Social Media Marketing For Dentists In 2026 with Rahil Kumar [CPD Available]

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UK Dentists: Collect your verifiable CPD for this episode here >>> https://courses.dentistswhoinvest.com/smart-money-members-club

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If your practice is “booked up for eight weeks”, you might feel successful, but you could also be bleeding high-intent patients who simply will not wait. We sit down with Rahil Kumar from MySmile Media to unpack what organic marketing really means for UK dentists in 2026, and why the basics now decide whether patients choose you or move on within minutes.

We talk funnels in plain English: every view, click, and doorstep glance sits at the top, then the journey narrows through enquiry, consultation, and attendance. From there we get specific about the points most practices miss, like lead response time, how to remove friction from booking, and why your website is not a brochure but a growth engine. Rahil shares the practical checklist he uses when auditing dental websites, including mobile-first design, loading speed, clearer calls to action, and writing that patients actually understand.

The conversation also turns to the AI shift: people are using ChatGPT for everyday searches, and Google’s AI Overviews are changing how patients consume information. The takeaway is not to abandon SEO, but to treat it as a long-term practice builder that earns trust and visibility over time. We finish with an organic social media plan you can stick to, why three consistent posts a week beats sporadic bursts, how to balance before-and-after content with human stories, and when TikTok is worth your energy compared with mastering Meta first.

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Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. Investment figures quoted refer to simulated past performance and that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results/performance.

Transcript

CPD Access And Member Discounts

Dr James 2:04

However, you can find your CPD for this episode within the official denies at Smart Money Members Club. Smart Money Members Club also includes multiple mini courses and webinar series with finance attendance, including part of the comm as taxation as possible, as well as understanding investing. All this content points as a verifiable CPD, and you can download your certificates there and then on completely lesson. In addition to this, we also include a whopping 10% discount on your dental indemnity and a 5% discount on lab bills for dental principles, amongst other parts and discounts for members. Please use the link in the description to claim your verifiable CPD for this episode. Alright, welcome back, another episode of Dentists Who Invest Podcast here. Here to talk about something we haven't talked about in a long time and actually is really, really, really important. So it's about time that we did, and that is organic marketing with the expert on this matter, Mr. Rahil Kumar from MiSmile Media. Rahil, how are you today? Very good, mate. Thank you very much to both of you for having me on. Hey, listen, good to have you back. And yeah, you're quite right, because this podcast is a little bit of a departure from the norm on the DWI podcast, in that it's co-hosted by myself and also Dr. Dan Shaffer. Thank you very much. Hey, no problem, mate. Good to have you here. And you know what? Uh yeah, worth mentioning that we know each other through Business of Dentistry, uh, which is the events uh side of things uh over here in Dentist who invests. And like I say, uh we're recording this podcast again, fresh off the back of having done an event yesterday. So we're riding high, we're feeling good. We're still in the venue, hence our plush surroundings. Uh a little bit of an upgrade uh from what we do normally, which is basically just a webcam. Uh so yeah, no, it's uh it feels good. It feels good to have another big event in the bag, looking forward to the next one already, come October time. But that's not the purpose of pointing this podcast. The purpose of pointing this podcast is to talk about organic marketing and what's changed in 2026. So I guess the first thing to do would be to start out by defining organic marketing because I know people use that term, they throw it around a lot, but how do you define it? Because definitions differ slightly on this one sometimes.

Rahil 4:14

I think it's I think it's a trend of marketing. It's like you know, everything, everyone's got a different definition for everything. Uh I think go back to the our podcast that we did on branding, like everyone finds it so hard to define it. Um we look at all organic marketing as uh kind of a series of channels as opposed to like you know a cluster, shall we say? Um so we look at it as let's say posting on posting on social media, be it Facebook, be it Meta. Uh we class SEO as more organic marketing, even though you're you know, even though you're having to potentially pay an agency. What do we class it as organic marketing? We actually group your website into organic marketing as well. Um so we kind of group those, I'd say, three main channels as your you know, as your organic marketing kind of piece.

Dr James 5:06

Yeah, I guess another way of defining it is the more passive stuff, right? A little bit, kind of. As in to me, it's there's more of a with ads, it's like when you see the word ad, you're already primed, there's a CTA here, right? And to be fair, organic stuff can have CTAs in it as well, but it's a lot more about branding and positioning and everything along those lines. Or at least, at least usually it is, anyway. Again, as you're saying, it's a little bit more hard. It's harder to define, but having an extra perspective on it or an extra way of describing it will help make it hopefully a little bit more clear in people's heads.

Rahil 5:43

Yeah, I think that you know the way that we the way we look at paid compared to to organic is like you know, paid is paid's a tap. You know, you turn that tap on, leads come out of the bottom. Like you know, you spend money, you get leads. Either that's through Google, through that's Facebook, but you turn that tap off, it stops. Whereas the way we look at organic is that everything that you you know you do, be it post content on social media, be it putting blogs on your website to rank higher in SEO, be it you know building a website and and having that live, like you you know, you do it once, but it it remains there. Um so that's kind of how we differentiate it as well.

Dr Dan 6:21

Sure. And that SEO, I mean, uh for the benefit of the listeners, SEO is search engine optimization, and uh the other term I think we use was CTA, which is a call to action, which would be a button for people to press or or click through to. And these form all parts of a funnel. And you know, we use that term just to symbolize the widened top going down to a narrow bottom. So you get a large number of people you feed into the top of the funnel, and they dwindle away to those uh leads. You might get them through a call to action, whatever it is, and you qualify those leads, and the quality ones fall out the bottom, and those are the leads that you then want to work with.

Funnels And Where Patients Drop Off

Dr James 7:09

You know, I really like the funnel analogy, is a is a common one used in marketing, and you can even use you can even describe each one of your channels as a funnel in and of itself, right? Uh so the the top, but it's it gets wider at the top and narrower at the bottom. I think that's a Russell Brunson uh uh uh piece of terminology right there, uh the the marketing funnel, or perhaps maybe it wasn't his originally, perhaps he popularized it. I don't I don't know. But Rahel, tell us what a funnel is in your words, because I'm I'm curious to know, curious to know your thoughts on this. Because every I heard him say once, this guy Russell Brunson, I remember reading one of his books back in the day, and um he was he said something stuck with me and he said, All businesses are a funnel in essence, right? Whether you have digital marketing or you don't, your business is still a funnel, right? Because at the top of the funnel, you've got your sign outside your door, right? And then of the amount of people you see that, some people will make through the next album whether walk through the front door, right? And then some people can make it through the next level where they book an exam or whatever.

Rahil 8:10

I like that one. I like that. That's cool, right? I like all businesses are a funnel. I like that. Every stage of the every stage of the customer journey is actually a fun- I like that. Um honestly there's I think the the way that you both kind of explain the funnel is is pretty much spot on. Um obviously starts wider at the top, and you've got like you know, if you just look at it as a whole, let's say as you know, your marketing activity as a whole, you'll have all sorts of things that will feed into you know people going in at the top of this funnel. So they might see you on your organic social media, they might find you on Google, they might click on an ad, they might, they might even just walk past your brand. Like, you know, whatever it is, like you know, they see you in some way, but like you know, at this point we don't know what what you know what they're doing when they see you, whether they're interested in anything that you do, or they're just browsing. But every eyeball on you, in essence, feeds into the top of the funnel. And then each stage that you go down the funnel, this funnel gets tighter, is more qualification, as you said, Dan. Um, so they move from an eyeball into a lead, from a lead into a consultation, from a consultation into actually going into the practice. And each one of those, yes, you are gonna have a drop-off, it's only natural, but from a marketing point of view, and then from a you know, from a you know, from a team point of view, it's about making sure that we try and minimize that drop-off and make it as efficient as we can. So ultimately you end up with more patients in the chat.

More Patients Or Higher Patient Value

Dr James 9:38

Sure. So, yeah, there's only two ways that you can uh the other the way to expand on it as well is another thing that I liked is and there's only two ways you can actually make your phone more profitable. Okay, you can improve the throughput, okay? You can, as in, you can generate more customers. You can either generate more customers or make the customers worth more. And I love this. This was some really cool business wisdom, right? Uh you can either generate more customers or make them worth more, right? So, how do you do that? How do you generate more customers? You either widen the funnel, okay, you widen it, or you increase the throughput. How do you make them worth more? You increase the LTV of the patient, however that's done. Or you the the custom, or you know, it you know, obviously we want to do things ethically and do the right thing for the patient. That comes first and foremost. Uh, and then we enable them to make choices that are good for their health. And if those happens of a greater monetary value, then what that means is obviously the business's revenue is boosted too. But like I said, it you have to be now, but it has to be that way around, not the other way around, of course, just to say that out loud. But yes, anyway, um, so like I was saying, and that I think that's a no-extra musi quote, and we mentioned him before. He was like, you either make more customers or you make them worth more, right? And I was just I I love little things that just make these seemingly abstract and break. It makes them more simple, right? And I'm like, right, I'm either trying to do this or this. But here's the thing I see Dennis do wrong with marketing a lot of the time, and it'll be interesting to get your take on this. Uh, because I think sometimes they use it incorrectly, and they're like, oh, I want my business to be more profitable. My diaries are booked up by six to eight weeks. I think I'm gonna try to get more patients, right? And it's like, no, that literally makes no sense. You have to actually make them worth more because it's not a fully leveraged business, right? Like if you if you had a pure, if you had a website like Amazon, you know, if 10 people look at the website or a million people look at the website, it's literally the same, okay, in terms of effort for them. It's fully leveraged, right? Okay, maybe server costs go up. I don't know. I don't know enough about that stuff, right? But a dental practice can only have so many patients. There's only so many seats, there's only so many hours in the day, there's only so many instances that the dentist is going to be in a chair with a patient, right? So in that instance, you have to make them worth more. Thoughts on that?

Booked Up Diaries Lose Hot Leads

Rahil 11:41

I think it's an interesting concept, this booked up for weeks that you that you said earlier. Um a lot of dentists, I think, in the past used to, it almost used to be a sign of, oh, look at me. A badge of honor. Yeah, a badge of honor, exactly. I'm booked up for I'm booked up for six weeks, I'm booked up for eight weeks, I'm booked up for like, you know, some months in advance and needs to, you know, say it very proudly. Um what that actually means now is that if a customer or a potential patient inquires in and they want to see you, and they're at the hottest moment that they are, like, you know, they have inquired, they are like, yes, I want this. You are the practice I want to go to. Oh, I you can't see me for 10 weeks. You think that customer's gonna, you know, they think that patient's gonna stick around. No, they're gonna shop for they're gonna they're gonna go shop around because they're still they still want it. But we're in a generation and and we're in a we're in a you know um a society now, shall we say, where we want things now. And not just in the dentistry, but outside the dentistry. I want food, Uber Eats, here within half an hour, done. I want you know, something, I want something delivered to my daughter, Amazon Prime next day, or even the same day now. It just comes to me. We get everything now, now, now when we want it. Same with information. I want to know something, I can find it on Google, I can find it on YouTube, I can get everything the way I want it, the way I want it now. But if someone wants to go see a dentist and they're like, oh, I've booked up for eight weeks, you know, I still want this thing now, I am gonna go shop around. So that it's kind of been a big shift where it's getting patients in when they're the hottest is is you know one of those ways where we're talking about, oh, how can we get more patients at the bottom of the funnel? You know, see them as quickly as you can, get in contact with them as quickly as you can, and see them as quickly as you can. I think there was research done that shows if you, you know, when a league comes through one of your channels, be that social media, be that through the website, if you contact we if you contact them within five minutes, you're 80% more likely to get in contact with them. And every minute that you wait is a minute that goes colder and colder and colder. So, you know, I submit an inquiry to a practice, and then 16 hours later someone gets back to me, it's like that moment for me is is gone. Like I was at I was at my hottest when I submitted that inquiry. And I'm not saying, oh, if someone needs to man this phone 24-7, like, you know, obviously evade practice working hours, but there's a there's a whole thing in terms of everyone looks at marketing as all the you know the fancy stuff at the at the top of the funnel, and we're obviously going to talk about that, but it's also improving each step in that funnel, the contacting them, getting them booked in, all of these things actually mean you don't have to keep, you know, spending as much money on the top of the funnel, and you can still generate more patients at the bottom of it.

Dr Dan 14:43

Sure. I I I like that idea, and it made me vaguely uncomfortable if I'm honest about the lifetime value of a patient. So but but I like that idea because we used to call it kind of, you know, if you get a patient and you treat them well, you'll keep them for life, they'll send you their children, their grandparents, their friends, you'll turn them into a walking advert, and you know, they'll then showcase what you've done and how you do it. And if you ask your patients what they tell their friends, they'll tell you, you know, hopefully they'll tell you something like, Yeah, you can really trust this dentist, they'll sit down and have time to talk to you, and that's what people are after. And and so that's how word-of-mouth referral works, which is the most effective, organic way to uh you know grow your practice. And the more effort you can put into that, the better, as long as you consciously do it with your team. But this lifetime value of a patient, so you quantify it into pounds, shillings, and pence, and you say, right, okay, well, this patient will be with me 20 years, they'll need you know, five shillings, they'll need you know, 10 crown, however you want to in an implant. So that's the value that the patient's gonna bring. They're gonna bring in referrals, X, Y, and Z, and we can assign a number. Now, to me as a clinician, and I know I'm the only one clinical out of the three of us, yeah.

Ethical Tension With Patient Lifetime Value

Rahil 16:02

It makes a change from the Usual Podcast, yes, I'm sure, having just marketing coming on.

Dr Dan 16:07

Yeah, well, absolutely, but uh it makes me vaguely uncomfortable as a clinician, and I'm sure some of your listeners might be uncomfortable, having to use those business insights and think about the lifetime value of a patient when all you're doing is ethical treatment, you know, you're curing disease with practitioners, we're healthcare practitioners. And for me, it just sits a little bit, I don't know. I mean, do you do you find that resistance in dentists and healthcare practitioners to the idea of quantifying these patients into pounds?

Rahil 16:43

Yes, because it's not like you know, every dentist, like you know, your first, you know, your priority first and foremost is to want to help that patient. Obviously, like you know, with every service as an associated cost, but a lot that you know the ethical responsibility is to is to help that patient. And the other part of it is that for dentists by and large, like across the board, no one has really taught them these things as well. Be it like, you know, we're gonna come on to, I'm sure, like, you know, more fancy terminology, but like you know, lifetime value and cost per lead, and you know, when how quickly you need to contact like you know, leads that kind of like no one's really, you know, you don't discuss this in dental school. Like, you know, it's never really been it's never really been a topic for a lot of dentists, and then they come into this world of practice ownership, and suddenly they're thrown into thrown into the deep end having to, in essence, kind of believe what a multi-agency will tell them because they don't know what good looks like to know, okay, this is what I should be expecting on my end, or this is like you know, what figures I have in for my practice and terms of that lifetime value.

Dr Dan 17:56

Um so yeah, I think it's it's kind of two things in in that sense. And and it goes a bit further. I mean, a lot of dental practices in the UK don't even have websites. Which is really weird when you think crazy to think about.

Dr James 18:09

Any stats on that? Or if you have to lick your finger put in the air, I hill.

Rahil 18:13

Ooh. Uh I don't have a stat on it off the top of my head.

Dr James 18:18

Maybe an ex in ex maybe even if it was a lick your finger put in the air, just in your experience, sort of thing.

Rahil 18:25

I think many don't have websites. I'd like to change it slightly. I think there's I think that's a I'd like to think a lot of the practices would have a website, but whether they would actually whether they've actually looked at that website in the last and it might be 20 years old. Exactly. I think that's the that's the kind of reframe I'd like to apply to because I think a lot of practices, like let's say finger in the L I said that 80% of practices will have a website, but that website, you know, let's say if they bought that practice 15 years ago, that was the last time that anybody had a look at probably that website. Um and that figure, that percentage is a lot, is the one that probably means a lot more, is they don't actually like you know, revisit that website, it is and it still has the same look, feel as it did 15 years ago, and we know that the way that things have moved along. And the the way that an audience and our consumers look at a website and how they buy is very different to what it was. Like you know, even five years ago, how different it is. So I think that's the more important kind of stuff.

Dr Dan 19:31

And I see I've seen some websites for dentists that look like they're stuck in the 80s from the beginning of the origins of the internet, and you think, well, you know, what's what's going on here? I mean, as a user, I'm gonna go onto that set and I'm gonna think, whack, this is just incredibly weird.

Outdated Websites Quietly Repel Patients

Rahil 19:47

It's it's just the twilight time machine. Yeah, and and you could and that dentist could be actually the best dentist for that patient. Absolutely. But they will that patient will never know it. Don't even walk into the surgery. Exactly, because it it it feels you know, if you'll that website will feel alien, almost alien to them to visit, uh, because it just hasn't kept up with the times.

Dr Dan 20:09

But it's almost like dentists feel like they're outside of that consumer world. I know we've been discussing this, and and and they don't have to do this stuff, they'll have their practice, and people will just walk in through the door. But that is really changing.

Mobile First Design And Fast Load Times

Dr James 20:24

Yeah, that's the top of the funnel, right? Yeah, that's literally the top of the funnel. And people who walk through the door, uh, yeah, well, the website can be obviously the digitally can be part of that decision. And yeah, just to look back to I know your area of expertise is of course the marketing side of things. Uh Rahil, if we and you know, I get what you're saying. It's like as we progress down the funnel, it's like, okay, response times, and then how do those conversations go? Who books in, what do they book in for? And that's as it progressively gets narrower. Mark the main marketing mainly to me is like the very, very, very top bit, right? Or at least that's the first thing, anyway, right? Because you're you're increasing the throughput, aren't you? So if we were to focus on that area, let's talk. I'd love to talk about uh socials. Yep. I'd love to cover that. And I'd also love to cover, but before we jump onto that, we were talking about websites just a second ago. Yeah, you must be able to look at a website and be like, right, change this, this, this, this, and this. And all of a sudden the website goes bang, pop. What are those things? And I know obviously it's like, okay, cool. You know, there's a difference between knowing what they are and how do you apply them. I get this. I get there's the devils in the detail, but even if you could just round some off, some easy ones, that'd be really valuable for the audience.

Rahil 21:39

We have we have uh we have a little like you know website checklist that we that we go through when we audit our websites, like you know, it it's quite long, so I can pick out like the best ones that we look at. And the one that sticks out a lot for for dentists now is it does it actually is it actually optimized for mobile? What a lot of agencies in the past will have done is they would have shown you this incredibly nice built-out website on the laptop with the video here and the button looks beautiful and it all flows really nicely. But what we found, and we did some tests on sites that we built and managed, is that around 60 to 75 percent of the visitors on that website are now coming from mobile, which makes sense because that's where we spend all of our time. So you know we all carry our phones in our pockets, it's you know what we scroll on all the time, it's where like you know, it's where our attention is, and obviously, the because of that, like you know, people in the visit your website from it. So we've seen that about 70% of the traffic for a website will come from the mobile, but when you visit that website on the mobile, suddenly that video that looked incredible on the web on the desktop version is now shrunk down. Yeah, then you only see like the bush when you enter the practice instead of someone walking through the front door.

Dr Dan 22:51

And the sides cut off.

Rahil 22:52

Exactly, the sides cut off, the image is stretched out or really thinned in. The you know, the button that you know you click when you let's say wanted to book an appointment is half off the screen. Yeah, and it's a kind of reframe that we're trying to do is we build mobile first now because that's where the majority of the traffic comes from. The other one is actually the other one's a very simple one, is uh how quickly does your website actually load. Um it goes back to the you know, we're in that generation where we want everything now, now, now. Um, and there were some stats published recently by um by a agency that looks not only at the at healthcare but also like you know um a lot of industries as a whole. And they said that if your website doesn't load within three seconds, yeah, that 53% of people. Will click off and go and find something else.

Dr Dan 23:45

And scroll attention on socials is even smaller. I mean that's about one and a half seconds. If you don't see content come up, then you'll just scroll on.

Rahil 23:54

You're gone because we're in that we're in that thing where we want it now, now, now. Um, and then there's so many, there's you know, there's there's so many other ones in terms of websites, like having a clear like journey that you want this, you know, this custom this patient or this potential patient, should I say, to follow when they get on the website? Like, you know, if they get on the website and they can't actually see where that button is to book an appointment, or the first thing that they see is to do with like your cancellation policy or something like that. How many a clear journey for them to follow when they get on the site presenting the information in a way that's actually easy for them to understand and avoiding too much dental jargon?

Dr Dan 24:31

Yeah.

Rahil 24:32

I think you know, you you both probably testify to it that when a dentist gets talking, especially if that's something technical, it can go over a lot of people's heads, especially if they're not familiar, familiar with it, and that can scare a lot of people off. So actually, just you know, simplifying it down into language that a patient will will understand. Um, and I think you know, the last last couple are coming back to what we discussed earlier, with almost that look and feel of the website. Like, you know, if it doesn't look and feel like a modern day website, like you know, if your meet the team is just it's not even pictures of the team, if it's just like you know, blank faces, yeah. And all I see is Dr. So and so, and then the 20 letters after his name that to a dentist are you know another badge of honour. But for a you know, for a painting, like you know, for a consumer, what does that mean for me? Why does you know the fact that he's got this many letters after his name, what does, you know, what does that mean for me? What is this person actually like? Um the two questions, the two important questions we ask someone with their website are kind of looking at when they last looked at it are you know, firstly, like, are you proud of your website? We we like to do a little test when we when we run our events, is we pick someone and we're like if we were to put your website on the screen in front of everyone else, like then would you be happy for us to do it now? What do people say? No, really not. Genuinely not. Genuinely not, but then they're happy for tens, if not hundreds, of patients, of potential patients to be seeing it every single day. Yet they won't show it on a room full of full of 10, 20 people. Um, and then fundamentally, like, you know, what is your website there for? It's there to generate inquiries, so is it doing its job as a website?

Dr Dan 26:21

And then people have got to find the website as well. Yeah, and the website is one gateway and hundred percent. Search engine optimization is not just about that. I mean, you can write blogs and you can optimize the blogs so that they come up on a Google search. You can uh you know, register your business on Google Business listings, and that'll get you up on the maps, and and that's called the the is it the three-pack in the top three uh businesses, so you can you can optimize your organic listings uh to get found a lot easier. But the game is changing, isn't it? And and I I'll tell you what, this chat GPT using it to glorify Google, this is now the thing that people are really interested in, and they're finding it difficult to optimize listings for chat GPT, although there are some tips and tricks apparently.

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ChatGPT Search And Google AI Overviews

Rahil 29:03

I can tell you a funny, funny little story. So I was in London not too long ago, and usually when I get to London, if I need to figure out when I get into Houston where I need to go, I'll put it on the Underground app or go on Google Maps. So I was going down the escalator into Houston, I have my journey map tower, I was gonna go on the Northern Line and then I was gonna go um, I think I was on the Victoria. The woman in front of me, instead of going on to Google or on the under on the like you know, TFL app, she went on to Chatley GPT and she said, How do I get from Houston to here? And I love it. I am a big advocate for it, but even I'm like, wow. That's how much people are like, you know, that's how much this you know people are using these things day to day now.

Dr Dan 29:49

Uh but it probably worked better and gave uh there's a delay on the northern line, so you need to avoid this route, whereas the app might not have said it quite like that.

Rahil 29:57

Every everyone's got their own preferences, isn't it? And then like, you know, with Google now, for example, they have an AI overview. Like, you know, you don't even for a lot of the time you answer you ask a query on Google and it'll come up with this AI overview, which is Google's, in essence, AI summary of what you're looking for. But what's really interesting, and it comes back to the SEO point, is if you look at the sources of where Google's actually picking up that information from, most likely you will find those websites that it uses on page one of Google. So Google will use sites in its AI overview that it actually trusts. It's not just gonna obviously, you know, it's not just gonna pull information from everywhere. It's gonna look at you know the sites that it trusts and the sites that rank highly. So it's not only a case of yes, you can be found high, like you know, more organically and you know, get higher on Google, not only on the Google Maps listing, but also on Google searches, but you will now also feature in these AI overviews that everyone's now getting when they search on Google as well. So it's it's something that is such a good like long-term practice builder is the way that we look at SEO. You're not gonna see a return on investment with this as you would pay down. It's not gonna be like you know, you turn the SEO tap on and you're now gonna start getting patients. It's a long-term practice builder, but it's value when done right. Like being on page one of Google, if you can get to number one, yeah, wow. Because people are becoming more like distrusting of ads if they see the word ad, and so changing. Sponsored listing. Exactly. I'm sure you can both testify to it. Like people are becoming more distrustful of that. So some people like you scroll past it straight to that number one organic listing.

Budgeting Backwards From Cases To Leads

Dr Dan 31:46

I know I do when I use Google. And and coming to things like budgeting, I mean, should you be setting aside uh a marketing budget? How do you how do you do that? Because you know, you need to spend money on these things, and and you know, however you do, whatever you do. We've talked about improving websites, we've talked about feeding people into funnels, everything costs. Um the thing that really used to annoy me when I used to have a marketing budget was the marketeer would come and we'd sit down and they'd show me a lovely graph with great colours on it. And it would say, Right, you've got this number of impressions, and that means the number of times people have seen the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's converted into this number that's also very impressive. And and the marketer would say, Isn't that great? And and I'd be sitting there thinking, Well, I haven't seen many more patients in the book. Bums on seats is what it is called. Now, you know, how do you assess, especially with things like organic SEO improvements, uh, which we've talked about, that you're not going to see a return straight away. How can you then budget and convert to bums on seats?

Rahil 32:53

It is probably one of the probably one of the hardest questions to to answer because dentists, like as we all do, they know we want things to show a return that you know as soon as possible. Um when it comes to we don't like to kind of group everything, like you know, we don't have to look at things individually, as you said. Like we try and set up an overall marketing budget, and that will include obviously some paid activity in there, and then there'll be a section set aside for obviously the practice building organically, be like I'd be the website, SEO, social media. Um, there's I think in the agency world now, there's you know, as with there is with dental practices, so much competition. Like, you know, you can get SEO done for a couple hundred pounds a month, or you can get SEO done for around a thousand pounds a month. But it kind of depends on, you know, the quality, the quality of what you get is gonna be different, and also like you know, how much they're gonna do on your site is gonna be different. Um for me, it's more about prioritize like you know, what's you know, the channels that are actually gonna that are right for you in the moment. Um for a lot of practices yes SEO is important, but I would look at let's say your social media and your website as bigger priorities than investing money in SEO straight away. Yes, the benefits are more long-term with SEO, but if you look at you know just pure eyeballs on where you know your customers are, social media is kind of one that you have to be on. And I know we're we're probably gonna discuss that a lot more like as we as we talk. And just as you said, your website, like it's in essence that is your that's your growth engine. Um, and even if like you know you're not being found as as high as you want organically, there are still other ways to drive traffic to get to that website. Um setting that budget is hard, but we kind of we work backwards in a sense. We kind of look at how many, right, this is you know, this is how many cases we want to be doing. To get this many cases, we need this many consultations. To get this many consultations, we need this many leads. To generate this many leads, this is gonna be our overall budget. Um so we kind of work with the practice to set these goals and where they want to be. So we kind of work backwards from bums on seats and said, okay, this is in essence how many eyeballs we're gonna need to get these bums on seats. And in terms we were talking about, there's two ways to increase that. You either increase the number of eyeballs or you increase the conversion piece between every single one. So you go from the eyeball, the number of eyeballs could stay the same, but you can get more leads from it because you became more efficient in capturing that. You convert more leads into a consultation because you became more efficient in actually like you know that can that first step conversion piece. So we work backwards and we kind of you know see where the drop-offs are before we instantly start looking at okay, this channel and this channel, because there's so much that can be done without even like the drastic measures on top of the funnel.

Dr James 36:10

I think it's just doing the basics and doing them really well. I mean you're like most things in life, if you literally just do the basics really well, you're like in the top 10% somehow. Do you know what I mean?

Rahil 36:20

Um my dad has a quote and he says world class basics will will be like 90% of people. There we go. World class, but and it's majority of what we try to do isn't overly like out there, it is just these are your you know, these are your basics. Get them to a point where it's absolutely like you know, world class. And then when you do go to scale your marketing with things like paid or like you know putting some more money into content or more into SEO, because your basics and because your systems, your processes are so good, you can scale. Whereas if what people do is they'll put so much in at the top too early, and everything crumbles because they don't have the right systems and stuff below it.

Dr James 37:07

You know, I heard uh your website and your organic socials described as your digital CV, okay? And I really I I like that, right? Because basically, someone will find out about you, they'll do a little bit of research on you and what's out there already, and then they'll make a decision to get in touch with you, whatever that is regarding in this instance conventional in the dental practice, it's going to be the patient deciding that they want to speak to you. And I think that people need to understand that actually that works in tandem with your paid marketing rather than being a separate thing, an individual thing. They actually enhance each other. You get more out of your paid marketing when you have organic socials as well. And you know what another thing I think people don't understand is I think people think that you have to have a huge amount of followers, or it has to take a long time necessarily to see some benefit. You actually start to see some benefits pretty fast. Like you might even get some DMs pretty quick. You know, obviously with time it can get really crazy and it can go really exponential. And I think that people think that it does take quite a while always to build up. It does get better with time, but you can see some effects pretty much straight away. Website, I have a quick question about a website. I'm interested to know, do you think that it's smart? I you know, I don't want to dwell on this one too long. I just I'm just curious to know your stance on this because we do need to talk about organic socials as well before this podcast concludes. Do you think it's a good idea to have some sort of lead jam form right at the top of the website? Like right in the You mean like an inquiry form? An inquiry form or just somewhere people can fill in their contact details or something like that. What basically what I'm asking you is what's the best way to generate leads from your website in your having it synced directly with your online book.

Online Booking Versus Enquiry Forms

Rahil 38:53

Having it synced directly with your like um your like practice management software and they can book them directly. Interesting. That is like how like when typically we'll like you know, we like to direct people, for example, our call to action when we get people on um is to book a free consultation. Okay so they will click on that link and that link will bring up a diary in the availability that will sync with our practice diary so they can instantly just book it. So direct into the diary.

Dr Dan 39:25

Okay. So I I'm quite resistant to that.

Dr James 39:27

I know a lot of dentists are. Yeah, a lot of dentists are.

Dr Dan 39:30

I prefer it that it sends the receptionist an email with the appointment request, and then the receptionist then confirms it in the software. I always feel losing control of the diary is a fear I've got.

Dr James 39:42

But you know what? This is why I love to ask questions like this, because obviously Rahil is someone who does marketing all day long for down practice, right? And sometimes when you ask questions like that, you get responses that you maybe necessarily didn't respect uh didn't expect. Uh, but where those answers come from is a place of greater knowledge than yourself. So I'm curious, why does that work?

Rahil 40:04

So we look at it, so we look at it from a customer's point of view. If they are visiting the website and they're clicking on that call to action, they and in their head have made their mind up that I want this, I've chosen you for it, and they just want to have it. And I want to say Tuesday 1.30. Exactly. For them, and that's you know, in essence, I think that's what dentists by and large don't like is like you know, we have to we have to optimize this for that customer and for the potential patient here. That is what that's what the journey is optimized for. As much as it's you know, for example, you know, you do lose a bit of control, granted, but for a patient, it's so low friction. Um, it's like another one is like when on your website, like your phone number on the on the mobile, make sure someone can just tap it. Click. Yeah. Tap that tap the phone number and it phones.

Dr Dan 40:56

Yeah. But you know, thinking about that, that really annoys me on uh not dental websites, other websites when you can't click the phone number. And then you have to remove it.

Rahil 41:04

You have to copy and paste it, and it's you're just giving the you're giving that you're giving that potential patient the opportunity to just you're removing a barrier. Exactly. Make it as easy as you can. So that's why we try and say, okay, you know, integrate it with your with your online booking system if you can. Um but a lot of websites will always have a form. We usually put it near the bottom, um, because it's still like if they're not sure, then obviously, you know, they leave their, you know, they leave their details because patients now, well customers now, they don't they don't just inquire one practice. They will they will shop around. Um and it's well what about chat box?

Dr Dan 41:45

I mean that's uh another thing that's very popular.

Chatbots That Help And Chatbots That Annoy

Rahil 41:49

I have a con I have a kind of contrarian take with chat box that's like you know, it doesn't align with what a lot of people say is I I don't they're good for a customer who doesn't know what they want. If I'm sure if I visit the website and I'm not sure, a chatbot coming in and being like, yeah, like you know, this is all about us, what do you want to know? Then I really see the value in it. But if I know what I if I clicked on a website like, yeah, I want this, and then this chatbot takes up half of my screen, it actually annoys like me personally.

Dr Dan 42:24

Minimize it.

Rahil 42:26

It's it's I you know I see the value in them, and we have sites that we do have websites that we manage that run them, we have websites that we manage that don't. It is more on a kind of case-by-case basis because there are a you know a wide variety of people that like to look at things their own way. Like when you land on something like I want to explore this in my way, rather than have something tell me, oh yeah, this is this is what you need now, this is what you need to click on. Like I personally don't like it, but I know a lot of people, and there are chatbots out there that get a lot of like inquiries through them because it makes it it makes it easy for someone to just be like, yep, oh, I land here, okay, it's done. So personally, I'm not a fan, but I know they I know they do work. Interesting.

A Simple Social Media Posting Rhythm

Dr James 43:14

And you know, I bet there's a load more where all of that stuff came from with regards to your knowledge on websites and the MZ dentists can do it. I bet there's way more to it. We're probably just scratching the surface of these things right here, some of the straightforward things people can implement, but I bet when you fully overhaul a website for a dentist, there's there's about 50 million things in there. I was just curious just before we round off, uh, organic socials. Let's talk about organic socials as well, because obviously that is super important to you. And they can complement your website, they can complement your ads, they can do a lot of good stuff for your practices uh out there. And not even if you are just a dental practice, even if you're just an associate as well, because obviously that enhanced your personal brand. Uh, that can help you if you wish to start a practice one day, or even build a list of highly qualified patients for whatever treatment that you do. So on that front, Rahil, I guess what a lot of people, I feel what a lot of people would benefit from is just some sort of structure to doing it. And what would you suggest on that front? How many can people get really they get analysis process with it, I think, right? And they're you know, there's the Gary V logic. What's the Gary V Interrup logic, which is like post as many times as you humanly can, and it's like, okay, I get that, right? But if you're just putting out nonsense all day long, that's not gonna work either. Uh then again, if you never post, well you're not gonna benefit from it. So where's the sweet spot?

Human Content Beats Endless Before Afters

Rahil 44:37

So the platforms, the platforms reward consistency, first of all. So like there is there is a like there's actually nothing good if you are active for one week and then you take a break. Like, you know, we see that the views on your post will consistently suffer if you're not consistent on the platforms. Actually, having a consistent presence on these platforms is massive. I love Gary V, and um there is a lot of logic as to what he says, but for a lot of practices it that is either just unrealistic, like you know, posting multiple times a day on every single platform, and if they do do it, it won't be valuable content, it'll just be a flood of just like you know, AI written content that just you know doesn't help or serve anyone. So, what we like to say is a s like a sweet spot is three times a week, and we usually are like you know what, for a lot of practices Monday, Wednesday, Friday, in terms of posts on the grid, it's a nice sweet spot. It's not too over. Overwhelming, but it's enough going out there that you know you're still consistent on the platform. Obviously, that's posts on the grid. You're you know, there's so many different, so many different things you can do on social media. Your stories, like you know, you should be using them whenever you can, but you know, they're only there for 24 hours. If something's happening, you know, in the practice, if you had like you know, a patient send you a nice thank you card, even like you know, that you can easily make a story if you're going with uh, you know, if you're doing anything fun with the team, or like you know, if you've just started uh, you know, if you just started someone's smile jet, you can instantly put these things on stories, they're there for 24 hours and they disappear. But what it does is it kind of keeps you in the feed, in the mind, and then you know, that three-day a week is what we usually aim for as a minimum. There's you know, obviously, as you go through and you get comfortable with that, people move up to five, some people even post seven times a week, and some are posting multiple times on every platform, but we try and find that minimum is three times a week. And the way we view your content is we say it's it's the consultation before the consultation is the way that I like to look up your organic social presence. So if we look at that, if all that that person who visites your socials can see is before and after, before and after, before and after, great, they know you're clinically competent, but they don't know anything else about you. And a lot of patients, a lot of you know, people scrolling on social media, they'll think that you know what, all dentists from their point of view, they can they do the same thing. There's not as much education on what actually separates a dentist from a good dentist from a clinical point of view. But what you can do to separate yourself from people is and it comes back to the branding that we were talking about earlier. You talk about yourself, you talk about your team, you talk about you know the practice journey. Like, you know, some of these practices have been around for you know 15, 20 years. Like, you know, there's got to have been a lot of development in that time that a new patient visiting your profile wouldn't know or appreciate. Talk about your staff, like you know, if you do stuff outside of dentistry, talk about that. We have a dentist in our in our Birmingham practice, and we proudly say on on our social media that he's an Aston Villa fan. Guess who engages with him? Aston Villa fans. Guess who's really happy when they find out that Dr. Oliver is their dentist? The Aston Villa fans. But if we didn't show this other side to you know him, the team, you wouldn't give them that opportunity. If you think about what you would rather see when you go onto social media, would you rather see a faceless practice with just endless before and afters? Would you rather see a practice that shows their team, shows the human side of it, is relatable, feel like and it feels authentic. There's there's an obvious one on which you'd rather engage with. So it's a mix of obviously showing that clinical competence and making sure that shines through because it needs to. There's no substitute for good dentistry at the end of the day. So making sure that shines through in a different in different ways, like you know, not just the selling before and after every time. Can you do video testimonials? Can you post a Google review? Can you do a smile reveal? Can you do it in a in a different format of video instead of a static? There's all these different ways that you can do it to make it more engaging. But then the other side is like the human feel to everything, which is you know what people want to see, because we do, you know, people do business with people they like. And if you're not showing them the people behind the practice, then you're not giving them a chance to engage with you.

TikTok Demographics And Mastering Meta First

Dr Dan 49:17

I guess one platform uh we we've really haven't mentioned at all, which is worth it mentioning, is TikTok. I mean, had we done this podcast a little while ago, TikTok would have been front and centre of the conversation. Whereas now it's kind of got lost. Is it is TikTok going down in popularity? I know it's gone up and down a little bit, but still people uh were using TikTok as TikTok University and you know, asking all kinds of questions, you know. Uh let's have a look at um, you know, uh in this county Hartford, let's have a look at smart makeovers, and you'd come up with a couple of dentists that would do it. And you know, dentists were posting quite a lot. Um, but I do feel that with the AI revolution, has that touched the edges of TikTok?

Rahil 50:02

TikTok is each platform is as you know is better for different demographics of people, is the best way to kind of you know to kind of address that question. Like, you know, you'll you'll typically find a uh a more mature audience on Facebook, for example. Instagram kind of encapsulates everybody, and TikTok is primarily for that younger generation. They like to be engaged in a different way compared to like you know, an old, like you know, older generation, so they are more video first. The platform still definitely has a place, and like you know, you should be using it. But what we like to say for majority of practices is master meta first. So master Instagram and Facebook first, because that's where your audience primarily lives in terms of like you know, potential patients, more of them live on meta than they do on TikTok. And once you're comfortable on that, then you move into other platforms like TikTok, YouTube, it's endless. So we always try and master meta first. So I