People don’t buy on facts or information. You see it every day in dental practices everywhere. The dentist will explain a treatment plan to a patient, telling her what percentage of a certain type of restoration typically fails or the chances she’ll get paresthesia or what her insurance will cover, producing nothing more than a blank stare or a remark like, “Well, I’ll think about it and I’ll call you.” But when someone presents the treatment plan with enthusiasm, excitement and emotion, people buy into it.

I learned this the hard way 25 years ago when I would present a treatment plan to patients and maybe half of them would schedule treatment. I asked my assistant, Jan – who is high energy, on top of her game and radiates enthusiasm – to review and answer questions about diagnosed treatments with our patients to be sure they understood everything. When she started talking to our patients about treatment, people just got excited!

Then when it came time to schedule treatment, our Treatment Coordinator, Dawn, would continue the positive, uplifting discussion. Instead of merely getting a necessary filling done, Dawn would even talk them into getting their teeth cleaned first, then she would sell them into whitening their teeth because then we could do a tooth-colored filling so everything would match properly. Then she would say, “Another way you could make those teeth brighter is to contrast your teeth with darker lipstick. Oh my goodness, you’re going to have a million-dollar smile and it’s only going to cost you a few hundred dollars!” Any questions patients had about financing, Dawn would answer and provide great payment options such as CareCredit. The way Jan and Dawn reviewed and presented these treatment plans really spoke to our patients’ needs and desires. Patients got excited about it because Jan and Dawn were excited about it and because of this patients would agree to come in for treatment.

There’s a funny cartoon that depicts evolution and the meaning of life (see page 18), where all of the animals leading up to the evolved human have three things on their mind: eat, survive, reproduce. Then when you get to the human, he’s wondering what it’s all about. Well, if you talk to any evolutionary biologist, it’s still all about eating, surviving and reproducing! When Jan and Dawn review treatment plans, they enthusiastically appeal to our patients’ base needs: eating, surviving and reproducing. You can’t eat very well without teeth; you need to eat to survive, of course; and if you want to reproduce, you want to look as attractive as possible. Functional, aesthetically pleasing teeth hits on all three of those needs. I can present all of the facts about a case to a patient, but the difference in case acceptance is because Jan and Dawn elicit a deeper response from the patient, which boosts their dopamine and serotonin levels because Jan and Dawn excitedly appeal to the patient’s base needs.

The way you present an effective message applies to social media, too. I really got into Facebook about three years ago. In fact the main reason I got into it was because I read an article about Facebook reaching 400 million users. It was exploding and I wanted to see what it was all about. Since then I’ve branched out onto Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest. I’ve really enjoyed learning about and measuring this marketing medium, and it’s interesting to see the correlation between an effectively presented treatment plan and an effectively marketed message.

I see so many Facebook pages with posts that read, “Did you know that one in three people have this disease or that disease?” It’s all facts, figures and information. There’s never any excitement. Nobody clicks “Like” or shares those posts because they’re just white noise. There’s no reason to interact with a message like that.

Mothers make a major percent of all health-care appointments. Of all of the users on Facebook, more than 60 percent are women (according to a July 2012 article from the Huffington Post); but Pinterest is truly the social media site for women; in fact I’ve read that of the 70 million users on Pinterest, 80 percent of them are female. I have a Pinterest account and I find it amazing that almost all of the 1,500+ people who follow me on Pinterest are women. When women post on Pinterest and Facebook I see a lot of meal plans, diets, healthy snacks, etc. But it’s the base need of reproduction that is the most meaningful part of life, and that’s why a lot of women who have children post pictures of them on social media. People draw the most purpose and passion from reproduction – that’s why three out of four married couples have babies. Women are hard wired with maternal instincts, and when you start posting anything about babies and children on social media – like when you should bring your baby in for his or her first check up, or the germs that live on your baby’s toothbrush – it gets viewed, commented on and shared. I mean it just comes alive.

 

One of the biggest posts we had on my practice’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/todaysdental) was when one of our staff members had a new baby. It’s one thing to post about the new laser or CAD/CAM system that you just got in your practice, but if you want more excitement or shares of what you’re posting on Facebook, post a photo of your newborn granddaughter. Post about the people who work at your practice. Post about the community outreach function everyone participated in over the weekend. That is the kind of stuff people will click the “Like” button for, comment on or even share. The average dental practice Facebook page has about 300 followers, and when you post something to Facebook, those followers have 300 followers of their own. If they all share what you’re posting, you have the potential of reaching up to 90,000 people – it’s huge!

The only way your social media efforts are going to get you new business is when your existing patients see what you are posting, make an emotional connection and share it with all of the people who follow them. There are three things you can do on Facebook: you can like something, you can comment about it, and you can share it. Sharing something is the big deal. You want people to share your Facebook posts, because all of their friends and followers will see it on their timeline. Facebook users almost never share high-quality dental information or facts about disease, and they certainly don’t interact with it. What they share are the things that make them secrete dopamine and serotonin. And for the majority of people who make dental appointments – women – the number-one thing they share is anything that has to do with babies and children. My practice always increases its Facebook “Likes” when we make our posts more personal.

Here’s something else you should consider in regard to social media: When you share information and it ends with a period or an exclamation mark, the person viewing it sits there, takes it in and moves onto the next post. They don’t do anything with it. But when you end your post with a question mark, you are engaging with them. So if you post something and end it with a question, they’re more inclined to answer, and that’s how you engage people on social media. That’s how you get people on Twitter to answer you back. That’s how you get people on Google+ to actually post back. Instead of making a statement or a fact about you or your dental office or your dental technology, engage with them. Ask them a question. If you ask your fans a question, they will answer you. When they answer you, all of their followers will see it. This is how you can judge how successful your social media campaign is going. There are a lot of companies that do social media for dental practices, and dentists will often show me how great they think their Facebook page is. What I usually see is a page with a plethora of information, with zero likes, zero comments and not a single share. The dentist thinks her Facebook page is good because her page is filled with a bunch of great scientific dental information that could really educate all of her patients. But there’s no interaction whatsoever. The dentist might as well be putting all of her practice’s marketing efforts into direct mail – a one-way conduit of information.

Real social media is about interacting with your fans and followers – so do it the right way! Remember the cartoon on the meaning of life: eat, survive and especially reproduce. Women have maternal instincts and are a lot more likely to communicate about their children than men. They are far more likely to show up to a parentteacher conference, or a PTA meeting, or schedule their kids for a recall than dad. So engage with them. Post fewer facts. Get personal! Show them your babies. Tell them what you’re doing for their babies. Ask them what they are doing for their babies. Get focused on children. Aim your marketing around babies and children, share the personal side of your practice, and you will absolutely crush the meaning of life and get more new patients.