You Can Keep On…
- Overpaying for Marketing—Direct Mail, Local Advertising, Google Clicks, Facebook Ads
- Toughing it Out in Brutal Corporate Dentistry Markets
- Haggling with Patients Over Price
- Losing Patients to Competitors
- Falling Further Behind in the Dentist Rat Race
Or, You Can Put an End to All This Nonsense Now and Forever.
Introducing
Your STORY Discovery Program
Dear Dentist:
When I first started in marketing, I thought all anyone needed was consistent advertising and great offers to obtain new customers and increase revenue.
All I would need to do is create a few great ads, stick some marketing money in a few great places and, just like magic, attract all the new customers anyone would need. Beware all, the great marketing wizard is here!
One of our first clients was a manufacturer who sold to businesses and wanted a direct mail campaign. I thought, “Sure, we can do this. No worries.” I sat down and started to write the copy for the postcard series.
I can’t remember what the products were but I sat there for hours trying to come up with something that was interesting.
I was struggling. It was painful. It seemed I couldn’t come up with anything that had any kind of emotion. These products were downright boring. Who in their right mind was lying awake at night thinking about them?
If we jet forward 20+ years, I’ve described the EXACT problem that most dentists have. It’s not easy to write enticing copy about a service that 99% of people don’t get excited about. The only way to do it is to make stuff up.
I’m not saying dentistry is boring. The issue is more that it comes across as boring from the patient’s end of things. Things are kept “very vanilla,” which tends to lead to very watered-down versions of “why you need this” and “here’s what the benefits are.” And the boring aspect is that those non-technical, patient-friendly versions are repeated ad nauseam across every dental and health site online.
The problem then is, you spend lots of time trying to come up with something interesting to say about very basic stuff and end up coming up empty.
This is very evident. Go take a look at some dentists’ websites. Yours is likely one of them. There is nothing interesting about them. Canned, boring content. Stock photos of people everyone knows are not your patients.
What I know now, that I didn’t when struggling to write the copy for that first postcard, is something that is critically important to effective marketing and getting your phone to ring:
When you have a great story, your copy, ads, and postcards will almost write themselves. Your messages will chop through huge amounts of chaos and confusion in the marketplace. You solve the “I’m just an ordinary dentist like every other dentist in this town” problem in your battle against your rivals.
With the manufacturer I was working with, I had no control over their products. There were very few assets to work with. I thought, “well, this is what it is,” and had to live with it.
Now I know that, with creativity, ingenuity, and cooperation with the dentist, we can create memorable stories.
Most Creativedge Marketing customers are very much like I was back then; you think you only have so much to work with and it’s all pretty boring and matter of fact. In reality, you have way more than you think and far better control of your destiny.
First off, your services ABSOLUTELY solve a problem that somebody is lying awake at night trying to solve. And, dentistry is far more interesting than what I was trying to sell with the manufacturer.
Odds are pretty darn good that what you really lack is simply a great STORY.
It’s certainly not that you’re selling the wrong service; dentistry is a great profession and everyone needs to be in optimal oral health. It’s not that you’re selling to the wrong people—although, you very likely are not attracting a plethora of your “perfect patients.”
The problem isn’t you. You’re just as good as any other dentist trying to sell to your patients, believe me. In fact, I find in most cases, you are far better than your competition.
No, the problem is that people do not understand the unique and special way that YOUR practice is going to help them not lie awake at night and finally get a peaceful night’s rest.
I can’t wait to have you join us and be the dominating dentist in your market.
Grab the chance,
Kathy Jiamboi
Is Your Current STORY Wimpy?
6 Warning Signs of a Weak Story:
WIMPY STORY Warning Sign #1. Your website is loaded with services and procedures.
I had a client whose website consisted of countless services (of which he only offered about half), very little information about the practice, weak calls to action, and no other real substantive content.
Our dentist, Dr. Tim, was extremely frustrated because, even though he was paying a steep monthly fee for his website, he struggled to get new patients from it.
He came to us to see how we could change his fate.
After about an hour with him, I learned that he already had a great story—and HUGE potential.
The problem was that story didn’t exist on his website or anywhere else. Nobody would ever know what an incredible dentist he was and why they needed him.
He couldn’t see this for himself and, quite frankly, didn’t quite know how to express it. He had relied on his website company and, even though he told them about his services and the extent of his skills, it was to no avail.
We re-did his website and, almost like magic, his traffic increased. Finally, they were realizing more new patients online.
You might think this was the work of a fiction novel writer. The way words are used is important, but that’s not what really happened. What we actually did was simply uncover his true STORY.
Once a true STORY is developed, almost anyone can write the copy.
Dr. Tim’s STORY had always been there—it was there from the day he opened his practice—he just couldn’t see it.
Once we uncovered it and strengthened it, he increased his number of new patients. Magic.
WIMPY STORY Warning Sign #2: Patients can’t see how you are any different from every other dentist in town.
You and your buddies are a “commodity.” This is deadly. Commoditization is a killer to many businesses. If any potential patient can reasonably and accurately compare what you offer to your competitor and there is no distinct difference, you are a dead dentist walking.
THE one-word solution to this problem is: STORY.
STORY is when you have truly great answers to these questions:
- Why should I choose you over any other dentist?
- Why should I believe you can do what you say you can?
- What makes you different than other dentists?
- Why should I schedule an appointment now?
- What can you guarantee me that nobody else can?
When you don’t have good answers to these questions, your copy and ads look like everyone else’s, your advertising then has to work really hard and can be way too expensive, and you’re swirling around and around the “commodity” drain.
When you have great answers to these questions, your ads are unique, your advertising works better, and your costs are cut down. You are no longer a commodity. You are a shining star among a bunch of burned-out supernovae.
Which way do you want it?
Will You Be a STORY Star or a Commodity Slave?
You get to decide right now: Which one are you going to be?
If you haven’t decisively chosen to be the STORY Star, your decision is already made.
WIMPY STORY Warning Sign #3: Your patient is more in control than you are. “Are you in-network?”
Do people call you up and ask: “Do you take XYZ insurance?” If you’re looking to get out of the insurance money-suck, being a commodity slave is not going to get you there.
Being in-network with every insurance provider can be a practice killer—you need to follow a different set of rules to be profitable. For dentists who want more out of their practice, rather than forking money over to the insurance companies, your only salvation is a killer STORY.
If you are writing off 25–30% or more to insurance companies and you have a million-dollar practice, you’re given up $250,000–300,000 or more. That’s a VERY EXPENSIVE marketing budget.
It’s GREAT if you’re an insurance company.
It sucks when you’re the dentist.
It can also suck when you’re the patient. Since, in order for you to be profitable, you need to shorten your cleanings and/or use subpar materials.
We are not saying to dump all of your insurance. However, if you want to get out of this tangled web and claw back the revenue you’ve rightfully earned, it will be almost impossible without a STORY.
A great STORY will attract those high-quality patients who value the dentistry you provide.
WIMPY STORY Warning Sign #4: You’re constantly going head-to-head with competitors.
They know who you are, you know who they are, and every major patient chooses either you or them. You’re always keeping score.
We worked with a specialist. As you know, most specialists rely on referrals from other dentists rather than marketing straight to consumers. This specialist was rather new to the area and the number of referrals she was getting wasn’t cutting it. She needed to market directly to the public.
We created a better STORY by taking what she already had and putting it together in a new way that attracted the right patients. By gaining traction directly with patients, this also attracted more referrals from area dentists she hadn’t been getting. She is the leader in the market for her specialty and doubled her practice production.
Note, that we didn’t modify her original service—just made a change in the messaging. Many times, different groups of people will buy the same service from you for very different reasons, paying no attention to the others, and quite possibly paying very different fees.
WIMPY STORY Warning Sign #5: You see other dentist’s ads on Google, Facebook, Newspaper, Direct Mail, etc. that look like yours.
This is good for you because it’s a sure sign of great potential.
In a market filled with mediocre “I’m just an ordinary dentist like every other dentist in town,” messages (most practices are like this, by the way), a host of average advertisers are begging to get their potential patients stripped away from them.
The value of a STORY Discovery will easily exceed the present value of your practice. If your practice does $1 million per year, you probably have an equity value of $500,000–$750,000. A STORY can add hundreds of thousands of dollars and drive a six-figure (or more) impact to your bottom line. Your practice now has greater equity value for your personal gain and for when you are ready to transition out.
WIMPY STORY Warning Sign #6: You’re frustrated because all kinds of people who “should” become your patients are shrugging their shoulders, moving on to the next guy, or doing nothing at all.
This is precisely the problem all dentists with mediocre messaging struggle with.
People aren’t paying attention.
They’re not gonna, either, until someone’s messaging hits them over the head like a sledgehammer. And although you have some letters behind your name—John, DDS or Mary, DMD—nobody cares.
One of the most thrilling benefits of a STORY Discovery is that advertising which did not work for you in the past can suddenly produce new patients.
If your marketing is not working, most of the time it’s your STORY that’s the culprit. And that’s where we always start. Dentists who come to us sometimes think we have some kind of magic wand to wave over their practice to make new patients pop like kernels in hot oil.
Well, many times this does happen, but when it does it’s not magic. The real magic is — after an hour or two of gathering information, reverse-engineering their services and their patients’ wants, needs, and desires — we’ve completely repositioned the entire practice and doctor(s) to be remarkably more appealing.
Suddenly, it’s impossible to compare you to any other dentist because no one is exactly like you. You are utterly singular and unique. Best of all, no competitor can rip off what you do. Because only YOU can do you.
Your income will spike and your new patient numbers will increase. You are no longer trying to swim against the current.
Why A Great STORY is Much Harder Than It Appears
Everybody who claims they know anything about marketing should know what STORY is and what it takes to have a good one.
My experience is: most dentists’ “stories” are not much more than a trite tagline and rarely do they have a good one. Most are run-of-the-mill, at best, and this is heartbreaking because this costs you a LOT of money. It’s the difference between driving a BMW or driving a Ford Focus, between being #1 or #11, between owning a 2nd home in Naples or struggling to pay your mortgage.
Yet we see thousands of sharp, skillful, dedicated dentists hobbling along with inadequate STORIES.
Around two years ago, we decided to do something about this. We sat down and created an entire system for building Discovery STORIES.
Here’s the plan:
We’re offering TWO (2) ONE-HOUR in-depth one-on-one Zoom meetings. During these meetings, we will walk you through a perfectly executed system for building your STORY Discovery, uncovering the hidden story behind you, behind your services, behind your patients’ aches, pains, and desires.
Upon completion of our two sessions, we will develop your STORY for you, complete with copywriting and a logical layout (wireframe) for the home page of your website; create a lead magnet (guide or special report) to use as a call to action; and provide you everything needed to pass along to your web developer to implement. (Don’t have a web developer? We can help with that, too.)
Also included will be the recordings of our sessions, a STORY resource guide, STORY Checklist, and STORY marketing guide.
Your STORY Discovery Program
***30-Day Refund Guarantee***
Every single dentist will achieve a STORY Discovery—We guarantee it.
In fact, we promise you four things. If you attend the sessions, complete the worksheets, go through the process and follow the implementation plan, then we guarantee you will:
1. Have a new dimension of value that you never realized you had, which you can immediately offer to your patients, and which will instantly boost not only the number of new patients but the quality of your patients as well.
2. Have a distinct position in your marketplace that none of your competitors can give.
3. Have the ability to apply this same thinking process to everything you use to market or advertise your practice and experience a similar spike in results.
4. Not have to hit your head against the wall or pull out your hair to pull this off. You’ll find this easy and straightforward, delightfully simple, and effective as we walk you through the process.
We guarantee all four of these benefits or your money back if you request a refund within 30 days from your date of purchase. 30-Day Refund Policy: If you want to invoke the guarantee, all you need to do is email us within 30 days of your date of purchase and explain why you weren’t able to achieve any one of these specific results and you’ll get a courteous refund.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is the guarantee?
It’s a conditional 30-day refund guarantee. If you attend the sessions, complete the worksheets, go through the process and follow the implementation plan, then we guarantee you will:
- Have a new dimension of value that you never realized you had, which you can immediately offer to your patients, and which will instantly boost not only the number of new patients but the quality of your patients as well.
- Have a distinct position in your marketplace that none of your competitors can give.
- Have the ability to apply this same thinking process to everything you use to market or advertise your practice and experience a similar spike in results.
- Not have to hit your head against the wall or pull out your hair to pull this off. You’ll find this easy and straightforward, delightfully simple, and effective as we walk you through the process.
We guarantee all four of these benefits or your money back if you request a refund within 30 days from your date of purchase.
30 Day Refund Policy: If you want to invoke the guarantee, all you need to do is email us within 30 days of your date of purchase and explain why you weren’t able to achieve any one of these specific results and you’ll get a courteous refund.
What is the time commitment?
Two (2) Zoom meetings, 60 minutes each. You will receive video recordings of the sessions and PDF handouts/worksheets. Once we complete your story and deliver it to you, the time is yours to invest in implementing the changes to your website and to invest in further developing your STORY and growing your practice with it.
