141: Marketing and Technology Advancements in the Dental Industry

Welcome to the navigating dental insurance podcast where we don't [music] take from insurance companies. Here are your hosts, Mr. Jordan Comstock and Mr. Ben Tuinei. >> [music] >> This podcast is sponsored by BoomCloud Dental Membership Software, www.boomcloudapps.com, [music] and Veritas [music] Dental Resources, www.veritasdentalresources.com. Enjoy the [music] show. >> What's up, everybody? And welcome to another exciting episode of the navigating dental insurance podcast. I am your host today, Jordan Comstock. With me, Ben. What is up, dude? >> Jordan? Dude, man. I'm loving the sun, man. It

feels like in Utah, at least for the last 3 months, we get sun maybe once every other week. >> I know, it sucks. >> So, I have uh what do they call that? Uh they call that sad? >> Seasonal >> [laughter] >> Yeah, seasonal depression, don't they? >> Yeah. >> That's a real thing, I guess. >> That's why I've been hibernation. You know, now that the sun's out, you know, I'm out of hibernation and >> Ben's out. He's He's alive. We He made it through the

winter. >> [laughter] >> Got out of bed, brushed my teeth, put some clothes on. You know, life is great. >> Yeah, dude. Today, we got an awesome guest on the show who comes from a sunnier place than where we're at right now. So, I'm always jealous. But we got Michael from Wonderus. Welcome to the show, dude. >> What's up, guys? >> Dude, just chilling. Wish we were in California with you. >> No, I It's certainly sunny here now, but I grew up in Wisconsin, and funny

story about sad, I remember my freshman year of of college, my roommate and I were elected to be the like representatives of our floor on our dorm. And you know, with that power, you get to allocate a little budget, and the big ticket item that everyone voted for was some sad lights so everybody could like, you know, in the in the winter in Wisconsin just like sit under the sad lights and try to try to try to beat the disorder. So, you know, it's the struggle's

real. I'm with you. >> Yeah, it really is. So, that's makes sense that you're living in California now. >> [laughter] >> Where where in California do you live, Michael? >> About as far south as you can go, man. So, we're we're in sunny San Diego, just about 25-minute ride from from Mexico. So, yeah, it's a awesome city. >> Yeah, that's super nice. >> I love San Diego. >> I know. I'm I'm I'm there a lot. I've we last time I I was there at least we

hung out with you guys in your office. And I've heard you guys have expanded in that all that big open area that was there last time. >> Yeah, it's funny. When you were here last time it was it was undeveloped. That's right. Yeah, so we've we've totally built that out, and it's yeah, basically we doubled our space, which is great. We started to get a little stacked on top of each other for a minute. >> That's the same thing here. We we actually just moved in

October offices cuz we were just squished in our office, you know, offices. It's it was getting crazy. So anyways, I'm excited for the episode today. We're going to be talking about marketing and and technology advancements in the dental industry with our good buddy Michael. So, for those of you people that don't know you though, Michael, give us a quick introduction about yourself, how you got started in dentistry, and and and maybe tell us the story about getting started with with Wondros. >> Yeah, so man, it's

funny. I've probably been in the dental marketing space now for close to 6 years. Wondros Agency's been around for just a little longer than that, and my my wonderful partner in the business and my my wife, Laura, started Wondros Agency getting close to 7 and 1/2, 8 years ago now, and really started I think similar story that a lot of a lot of dentists will relate to. She had a friend who graduated from dental school, you know, had some pretty aggressive growth plans and moved out

to Albuquerque and within 6 months he had a company that was doing his website, company that was doing his digital search, another company that was doing local marketing for him and I think a fourth company doing direct mail. And he called Laura up. She was working in in marketing for Sony at the time doing local marketing around the country. And he's like, "Hey, this this is driving me nuts. I have a new full-time job on the weekends, you know, trying to wrangle all these marketing companies

together. They don't talk to each other and I have no idea what's working." So she kind of stepped in as the the hub of the wheel and and had to make a lot of changes to make a cohesive marketing message, to find a way to track results, cut things that weren't working. And fast forward 3 years later he had opened his third practice and and, you know, really was seeing a lot of success. So in that time I think a lot of those early lessons, um,

you know, translated as Wonderist was born and and you grow and so we are a full-service marketing agency. We work with clients around the country and we do everything from digital, so that's building a website, helping people get to that website through search engine optimization, Google AdWords, social media and social ads. But and this is where I think we are a little different, we also respect that, you know, dental offices are are local companies, right? So we do local marketing as well and and we make

sure that we have an integrated marketing plan that starts in the office. Uh, addresses the fact that the best new patient is a word of mouth referral and then reaches out and and make sure that we can get those those patients that, you know, are searching, don't know who you are and and really add that to the bottom line. So, um, so yeah, it's been it's been a really cool journey. The thing we like to hang our hat on the most is that, you know, well

there are certainly other marketing agencies out there, I think we're one of the few that really focuses on authenticity and making sure that when we're when we're building marketing pieces, when we're building a website, we're not we into stock imagery, that we're showing off the practice, right? We're showing off who's there, what it looks like, we're actually finding an authentic voice and something that makes that practice different and that makes all the difference. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but you have to find a way to

stand out in your market and being different is a big thing. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I guess that leads into Yeah, that's that's awesome. That leads into um a pretty good uh perhaps topic or question. Um before I get into that uh particularly you know, that standing out component. Michael, I just saw a dog walking behind you. You have a dog in your office? >> Yeah, we at any time [laughter] we'll have between like you know, five and and nine dogs in the office. So obviously

we had to break down a wall and and make the office a little bigger here. But my my wife and I uh currently have three dogs. Um >> Nice. >> So so you know, when we're at work often times they're here with us and then yeah, there's a honestly makes it so much so much more fun at work. I think if there's a a stressful moment or a call having a dog jump up on your lap gives you gives you a little perspective on the [laughter]

day. >> Yeah. I have a question. I have a question. Do you guys have like dog pee pads in the office? >> So funny thing when we did our remodel um in fact when you were here it may have been different. We used to have carpet everywhere which you can imagine you know, with five dogs starts to become problematic. Now we have you know, nice laminate tile everywhere um and we do try to be uh I >> I mean I guess >> to be good about

it. Um we do try to be good about making sure that the dogs aren't peeing everywhere. But I've cleaned up I've cleaned [laughter] up some pee in my day for sure. >> I was going to say I mean I have a lot of guys that work in my office and it's pretty much like having dogs. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, it's the same thing. >> You can never tell who's peeing in this office. >> I'm telling you Jordan. I'm telling you to >> [laughter] >> Well, I

mean Ben Ben punches all of his employees. >> [laughter] >> Hey, that was supposed to be a secret, dude. >> So that's cool. That I guess I guess that makes you stand out Michael in terms of you know, your your office and your image and you know, when you when you look at most dental practices or at least areas in which dentists practice the vast majority of dentist seem to be flocking to um cities, you know, highly desired areas to live. And when you look in

San at San Diego, San Diego is a beautiful town, and there are probably a lot of dentist there, you know, probably one every square inch, maybe, who knows. >> Pretty close. >> [laughter] >> But when it when it comes to marketing and you talk about standing out in your local market, how do you how do you do that when there's so much competition out there? >> Yeah. Yeah, I I love that question because honestly, as marketers, I think that's not usually where people start. Normally, when

we start a conversation, people say, "Where should I be marketing? What channels, right? Do Facebook ads work? Do uh Google ads work? Should I be sending out direct mail?" And they don't take the step back to the question you just asked, which is what what do I have to say makes me different. And and I think it's because it's a really hard question to answer. We When we work with clients, it's one of the first things we talk about, and I've been in so many of

those conversations that you kind of know what to expect. We usually hear things like, "Well, my team really is the thing that makes me stand out." Or, "You know, I've invested in technology, and that technology is something we're really proud of." Or, you know, "We do this continuing education." Um quality of service, all these things that that are true, right? I mean, I I I believe that is ultimately the the biggest thing. But the problem is if you go 1 in further down the street, the

next dentist is going to say the same thing. >> Same thing, yeah. >> And so, I think what we found is that, you know, there's there's kind of maybe two or three points of of differentiation that we try to encourage our clients to find. The first one, which I think everyone can do, is, you know, when you're going to put yourself out there, whether it's a website, a direct mailer, or even, you know, just knocking knocking on doors, make sure that it's it's it's you, right?

So, uh if you think about a lot of dental websites, if you kind of close your eyes and picture what does a dental website look like, you probably just saw a picture of grandma and grandpa sitting in a field. It looks like a bad Sealice commercial. That's the joke we always use. >> There's like a There's like a stock picture that always comes to my mind that I see in pretty much every dental website and it's like I mean, I can't remember exactly but it's like

like a cheesy like probably not a real dentist that's dressed up in scrubs or whatever and he's like smiling. >> Smiling and laughing. >> I see it in every every every >> Yeah, you probably know what >> Handsome guy, it's like he's he's in blue scrubs. The whole background is coordinating blue. It's perfect. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, so so you you know, for me, you need to fight against that. You need to even if it's with your iPhone, even if it's with you know, these we

we call these we call these phones, right? Basically a you know, amazing camera >> Sure. >> that we we get to use. Um, make sure that your marketing is about you and your practice, your office. One little tip I'll I'll hand out. I know sometimes people that acquire practices say, you know, I don't always love how my practice looks. You're not tied to that space. Being a dentist is not about being in four walls, right? You can go do an amazing photo shoot in your community,

at your favorite coffee shop, at home. There's so many things you can do. So, never let that be an excuse. You need to make sure that you have authentic content. That's the first thing that's going to help you differentiate. And then I think there's kind of two other things. One one thing I'll kind of call this um it's almost like a novelty. Uh and you know, there's two examples I like to use. One, there's a dentist out there that uh bought John Lennon's tooth. Um you

know, I think that's a great example of you know, I don't even know who the guy is but I know he's the dentist who bought John Lennon's tooth. And so, think about people going out in their community, they're not going to say, "Oh, you know what? You should really call my dentist. Uh he has this phenomenal investment in technology." Right? That's not how people talk. They're going to say, "Yeah, my dentist, you're not going to believe this. He bought John Lennon's tooth. You should go check

him out." >> Yeah, totally. >> [laughter] >> Other example I love to use that's that's closer to home is you know, we were doing a photo video shoot with uh with one of my patients. And um you know, we we interviewed him and said, "Hey, Doc, what makes you different?" And he kind of went into the the the formula. Oh, you know, my team, my technology, all this stuff. And then we went and talked to his patients, and we did these these testimonials. People's lives had

been changed. People hadn't dated for 10 years, all this stuff. But at the end of it, you know what they all said? They all said, you know what we love? When we come in the office, uh, it smells like fresh baked cookies, because they they bake cookies every day and put them out. And so, like, that's probably humbling as a dentist to be like, "Wait a second, I went to dental school. I have all this technology." >> But it's the cookies? It's the cookies? >> [laughter]

>> You got to think about it. When someone when someone goes out into back into the world, back to work, and someone says, "Oh, I need a new dentist." What are they going to say about you? They're going to say, "I love my dentist." Number one. And then they're going to follow up with one or two things. My hygienist is great, the office is clean, and boy, you know what? They always have fresh baked cookies out. And you think about how we really make decisions in

life, right? >> [laughter] >> We go off that gut feel. Like, that sounds nice. I'll check it out. >> Yep. >> And you need to have something that people remember. And I know cookies sound kind of silly. There's other offices that take it to an extreme with the way that they're designed. There's one in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It's a pediatric practice. They've got a bus that is a movie theater for kids. It's the the I think the school the the school of dentistry. Um, it's just super

cool ideas like that, but you need to stand out. And then, if not that, then the third one, and I know this is less popular, you need to everybody cares about the financial part of this. If if you if you want to stand out with an offer, that's another way to differentiate and market. Price is something people shop on. It's not our favorite way to do things, but in the world of looking at how we can be different, it's one we have to remember is a

real thing that people do shop on. >> That's awesome. I love that fresh baked cookies. You know, I'm imagining that, thinking about all the the different, um, places that I've shopped at. And what what you mentioned that the scent of the place makes it stand out big time. For instance, I think one of the reasons why people love Starbucks is because, you know, whether you're a coffee drinker or not, you know, there are a lot of non-coffee drinkers that go to start Starbucks because of the

environment, you know? >> Yeah, but here, I'm I'm a non-coffee drinker and I I go there. >> Yeah, the non- the coffee smell, you know, it just it's attractive, you know, it's it's memorable. Um so, I think that's a huge tip that you just shared there. Fresh baked cookies. I'm going to do that just in my house like 24/7. Always have fresh baked cookies. >> There you go. >> That way my wife and my son want to be here all the time, you know? >> And

they're like, "That Ben guy, he's so awesome." >> [laughter] >> Um we uh I mean, I'm not cool with the cookie baking, but our old office, there was a cookie factory next to it and we had I would always would open up the windows and it would smell like smell like cookies and everyone loved going to the office cuz it smelled like cookies, but I didn't do that. It was a cookie factory next door to us, so. >> [laughter] >> Hey, and you know what? Sometimes

you got to outsource. >> Yeah, I thought that's exactly what I was doing. See? Yeah, see, nobody understood except, you know, people like you that started companies. >> There you go. >> Outsourcing is key, you know, so. >> [laughter] >> No, I I that's that's an awesome. I think really what you touched on is is giving the patient a quality experience or unique experience um rather than the same old experience that they're getting, you know, from another dentist down the street. >> The thing that I

would really follow up with is, you know, what when you're going through an exercise of asking yourself what makes me different, once you hear what you said or written down, you need to ask, "What about the 10 offices around me? Does anyone else say this?" And if you find that you you say, "I I'm I'm willing to bet you they are." you need to push deeper. And so, I know that the cookies is a funny example and it's lame. And honestly, I I I don't think

that's going to change someone's practice overnight if they do that, but at the end of the day, it could be specializing in in, you know, you could say, "Hey, listen, I want to be the dentist that has a basketball hoop in the lobby." Or I'm going to be a like I love cycling and I'm really big into the cycling community, so all the all the images and photos and the way that we're going to talk about stuff, it's going to it's going to be revolving around

cycling. And I'm going to niche a little bit more, right? So, it comes back to this idea of are you a dentist to any human being with teeth? I hope not, right? If if that's how you're practicing, it's hard for people to to latch onto that. You need to know who specifically you want in your practice and then build something different for that person. And and that's really where this gets more challenging. And again, setting out a plate of cookies isn't going to solve the problem.

>> Sure. Absolutely. Um no, I like that though. I like I like what you just said there. So, Michael, how how do we know, you know, I'm a practice owner, let's say. How do I how do I know that my marketing is working? Because obviously, he's [clears throat] going to be focused on the patients all day, every day. And what's an easy way for him to know that his marketing is working? His or hers. >> Yeah, this is this is again one of the most common

things that we see um see our clients and dentists struggling with. I go back to that first client, that first call that we got, you know, where he said, "Hey, I I don't know what's working. I'm spending all this money. I keep writing a check. And I just have to kind of put my finger out there and feel whether I'm getting more new patients. But is that me? Is that someone else? I really don't know." Um So, you know, the there's there's kind of a couple

things that go into and I'd like to sort of create a progression. Um it's not unlike dentistry. It's not unlike diagnosing a problem when someone comes up with an oral health issue. The number one thing that we want to look for, we want to look at new patients coming in, obviously. But to be able to track that back to marketing, the best advice I can give any dentist out there that's spending marketing dollars is use call tracking numbers. Now, sometimes people are familiar with this. They

say, "Oh, I've done that on my direct mail once or twice. That was cool." The thing you really want to do is you want to make sure that you have a dedicated call tracking campaign. There's a lot of great companies out there that that do this or marketing agencies absolutely should be doing this for you. It it beyond direct mail. You want to have call tracking on your website. And And what that is it's it's This is kind of nerdy, but it's cool. It's dynamic number

insertion, which means that when someone comes to your website, your actual phone number is on your website, but your website has a piece of code that's smart enough to say, "Oh, that person came from Facebook." Find every place that your actual phone number's used and flip it to >> a tracking number. >> Yep. And so now at at the end of the month, you can go back and say, "How many phone calls did I get from my Facebook campaign, my Google ad campaign, my SEO campaign?"

And you can really start to see where value's coming from. So that's that's huge. >> And that's something you guys help with that as you do marketing. >> I think any company that's taking marketing seriously should be should be talking about call tracking and doing it at a high level. >> Yeah, you you want to be able to show I mean, for you guys, you want to be able to show the practice owners that you guys are generating calls and things like that and not just

kind of wing it and say, "Every call that you get is from us, you know?" >> [laughter] >> You want to be able to prove that and to prove your value that it's the office. And And also the the practice needs to know that the marketing's working. >> 100%. >> So win-win. >> Yeah, 100%. So So for me, those are kind of the the two the two metrics we know we need, right? New patients by referral source, right? And so that's where the front desk becomes

really important, right? If the front desk says, "Oh, they came from the internet." We have a follow-up question we have to ask. Okay, where did you find our phone number? That's That's a good way to get at it. Oh, I I saw that um you know, on your website or on a Google ad or something like that. People are able to to try to go back to that point where where they first saw you. Um But the other thing that I think you you really want

to have You want to have somebody that can help you with this. It could be a marketing agency, it could be someone on your team. The reality is, and I'd love to tell you it's different, you're going to run into points where you're not growing the way you want, and you need to diagnose the problem. So you need to be able to say, "Hey, listen, I'm not getting as many phone calls as I wanted. I'm not getting as many new patients as I wanted, and I

really need to work on Google. I'm not getting a lot from the internet. That's when you need to have some marketing metrics that help you understand what's happening there. So, you should know how many visits am I getting to the site? Are they quality? Are they spending good time on the website? Where are they coming from? Here's a little pro tip for anyone that is that is really active in this. One of the bigger issues I see is when people look at Google Analytics data data

for your website. People look at all of the channels together, right? So, that's your organic search, your paid search, your referral traffic. That's all squished together. You want to make sure you segment that stuff so you can start to see, okay, if if I'm paying a company to do organic search me, I just want to look at that. How many sessions was I was I getting a year ago? Maybe 200. A year later, I should be getting maybe 500, 600, 1,000. I want to see growth

there. Otherwise, I know we have a problem. So, you want to make sure that you're getting a marketing report that you understand. I can't tell you how many doctors I've had come to us and say, "I get that stuff, and I have no idea what's going on." And you know, there's there's two parts to that. One, you need to have a partner, and you need to have someone on your team that's that's able to understand that. And two, I would say if you know, if you're

spending money on marketing, you've got to you've got to have some investment in your own education to make sure that you know what's happening. Because it's important. If you're spending money, you've got to you've got to take some ownership of that and say, "Hey, listen, I at least need to know what the basic metrics of success are here." And that's a good thing to ask anyone you're working with. What are the basic metrics of success for us? >> So, I have a question [clears throat] and

then a a quick story to share about what you you just talked about, Michael. In your analytics of the clients that you work with, in terms of tracking what's working in terms of marketing, do you have a way to measure, or at least in your experience, do you know what percentage of new patients, just for an average practice, what percentage of the new patients call in as a result of finding that dental practice on the patient's insurance company's website? >> Yeah, you know, and and I

I know you guys will be familiar with the answer I'm going to give you. It's so hard to say because every practice is different, right? So, if you have we have a practice that's going to be um you know, established, it's it's a mature practice, it's got three associates, um it's been around for 20 years, you're going to see a lot more insurance, you know, it's it's going to lean more in that direction. If you look at a a practice that's 2 to 3 years, you

know, from from launch, a single practice owner, um you know, less visibility in the community, it's it's going to be totally different. Um so, I think practices have life cycles, right? I mean, the same practice, the answer could be different in its first 5 years and and change 15 years later. Um I think, you know, the healthiest practices will see 80% of their new patients coming from either referral, so that's people that go to the practice and and you know, are just sharing the you know,

their good feelings about it, or insurance, right? If if if they have that. Um and then, you know, marketing agency for a more mature practice that maybe wants to focus on specific cases, dental implant cases, they want to use their new CEREC mill, something like that. They come in and they try to fill in that 20% gap and create that growth. Um but for a younger practice, you know, could be one that's even 5 years in, those you're going to see a split that might be

more 50/50 or sometimes even in the first couple years, you may see very little coming from insurance or word of mouth. >> Yeah. >> But we try to encourage we we want practices to move in that direction. That that is that's a healthy thing. Insurance is its own topic, and so I know you guys have opinions on that. So, I that's that's that's a >> We do. >> [laughter] >> But um >> I think your feedback, so this was totally not scripted. I I threw that

question out because what popped to mind um was I got a phone call, well, I get I get maybe two or three phone calls from people that listen to the podcast or people that find our information um through referral or on the internet. And there was one particular situation where this practice was spending $7,500 a month in marketing. That's a pretty big budget for a sole practitioner. Very healthy budget. But their new patient averages per month for the last 12 months since they've been implementing this

marketing system is almost 100 new patients a month. So I get a call from the office manager and the office manager says, "Hey, um I want to you know, we're only participating with three dental plans. Um but we're tired of spending these these marketing dollars and what we want to do is sign up with more insurances so that we have a less expensive way of driving patients in." And what you what you mentioned is >> [laughter] >> Well, >> [gasps] >> when you compare the discount

and write-off, I mean, when you compare that write-off, what you're actually giving away by becoming an in-network provider, you're spending way more than $7,000. It's $7,000 that you're not earning and more, you know. >> Oh, yeah. >> And and so, you know, if you know, one thing that I do see out there, I think you're absolutely right, Michael. The more established practices um they tend to get more um more patients calling in as a result of finding them online, but that is triggered by a referral,

you know. Somebody refers uh that patient to you know, an existing patient would refer, you know, on Facebook or whatever, in person, to a friend, say, "You got to check out my dentist, you know, so-and-so." And a lot of those patients go online just to see if that doctor's in network and when they see them, yeah, of course they're going to call in, you know, because um that's that's at the forefront of forefront of questioning for a lot of patients when they're going to new practices,

is, "Hey, do you take my insurance?" Um but but if you're spending $7,500 and you're getting almost 100 patients a month, I don't think you should stop that. What do you think about that, Michael? >> Yeah, no, I mean, that that just assuming that those 100 patients are coming directly from the marketing. That would be a phenomenal return on investment. So, you know, I I I think and and this gets into a larger conversation about lifetime value, which is >> going I was just I was

just going to say that. >> Yeah, I think a lot of dentists struggle with with the concept of lifetime value. I know for us, you know, when we get into the business of our business, I think about that all the time. >> Me, too. >> We're willing to lose a little bit up front to have a good relationship with a client that turns into successful relationship for us and for them. And so, I think for for our dentists, you know, you really Dentistry is a great

industry because um you know, we we there's a there's a reoccurring revenue model for them. >> Yeah, baby. >> You you want to create that relationship and I think for me it's about having more people have an opportunity to get to know you and let your team do what they do best, let you do what you do best and create a relationship with them. And so, that that revenue is going to crescendo and build over time. That's really That's really what we recommend for our clients.

Um Yeah, insurance is is very difficult. I think a lot of the conversations we have with our clients now, people are increasingly trying to find a way to be less dependent on insurance. Insurance is its own type of marketing. It's basically saying >> Yes. >> I want to be part of this group and I hope people find me. What I find though is when you do that, there's no way for you within that pool to increase the likelihood of getting more patients without doing external marketing,

right? That's often how people are going to find you and say, "Oh, you accept my insurance." And so, I think that it's pretty tough to say, "Hey, let's stop spending money and just join more insurance companies." I I I don't think you're going to I I don't think you're going to see success there. I think it's going to create more frustration. Most of our dentists are going in the other direction. They're saying, "How do I cut How do I cut?" >> I was going to say

we I mean us at Boom Cloud, we I mean that's all we see is practices that are going the opposite direction of wanting to become more fee for service and a lot of them start spending more money on marketing um you know, in advertising. And um the ones that focus on you know, at least with us, attracting you know, uninsured patients to join their membership program, you know, those those practices that are spending money in marketing have, you know, hundreds to thousands of membership patients and

they're attracting them just through their marketing efforts, you know, and they're making more money, lifetime value increases, the recurring revenue collections increase right from the from the these types of patients. So, I think um it's very important to think, you know, what type of patient you're attracting and and >> 100% >> and what type of, you know, revenue they're going to generate for your practice in the long run. So, that's my mindset. So. >> A plus answers, man. That's awesome. >> You get an A plus.

>> We're going to Dude, thanks, Ben. I would have I WOULD HAVE OH. >> [laughter] >> I WAS GOING TO SAY I WOULD HAVE GRADUATED HIGH school if you were my teacher. >> It's like a group project. Group A. Group A. >> Yeah, group group A. Group A. Um all right, we're going to shift gears a little bit, Michael. Um I want to know your opinion on where you think the dental industry is going from a from a tech standpoint since we're tech geeks here on

the on the show. >> Yeah, I know you and I've gotten a chance to sit down and talk about this one a lot. Obviously, you and I both love the technology space and and uh I'll I'll blow the surprise in this and say thanks for asking a self-serving question. Obviously, we've got our we've got our own uh product and and opinions on this and and I I I'll start by saying I think there's no doubt as we look at the larger technology uh shift we're seeing

sort of as a society that we're shifting towards convenience, right? And and I'm not sure that's always a good thing cuz I think in, you know, there's the law of unintended consequences, right? As Amazon gobbles up all of the little stores, at what point will we walk outside and say, "I really got to get an umbrella today cuz it's raining and I don't want to wait for the drone to, you know, drop." So, you know, there are certainly things that I think we'll lose, but but

convenience is key. And so I think we're seeing things like membership programs, certainly. Uh more more of our clients are are talking about that. Communication tools that are are minimizing phone calls, so, you know, chat on on websites, um being able to schedule without talking, companies like LocalMed. >> LocalMed, they were just on our show yesterday. >> Yeah, I mean just just phenomenal. That that stuff I think is all a trend and and in keeping with that, a project we've been working on um is uh

is really promoting the idea of virtual consults. And so we're seeing more and more of our dentists ask about this and and more and more of their patients ask about this. What I like about where this is going is, you know, first of all I should say that the concept of virtual consults for me um it's it's not about getting the diagnosis right virtually, right? I think I think there's a long way to go before we get there because you have to get x-rays and you

have to be able to do that actual oral exam, but we know there are so many people >> Dude, just make an x-ray app. >> Uh you know, yeah, 6 months we'll we'll have that. We'll have that out. Um but um you know, what we're seeing is there's so many people that are living with um with issues with their smile that that they're unhappy with. They don't know their options, they're scared to ask, they don't want to take off of work. The prospect of going into

a dentist uh and saying, you know what, I'm going to get serious about this today, there's always a reason to put it off. And so if we can create more convenience in having someone raise their hand and say, okay, you know what, I do have a problem. I'm missing a tooth, I'm unhappy with the alignment of my smile, um you know, I I just don't like the shape or the look or the color, all of those things, uh what can you do for me? What what

we can do now is we can create uh a a virtual house call where our dentist can respond uh on their timeline, right? We're not we're not we're not doing it like this where it's live. We're we're we're letting everybody sort of respect their own schedules, but they can look at photos of a patient, they can get some basic information about that patient's, you know, health history, and then they can come back and say, hey, this is who I am, this is what I do, and

based on what I'm seeing, here are some potential treatment paths we can go down together, but of course we need to bring you into the office. And so I think, you know, as we're seeing more and more external marketing, why this is important is I'll tell you right now, we've run Facebook ad campaigns for virtual consults and we'll spend $80 and we'll get eight leads. Now, >> Wow. >> want to tell you not all of those leads are going to be good leads. So, so imagine

that I mean that's normal though. Imagine if you had to schedule every lead in office. Oof, that's tough because you're taking up chair time. You want a better way to be able to talk to those prospective clients and take that 80 down to five, 10, whatever that number is for your practice of really solid, good fit leads that can come in and then once you've had that initial quick video connection, you bring them into the office and it's much better. So, virtual consults I think are

something we're going to see a lot more of. >> It's well, it's actually pretty cool in regards to like lead generation for the practice. That's a really unique. Um, you know, versus like, hey, let's do lead gen- generation campaign and do like the $99 special or whatever, right? Um, it's actually kind of cool. You can connect with with the I'm assuming the the patients and um, really see the needs of the people that, you know, you're attracting through Facebook or whatever. Um, but I I never

thought of that as like using it as a lead generation strategy. >> Yeah, I mean it's a way to get people to raise their hand. And so, so what we do is, you know, we make it easy to create that initial landing page. That's something that, you know, you have to have whether you're doing this with us or someone else. You need a landing page that says, this is what we do. Then you have a form that people fill out and give you that information and

then you need a platform that lets you respond. And then this is again, all the little pieces you got to put together and be experts on. You need email follow-up so that you create a drip because once someone raises their hand, they may not be ready yet. So, you don't want to just let them hang in. You want to keep following up and say, hey, I know you're unhappy with your smile. Here's here's a fun fact about did you know this number of people also have

a missing tooth and are unhappy about it. You're not alone and this is a problem you can solve today. And and that's the kind of stuff that I think we see closes the funnel and helps get people to convert. >> Yeah. >> How do you How do Do do a virtual consult on like bad breath? >> Yeah, well, you know, that that it's like it's like the scratch and sniff sticker. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Scratch and sniff. >> Nice. >> Ben, do you have bad breath?

Are you worried? >> [laughter] >> Uh I plead the fifth on that one. But uh depends on the time of day. >> link to a virtual console and you just kind of >> [laughter] >> just breathe in and we'll we'll There's a little meter that goes up on the side. It's like it's like >> [laughter] >> Here's a question I have for you guys. When you go to a sporting event and they have the crowd applause meter, I feel like half the time that's just fake,

right? There's some guy in the back that's just like, you know, pulling it up a little higher. >> Oh, yeah. >> Same thing with bad breath, you know, you just you just have a little fake [laughter] meter on the side. >> Yeah. That's what you do, yeah. No, that's really interesting, Michael. Um so, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. This has been a lot of useful and valuable information for our our listeners. What So, if people want to reach out to you, whether

on the you know, Wondrous side with marketing or or the virtual consult um side, give us some information that where people can go. >> Yeah, I'll keep it super simple. Uh check us out at www.wondrousagency.com and I'd encourage you guys to go read our reviews as well. We're super super proud of it, the good opinions people been willing to share about their experience. And then if you're interested in learning more about virtual consults, you can go to yourvirtualconsult.com. And uh in both cases, you can schedule

directly with us to set up a little demo uh so we can learn more about your practice and see if there's a fit. And um yeah, we we we'd love to hear from you guys if you're interested. >> Sweet. I I think virtual console is awesome. You showed me it uh couple times. I mean, last year at Voice of Dentistry and then and then this last time uh you showed me like more updated version. It is it's pretty cool. So, I encourage everybody to go check

it out and uh hopefully it can help you guys, you know, be generate some leads and and be unique in in your local market. So, cool, Ben. Any uh final thoughts from you, brother? >> Uh no, this has been uh wonderful. You know, the whole topic of surrounding marketing, especially when it's tied in with, you know, the topic of PPOs. Um I think your answers were spot on, Michael, in terms of how to make yourself stand out. Um and you know, how to how to create

an how to engage in, you know, some some meaningful tracking. I think a lot of people miss that, you know. >> They do. >> Uh you know, like like the practice that called in that wanted to cancel spending the $7,500 on marketing. Um they likely don't know, you know, where these patients you know, they they they can't uh measure the value of that $7,500. And my guess is is that the majority of their patients are coming in from their marketing just based upon what they told

me. >> Right. >> So, you [clears throat] hit some really key points. So, thanks for sharing those and uh I'll yield the mic back to uh to Jordan and perhaps maybe have Michael give us some some wonderful closing thoughts. >> Michael, any closing thoughts? >> That's a lot of pressure. Well, I'll I'll give you the easy one for me right now, which has nothing to do with dentistry. I'm a I'm a proud new dad >> here. >> I've got a a three three-week-old at home. >>

Congrats. >> And so, it's amazing how your life changes and the new perspective you have when when when family's part of it, Jordan. I know uh you got a a growing family as well. So, yeah, super super exciting super exciting uh for me and and my wife. >> That's awesome, man. >> Congrats, man. >> I have I have a a little my third girl coming in April. So, it's going to be crazy at my house. So much emotion. >> man. >> So some some so many

pink and rainbows and unicorns everywhere. Just everywhere in my house. So. >> [laughter] >> You're the you're the perfect guy for THE JOB. >> THANKS, MICHAEL. AWESOME. WELL, appreciate you coming on the show today. And everyone listening, you guys have a rocking day. >> Rock on.