How the Emergence of Digital Local Affects Dental Labs in 2016 and Beyond

By David H. Khalili

Founder of DentalLabSupport.com

The philosophy behind dental lab marketing used to be relatively simple. Digital marketing strategies made sense to raise brand awareness, but to get people in your neighborhood, more traditional methods were most reliable. A print ad in a community magazine, sponsoring a local event, or even a telemarketing to get the people around you to pay attention to your products and services.

But increasingly, digital marketing seeks to compete with these traditional methods, creating local advertising possibilities that you should not ignore. As we move into 2016 and beyond, these digital marketing opportunities are becoming increasingly easy to access, meaning you should give them serious thought as a part of your budget in the new year. Let's discuss digital local marketing opportunities relevant to small businesses today.

Local Search

When Google first introduced its Pigeon algorithm update in 2014, it changed the game for local search optimization. Without boring you with the details, the update prioritized local results over national results as appropriate for search queries related to your business.

Today, search is ubiquitous among your audience. Especially thanks to the rise in mobile, a potential customer who is looking for a way to get your product or find out about your opening hours simply pulls up Google and types their query into the search bar. Do you know what shows up when they do?

As it turns out, the search engine actually lets you control the result to some degree, by allowing you to set up and optimize a My Business Profile. If you have not done so yet, you should make it a priority before 2016 or, at the very least, a New Year's Resolution. Potential customers will search for your dental lab, so you want to be sure you can be found easily.

Local Targeting Possibilities

But your opportunities to go local go beyond mere search optimization. Thanks to the in-depth targeting options of many digital channels, particularly on social media, you can now target very specific areas, neighborhoods, and even individual blocks with distinct advertising.

Facebook, for example, allows you to set targeting parameters for its ads to a specific zip code. Google, on the other hand, lets you engage in geo-targeting, even allowing marketers to target based on specific IP and household addresses. This hyper local targeting means you can be sure to reach your audience, no matter how geographically restricted it may be. 

Combining Digital with Traditional

Here, email marketing can come into play. If you use your digital ads as an opportunity to gather leads, or if you request email addresses from customers for post-sale nurturing opportunities, emails can be crucial tools to connect your initial ads and your customer experience. By allowing you to reach out to your target audience in a personalized way, it establishes your dental lab and brand as an important part of your customers' mindset and consideration point for future purchases.

How can email marketing become a part of your local marketing efforts? Contact us to learn more.

DLS Sponsors:   GuideMia.com  your turn key solution for implant treatment planning and surgical guides.

Top 8 Marketing Tips for your Dental Lab

By:  David H. Khalili

Founder of DentalLabSupport.com

Being a dental lab is difficult for some. You must find a way to get your name out there and make sure that consumers know exactly what it is that you do. To make this a success, certain techniques and tips have been created for small businesses of all industries. Regardless of your goals or outlook for the future, you can definitely find ways to benefit from these top 8 marketing tips for your small business.

Tip 1: Give Samples

People love trying out free things. What better way for you to get dentist's to try out your products than by giving them free samples to try? This is something that many industries can rely on and have always found great success when customers come back for purchases in the future.

Tip 2: Focus on your Target Market

You have to know where your potential shoppers are. If they are online, that means that you should develop ads on popular social media sites and websites that they might visit. Sending them a brief message on a postcard in the mail is also something that can help drive them to your business or website.

Tip 3: Give them a reason to click

When you are developing social media ads, make sure that consumers have a reason to click on your ad. If consumers are not enticed by what your ad is offering, they won't go any further than glancing at it in passing. The goal is to get them to your website. Your ad should be what drives them there.

Tip 4: Update your Ads

Keeping fresh content and ads available for your potential customers is also an important part of the process. Nothing is worse than stale material that your customers get tired of seeing quickly. Make sure that you are making updates regularly to keep them interested.

Tip 5: Offer a better or less expensive option

If you are looking for ways to compete with other business, you should always offer something different from what your competitors are. Typically, this means that you should offer a better quality or less expensive option than what they are offering.

Tip 6: Have a Slogan

The goal behind this is that you are looking for something that will get caught in the minds of your potential customers. The slogan that you select should be something that is catchy and memorable. You should also make sure that you use the slogan in a number of locations. For example, it should be on your website, any ads that you print and you may even want to answer the phone using it.

Tip 7: Be Unconventional

It is always best to be different. While many marketing strategies are used regularly and are successful, you should also look for ways that you can market unconventionally. These methods should be ones that appeal to your target market and that help to showcase your business's personality and mission.

Tip 8: Become a Sponsor

If you are looking to increase your local market, one of the best things that you can do to get your name out there is to become a sponsor for a local event. Not only will this show off your company, but you will be able to support your local community as well. Consumers will take notice of this, especially those who prefer to shop locally.

Marketing is something that is crucial to the success of any business, but it is especially important for small businesses. Without a strong marketing plan, small businesses will not be able to compete with their competitors and may struggle to survive in the business world. If you are looking for ways to improve your marketing plan, be sure to contact us today.

For more info please contact DentalLabSupport.com or call us at 1-888-715-9099.

Dental Lab Tools to Manage Your Busy Schedule

Dental Lab Tools to Manage Your Busy Schedule

By David H. Khalili, CEO DentalLabSupport.com

Dental Laboratories need to use proper tools to manage their time and schedule in order to maintain competitive excellence in the industry with much larger players. Because of advances in IT programs and infrastructure, the tools for time management normally reserved for large corporations are now available for small dental labs. Many of these tools come in integrated packages which provide the tools you need to run your dental lab in one affordable package. 

The following 4 tools provide you systems management for your dental lab to increase your available time.

1. Workflow Planning/Whiteboard

One of the most powerful business tools of the 20th century was a whiteboard. Work planning, task assignment and scheduling, and goal setting were all managed efficiently from whiteboards. For modern business systems, a physical whiteboard is no longer the best method for workflow planning because the time lost in transferring items from a whiteboard to your computer systems increases both time necessary for planning and the chance of items not being copied into your computer system. 

A modern workflow planning system will give you tools to manage planned activities, assign tasks in specific order, and plan in such a way that everyone on your team knows where you are going, the time-frame to get there, and who takes the lead at any given time. 

2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

An essential part of any dental lab sales or marketing system, a CRM is a software program designed specifically to track and manage contacts with your customers and leads. A CRM saves businesses time in multiple ways. Preventing lost leads, reducing redundancies in customer service communication, and managing your customer database from a centralized place are all part of how a CRM saves you time in your business. 

A good CRM for time management will be accessible from your sales team's mobile devices. This saves time and data as you are able to capture leads and store them directly into your database without carrying business cards in your pockets, transferring data from notepads to excel, or any other of a variety of systems people attempt to use to manage contact information. 

3. Automation Software

Although automation software is an obvious time-saver, many small dental lab owners do not know how affordable and accessible modern automation systems are. Many software programs have automatic processes for marketing emails, follow-up responses, integration with multiple software systems (ERP, accounting and financial, CRM, WMS) to give your business accurate and timely information across your software platforms. 

While automation software and hardware used to be added to a business's IT systems, this has changed. Advances in cloud computing and storage have moved many business process management systems online. Online clouds enable many software providers to integrate automation systems and API's within their core software at an affordable price for small businesses. 

4. Cloud-Based Software

Although not a specific tool, cloud-based software programs offer small dental labs several time saving tools that traditional in-house platforms do not. Cloud-based software offers reduced install times, gives you universal access to your software, and reduces your costs involved with in-house data centers. 

A cloud-based software system is accessible via an internet connection, meaning any web-connected device can be used by you and your team to get work done. From a quality software company, it also provides you better security and infrastructure than most small businesses can afford to put in on their own. 

Workforce planning, CRM, automation and cloud-based software can all be found in separate platforms or integrated into one. Because of advances in technology, these 4 tools are all available to small businesses at affordable prices and in good time. For more information about how our CRM fills all the roles of these tools, please contact us today.

DentalLabSupport.com 

1-888-715-9099

Dental Lab Lead Generation Success

WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION?

Lead generation describes the marketing process of stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing sales pipeline.

Lead generation often uses digital channels, and has been undergoing substantial changes in recent years from the rise of new online and social techniques. In particular, the abundance of information readily available online has led to the rise of the “self-directed buyer” and the emergence of new techniques to develop and qualify potential leads before passing them to sales.  

WHY IS LEAD GENERATION IMPORTANT?

The buying process has changed, and marketers need to find new ways to reach buyers and get heard through the noise.  Instead of finding customers with mass advertising and email blasts, marketers must now focus on being found and learn to build continuous relationships with buyers.

Information Abundance and Attention Economics

With the growth of the internet, the world has changed from one of information scarcity to one of information abundance.  In fact, according to Google chairman Eric Schmidt “there was 5 Exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization and 2003, but that much information is now created every two days and the pace is rapidly increasing”.  

The problem is that information abundance equals attention scarcity. This is known as attention economics. Social scientist Herbert Simon was the first person to discuss this concept when he wrote “in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.”

This has transformed the buying process. Buyers are overwhelmed with all the noise and they are getting better and better at ignoring the messages they don’t want to hear and researching what they do want to learn about on their own.

LEADING DOWN THE FUNNEL

With the new buyer it is important to note that your marketing efforts don’t end once a new lead comes into your system – what we call Top of the Funnel (TOFU) marketing.  Many companies do a good job at generating leads, but the problem is that most new leads are not ready to buy yet.  And if a sales rep does engage and the lead isn’t ready to talk with them, it reinforces the notion that marketing sourced leads are not great. As a result leads get lost, ignored, or snatched up by your competitors.

To prevent this from happening, good lead generation marketers will invest in lead nurturing and other Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) techniques to build relationships and trust—earning the lead’s business once he or she is finally ready to buy. Engage these leads through relevant content and make sure that you get your timing right.

Lead generation has moved beyond simply discussing TOFU. In order to have a holistic strategy, MOFU marketing must be included in all your strategic discussions to make sure that you have a good process for turning leads into sales.

LEAD GENERATION RESEARCH

Many marketing departments are allocating more budget to lead generation tactics. Inbound marketing spend in particular has been growing as companies need to find more creative ways to get in front of the customer and break through the noise.

“Life before Dental Lab Support was like being in the dark ages. Dental Lab Support has put us into the modern era of marketing and increased lead generation by 71% year-over-year and increased sales by 18%.” - James Park, Crowns R Us Dental Lab,

COMMON LEAD GENERATION METRICS

The best marketing programs have intentional measurement strategies planned in advance. So as part of the planning process ask yourself these questions: What will you measure? When will you measure? How will you measure? Here are some basic lead generation metrics that many companies track as part of their lead generation efforts:

• Marketing % of contribution to sales pipeline: The % of revenue in the sales pipeline (opportunities) that originated from marketing efforts
• Marketing % of contribution to closed revenue: The % of revenue in closed won deals that originated from marketing efforts
• Quantity of Sales Qualified Leads: The amount of SQLs sent over to your sales teams
• Quality of SQLs: The % of SQLs not rejected by sales
• Cost per inquiry: Total lead acquisition cost/ the total number of inquiries
• Cost per  lead: Total campaign costs/quantity of leads
• Inquiry to Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): Conversion of initial inquiry to Marketing Qualified Lead
• MQL to Sales Accepted Lead (SAL): Conversion from MQL to Sales Accepted Lead
• SAL to Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): Conversion from SAL to Sales Qualified Lead
• SQL to Opportunity:  Conversion from SQL to Opportunity

Dental Lab LEAD GENERATION RESOURCES

See how you can increase effectiveness across all business functions by generating more qualified leads, amplifying sales pipeline velocity, and improving sales and marketing alignment through leveraging lead generation Dental Lab Support Lead Generation Services.

www.DentalLabSupport.com

1.888.715.9099

3 Ways Dental Labs can Better Communicate with Dentists

In order for dental labs and dentists to keep patients satisfied, they need to keep dental patients’ needs at the forefront of everything they do. So how can dental labs work with dentists to keep dental patients happy? Make communication easy, honest and enjoyable.

1) Offer Multiple Lines of Open Communication

Dental labs must not only open up multiple lines of communication - phone, email, website, social media, text - but must listen to what is being said. While this seems obvious, how many times have you had a dental case shipment sent back-and-forth because the dental materials didn’t match the dentist’s specifications? Listen to what the dentist needs, and map out what your dental technicians must do in order to meet those needs.

2) Be Honest

Similar to #1 above, dental laboratories must be honest with their dentists about which services they provide and within what time frame. A simple "yes, we can do that" or "it's going to take one day longer than expected because of XYZ” goes a long way towards reassuring your client, and more importantly, enabling dentists to fulfill their promise to their dental patients.

3) Follow Up

The relationship doesn’t end once the shipment has been sent. Dental laboratories must have their dental team follow up with each dentist to verify that not only the dental case was received on time, but that it met the needs of both the dentist and the dental patient. Follow up with your dentists by asking “How did the material fit?” and “Was the patient happy?” 

Treat your work relationship like a personal relationship and you’ll see success in your dental lab. Open up lines of communication, listen to what’s being said, be honest about your abilities, and follow up in order to nurture your relationship with existing dentists. After all, dentistry is deeply personal work - so act like it!