. Mental health issues are probably the most serious side effect, but it has also caused many users to buy fake likes or followers to try to boost their metrics unnaturally. This is not just a bad social media practice, it can also be bad for business.

How Could This Impact Dental Marketing?

As you know, we’ve done a few courses on Instagram, and we’ve always discussed engagement… specifically, authentic engagement. We never advocate buying results in the form of likes, comments, or followers. While you will still be able to see how many “likes” your content got, no one else will be able to see the metrics.

The reason we spend so much time talking about social media marketing is because we know how important it is for your patients and potential future patients to see your content, to have a space online where they can easily interact with you, and to keep you front of mind as an expert in their local community. This change doesn’t impact any of this, and it shouldn’t change your dental marketing strategy whatsoever.

Your focus, as always, should be on posting content that’s visually appealing and creating engaging captions that highlight your expertise and your fun personality. You should be including 15-30 targeted hashtags on each post, and switching them up to make sure they relate to the photo and the content. If you do these things regularly (ideally at least three times a week) and post on your Instagram Stories daily… you’ll be good to go! You won’t even miss that public “like” option after a few weeks!

Stay in Your Lane

One thing we’ve noticed over the years is that anytime there’s a change in how social media platforms operate — for instance when there’s a redesign or algorithm change — people tend to freak out a little bit. It’s important to research the changes by reading articles written by trustworthy sources, and then continue to stay in your lane. Most of the time, whatever change is being made is going to have very little effect once the initial panic wears off.

You already know what to do and how to talk to your dream patients. Keep showing up, keep engaging, and keep putting great content out into the world. If you do this, you’re going to be just fine!

If you have questions about Instagram, social media marketing, or dental marketing strategies in general, please reach out. The soiree squad is always happy to help!

Three Books for Dentists for National Book Month

by Dr. Jessica Emery | Oct 3, 2019 | Branding, Marketing

Did you know October is National Book Month? Even though dental soiree is a digital dental marketing agency, there’s still something about a physical book… especially non-fiction. There aren’t a ton of books for dentists, but I will often scoop up a marketing or general business book, and I always learn so much!

In this post, I want to share three books that you can pick up this month if you want to get inspired and learn new techniques to market your dental practice! These books aren’t specific to dentists, but I guarantee they’ll spark some amazing ideas that you can apply nonetheless!

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of Gary Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee as he goes by more commonly. We all are! He just knows how to deliver information in an inspiring and motivating way. He’s another no-BS marketing guru who is ALL about serving the hell out of your followers. That’s what this book is all about. He believes that you have to give three times as much as you ask from your followers online!

We shouldn’t just be focused on selling our services, we should be listening to our patients and potential future patients, figuring out what they want, and creating a great experience for them online and in real life! It’s a simple concept, but so many business owners get it wrong. As dentists, we’re a little more tuned in to our people, but this is still such a wake up call of a book. I just love it.

Find the book on Amazon here.

Be More Pirate: Or How to Take on the World and Win by Sam Conniff Allende

This one is a little silly, but I did love it. It’s a great beach read! I feel like whenever we’re learning something new like marketing or business management, our first instinct is to learn all the rules and then follow them faithfully. This is a great book for dentists, because it challenges you a little bit by asking how you might be able to rebel and break the rules a little to forge your own path… kind of like a pirate would do!

If you’re working on team-building, this might be a good one to have the team read (if they’re not offended by a little bit of adult language, of course). I think it would spark some interesting conversations about which rules can be broken or re-written to create a better patient experience or to run a more efficient office. I loved this one, and it was a good exercise for my brain!

Find the book on Amazon here.

The Little Red Book Of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer

You’re busy, I’m busy, we’re all busy. This book is perfect for busy dentists like us. It’s an old standby of mine because it’s short and direct, and it delivers 12 (and a half) expert-level selling tips that aim to demystify the process and make it super easy to close the deal… and it has totally worked for me!

We sometimes forget that even though we’re dentists, we do have to sell ourselves and our services. There is A LOT of competition in this industry, so you have to handle objections like a sales pro in order to convince people to come to your practice and not the one across the street. Books like this one by Gitomer are priceless because they give you the ability to see things from another perspective (specifically, your potential client’s) so you can serve them the way they want to be served. It’s genius.

Find the book on Amazon here.

Do you have any favorite books that have helped you grow your dental practice? I’d love to hear about them! I am always looking for new books to read and fall in love with!