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10 Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition | 8/2016 TRENDS & APPLICATIONS Walking among giants Marketing dentistry in the global connected economy By Chris Barrow, UK In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that informa- tion consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it con- sumes the attention of its recipi- ents. Hence a wealth of informa- tion creates a poverty of attention. These prophetic lines were shared by Nobel laureate and social scien- tist Dr Herbert Simon in 1971. It seems incredible to think that his words predate the Internet by 20 years. Simon lived in a world in which advertisers tried to gain our attention with bill-boards, news- paper advertisements and tele- vision commercials. At the same time, the local ma-and-pa business prospered through convenience and human interest. The connected economy and growth in population have created statistics that are beyond our com- prehension. There were 60 trillion websites at the last count and every year the Internet grows by eight million new songs, two million new books, 16,000 new films, 30 billion blog posts and 182 billion Tweets. Google handles 35 billion e-mails every day alone, and 1.8 bil- lion photographs are uploaded to theCloudfromeverywherearound the globe. I speculate as to how many of those photographs are of happy, smiling faces. IBM tells us that we are “a world awash in data”, 80 % of which is currently invisible to our computers; however, with the IBM Watson project, the company in- tends to use cognitive computing to bring that data into a useable domain. With global health care data expected to grow by 99 % in the next 12 months, the search is on to find a new unified theory that will bring all of this informa- tion to the fingertips of govern- ment, business and individuals. The question is, can we cope with this? In his book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Israeli author Prof. Yuval Noah Harari visualises a completely connected world in which “Data-ism” domi- nates. There he writes: “Sapiens evolved in the savannah thou- sands of years ago and their al- gorithms are not built to handle 21st Century data flows. We might try to upgrade the human data- processing system, but this may not be enough. The Internet-of all-Things may create such huge and rapid data flows that even up- graded human algorithms won’t handle it. When cars replaced the horse-drawn carriage, we didn’t upgrade horses—we retired them. Perhaps it is time to do the same with Homo Sapiens.” A rather grim and ominous suggestion perhaps, but by jolting our sensibilities, Harari makes us pause for thought. Let us narrow our field of vision from these impossible numbers and facts. Pundits suggest that you and I are interrupted by advertising and brand exposures 5,000 times in an average day and mentally register around 350 of these. We note 150, think briefly about 80 and pause at 12 to think about whether they are relevant to us at this time. Thus, the challenge facing the dental marketer is how to become one of 12 out of 5,000 at the right time, on the right day, for the right person. Big business has a simple solu- tion to this problem; it is called big money. Whether it is a Super Bowl television commercial, a giant bill-board on a motorway or, now- adays, massive expenditure on Internet visibility via paid media, those with the deepest pockets of- fering the best products and ser- vices are the winners in the race to attract that poverty of attention first mentioned in 1971. So where does this place the independently owned dental practice? You are a mouse, wandering between the legs of a herd of bull elephants, all trumpeting their mating call. No matter how loudly you squeak, atbestyoursoundwillbedrowned out and at worst you may be trampled in the rush. I have watched the world of digital marketing in dentistry very carefully over the last five years and have reached some con- clusions that are likely to land me in trouble with traditional digital marketers. However, I did not get where I am today without step- ping on the fenced-off grass every now and then, running along the side of the swimming pool and tearing up the rule book. So, here is my recommended list of actions to be taken by the independent dental practice in order to gain attention: 1. Use good search engine optimi- sation (SEO) to optimise your position in Google’s organic search. SEO is a technical skill that has to be delivered by ex- perts. Google changes its own goalposts regularly and the savvy SEO guru will know that and take appropriate action quickly. 2. Massively encourage the collec- tion of Google reviews, user reviews via Facebook and critic reviews via proprietorial sites likeWhatClinic.com,NHSChoices and Comparethetreatment.com in the UK. In September 2016, Google changed the rules twice, first by including external re- views alongside its own in searches and second by altering its own search criteria to favour businesses with in excess of 100 Google reviews. It is neces- sary that your marketing activ- ity be adjusted to reflect such changes.? 3. Connect to your patients through a well-maintained so- cial media channel like Face- book or Twitter (and deliver daily human interest content). Remember that those 1.8 billion photograph uploads per day in- clude the inevitable selfies. Many of my clients now take a patient selfie at the end of a course of aesthetic dental treat- ment. To quote again from Harari’s new book: “If you ex- perience something—record it. If you record something— upload it. If you upload some- thing—share it.” 4. Build a website that engages the visitor through video and visual testimonials. Your most power- ful marketing collateral is the stories that your patients can tell about the difference that you have made to their lives. 5. Collectvisitors’e-mailaddresses andconsent(toe-mail)viawhite paper marketing. A coffee shop, hotel or airport exchanges free Wi-Fi access for an e-mail ad- dress and permission to keep one informed. You can do the same by exchanging useful in- formation (free guides). 6. Nurture long-term relation- ships with patients and pros- Programme summary • Designed for newly qualified dentists and experienced practitioners working in general practice. • Develops technical, diagnostic and treatment planning skills to practice modern clinical operative dentistry. • Delivers a blend of practical training, clinical practice under supervision, and seminars. Programme details • A new postgraduate diploma offered by King’s College London and King’s College Hospital. • Designed by the Department of Restorative Dentistry and taught by leading experts in Operative Dentistry. • 44 contact days over two years at the Dental Institute’s Denmark Hill Campus. Diploma in Operative Dentistry A new two-year, part-time course, starting April 2017 An opportunity to enhance youroperative skills while continuing to work in practice Find out more and apply: www.kcl.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/taught-courses/operative-dentistry-pg-dip.aspx AD “The challenge is for the mouse to gain attention without competing with the bull elephants.” © Jesus Sanz/Shutterstock.com