Today in the Dental Marketing Secrets Podcast, we dive into 8 Powerful Reasons to use video when marketing your practice (and you don’t need a massive budget to do this!).
I will also share 6 tips to creating more compelling videos in order to reach more people, connect with them, and build rapport.
And I’ll be including a solid mix of examples that will tie all of these principles together and really drive home the key takeaways.
Join us!
Full Transcript
What do you get when you combine simplified practice marketing, proven ROI strategy, and Vans skate shoes? You get Mark Thackeray, of course. So lace up, grab your green smoothie, and get ready because this is Dental Marketing Secrets and this is Mark.
Hello and welcome my friends to episode number seven of the Dental Marketing Secrets Podcast where we provide actionable tips and tricks that you can apply immediately to grow your practice, to serve more patients and leave a greater impact in the community. That is what it’s all about. My friends, my name is Mark Thackeray and as always I am pumped to be here with you in this very moment on another glorious day, wherever you are and however you may be listening. Thank you for spending your time on Dental Marketing Secrets. I promise you it will be time well spent.
So in today’s episode we will be discussing eight powerful reasons to use video when marketing your practice. I’m also going to share with you six tips that you can use to create more compelling videos in order to reach more people. And I’m going to be including a solid mix of examples along the way that will hopefully tie in all these principles together and really drive home the key takeaways. B
ut if you don’t know or if you haven’t noticed recently, there has been a total explosion of video over the past year, few years. And the trend is going to continue. My friends check out these stats views of branded video content. So that’s, you know, company videos, sponsored videos has increased 99% on YouTube and 250% on, Facebook over the last two years. And on Twitter, a video tweet is six times more likely to be retweeted than a photo tweet. YouTube ranks right up next to Google as the largest search engine on the planet. In fact, they kind of go neck and neck.
And to give you some perspective, if you were to take YouTube user base imagine that was a country, it would be the third largest country in the entire world with just shy of 2 billion users every single month. And so video is here to stay. In fact, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg sees video as a mega trend that will continue to grow and grow.
So if you’re like a lot of practices out there, you might be wondering, well man, should I be creating videos for my website and social media? And the simple answer to that question is abso-freaking-lutely. You should, not only because everybody is doing it, but because it’s so versatile and it has this unique ability to connect with patients and prospects on a much deeper level. Okay?
So let’s look at why video is so powerful. Once, you know, I think once you start to see the why behind video, you’ll start to see why it’s been so, why it’s grown so rapidly over the past few years. So listen to these eight compelling reasons.
First, video boosts conversions and sales. So if for no other reason, this should light a fire under your Keester and get you pulling out your phone to record a video because video helps improve conversions and they’ve seen that improve conversions sometimes up to 30 to 40% and that can lead directly to more appointments scheduled for new, more new patients that you’re seeing. Okay? Or it could be lead to more a case acceptance, whatever the, whatever the objective is that can help with those conversions.
Studies show that 74 74% of users that watched and explainer video about a product or service went on to purchase that product. So it shows that they’re interested. It shows that they’re farther along in that buying process. And when you stop to think about it, video marketing is really in its essence all about taking advantage of our most dominant sense, the sense of sight. Because most information transmitted to the brain is visual. So when you combine those visual elements of a video along with proper messaging, then you have a unique opportunity to really grab the attention of your patients and prospects and help them to connect to you. And your office in a very significant way.
The second reason is that video shows great return on investment. So to get to even more excited, 83% of businesses say that video has given them an excellent ROI. Meaning when they use video, they see a tremendous ROI on the back end because it’s connecting, it’s engaging, it’s motivating patients and prospects to take action. And what’s so great nowadays about all this is that you don’t need a massive budget or you don’t need a hire a production company in order to create effective videos. You can, but you don’t need to. And what’s nice about all of this is that low quality and poor design, they don’t really matter nearly as much as they did in years past.
In fact, some of the most effective videos are the ones shot from your smartphone because viewers will see that you are a real person, that you are authentic, that you make mistakes. Sometimes that’s totally fine and cool. You know, it turns out that video is a lot like pizza. When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. You know what I’m saying?
So I want you to think about the videos that you watch on YouTube. For example, how many of those were filmed with the latest camera equipment, you know, filmed in 4K with on a crazy expensive RED camera. How many of those were shot with that? And chances are most of them were not. Yes, there are plenty on there that, that are shot with a nice equipment that looked, you know, are certainly a cinematic product, you know, but it’s, the vast majority are shot just with an iPhone or shot with a smartphone or shot with a handheld because they’re answering questions.
You know, I just watched a video the other day on, we’ve had some issues with our door handle, our door. I now, I’m blanking on the word the actual term, but it’s, it’s, it’s malfunctioning, you know, and so it would lock up when it wasn’t supposed to be locked. And so, I’ve looked up a video to see and guess who, guess how it was shot. It was shot with a camera, you know, as a locksmith. And here he’s holding the camera next to the lock and showing them step by step how to work it. And that’s what most videos are. You know, you don’t need that super fancy setup. Okay and as a result, when people are accustomed to looking to that because they see it all the time, they’re not, they’re not nitpicking and saying, Oh, this one’s a little shaky, or look at that clutter on your desk. Or there’s people moving in and out of the background, you know, that’s totally okay. In fact, I would even argue that it’s probably more effective for most practices out there because it demonstrates, again, that you are a normal person. That you are just like the people watching the video on the other end. Okay. Alright.
Third reason is that video builds trust. Let me ask you this question. What happens when you lose the trust of your patients? What happens? What do they do? Well, they leave and they go somewhere else. Trust really needs to be an essential element of all that you do. Okay? It should undergird all of your actions in order to create and sustain a long-term relationship with your patients. And what’s so cool is you can do that very easily with videos. So I would recommend by starting to address, create videos to address some of your most commonly asked questions. Okay. Provide useful information that patients can absorb without the necessity of coming into the office without inconveniencing them to come all the way in.
Just to answer their question, this not only builds trust, but it will position you as an industry expert, as someone who is so passionate about what they do, that they want to educate the general public at large because they see the benefits that they’ll get from it. Okay? They can see the vision and that’s what I want you to do. I want to emphasize, once again, and this will happen many times in this podcast, but when you create videos, you don’t have to be totally perfect. It’s okay to mess up once in awhile. It’s okay to show that you’re human. So just remember that as you’re starting and you’re messing up because you’ll likely mess up. It’s not going to be flawless, but that’s okay.
Fourth reason why video is so powerful is because Facebook and Google love it and whatever they love we do. But think about it from their perspective. What is one of Facebook’s primary goals? It’s to have you, the user spend really as much time as possible on their platform and when you’re watching a video you are now engaged and will likely spend more time (and studies show a lot more time) on Facebook than if you weren’t watching a video. So as a result they ended up prioritizing video higher than say a static image or just plain text. And as for Google, you are actually 53 times more likely to show up first on Google. If you have a video embedded on your website, and actually today it’s probably more like videos, plural on your website, a 53 times more likely. That shows again how much importance Google is placing on video over simple static content. And one thing, one one another little sub tip for this is that when you start to post your videos, you’re going to want to optimize those as much as you can.
And when I say that you’re going to want to use engaging, you know, titles and descriptions, things that really focus on the benefit for the user to, to view that cause view that content. What are they going to get out of this? Okay, so put that in the your descriptions. Add backlinks to your website, provide patients with a clear path to take the next step. That’s what I mean when I, when I say optimize your videos for SEO. All right.
Fifth reason why video is so powerful is that video appeals to mobile users. Incidentally, one of the other major trends besides video is the massive increase in mobile usage over the past few years. YouTube reports that mobile video consumption rises 100% every year, every year, hundred percent increase, doubling every year. And then in addition to that, Google tells us someone, prospects view videos on their smartphones. They’re actually twice as likely than TV viewers to feel a sense of personal connection to those brands.
So what does that suggest? It suggests that we as users, when we’re viewing this content on our smartphones, that there’s a different type of connection. It’s a more private, it’s a more intimate connection that we are having with those companies via our smartphone. And as a result, that holds both a great opportunity as well as a great responsibility. It’s an opportunity because it gives you the chance to relate and build rapport more quickly, but it’s also adds the caveat, this responsibility to be very prudent about what you put out there. You know, to exercise judgment and caution because the wrong type of content could be more damaging in the end. And that’s why I always stress on focusing your efforts on providing value upfront without any obligation on the part of the user.
And you hear me talk about this all the time, but lead with value and provide educational materials that can benefit the patient without any monetary expectations. So you can do a video easily around that, right? Answering questions to frequently ask questions, that sort of thing.
So six and that’s kind of leads us into our next point is that video marketing can’t explain everything. Okay? Do you ever get questions about the process of dental implants, how they work and what about sleep apnea or TMJ or heck, even questions about how insurance works? Raise your hand. I could see thousands of people raising their hand right now. Use video you guys to help answer those questions. You could create a simple explainer video to help patients better understand the process and the procedure and ultimately feel more confident about moving forward because now you have an educated patient, someone who knows all the backend, everything that goes into this particular procedure as well as the long-term benefits that they stand to gain from, from following through with this procedure. And now they’re in more of a position, they’re in the driver’s seat to say, yes, let’s move forward. Because if they don’t understand that process, chances are they’re going to say no or they’re going to say, I don’t really know, or I’m not sure. Let’s wait. They’re going to postpone because that’s what we do. We don’t want to make a decision if we don’t have all the information.
Now think about how powerful that could be to having a video that outlines the process behind the various stages of dental implants, along with what to expect each step without way, you know. So instead of the patient worrying about being sold or pressured because they have no freaking idea about the process of dental implants. Now, like I mentioned before, they have this foundation to draw from. They have the what, the why, the how of dental implants and those longterm benefits. They are in a much better place to make a decision for you. And that’s what’s great about a video like this, is that it can explain all those.
And one of the coolest parts is that it can do that every single time. It doesn’t get affected by the problems going on at home by the challenges of running an office or a business or the bills that keep stacking up on your desk. It does its job perfectly every, each and every time, just like clockwork. So powerful.
Seventh reason why video is so, so powerful and so engaging is that it engages even the laziest of buyers. Okay? Imagine a big sloth out there consuming your content. Even those people can get engaged because it’s a great tool for learning. Video is an excellent tool for learning and it’s easy to consume.
Have you noticed that in today’s world, we have just gotten so extremely busy and quite often we just don’t feel like we have the time to sit down and read through an article about sleep apnea. We don’t have the time to go through every single point on that page and figure out what to do about it. What’s the next step is instead, what most patients are looking for nowadays and most consumers in general is that they would prefer that you teach them via video. They prefer them, they show them step by step what happens, what they need to do.
Have you ever noticed how when you type a question into Google like how to treat TMJ? A lot of the answers will be videos. They are starting to put videos higher up on those search results because like we talked about before, it keeps you more engaged for a greater longer of time. But it’s also one of the easiest ways to get answers to your questions.
Again, think about your own experiences with this. You guys, when you have a question about are you more likely to, let’s say it’s about, it could be anything. It could be about connecting a new smart phone device. Are you, are you one of those people that are more likely to watch a video, go straight to YouTube or to search out an article and read through that paragraph by paragraph? And if you’re like most people, it’s YouTube all the way. You know the vast majority of people are clicking on YouTube to find that video answer. And that’s why YouTube is such as neck and neck with Google as far as search engines, as far as how many people go there to to find answers to their questions. Okay?
Now the last reason that video is so powerful is that it encourages social sharing. So when you post a video on Facebook, especially one that caters to a specific audience, specific group of people, and has the power to evoke a particular emotion that has the potential to go viral. Because if people like it, it is so easy to share that with friends and people they know. And as a result it’s exposing it to networks you may not currently be reaching. That is another powerful reason to look and start creating videos to grow your, your practice.
So there you have it, you guys, eight powerful reasons why you should get off your duff and start using videos to market your practice. Now I’m going to create a reference sheet in and I’ll put that, post that in the show notes that you can download and refer back to when you’re looking at video. And I’m gonna include some other things on there that also talk about here shortly. So look in the show notes. Go ahead and download that and keep that, save that to your computer.
All right, so now we’re gonna. Now that you’re super pumped, I can tell, I can hear it virtually in the digital world. It’s just resounding, I can hear the wall shaking. You guys are literally jazzed up and ready for to get down to videos for your 15 minutes of fame. You might be wondering though this great question, what do I do next? What kind of hands, you know, fiddling with your hands, not quite sure how to get started. So never fear my friends. Here are six powerful tips to create more compelling videos. I wanted to share these because I get this all the time. What do I do now? I get that it’s powerful. I get that it’s going to help me with my business. How do I get started?
Okay, so here’s six tips to really take and run with. Okay? So tip number one, inspire your viewers. Okay? Inspirational videos get way more shares and a lot more engagement than typical sales messages in a video communicates a story better than anything. And that’s generally what inspirational messages are, is it’s a story of, you know, where you were before to where you, you’re after the transformation, where you were after shows that gap right between the before and after.
So, for example, here’s what we did with one of my clients. We shared a video message for that showed their involvement with the Make-A-Wish foundation. And it just so happened that one of their team members, this was a practice manager, had been a recipient of the Make-A-Wish foundation foundation years ago when one of her daughters had cancer. So we created this short video about her experience, which of course when you’re talking about something that personal was very raw, was very emotional. And we ended up sharing that video with their patient base and encourage them to join in the fundraising efforts. So we wanted to show, uh, how would it benefit their, their family, their daughter in particular, who thankfully was okay and is still alive, doing super, super well.
And this was about 20 years ago that this all happened, but they wanted to share that experience to connect it to what they were doing currently. Okay. And that is a fantastic way to do that. And patients loved it because it showed that they were normal. You know, going back to this idea of authenticity that showed that they were just like everyone else, that they go through the ups and downs of life just like we all do. Okay, so that’s a great tip is to create inspirational messages.
Tip number two is to educate your audience. I know I’m laughing and shaking my head for you. I know I’ve mentioned this before and I have mentioned it in earlier episodes and I will continue to mention it as we move forward, but I’m going to say it again, you guys – educating your patients and your prospects about something that’s important to them is one of the easiest ways to increase engagement and build trust.
Hands down, plain and simple. One of my clients has actually designated each Tuesday as quick tip Tuesday where they provide a short helpful tip that viewers can apply right away. Okay? You and you can very easily copy this approach and start your own version. And it could, you could start with tips ranging from who knows, hygiene to insurance to cosmetic, to your qualifications, your specializations, what they should look for when selecting a dentist or what they should look for when selecting an orthodontist. Okay. How does that very, very easy way to get started using videos. Educate your audience. I’ll say it one last time. Educate your audience one more time. Tip number three for creating compelling videos. Be entertaining. Okay. This, this one really is a concrete rule of marketing in general and in fact, I think it should be a commandment of marketing because that’s how important it is nowadays, is to be entertaining.
People go on Facebook, people go on YouTube and Instagram to have fun, to get away, to be entertained. People watch TV because they want to veg out, you know? I mean, they don’t want to be using their brains. They just want to, they want to passively absorb information. Right? And they, if you look at all the TV stations, look how they’ve evolved. They are not citing fact after fact like they did in years past. It’s total entertainment almost entirely. That’s all it is. They may use a factor too, but then the rest of the segment, the rest of the half an hour is dedicated to them, their own interpretation of what happened and really their spin on everything. Because, and I see this all the time with sports. I’m a huge sports nut. I grew up playing almost all the sports. I have six brothers or excuse me, five brothers and one sister and they all play sports and so I ended up doing, I’m the youngest, I did everything that they did cause I wanted to be like them.
So I play all the sports and I love watching sports. But I find it so interesting that when I turn on a sports channel and it’s not theirs, the game is not on. What are they doing? They are just talking about the same thing. You know, each hour after hour, if you can watch 15 minutes of the sport, so, and know what they’re going to talk about the entire day because then it’s just a new host coming on and saying, Oh well this person, this person will never be the same after their injury or this coach should be run out of Los Angeles. And it’s just these different talking heads, repeating their various opinions for the remainder of the day and there’s no new facts presented. It’s just purely entertainment. But that’s the way everything’s going now. Okay, so you have to, you have to realize that.
But I don’t want you to think that you have to turn into this, you know, stand up comedian all of a sudden in order to create a successful video. You can do that, you know? So if you’re, if you are funny and you want to do that, go ahead. But you don’t have to do that. There are so many different ways to provide entertainment. Entertainment comes in so many different forms.
For example, you could create, let’s say a behind the scenes look at a certain procedure or a new tool that you recently acquired and how it, how it works and how it can benefit the patient. Or it could be, you know, an informal interview where you talk about something difficult that happened to you recently that gave you greater perspective on life. You could poke fun at a rival sports team or you could talk about, you know, maybe winning or losing a bet with your office manager and now you have to dress up like a fairy for the entire day. That’d be a great, that’d be a great one.
Super compelling, very entertaining, but play to your strengths, you guys, if you’re really, really interested in say, the newest technology, why don’t you grab, make a video of the latest smart watch and your thoughts on it, what you’ve liked about it, what you haven’t liked, what you wish would they would change that sort of thing. Or let’s say you’re like one of my clients who is really into spear fishing, you know it’d be cool is if they put together a video, why not shoot a video out on the Lake or out in the ocean, right after pulling in a ginormous 60 pound white sea bass from your recent trip to Southern California, you’re in your wet suit and you’ve got this spear in one hand you’ve got this massive fish that is entertainment, right? That’s your dentist, man. That is so cool.
How about poking fun of yourself? How about you know, looking at things that you used the way you used to look at dentistry and teeth before you knew what you know now, right? I mean, talk about your previous misconceptions about a root canal and what that, what you used to think about a root canal growing up. That could be a pretty funny, and again, what’s great about all of this is that most of these things should be very easy to talk about. Okay? Because you probably talk about these things all the time. You know, if you’re passionate about sports like me, you probably talk about them all the time. Or if you love to go spear fishing, you probably talk about all that time. So it’s easy for you to share that, that experience and especially if it’s based on an experience or a story, then it’s even easier to share and it’s also more engaging.
Okay, here we go. Tip number four for creating a more compelling video is to use powerful visuals to engage users fast. Okay? Meaning right at the get go, right from the start, you might have noticed that videos on Facebook will play automatically. So if you’re scrolling through your feed and you’re scrolling through and you see them, they’ll start to play automatically, but they don’t have the audio on until it user activates it by clicking on the audio. So the user actually has to take some type of action to click to make the audio turn on. And that’s why it’s essential. It’s critical that you catch your viewers attention right off the bat within the first five seconds so that it stops their thumb from scrolling. Right? I mean, you have to, you have to figure out some way to stop the scroll. Okay? And we’ll talk about a few things here in just a minute.
But that’s, that’s how you engage them until you pull them in to the rest of the video, to the rest of your message. And this can be done in any number of ways. You could, let’s say you could introduce a problem and promise a solution. You know, that’s a great way to do that. But one caveat is that you need to add captions to that. Cause if there, again, if the audio is off, they’re not going to know what you’re saying. But if you have captions, then they can watch the video and see just without the sound, without listening to any sound. Okay? So that’s one way. Uh, offer a surprise. You could start right off into the crux of the story. Again, using captions you could add a compelling, interesting title. So, you know, you could use a creative, really, you know, evocative, provocative, thumbnail, not evocative, but provocative thumbnail image that stands out, some compelling title, compelling headline that really calls people’s attention.
You could use an influencer, someone that they might recognize or like to follow or someone that they would be more likely to listen to. You could use them in your video. Just make it, you want to kind of pick one thing and then go with it and then focus the rest of your content on delivering on that one benefit. So if you, if you say, Hey, after you watch this video, you’re going to understand the three stages of dental implants and you’re going to understand what, what, what type of person, what type of qualifications are needed to feel comfortable from, you know, a it specialist to go to, to identify a specialist. I didn’t say that very well, but, you get my guest where they’re, they see clearly what the benefit is of watching that video. And so it’s, it’s easier for them to stay focused.
But if they, if you start going off on a tangent on, Oh, here’s three things to do and then here’s the 20 things and then 16 things all in a 62nd video that they’re giving, you’re going to lose interest pretty quick. Okay? So that is tip number four is use compelling visuals to engage users fast. You want to capture their attention quickly.
Tip number five is to record your video in portrait vertical mode, okay? So most people nowadays, like we were talking about, are viewing content online content via their smartphone, okay? And that’s vertically oriented, right? I mean the vast majority is vertically oriented. And so when you’re creating a video, you want to take that into consideration. And when you create a video in that mode or in that portrait setting, it will take advantage of their full screen. So not only does that improve your chances of engagement, but it also removes potential distractions.
Okay? So they’re not seeing what’s below the post below from your friend. They’re not seeing maybe an ad above, above yours or anything like that. So it’s, it’s going to encourage greater engagement. Okay. Because by shooting in that, that portrait, that portrait mode. Um, so an easy way to do this, a lot of people will simply stand their phone up against a book or box or something like that so that it remains vertical and upright during recording or others will simply hold it in their hands. You know, it’s, again, it doesn’t have to be completely steel all the time. You don’t want it to be moving all around like Blair witch. Cause some people would get turned off by that pretty quick, but just try it. It doesn’t have to be perfect tr you just see which one you prefer better. I’d try both of them and then just make sure that it’s vertically oriented. Okay.
Tip number five, keep it short and sweet. Make your videos short and sweet. Easy to consume. Now my general rule of thumb is to keep them around 60 seconds. This makes them bite size. This makes them consumable enough, but also forces you to really hone in on what’s important of your message, to crystallize your thinking and cut out all the fluff, which is going to produce greater engagement and connection in the end. So like we talked about earlier, lead with your hook, the single greatest benefit they’ll receive from watching this video and capture their attention early and then stay focused on delivering that benefit throughout the remainder of the video. Again, keep it short and sweet, only distill it down to the finest, the most powerful benefits that they will derive from watching this video. All right? Last tip for creating more compelling videos is to demonstrate your passion. Okay.
Another way to create a a very engaging video is by showing off what makes you tick, what makes you excited? What is it that got you into dentistry? You could answer that question. What was that pivotal moment in your life that puts you on this path to where you are today? What motivates you day in and day out? Help the viewers, help your patients. See what you see when it comes to the benefits of proper oral hygiene. You know, I mean the benefits of excellent dentistry. See how that, show them, take them with you on this journey of what, what happens to a patient that goes through and that and receives the treatment that they desperately needed, uh, but have been afraid to ask for their entire life. Show them all those benefits because there are so many you guys and you know what I’m talking about, but you need to help people understand, help them see the vision that you see.
Okay, so that is it. My friends. There you go. That was quite a list for you. I know I’m going to create a reference sheet like I mentioned before and put that in the show notes so that you could download and refer back to it when you are starting to create videos for your practice. So once again, if you aren’t doing videos, do it now. Okay.
This is your formal, this is your warning, this is your, this is your get it done now type thing. Because it is that important. It is one of the most influential marketing tools that we have available right now and it can very easily be used to help you serve and treat more patients and really transform more and more lives for the better. That’s the power of video marketing and I just encourage, I encourage you to follow these tips, use them as a guide and then really to start testing to see what is working best and then you just do more of what’s working simple as that.
So that’s it. My friends, thank you for joining us today on Dental Marketing Secrets!
