What are you known for as a dentist? Is there a specialty or elective-procedure niche you particularly enjoy, maybe a “Big Case” specialty that you really enjoy?

Did you know you can effectively market yourself in a “dental niche” and do it quicker and easier than you can market yourself as a “general dentist”?

One of the tricks is to use “long tail keywords” in your online media. Chances are those elective case procedures you want to attract are searching for you right now…

The trick is to use those dental niche specialty terms without using too much “dental-ese”. Use terms the public will readily know, but ones not every person who is looking for a dentist would type in the search bar.

When you want a new car, you don’t search for “car”. You search for “2012 Torch Red Corvette”. And when your patients are looking for solutions to their loose dentures, they don’t search for “dentist”, they search for the answer to their problem.

Here’s why this works so effectively!

Last month there were over 5,000,000 online searches across the U.S. for only “dentists”. That’s a lot of people needing dental work. If you are using the word “dentist” or “dentists” (and plural uses of the word should always be used – search engines count them separately) you can be represented in your area.

But every dentist on every corner will use at least one of the words “dentist” or “dentists” in their web pages and mobile marketing. That’s a lot of competition.

Use the “long tail” or expanded phrases for your niche or specialty cases YOU want to attract. If you do dental implants, put the phrase to work for you. By adding “mini dental implants” or “dental IV sedation” (for example) to your list of optimized words, you’ve expanded the keywords into areas not all dentists will use. The patients looking for dental implants will however, and you’ll get the business!

By standing out you are eliminating a lot of the other dentists who don’t do dental implants (or whatever your niche is) and crushing others who might be doing dental implants but don’t know this tactic.

Your current dental website is likely very pretty. It has flashy colors and graphics, a great catch phrase at the top, thematic before & after images, a great biography with your credentials, and a list 2 pages long with all the dental services you offer.

So why is it not attracting you new qualified patients?

The reality is, the problem is not your dental website(s). It’s not your web address, it’s not the colors you chose nor your bio & credentials, and it’s especially not how many keywords you’re ranking for. It’s your differentiation. It’s your uniqueness, or lack of…

Pick a city and you’ll be able to find at least a dozen dentists using one of the 6 BIG Wewe’s:

If you are targeting the patients that want free x-rays and exams, uniqueness doesn’t matter because these leads are only interested in “cheap.”

But when you want the $5,000-$50,000 deep disability reconstructive and cosmetic cases, you want to see the doctor who’s the expert, who does it full time. You don’t want to see the guy who “lists that he can do it” on his website. You’re looking for the expert in the niche that you’re researching.

Your patients don’t know you’re the expert unless you tell them.

The problem for many dentists is they expect their patients to “know” they are the best choice while not differentiating themselves as the obvious choice. They camouflage themselves amongst their competition, and when patients are trying to decide, they all look the same. So they keep looking…

If you want to attract the cases and patients that YOU want, your patients must see you as that “brain surgeon” (a.k.a. the master of one not the jack of all trades). You must be their hero and answer all their questions.

…And then (and only then) will they choose you.

Marketing is like playing ‘darts’.

When you play darts, you can hit lots of places on the dart board and still score points. But if you aim for the bull-eye, you’re going to score the most points with the least amount of throws.

It’s not about turning away patients that don’t need your other services, but rather about making you stand out as the expert in a specific niche area and attracting the patients needing that specific dental care.

By only marketing to attract the types of patients and cases you want, you can stay profitable in this new dental economy without discounting and without being insurance dependent.

How do you attract the patients you want?

Your advertising is a mirror reflection of the type of patient you will attract. If you want to attract the large cases and patients with money to spend, your marketing must be attuned to the needs of those patients (Hint: “Free whitening and x-rays” isn’t going to do it…).

When you want a new car, you don’t search for “car”. You search for “2012 Torch Red Corvette”. And when your patients are looking for solutions to their loose dentures, they don’t search for “dentist”, they search for the answer to their problem.

When you answer all of their questions, you will be their hero, and they will pick up the phone can call you.

So what’s the next step?

My grandpa used to say “brains are cheap”. And he was 110% right.

You don’t need to learn the nitty-gritty “how-to”, you just have to surround yourself with smart people. There isn’t any “get rich quick” scheme’s and there isn’t “a Google switch” to transform your website into a rock star overnight… But there are rock-solid ethical ways to get YOU seen by the patients YOU want.

The first step for many docs towards growing their practice and achieving economic freedom is just a click away…

The lawyers squirmed uncomfortably in their seats.

They were being asked to do something that took them a billion miles outside their comfort zone.

Someone was actually asking them to destroy their business.

This law firm has just run head-first into 180 degree thinking.

So what’s 180 degree thinking?

Let’s drop all logic for just a moment and play a game that makes your brain run awry…

Imagine you run an airline. You know… Delta, Southwest, American, etc.

Now imagine that you want to destroy your airline as ethically as possible. How would you do it?

You’d do everything your customers hate.

So let’s make a plan:

Good start, eh? Now let’s suppose you changed your mind…

You decide you don’t want to destroy your airline.

What would be the first thing you would do to grow?

That’s easy… wider seats, attractive & smiling hostesses, be on-time, and serve great food and drinks.

And that’s what made the lawyers uneasy.

Because when they went through their 180 degree thinking concept… When they stopped thinking about "How to grow my business" and they turned it 180 degrees, instead they came up with the hard truth.

…And the truth made them squirm.

So what did their clients hate?

And guess what those lawyers did, day-in and day-out?

We’re all good at bugging our clients.

Now I’m not taking potshots at lawyers, I’m just saying – we all do it. And most of the time we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

Even as you read this article, your patients are searching for an exit sign. And no, they won’t leave in a fit of rage yelling and screaming.

94% of your unhappy patients will quietly slip away from your practice without saying a word, unless you ask them a critical question…

What would you have to do to destroy your dental practice?

First, do this exercise in your head: What dumb things would we have to do to run off our patients?

Write down every possible thing you can think of…. EVERYTHING that would make your patients stampede out of your practice.

Now that was easy, right?

The hard part is sitting down and actually asking your patients "what bugs you?"

Funny enough, the fear of feedback doesn’t lie with your patients. It lies with you.

Yeah you – the one who’s afraid of what your patients might say. And now that you’ve got their feedback, now you have to fix something.

In every case study we’ve done before, the patients were more than happy to talk about their bad experiences – they just didn’t know how.

Getting complaints is like winning the lotto!

You need to ensure you’re getting a constant stream of complaints (or if it makes you feel better, call it "feedback”). Get rid of the "feedback" form and go right to your patients, face-to-face. Let them know if anything goes wrong, to come talk to you.

Complaining patients don’t want to leave your practice, they want to be wooed back. Fix the problem, and let them know how you fixed it. Patients brought back from the brink are extremely loyal.

Richard Branson, billionaire serial entrepreneur and CEO at Virgin Atlantic Airways, has been known to make personal appearances at the gate when flights are late to apologize. Can you imagine how you would react to this?

Remember, it costs 8 times as much to get a new patient as it does to keep an existing one.

Can you see what’s happening?

In effect, you’re removing failure.

And when all the failure is gone, guess what you’re left with?

Just the success.

180 Degree Thinking is Only For the Brave.

The lawyers were uncomfortable. The airlines squirmed a little. You’ll have this same "butterflies in your stomach" feeling when dealing with 180 degree thinking.

Get over it.

If you want to grow your practice, it’s vital to employ 180 degree thinking.

And if you want to destroy your practice, that’s easy.

Just do nothing.

There are five ways to differentiate yourself and become a superhero dentist.

…or why not be all five?