Dental Unscripted | Getting into Ownership and Practice Management Insights

Welcome to Dental Unscripted.

Where Mike Dinsio and Paula Quinn break

down the practice ownership journey,

one episode at a time.

Starting up, buying,

and running a successful dental practice.

Hey guys,

welcome back to another episode of Dental

Unscripted.

My name's Michael Dinsio.

I also have my amazing business partner

Paula Quinn on the show and we have

a fun guest today.

You are in for a treat because we

talk a lot about demographics and the

startup process.

We also talk a lot about it

with acquisitions, but today,

you get these really fancy demographic

reports.

How does that translate to marketing?

And that's what we're talking about today.

So it's like the gap between knowing your

area and the opportunity that that area

provides you,

but then what do you do with it?

And we have a marketing specialist on the

other side of this.

It's Guido Tebano at Market My Market.

And this guy understands this stuff and

we're gonna have him break it down.

What's up Guido, how you doing man?

Hey, how are you guys doing?

Thank you for having me today.

Of course.

Yeah, no, I mean, look,

marketing is almost a question Paul and I

get

And it's like,

I just need more new patients.

And oftentimes it's not the actual wrong

problem, but it is a problem sometimes.

And I think, you know,

I think this is definitely something that

needs to be addressed and I'm excited

about it.

A little housekeeping before we get into

it.

Of course, like, subscribe.

Please review us.

I mean,

that helps our ratings and gets the

program out.

We don't do this for money.

We do it for passion.

And that those reviews help.

And so please do that.

And then, you know,

you can watch this on YouTube, Instagram.

We're streaming on LinkedIn even right

now.

So you got all kinds of ways to

send us questions during the pod and you

should because it makes it more fun.

So, all right, without any, yeah,

what Paula?

It does.

I mean, yesterday we got a compliment.

We're like, oh,

we didn't even know if anyone watched.

Everyone's wow.

We get a little groupie and it makes

us feel really good.

They were like, OK, yeah, someone watches.

Yeah, absolutely.

It definitely helps.

So, OK,

so let's just jump right into it.

guido you're you work for well tell us

a little bit actually before we get in

the topic tell us a little bit about

market my market and absolutely what you

do there and how what yeah all the

fun stuff about what you don't do there

you know

So Market by Market has been around for

over a decade.

We started out in legal marketing and a

couple of years ago through a really good

friend of mine,

we ended up in the dental sector.

And compared to lawyers,

we love it because it's just a lot

easier to rank a dentist versus a personal

injury attorney that will spend four to

five thousand dollars for a lead,

literally.

So, you know, you know,

kind of looking back and my background has

always been in self-storage coming from a

wreath world where everything is numbers

and analytics and demographics and kind of

figuring out where you open a storage

facility.

And it's kind of the same thing.

And everyone always asks me,

what's the sort of connection between

dental and self-storage,

which I did for like.

twenty something years dating myself.

And that's all the ads that I run

in the world for for storage or moving

isn't going to make someone move.

And it's the same thing in dental.

You either need a dentist or you don't.

No matter how good you are,

you're either in pain or some sort of

trigger your service industry that makes

you look up a dentist.

And it's a fast buying cycle because as

much as they love you,

no one is browsing around on dental

websites like you're looking for Hermes

bag or picking out a car or a

house.

It's not fun.

Right.

Again,

no one wakes up in the morning and

goes,

I really want to go to a dentist

and spend money or like, you know.

Whatever it is.

Really?

I love spending money.

And it's the same buying process or same

process of search that happens when you

get a flat tire,

you need to fix a cell phone or

any of these other service industries.

So that really is what dictates what's

going on in that market.

And it's super hyper local, right?

So because we understand that,

you know, no two dentists,

their marketing strategy is really the

same.

There's differences between all of you.

There might be similarities, but,

you know,

one practice in an area might be fee

for service.

One might take insurance.

One might have a big, you know,

like everyone on the staff speaks Spanish.

They want to attract that.

And other ones might only want to do

cosmetics and not want to see kids.

I know.

Isn't it interesting how the dentist,

the dental industry has so many fragments

within it

I mean, we get on calls every day.

Yesterday,

a guy wants to just do root canals.

Or no, no extractions.

He just wants to do extractions and he's

going to play if you're going to do

a flat fee and no insurance.

And it's going to be the fees lower

than what you pay for insurance.

And he doesn't want to deal with it.

And he just super granular.

I mean, that's such a like a boom,

you know, and then there's everybody else.

It's crazy how fragmented the dental

business is.

Right.

But everyone says the same thing.

I want new patients.

I want new patients.

I want new patients.

What does that mean?

Let's trail that right into kind of the

first topic for you today.

Because, again,

this demographics to marketing gap,

I think, is a real thing.

And you're talking about the market gap.

specific market that a very localized,

condensed, specialized market.

I mean, everybody's market.

I think marketing companies just market

generically.

A lot of them do.

And instead of really honing in on the

biggest employee players in a zip code or

whatever.

So so getting super granular is the key.

And I think that demographic

gap is the answer.

So first of all,

where do we start a location?

What do you think is a good area

and not a good area when you're reading

your demographic reports?

So there's a couple of things that we

do.

Because again,

we've tied in a bunch of agency analytics

into the demographic studies that we do

for free,

which kind of helps us cherry pick the

best practices to work with.

A good marketing company should always

start with

demographic study to see if like what you

want is actually feasible because if

there's not enough people searching it's

not going to happen we're not going to

make that happen even with marketing

So what I look at is a couple

of key metrics.

Number one,

I want to be in a growing population.

Populations do not grow overnight.

There are some markets right now in

Florida, Texas, California,

where you have negative population growth

following this post-COVID brush of people

there.

Two, what does that population look like?

If you don't want to see kids and

you want to see only do cosmetics,

then that fifty five and over population

has to be good.

But it also has to be kind of

growing in that sector, too.

And then again,

what is the makeup of those people?

So the magic number we kind of look

at in an area is can I serve

as a hundred thousand people?

That seems to be over the past couple

of years and doing like tens of thousands

of these,

like the number that kind of works where

it doesn't matter how many other dentists

are in the market.

It's just a good population to be in

front of.

So we look at that.

Right.

And then we want to see good growth.

Like,

I don't want to see like point two

percent.

I want to see like, you know,

like at least the national average for

growth in the market.

And what are the next like four to

five years?

What is that growth percent?

I want to see at least one,

one point two, something like there.

You know, that's low.

That's low.

Well, again,

it just also depends on slicing and dicing

the market.

In some markets,

you're going to see a lot higher.

But again,

it's like sort of national averages and

then breaking it down to like, look,

in some areas where now we're getting

people like parts of Ohio that are growing

pretty fast,

like a one to two percent growth in

an area that had like forty thousand

people is like kind of high.

know so again we're talking general it

really comes down to that market and what

you're doing too right so okay so growth

growth is your big a big one okay

growth is the big one right and then

the main thing is like and again a

lot of doctors get fixated on this like

provider to population like sort of number

but to us it doesn't really matter that

much and i'm going to tell you why

okay juicy juicy juicy okay i am looking

for michael dinzio the dentist i am doing

a branded search if i am looking for

an aspen or you know whatever the company

is i am branded searching looking for them

i'm typing in that name i am not

saying i need a dentist near me so

going back to what i said that all

the ads that we do is not going

to make someone search for a dentist

unless they need it

Those generalized terms,

which you can pull from Google and other

analytics, you can see.

So that search volume has to be of

a certain number because we're not going

to be able to make that up because

you as a new doctor or someone opening

a practice there is pulling from those

generalized searches that happen every

month.

So you have to look at that.

Again, wait, wait,

let me make sure I'm understanding because

I don't I don't want this to go

over the audience's head because It's

going it's a little it's a little over

mine.

So you're saying you're saying that I

Cause I'm going to search Dennis near me.

So I make sure we want to make

sure we clear that up.

Cause that's what I'm saying.

You're going to search Dennis near me,

but Dennis near me, right?

Okay.

So you're, you're searching, hold on.

You're searching for that.

Right.

But if I'm in a population of ten

thousand to one, which is a really,

freaking amazing location just anybody

searching dennis near me there's only

going to be a few options so debunk

this like versus versus okay step back

near me is a very broad search right

you want to know and there are some

tools out there that like local local

falcon that simulate google searches

because you constantly use uh google and

now apple maps to do searches right

You're looking for other service

industries.

You're putting in addresses.

So they know based on that IP address,

how far you're going to travel from the

epicenter,

which is the address of your office.

Okay.

Let's, and this changes because again,

if you're in a dense area,

like let's say you're in a downtown

Nashville,

it's not going to be as far as

in like a remote area of Tennessee or

even like, you know, some areas like,

you know,

surrounding parts of like Salt Lake city.

Right.

Because,

because we're going to go get our

groceries,

like we're going to go get our groceries,

road if we're in a rural area but

paula won't go more than two blocks

they're like looking at me and being like

this girl never leaves her house that's

right i mean i mean every time every

time i hang out with paula where is

she going we're going somewhere or

whatever and she's like oh my god it's

gonna take all day and i'm like how

long does it take she's like

twenty minutes is literally me going to

pick my kids up and coming back to

school like every day she you know so

you're what you're saying is is is my

algorithm knows I need something at point

five miles you're near me you're near me

it's like a four mile radius Paula not

even so like where again I know where

you live in Arizona there's sub areas

right even though you're part of like

you know, Scottsdale, whatever it is,

they're sub areas.

Those near me's need to be all those

sub areas,

which have a search volume associated with

them.

So we have to look at those all

individually and see what that looks like,

right?

Because I could just say like dentist near

me, Phoenix, Arizona,

it probably has twelve thousand searches.

Exactly.

That dentist that's opening there is not

going to get those twelve thousand

searches.

They're just going to get all those sub

areas within the four mile radius.

So what does that volume look like?

Because

That makes or breaks the practice.

That's who we're pulling from.

So essentially what you're saying is

you're pulling, a dummy word, pulling,

P-O-L-L,

pull the area on what the activity of

searching is versus looking at how many

people.

You are saying how many searches per

provider.

Right.

Right.

Wow.

Right.

Why does that matter?

If you're my dentist, I'm going to you.

I'm not a new user.

The new people you're targeting are people

moving into that area or people that are

unhappy with their current dentist or

something that whatever it is,

they had an emergency.

The dentist isn't open.

So those are all keywords by volume that

you have to look at.

Ads in dentistry, Instagram posts,

stuff like that doesn't change that

volume.

It's there.

All you can do is try to capture

that.

okay okay okay all right i'm following now

now that we're locked in guido this is

like it's too much just episode over call

guido done all right so so so not

just looking at population but looking at

search volume per provider love that okay

you were going somewhere else before i

interrupted we had to slow down we had

to slow down guido so everybody

understands i

So now you need to slice and dice

that data, right?

Because those keywords are associated with

some things.

One of them might be pediatric.

So again,

then you have to go back and look

at how many kids are in that market.

Is it growing?

And then, you know,

just touching on something we're going to

talk on later,

you have to layer in if you're a

startup,

what that insurance game looks like,

because that backs into who the employers

are in that market and what insurances

they're in network.

Well, let's just go there.

You're teasing it.

Let's just go there.

So-

So Paula runs our credentialing department

and she gets the question all the time

about which are the biggest employers and

what insurances do they have and maybe we

should have some strategy for that company

or whatever.

And there are solutions for this.

So like so there's the demographics piece

and then there's now this insurance piece.

What's your answer there?

How do you how do you get into

that?

So one, if you have the right tools,

which we have created,

we can scrape data and we can say

like, you know, in this market,

Carnival Cruise Line has their corporate

headquarters and they all take MetLife.

Right.

And there's ten thousand employees.

So it makes sense to have some pages

that target those employees because people

are lazy today and they're going to say,

who takes my dental insurance for my

company?

And the same thing with like.

But again, that's just on a bigger level.

There's also smaller employers in a

market, too, that we can pull together,

you know,

and sometimes like school districts are

great.

So even looking at that and seeing where

the market share comes from.

Right.

You know,

government employees are fantastic.

Same thing if you're by a military base,

you probably want to take.

that insurance and target veterans or you

know people that are active there because

that's a good opportunity to fill your

chairs when you first get started you know

okay okay so so looking at that you

have the tools you look at the searches

you know the employers like

can you dig a little bit more on

it yes on like how you reach them

now like okay so so okay we know

that this area is uh growing we know

that there's a lot of demand for dentistry

based on the searches we also know what

insurances they have blah blah blah blah

right then and we also know who the

competitors are okay okay so talk about

the competitors now because uh what can

you tell us about competitors well there

are tools that will tell you who has

the biggest market share of like pulling

from searches right you can see that um

and yeah you want to list like the

top ten pretty much that's what we're

worried about right after the first page

of anything you're you're pretty much

invisible or you're hiding a dead like you

hide dead bodies there like no one's

looking

Yeah, no,

but you can see that there's two parts

to this, right?

Because again,

you can get some DSOs that are players

that have a lot of market share and

bad reviews.

Okay.

So in dentistry, this is what happens.

Somebody does a search, right?

Or they ask a question.

I'm looking for a dentist near me or

whatever the question.

What is a dental implant?

How much does a dental implant cost?

searches come up they look at your reviews

okay if your review game is not on

point they are not going to go on

to the next step which is land on

your home page right so we look to

at who those competitors are and how

strong the reviews are because you don't

need that to rank okay you can rank

with very few reviews and play google or

chat gpt's game know how to manipulate the

algorithm but human behavior is going to

come in

in service industries,

and you're not going to go with that

that office.

I'm glad I'm glad you're talking about

that because there's too many

conversations about ranking and how do I

get on to chat GPT and all of

that.

And that all obviously is very important.

That's step one.

But then, yeah, the behavior part

is is key a lot of marketing companies

talk about behavior but a lot of companies

don't understand how to get you ranking

and to me it's it's it's the combination

of if you you land on someone's website

and it's the sexiest website in the world

and it's appealing and there's amazing

videos and it's pulling you in that's

great but if no one finds your website

it's

Right.

It's over.

So you can drive traffic, right?

It's got to be a combination of OK.

Yeah, right.

And there's some other stuff in here, too,

just to touch on it,

because I think it's good to kind of

like talk about tips.

Everyone gets very fixated on the visuals.

But again, if you don't drive traffic,

then no one is going to see what

you exist.

And again,

you could have the most beautiful,

gorgeous website in the world.

And if it's not,

you know what they call CRO conversion

rate optimization,

like which means you don't have the right

calls to action.

They click off.

They're not shopping you for how pretty

you are.

Unless it's, again, there's exceptions.

You have very,

like dentists that are big into cosmetics.

So it's like veneers, you know,

like some of the full art stuff where

it's very visual.

But the CTAs,

these calls to action that matter the

most, it's like,

what's the number one question they ask

you when they call?

Paula,

what's the number one question patients

ask when they call?

Oh, gosh.

It just depends.

I'd say,

are you taking new patients or how much

is something?

Or insurance.

Yeah, do you take my insurance?

Number one thing,

do you take my insurance?

Your biggest CTA law,

every dentist writes about blah, blah,

blah, best smile, number one,

whatever here, da, da, da, da,

all generic.

The number one thing they're looking for

is do you take my insurance?

So that means you either work with

insurances if you're out of network or you

do take insurances,

which is the first thing they should see.

The second thing is,

is we are accepting new patients, right?

Because no one feels like wasting time

calling.

Number three,

do you speak another language?

Because Spanish is pretty predominant and

so is some other things in markets, right?

Followed by, you know,

a trust bar for reviews that should pull

right in because they want to see not

you posting someone that someone said

because that's not really a trust factor.

And then these other things about the

cost.

Do we have payment plans?

You have in-house plans.

Those are the five top calls to action

that drive them to the next steps.

Love that.

Do you see, Guido,

do you get a lot like the membership

plans that are really huge now?

Like if I don't have insurance...

what would they ask about that do you

it's all positioning right it would be

like payment plans it'd probably be like

do you take payment plans and then you

could explain but the thing is this is

the retail part of dentistry that dso's

have brought in here right so what like

no one understands really what that means

you know what they understand no insurance

no problem ask us about our in-house plan

that has something that clearly defines

and shows how things work so even if

you charge five ninety nine state it how

it is monthly because the whole world

works on cash flow

So what would someone search?

I don't have insurance.

Right.

Or again,

they're going to still start with a

generic search,

which is I need a dentist near me.

And then they're going to look for that

on the site because that is a call

to action that answers one of the

questions that they ask.

Or they might say,

how much is a dental appointment near me?

Which means you should have that.

embedded and that's the answer-based

search you're seeing everywhere so you

should be answering those questions within

the website isn't that crazy so like

that's where the ai stuff's really coming

into because you're starting to ask google

and chatty all the questions and it's not

now a normal search now it's an answer

so it doesn't necessarily say it on your

website it's embedded in there it'll have

something like no interest right there's

some okay

but the main thing going back to the

progression of what they do is they ask

a question look at reviews go to the

home page they're looking for calls to

action there if that aligns then they go

to the doctor profile right financial page

which should be very clear understanding

dental insurance not all this crap with

pictures of insurance up there that no one

knows what it means like make it for

like a five-year-old

What does in-network mean?

What does out-of-network mean?

What does fee-for-service mean?

And then from there, it shoots off into,

do you have payment plans?

Do you have an in-house plan on separate

pages with calculators?

And then it's contact us.

But you should be able to contact you.

It should go with you everywhere.

No one wants to talk to people anymore.

Again, you teach on scheduling.

It's an art.

You know,

you don't want to open up your whole

schedule,

but like as an overlay or something to

drive new patients and stuff,

you should make it very easy.

I just had that conversation yesterday.

Just don't open the whole thing up,

but you have to have it.

I will not.

Matter of fact, I have a, I'm,

I'm don't laugh at me,

but I'm taking my dog to physical therapy

and I'm trying to be a new patient.

When I say that I have fifteen times,

I've called them, they've called me back.

I've called them.

This has been a three-day process and I

still don't have an appointment for my

dog.

And now that you may ask me,

it's literally going to book an

appointment.

Yeah.

If they weren't referred by the other vet

that says they're, I mean,

because physical therapy for a dog isn't a

normal thing.

If they were just a normal vet,

I would have moved on a long time

ago.

Like, I can't take it.

Right.

well well something i can chat with

somebody besides this game of phone tags

okay so so the lesson learned today

because this is an express uh i'll call

it an express episode um is is really

understanding the area

in a deeper way,

a more intimate way than just a basic

patient to provider population ratio.

It's understanding that particular area

and the demand and the search that people

are asking and the insurances that are

popular.

And then it's taking it a whole nother

level to some CTAs, the call to actions,

um next level taking this whole thing to

the next level and and and then so

so then it's really about the call to

actions and having content that gets

picked up by google ai all the things

on those five things that you said in

the episode and having an answer for all

five of those things in the website i

heard all of that is there any thing

else that you just want to drop the

mic on as far as demographics and location

and all this this entire topic

So everything is based off of that and

what you wanna do.

And it has to align with who you

are also too, right?

You just can't make something like work,

right?

So it has to also align with who

you are and what you wanna be and

your work also too.

And does it fit into that area you

wanna open?

You can't change people there and they're

not gonna,

change you either so i think that's really

key you know also those things should

affect your hiring right because if you

see certain things popping up like

hispanic populations or aid whatever it is

then look at that because those are your

people the dentist is the third touch

point they're literally going to call see

whoever walks in your greeter your front

desk person

You know,

they've already kind of made a decision at

that point.

If they're waiting too long,

didn't have a good phone experience like

that really matters.

You know, I can't replace that.

We are going to have an episode here

coming out.

That's all about it's the the soft part

of marketing that no one talks about.

And that is we could do one hundred

percent of what you're saying.

Market by market, get all the searches,

get the calls.

But if there's a fumble in office and

Paul,

I'm going to need you for that episode.

If there's a fumble in office on the

insurance questions, it's over.

So Guido and the marketing company could

do all the job, the best job,

get you the calls.

But.

There's so many ways that it fumbles on

the one yard line.

It drives me as a consultant policy

marketing company.

Like that.

I can't imagine how many calls you get

saying I'm quitting you.

You know, what do you mean?

And they're like, I quit.

We get no new patients.

Well,

you get no new patients because you fumble

on the but I get you a shit

ton of calls.

Like whose fault is that?

Right.

So we're got to track that also.

Like nothing just happens out of the blue.

So those are where you want to get

in early on with working with someone like

you.

And it's like you do a secret shop

in the first six weeks and you're like,

listen, this isn't going to work.

There's nothing I'm going to do that's

going to work.

I mean,

you got to be transparent about it.

We're one team together.

We're not just sending you reports.

I we can get we will get to

that.

But that is the one reason why I

love mailers for a startup,

not because mailers always work,

but because the mailing companies listen

to every call, the ones we use anyways.

And it gives us a chance to listen.

to that uh listen to that call one

hundred percent of the time and you can

see if that front office person's doing

the job so also i think that everyone

has been flooded with like digital and

social so like when you get a piece

of mail now it kind of sticks out

so it's we've gone completely in the

opposite direction because we're seeing

open rates on mailers like it's true

I like COVID because you were kind of

like stuck at home.

So you're like, oh, I got junk mail.

Yes.

I was just going to say that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like you're just flooded in a digital

world with social media ads and other

stuff, too, that it's just constant.

So when you see something and you're like,

OK, it's a little outside of it.

So everything's got comes back full

circle.

So we're back to like mailers sort of

working in the eighties.

We're actually back to the nineties,

I think now.

That's right.

I pegged my jeans just yesterday because

they need him.

So I'm bringing it back.

All right, guys.

With that being said,

let's wrap the episode and move on.

Guido,

thanks so much for your time today and

your expertise.

I want you guys to really think about

how demographics really does affect your

marketing strategy.

It's just a big miss.

Your marketing company should be talking

about it.

Uh, and, and there, there, the,

the whole game has changed in marketing in

the last year, the whole game.

And so this is the stuff we should

be talking about,

not pay-per-click and all the, you know,

the things that we used to do today.

This is the, this is the way.

So, all right guys, without,

without further ado, uh,

closing it down again, like subscribe,

all the things, um,

we'll see on the next episode.

Talk to you soon.

All right.

Bye guys.

Bye.

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