Episode 12 – SMART MARKETING FOR MODERN DENTAL PRACTICES

In this episode, Karen Wood discusses ways for dental practices to boost their marketing without straining their teams. Featuring experts Keith Washington and Shannon Perry from ProSites, the episode covers the evolution of dental marketing, the importance of branding, and effective tracking of marketing strategies. Key points include the significance of online tools, automating administrative tasks, leveraging digital marketing, and budgeting for marketing efforts. The conversation also highlights the benefits of partnering with industry experts like ProSites for optimized marketing strategies.

HOST: Karen Wood manages the VDA Member Perks program. She has been in the dental field for over 20 years, having experience as a dental assistant, managing a periodontal practice, and working with dental teams as a sales consultant and trainer.  

GUEST(S): Keith Washington: Keith Washington is the Chief Technology Officer at ProSites and has over 30 years of software product management and development experience. He has an accounting degree from the University of Maryland and has led product transformations at many successful companies. Keith has been with ProSites for over 10 years and has led the development of solutions to help transform dental practice efficiency and productivity. He has a passion for building solutions that help dentists acquire, retain, and engage their patients.

Shannon Perry: Shannon is the Director of Partnerships at ProSites and has spent the past 14 years helping practices thrive with solutions to achieve their unique goals. Specializing in digital marketing, Shannon uses that experience to help practices improve their online presence so more patients can find them. By focusing on each client's unique business and marketing needs, Shannon has been able to help thousands of practices optimize client communications, maximize efficiency, and improve profitability.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

VDA Member Perks: https://www.vdamemberperks.com/ The Virginia Dental Services Corporation (VDSC) was created as a subsidiary of the VDA to recommend products and services to the members of the VDA. By utilizing the VDA Member Perks-endorsed vendors, VDA members can enjoy the peace of mind that comes with using recommended companies, take advantage of special benefits, and receive discounted pricing, all while supporting the VDA. Since 1997, the VDSC has been pleased to provide over $3.7 million in funding to the VDA, VDA Foundation, VCU School of Dentistry, and others. 

ProSites: From website design to social media and search engine optimization, ProSites is the ideal solution for busy dentists who want to get results from their online marketing. https://prosites.com/VDA/ VDA members received up to a 70% discount on ProSites solutions. 

EPISODE CREDITS:

Producer: Paul Logan

Host: Karen Wood

Guest(s): Keith Washington and Shannon Perry

Post-Production/Editor: Shannon Jacobs

Subscribe, share, and send your feedback and topic ideas to thefulcrumpodcast@vadental.org.

The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional, medical, or legal advice.

Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound

Transcript

[00:00:15] Karen Wood: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Virginia Dental Association's Podcast, The Fulcrum. My name is Karen Wood, and I'm the Director of Operations for VDA Member Perks, which is your VDA member benefits program. Our endorsed vendor partners provide discounts on products and services, as well as elevated level of support and attention to the VDA members that use them. Many of them provide valuable information and up-to-date education on topics relevant to dental practices.

[00:00:42] Karen Wood: Today, we are diving into how dental practices can maximize their marketing with minimal team strain. And here to help our members better understand how to do this, we have Keith Washington and Shannon Perry from our partners at ProSites. Keith is the Chief Technology Officer at ProSites and has over 30 years of software product management and development experience, and has been with ProSites for over 10 years and has led in the development of solutions that help transform dental practices, efficiency and productivity.

[00:01:09] Karen Wood: He has a passion for building solutions that help them to acquire, retain, and engage their patients.

[00:01:15] Karen Wood: And Shannon Perry is the director of partnerships at ProSites. She has spent the past 14 years helping practices thrive with solutions to achieve their unique goals. Specializing in digital marketing, Shannon uses that experience and has helped thousands of practices to optimize client communications, maximize efficiency, and improve profitability.

[00:01:34] Karen Wood: Hopefully, the name ProSites is familiar to everyone listening to this. They have been a longtime, trusted, and valued VDA partner for innovative website designs, digital marketing solutions, and automated patient communications, just to name a few of their services. So welcome, Keith and Shannon, and thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

[00:01:53] Keith Washington: Thank you so much. Yeah, I really appreciate it. We're looking forward to this conversation.

[00:01:58] Karen Wood: Let's start by having you tell us what does marketing and dental practice really mean today?

[00:02:05] Keith Washington: I was thinking about this a little bit over the past couple of days, and I was old enough to remember that there used to be no dental marketing. It wasn't allowed; it was frowned upon. And then in the seventies, somewhere in the mid-seventies, it became acceptable. And if you recall, some people may recall that there was print ads in newspapers, magazines. You put your information in the Yellow Pages, which doesn't exist anymore. Um, and then in the eighties it transitioned into direct mail. I even remember seeing some signs on a bus stop bench, and they had reminder postcards and local mailers, and then came the internet. And then came connected phones, and everything changed in the way dental practices think about getting new patients. And so, the question, what is dental marketing or marketing in a dental practice really means?

[00:02:59] Keith Washington: It really means this. Using targeted online tools. The internet to increase your visibility in your community with the goal, first of all, of getting new patients. And that's really important to remember that even though it's transitioned, it's still this concept of using a tool, in this case, online tools, to increase your visibility and get new patients.

[00:03:24] Shannon Perry: And just to add here, it's so much more than just getting new patients.

[00:03:29] Shannon Perry: Your marketing is really the face of your practice online. It's your brand. It's that digital footprint. It's patient communications, its reputation management. It's anyone on your team who's answering the phone, responding to reviews, sending email or text messages. It's all part of your marketing engine.

[00:03:48] Shannon Perry: And when we look at digital marketing, that includes things like your website and SEO, social media and reviews, paid ads, and local visibility. And retention strategies like I mentioned before about email and text outreach.

[00:04:03] Karen Wood: It sounds like you're talking a little bit about branding when you're talking about consistent message across those different platforms. Is that right?

[00:04:10] Shannon Perry: Yeah. It's about building a brand, right? And being consistent across all platforms. 

[00:04:15] Karen Wood: So, what if you know today your practice is already going in the direction of what they think is good marketing? How do you know it's working? How do you know if it's effective?

[00:04:25] Keith Washington: Yeah, I think about this a lot, and over the past 11 years, the dental practices have been asking this question, and I always use this phrase.

[00:04:34] Keith Washington: Half of my advertising spend is working. I just don't know which half.

[00:04:39] Keith Washington: And it goes a lot beyond just, I feel like it's working. And many companies, including ProSites in the early 2000s, did a lot of work, but there was no way of just saying, this is what's working. And you can't just use your gut feeling, or my phone is ringing, or my phone's not ringing.

[00:04:57] Keith Washington: You really need to dive into, look at what's working, and use companies like ours to really track things like website traffic. Where is it coming from? You may be getting a lot of visitors to your website, but it may not be the type of potential patients that you want. And then, whether or not visits are turning into leads. Meaning I may have a thousand people looking at my website, but nobody's filling out a form, or nobody's calling, or not enough are calling based on the information on the website. Where am I getting new patients? Am I just getting the same repeat patients, or am I getting patients from different sources? Is it coming from organic search? Are they coming from paid search? Are they coming from reviews? You have to look at where all of your sources are coming from.

[00:05:49] Keith Washington: And then probably most importantly, what's the return on investment? If I spend $500 on digital marketing, am I getting 600, 700, $800 back on a monthly spend so that I can ensure that my spend is returning that investment. And how many patients do I actually need to be able to get the return on investment that I need?

[00:06:16] Keith Washington: We've done a lot of work on building out dashboards and tracking and communicating back to you, how it's actually working. And it's really important for a dental practice to think about long-term success.

[00:06:29] Keith Washington: I'll just use an example. Summertime is really important for a lot of pediatric dentist and dentists who are doing things like wisdom teeth extractions. But in August, that kind of slows down. So, you have to look at over time, how do you get sustainable growth and how do you maximize team efficiency?

[00:06:48] Keith Washington: I was just looking at the ADA. They have an HPI poll. 27% of dental practices in Q2 2025 reported that they were not busy enough and could have treated more patients. That's alarming to me.

[00:07:05] Keith Washington: And so just this overarching discussion about marketing is really important at this time because, if you're already marketing, how do you know it's working? Make sure that you're looking at the data behind it that I just talked about, and we'll dive into that a lot more.

[00:07:19] Karen Wood: You mentioned a monthly spend, so is that something that you see offices are allocating in their budget? Is there a recommended percentage of production to earmark in that budget for marketing? 

[00:07:32] Shannon Perry: Yeah, let's talk marketing budgets. So, when it comes to marketing budgets, I know for a lot of dental practices, it's kind of an afterthought, right? Or the numbers can kind of come as a shock. But when it comes to your budget, it really is important to think of marketing as an investment into your practice, not just an expense.

[00:07:56] Shannon Perry: So, the question here really isn't, what does it cost? It's, what is that return, and what's it going to bring to my practice over time? So return on investment, or ROI isn't a one-size-fits-all here, Karen. It looks differently depending on what the goals of the practices are or what channels maybe they're using, like paid search, SEO, or social media.

[00:08:25] Shannon Perry: On the goals that the practice is trying to accomplish. So, if the goal is to fill the schedule next month, that's very different investment than building a brand that dominates your market over the next five years, as an example. So, the key here is to align your practice budget with your practice goals, and then measure that result in the right context.

[00:08:52] Shannon Perry: So, marketing should be designed to generate predictable, measurable returns for your practice, not just clicks or likes, but real growth in patient numbers, case acceptance, and revenue. So, I might lean on some stats here from our state of marketing report, of what kind of the average practice budget might look like.

[00:09:13] Shannon Perry: 24.69% of practices responded that their monthly marketing budget was in the 500 to a $1000 range for 2025, so that's 6,000 to 12,000 annually.

[00:09:28] Shannon Perry: Then 12.35% of practices responded that their marketing budget was in the a 1000 to $5,000 range.

[00:09:37] Shannon Perry: 19.75% of practices are looking to increase their marketing budgets in 2025. So really, it's about kind of a recommendation. So, three to 5% of growth revenue, annually, is if the budget is tight, and then 7% if you're looking to grow. But even $500 here can be a powerful investment with the right strategy.

[00:10:08] Karen Wood: We all know that there's a workforce shortage and offices are running with leaner teams, and they're being asked to do a lot more. I stress taking that outside of your office whenever you can to let your, you know, team be the face of the practice, interact with the patients.

[00:10:23] Karen Wood: So, how are you finding that the marketing is changing when you don't have as many team members anymore to support that activity?

[00:10:32] Keith Washington: Your question is really relevant. How do we market with limited staff? How do we do all of this? And it's not just marketing, but how do we do all of this with the limited staff?

[00:10:42] Keith Washington: And so, I want to talk about some solutions and things that we talk about, as a company, number one, and it's, it goes back to online. You should automate wherever possible. But there's things that you can do to automate things like are you automating your online forms.

[00:10:57] Keith Washington: Are you automating your reminders? Did you automate bill pay? And I ask this question a lot, in conferences and I'm surprised at the few number of hands that go up that say, yes, we've done these things like review management, insurance, verification's a really big topic right now. And being able to automate wherever possible is really important to save time.

[00:11:22] Keith Washington: You know, the team isn't necessarily trained on these tools. And so, you wanna work with a tool that makes it so simple that even I can do it.

[00:11:31] Keith Washington: Some of the things that you can do, and I hopefully get to talk about this more. For instance, with patient communications, you should be saving 40 hours a month in using automated reminders and automated notifications. It should allow you, and this is the data that we see with our Practice Mojo Solution. Almost three additional appointments per week because a lot of people don't go back to the dentist because they didn't remember their appointment. So, on average, you're gonna get 25% more new patients if you do something like online appointment booking, and this is a hot topic, people you know get concerned. Practices don't necessarily like you scheduling on my calendar. And so, the tools that we have today allow you to control where you can show your calendar. Maybe on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon between two and four you have some gaps in your schedule. You can let patients book just on those times and just with a particular hygienist or provider.

[00:12:36] Keith Washington: Really focus on outsourcing. Stop doing things that should be done online. I think website management, SEO, advertising, online communications, push that off to companies, push that off to ProSites, Practice Mojo Solutions, and then you and the dental practice can focus on doing the things that are really high value, taking care of your patients, and making sure you get paid on time. 

[00:13:04] Karen Wood: So, on that comment that you made about the online booking, the importance of being able to do that, to reach, you know, different patients. There's, you know, concern in dental offices about, you know, what if that's a new patient, what if that's an existing patient, what does that look like, and how does that affect the practice by giving that ability out?

[00:13:23] Keith Washington: Thanks for that question, and I’d like to answer it just by talking about a potential patient journey, and we've seen this work. I'm a new patient and I found you on their website, and I wanna book an appointment and you don't want to play phone tag because just like we are doing right now, I'm at work and so I can't call you while I'm at work or I leave you a message at six o'clock in the morning and then you respond to me.

[00:13:45] Keith Washington: So, you're gonna allow me as a new patient to book an appointment. And in the book an appointment request can be a request, or it can be live. You can simply say, are you a new patient? Check a box. New patient or existing patient. If you're a new patient, allow them to fill out that information, pick an appointment time, and you control that appointment time.

[00:14:07] Keith Washington: So, for instance, for new patients, you can say the first appointment available is three weeks from now on a Tuesday in three weeks, and you can let them choose that. And then before you approve that request, you can send them an automatic online form to fill out so you can get insurance information, you can determine if they're in network, determine if they're out of network, and then quickly verify insurance and then respond, appointment accepted.

[00:14:36] Keith Washington: Or you can say, new patient, please call. You can do that. You call for an appointment. If you're an existing patient, you can have them fill in their information and then pick their provider if you want. Because in my case, I only wanna see Aurora. Because Aurora's the best hygienist in my in, in my doctor's office. And so, I'm gonna pick her. I'm gonna get that appointment, and then if I need to update my forms immediately, have your system send you an online form update request through a secure portal. All of this happens before you even get into the office the next day. So, you're really reducing that back and forth. And if you have to, you know, triage or look at it now, you're just looking at a dashboard, you're making a decision, you're clicking accept, and then everything else is happening in the background. Insurance verification, in-network, out of network, and anything that you need to know about that patient is already done before they show up.

[00:15:36] Karen Wood: So, an online form, what does that look like?

[00:15:39] Keith Washington: Online forms is a really broad topic. And I'll go back a little bit and say that online forms today to a lot of dental practices because I can see it on their website is still a fillable PDF. And a fillable PDF is okay, but it's just a form, and all you're doing is putting that form into your practice management system. So, whether or not you can compare that information against additional or other information or prior information, you can't. An online form that really is powerful allows you to answer questions and then provides the dental practice with critical care information. If I check a box that says I have a history of diabetes, or I have a history of high blood pressure, that should be an alert to a practice before you show up so that they know how to treat you properly. It's too often that the fillable forms just get put into the document folder, and they're not being looked at. And so, our best practice is to have an interactive form with a dashboard that provides the practice with critical care information, medication interaction, drug interactions, anything that they need to know, and then that information gets put directly into your practice management system. But the best practice now is using an interactive form to improve compliance, reduce liability, and increase patient care.

[00:17:03] Karen Wood: You know my parents are 85 and 90, and they book their appointments online, and I think that we sometimes make assumptions that a certain age range of patients is not looking for that. If I'm looking at a medical, dental, healthcare, I'm looking for that modernization and those nuances that make my life easier. I love online booking. So, for Shannon, do you see that as part of how you brand yourself in marketing, or is that just kind of a, it happens naturally because you're using these tools? 

[00:17:32] Shannon Perry: Oh, this is huge today. It's almost an expectation, and you know, we look into website traffic trends, and we are seeing an increased number of traffic visits outside of typical practice hours. And so, we are leaving money, visits, and engagement on the table if we're not having these types of tools. You know, my parents are Boomers, and they still do all of this online, and it's an expectation for my generation and the generations that follow. And so, we kind of have to. We don't have a choice, right?

[00:18:09] Shannon Perry: So, to me, with increased visits outside of typical practice hours, we have to have more of these types of tools available to patients 24/7, right? And it saves practice time. It saves staff time. That's kind of what we've been here kind of talking about, is these are things that can automate a lot of these administrative tasks that it takes in running a practice.

[00:18:34] Shannon Perry: So, my advice is try it, right? 

[00:18:37] Karen Wood: Oh yeah. And the automation, I think, also really affects the RCM, Revenue Cycle Management, and that's your cash flow coming in. So, having online payments and text to pay. I don't see that many practices jumping on that yet, but my medical doctor does it, you know, my eye doctor does it.

[00:18:55] Karen Wood: And then also, you have the, you have money coming in, but then you have money going out when you do billing. I believe every time you physically mail a statement to a patient with labor costs, postage costs, and the time involved is sending this and then tracking it back, it's about $13 per patient, every time a statement goes out. So, what are you seeing with those practices that are bringing on, you know, the online payments and text to pay?

[00:19:20] Keith Washington: You bring up a good point, 'cause I actually, my dentist up until recently was sending me a paper statement.

[00:19:29] Keith Washington: And, and I don't know if this happens to all consumers, but two things that I've noticed, at least in our family. Number one, if it's coming from my dentist, I don't think it's the same if it's coming from the gas company. So, I just put it aside. Number two, I like to pay by credit card. I can't find my checkbook. I don't know where that is. But he's asking me to put my credit card information on a piece of paper and mailing it back, that's not gonna happen. So, the way I do it is I wait until I come back into the, into his office, one of our family members, and they say, oh, you owe us a bill, and then we pay it then. I think the stat is this. 20% of invoices of bills due that are more than 30 days past due do not get paid. Invoices that are more than 90 days past due. 75% of them don't get paid. You talked about revenue cycle management. In having paper statements or pay us, you know, when we send you the bill later, it's really impacting dental practices. I'd like us to get a survey and find out how much money is outstanding in dental practices for all patients over time. I think the number is like 25% of patients have a dental bill that they, that is more than 30 days due. Think about the impact to just even interest earned on that. So, what we're seeing is dental practices who are moving to online bill pay. Number one, you know, point of sale bill pay is really important, but also being able to collect a bill. Send, by the way, by text a link. To the fact that you owe your payment as soon as they leave or as soon as you've reconciled it with the insurance claim. And then having them click text to pay online right from your website, pay the bill, and then that bill gets written right into your practice management system. That's the seamless way to do it.

[00:21:28] Keith Washington: All your administrative staff is doing, they're looking, and reconciling, and making sure everything's reconciled, and that's it. They're not chasing patients. They're not, you know, having to chase money day after day after day. They're really letting that system handle it for themselves.

[00:21:44] Karen Wood: So, with having online payments on your website, that's another way to drive them back to your website. Let's talk about, what are patients expecting in 2025 that's featured in your website?

[00:21:55] Shannon Perry: So, yes, easy contact and payment options are a must, like we just talked about. But again, like I referred to earlier, this is the face of your practice online. So, is your website modern? Does it reflect your practice personality? Is it professional? And, you know, does it present trust in your practice? Do you have clear services and educational content on your website? Things like treatment, videos, or a plus for not only patients, but Google. Our attention spans are getting smaller and smaller. So, when it comes to your practice website, it needs to be clean, simple, and easy to navigate. It needs to load fast, it needs to be mobile first and making sure that it's secure., You know, 60% of website visits today are coming from a mobile device, so design for a mobile-first experience is huge. Online appointment booking, like we talked about, and live chat. 60% of consumers typically use online scheduling for appointments today.

[00:22:59] Shannon Perry: That's an important stat to kind of look at, and that's obviously across all industries. But 60% of consumers are expecting that. And then patient reviews, providing proof wherever possible, that's really gonna help, increase conversion rates, especially for those new patients.

[00:23:16] Karen Wood: What about sponsored ads? I mean, do you find that there, is there still a value in them? I mean, personally, sometimes I find 'em to be a little tricky. Like you type in a search and then the thing you thought you were getting is not what you end up clicking on, and it's, it's just, I don't know if that's still a popular thing to do.

[00:23:33] Keith Washington: Yeah. Sponsored ads used to be called just Google Ads. They used to say, uh, paid. I don't think, I think people didn't like that as much. And so now they call it sponsored. And now, by the way, we're seeing AI from Google answer questions first and then sponsored ads.

[00:23:50] Keith Washington: If I type in something that I'm looking for, it's still really important for some dental practices to invest in paid ads. So, for example, let's say I've decided I'm ready to expand a little bit in my practice. And I find that I now need to move more to fee-for-service. So, I'm gonna focus on implants.

[00:24:11] Keith Washington: If you want to compete in the implant area in a suburban or urban area, you're gonna likely have to add sponsored ad or paid advertising because it provides you with highly targeted, high-intent results from people who are ready to book. It's a way for you to compete in areas that you think will drive revenue.

[00:24:35] Keith Washington: You don't want to necessarily invest in a paid ad on cleanings because everybody has that. And if you're getting insurance, you're not making enough money. But if you want to drive more fee-for-service patients, this is the area that you should use paid ads or sponsored ads. One of the benefits of it. Because we haven't talked enough about search engine optimization, which is something that you have to do, it's kind of a building block to get found, especially in most areas. But this with sponsored ads, you can scale up or down based on seasonality.

[00:25:09] Keith Washington: So, for instance. If your offices happens to be closed the last week of August, you don't want to invest and pay that so you can pause them. So, these are great ways to be able to reach targeted patients still today. And by the way, allows you to track your engagement, how many visits, how many calls, how many clicks, and what the return on investment is on that. So, it's a highly targeted, good option for a lot of practices.

[00:25:36] Karen Wood: I'm glad I asked that question 'cause I was, I wasn't thinking dentistry when I asked you about that with all these, I was looking up something else and all these sponsored ads came up and I was like, oh, it's like three or four ahead of what I really wanted.

[00:25:47] Karen Wood: But what you, it makes a lot more sense when you are really narrowing it down and focusing on the type of services that you're trying to track patients to come see you for. So that makes, that's, that makes a whole lot more sense. And then on SEO, is that something a practice can really manage in-house? 

[00:26:03] Shannon Perry: In theory, yes, but it is very technical, and it is time-consuming. So, I'll give an example here. That'd be like me cleaning my own teeth or doing my own root canal. And so, I'll dive in a little bit. Like, SEO is complex, right? And it's made up of so much today. It's, you know, your directory listings, it's back linking, it’s page speeds, it's Google algorithms, you know, there's updates daily with major changes taking place three to five times a year. And so being an expert in the dental space is important, and our practices have that. But when it comes to SEO strategies, you need to be an expert there. And then, with the growth of AI, there's more people using AI search engines. SEO is more important today than ever. So, to show up in AI search results, there's certain things you need to do there too. Most practices really would benefit from a trusted partner to handle this, to avoid kind of those DIY mistakes. And I'll tell you with after 15 years in digital marketing. If I was to open my own company, I still wouldn't do my own SEO. So, is it possible? Yes. But to me it's too technical and, you know, without the right strategy, it may not work. 

[00:27:26] Karen Wood: Sounds like it might be costly.

[00:27:28] Shannon Perry: Yes. And it could, you could be spending time, resources, and or money, say, on paid ads. I'll give you an example. I had a practice that came to us, and they were working with a digital marketing agency outside of the dental space, and they were spending over $2,000 on paid ads per month. But they were seeing very little appointments generated from their ad spend. And when we dug into the campaigns, they were only focused on one keyword. It's about doing it right. And so, I would even suggest getting a complimentary consultation. So, our teams offer complimentary consultations to really look under the hood, see what is working, see what you're currently doing, and then making a recommendation of what you might consider.

[00:28:14] Karen Wood: So, is a practice able to look under their own hood and really monitor and track what they're doing? If I'm trying to monitor and track something in my practice, how, how do I know if I'm doing it right? I don't know what to measure it against.

[00:28:26] Shannon Perry: Yeah. And we will, let's, we can dive into monitoring and tracking, I think. But to answer that question, I mean, there's lots of platforms that you can leverage to, kind of, do your own kind of SEO evaluations, but they can be costly. I would question do practices know what they're looking for, I guess.

[00:28:44] Shannon Perry: And so that's where I think getting a digital marketing expert that, is industry specific to kind of do that evaluation for you and provide you kind of with an overview of what the current state is. And then maybe looking at what you're trying to accomplish, 'cause that's really what it boils down to when you're setting out to try to accomplish a goal. What is that goal, and how do we get there?

[00:29:06] Shannon Perry: So, let’s dive into monitoring and tracking, though, a little bit more. Monitoring and tracking is how we actually measure what is working, what's not for the practice. It's giving us insights into, you know, those missed opportunities or where we actually might wanna double down on marketing.

[00:29:24] Shannon Perry: And so, the first step, like I said, is understanding what the goals are. So, say we're focused on new patient growth. We might wanna first look at our website performance. Things like total visits, how much organic traffic, where that traffic is coming from, how many visitors are actually turning into visits within our practice or booked appointments.

[00:29:47] Shannon Perry: And then you can kind of break it down by channel. So, you'd wanna look at your search engine optimization. You know, are you ranking for those procedures or services that you want to? And how is that traffic improving month over month? Paid advertising. Are your campaigns driving those high-quality leads or the cost per lead that you know is competitive?

[00:30:11] Shannon Perry: Then, social media, are our posts creating engagement? Is it driving people to our site? And then client communication campaigns. You know, for email and text campaigns. Are patients opening? Are they clicking, and are they booking appointments from those messages? So, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but this is why ProSites created the live dashboard where clients can have access to real time metrics.

[00:30:40] Shannon Perry: And that gives them transparency into the performance and metrics. They can compare those month-over-month trends. View their SEO ROI leads and performance, and more. And then as for timing, I would say reviewing your core metrics is important on a monthly basis, but looking for kind of those seasonal, annual, or quarterly trends that Keith mentioned earlier, like summer. Looking for trends so it's not just spikes and really understanding because when it all boils down, consistency is what matters most than those short-term wins.

[00:31:21] Karen Wood: Let's just kind of wrap this up and give us your best takeaway that practices can hear from you.

[00:31:25] Shannon Perry: So, if there's one thing that anyone could take away from today. It's that smart marketing is less about doing more, and it's more about doing the right things consistently. So, it doesn't have to be complicated or a burden on your team. I would say look to partnering with an industry provider like ProSites, and it means you get a full team of experts, you know, behind you, without having to hire internally or have your staff manage this kind of thing.

[00:32:00] Shannon Perry: Again, focusing on patient care and letting us do the rest. I do wanna mention that Virginia Dental Association members save up to 70% on ProSites solutions. So, visit ProSites.com/vda or contact us today and mention your VDA membership to claim your discount. 

[00:32:21] Keith Washington: And I’ll add to it. One other piece is that we really appreciate the partnership with VDA. I wanna just say thanks, Karen, for letting us talk a little bit about this. You know, this is really an important topic, not just to us, but to the whole practice area.

[00:32:36] Karen Wood: I like the way you emphasize the dental practice focusing on patient care, and I would like to take that opportunity to emphasize the importance that your office administration team has for your practice. 'Cause they're likely the ones making these phone calls and investigating and evaluating services that can help them with their marketing. So that VDA membership extends beyond the dentist. If it's an office manager calling, they mention the dentist membership, it's that they're talking to the dentist. So, I think it's important that we, we recognize that.

[00:33:09] Keith Washington: Agree. Yeah. Agree.

[00:33:10] Karen Wood: Well, once again, I'd like to thank Keith and Shannon for sharing such important information with us today. Those takeaways really help us focus on the best ways to maximize marketing efforts that will benefit your practice, and especially when we're dealing with leaner dental teams right now, and they're the partner that you might need or should look into 'cause they really can help you. So, contact information for ProSites will be in the show notes. We wanna remind you about that discount. It's up to 70% off for the ProSite solutions. Just contact them, mention you’re a VDA member.

[00:33:42] Karen Wood: Please like, subscribe, rate, and share this podcast. Let us know if you have any suggestions for future topics, as our goal is to bring relevant and helpful content to VDA members and their teams.

[00:33:52] Karen Wood: Thank you for listening, and we look forward to having you return for the next episode of The Fulcrum.