How to Build a Successful Dental Content Strategy with Christopher Brown

Alec Goldman:
Welcome to How I Grew My Practice, a podcast presented by NexHealth. I'm your host, Alec Goldman. In this episode, we have Christopher Brown, CEO of DIGI Search here to talk about how to build a successful dental content strategy. Chris, welcome to the show, how are you doing today?
Chris:
Very good, thanks for having me, Alec. This is exciting, I'm excited to be here. I know we had a brief conversation before, but this is something that's near and dear to my heart, personally and professionally, so I'm excited to unpack it.
Alec Goldman:
Very excited to jump in. Just before we do so, for all the folks on our show who do not know who Christopher Brown is, you could just share a little bit about who you are, how you got into the industry, and how you kind of got started with DIGI Search.
Chris:
Yeah, I love talking about this because I feel that there's something special and unique about the dental industry in general that it's commonly referred to as a niche, but I grew up in a dental family, so I feel very close to all those little nuances that people aren't aware of that when you're the main technician of a busy dental practice, you're the one at home doing the books, you're the one staying up late, sole proprietorship.
So DIGI Search, we are a marketing support agency. What that means very succinctly is we help dentists build their dream websites and then we design and install support systems around their goals. So very much tied to, we very much engage in conversations close to this topic where we're unpacking things about the dental practice, sort of demystifying the idea that some of these solutions are a one size fits all and identifying what are the key indicators, what are the things you want to talk about, need to talk about, what's going to be most beneficial for your patients. and that sort of thing. In my personal experience, I grew up, so DIGI Search came out of a version of this conversation. Professionally, I was in the video space in the agency world and moved into the dental marketing space.
This was the early 2010s, and I was an SEO, so this was right around when businesses and agencies were packaging SEO or creating products around selling SEO. I was very much interested in applying that. to my father's practice. And again, I had been closely tied with that practice, running SEO for it. I would say, you know, even from a young age, I was there moonlighting on emergencies, assisting in my teenage years, that sort of thing. So, you know, had a close familiarity with what needed to be done, or so I thought.
And then as I started peeling back the onion, I started to realize there's a huge opportunity for explaining and showcasing to dentists what they need to be doing versus what they were told. And that's where DIGI Search was born out of that idea. Really advocating for the dentists to become their own individual practice and to engage them in ways that could help them grow and sustain their mission, you know, grow their practice, their culture, their staff, you know, their craft, that sort of thing.
Alec Goldman:
So you've been building this business for almost a decade. You have a gigantic history of dentists in the family, meaning you've worked with thousands of dentists, I'm sure. What makes successful ones great when it comes to building a personal brand, building an online presence, and building a content strategy?
Chris:
Yeah, you know, that's a tough question because I would say, I would say the impulse would be to give you a quick bulleted list, but the reality is my experience in dental practice, that's one version. You know, granted there are similarities across the aisle, but my experience was in this sort of elder statesman family practice dentist, you know, kind of the... sole proprietorship, you know, my sister works there, now they're large, but you've got implantologists, specialists, you've got de novo practices, young guys starting in a competitive environment, dental groups, you've got dental clinics, and if you were to have to transform some sort of strategy that would apply to all of them, it's always gonna start with having a clear identity, a stated identity that is either in practice or has systems in place to illustrate that to their patients in treatment plans and how they present their treatment plans and how they welcome their patients and how they communicate and how they communicate internally, how they sustain that culture, which is that's sort of hard to pin down.
But you can identify, and again, my experience, again, working with thousands of practices, that's the trend that started coming out on knowing who are our rock star clients, who are the ones that really can take advantage of the tools that we're supplying. and start to make use of it that we can't even take credit for. So these are the guys that are, that you know, so everyone's eager, everyone's willing to work hard, right? But you know the ones that have given it a lot of thought and are passionate about what makes them unique and how to stand out. I would say, you know, we talk a lot about what are the pitfalls in dental marketing. It's easy to sort of blame existing conversations and existing mindsets, but everyone knows patients exist out there. And it's easy to get into the trap of, I would say, trying to compete for demand, for patient demand, instead of creating demand.
That's not something that dentists are used to hearing or comfortable hearing, even I would say. So that first step, however you get to that point, you don't wanna be, you wanna be creating demand and not competing for it. How you get to that step always is gonna start with having a clear identity. Always have a clear identity, having that, whether that's a mission statement, whether that's a specialty. that you really wanna, that really having that ideal patient profile that you're looking to target, having a clear articulation of that is always, that's always gonna identify to us who the outliers are.
Alec Goldman:
You said three things that I want to kind of double-click on. I guess one is kind of two in number one topic, but the idea of creating and capturing demand. Can you give a quick explanation of what you mean by those two terms? It's something that we use very regularly on the NexHealth communications and marketing side internally.
Chris:
Okay, let me think. So what's a good example? If I were, I'd give you one of our clients who's an example. He's done an excessive, extensive amount of CE on implantology. So, but he's a GP, so he does regular, he'll do regular dentistry and he brings on an associate. Now, business-wise, it would be, he's probably been told this. And you hear this a lot, big case marketing. You want to target implants. I should take a step back. What we're talking about with content strategy, the backdrop of this is twofold. You can be talking about very much an SEO strategy, building up the breadth of content. So let's just say Google prefers you more. You start to see more natural eyes.
When we talk about creating demand, we're talking about as close as you can get to direct advertising. bringing in new patients and convincing a new set of eyes that they needed to come to you. So in this example, he's an exceptional implantologist and he has a very niche specialty in your, what are called like, you know, and I'm gonna butcher the technosides, but what are called like the all-in-four or all-in-five implants, full denture replacements, which is a very small select group of patient. Those patients also may not even be aware that he is providing a service that they need.
They think they need it. regular dentures or something else. Well, how do you get in front of those people? Do you start targeting people looking for dentists? Do you start talking about dentures, excuse me? Do you start talking about dentures? He's got a core and clear articulation of what he is good at in terms of providing extreme value to patients. He can explain to you why that's better than regular dentures, who's a candidate for it, and how long the process takes. And then in terms of the landscape of SEO, he's a dentist. So we don't need to get into this, but he's coming from a place of expertise. He's on the right side of YMYL, meaning he can say that. Google is going to give him extra credit for talking about it in a very clear and professional way.
So I think what that example illustrates is there's, by focusing on that small sub, perhaps this is a pretty apparent or easy example. But that illustrates that. If you were just focused on getting patients, dentists near me, or let's even say implant dentists near me, right, if I were being uncreative, you're putting yourself out in front of the pool of everybody else, of every other dentist who does the same service for me, instead of really showing the public and teaching people through education that this is a service that I specialize in and I care about you and I care about the positive outcome for it.
Alec Goldman:
Yep. So creating demand is telling folks who may not know of a service and educating them on why they may need a problem that they didn't even know that they had to
Chris:
Yeah.
Alec Goldman:
be solved and then capturing it is really focused on why you specifically are the right
Chris:
Yeah.
Alec Goldman:
fit to solve that problem. No, in a, in a dentist connect or what you're describing in the dentist scenario is that there are lots of folks out there who may not know that they need an implant or that they may have. Uh, certain procedures that, you know, they didn't even know existed. So
Chris:
Mm-hmm.
Alec Goldman:
they need to be creating content that describes the problem that's being solved and then have additional content on why they're the right individual to be solving that and creating trust,
Chris:
Yeah.
Alec Goldman:
right? And it's almost like two different parts. One's educational and one is more of the solving for consideration, convincing, and building trust with that individual.
Chris:
Yeah. And there are two sides to this because really, if you're a dentist, you're going to want to get to the end. You want to find this patient and bring them in. And to be told to create a strategy that casts a broad net or something like that, frankly, isn't interesting and probably wouldn't be worth it. So the conversation here is always, how do you become specific with your intention? And we're borrowing from their mission or their specialty or something else. And then- create a system that fits a dentist, what is unique, a dentist's schedule, an owner-operator's schedule. If I'm a dental practice and I'm doing well, I'm the main technician, so I become more unavailable. And that may be good. And so big case marketing is a good example of selling this to dentists where they say, you're going to work less, you're going to do bigger cases.
And for a dentist, that's, they're very receptive to that. So the idea with with developing a content strategy, starts with really becoming specific, but then you have to get in the conversation, well, how do you create the tools or enable, or teach a dentist or dental practice or office manager how to use that content in a way that you can spread it out, right? And this is why we talk about video. I think this brings us back to what you're doing for NexHealth because it's such a perfect example of this. You're recording these extremely informative you know, narratives that I think people can digest and take home with them. But then also you're gonna prepare all these sound bites and all these micro clips that can be used. And, you know, as I said, from an SEO standpoint, you can use it elsewhere as well.
Alec Goldman:
Yeah, I mean, let's, I'm happy to break that down very quickly, but I think a content strategy from, you know, the early 2000s, 2010 really composed of a lot of blog writing. And that was based on the way that most, I think, consumers, patients, anybody was consuming content through reading. But with the evolution of all these social media platforms, specifically your YouTube and your Instagram, your Facebook, your TikTok. The amount of video and audio that is being consumed has drafts like made reading content, not, not important at all, but certainly one of many forms of mediums that are being consumed. Right. So how do we build and spend time, uh, effectively to build a great content strategy that allows for patients slash consumers to find out who we are, the problems we're solving, what we're responsible for, but also do it in a way. That. Google and YouTube and all these different channels understand who, you know, Alec as a content, you know, marketing educator at NexHealth is, but the same thing for a dentist.
And what we found is that by doing more videos, we could take topics that people care deeply about, things like SEO, things like branding, things about how to keep staff happy in practices, speak with experts on those topics, and then use that core video. break it down into smaller chunks to share that on social, transcribe that long video, right? So that we have all of that being used as our written copy that would ultimately help us rank well on Google. So the question that, you know, a lot of different dentists who I speak with are wondering is how do they do this? And I have my own answer, but I guess before I answer, Chris, I'll ask you, like, you know, Dentists are extremely busy. You know this better than anybody.
I think the core asset that you and I were speaking about is that you're pretty much giving them a set-and-forget mindset where they can be the operators and they can hire you almost as their digital marketing team. And they're going to be successful working with DIGI Search. But if they want to move into a really personalized content strategy that targets their specific, you know, ICP, their ideal customer persona or their profile, um, It requires their time, requires them to be a part of it. So how do they go about, what's your recommendation on how they would actually build their own content strategy?
Chris:
That's a really good distinction. And I think, and that was, I was sort of harking to that on my last comment is, this, I think what we're talking about, it should be clear, and you tell me if you agree with this, that when you're talking about content marketing strategy, that's really the question we get, which is a great question, is what can I do now? And content marketing, really, what we're referring to, and maybe I'm oversimplifying, is essentially that is, how can you contribute to your online presence in a way that... Google or these other platforms. Essentially, patients can see that, right? Because you want to be recognized. So it's funny you mentioned a blog because a blog is whether the doctors writing or hiring dental writers to do it is going to be passive and it's going to be solely SEO focused. And we'll always when we're selling a blog, we'll always say, this is going to get you here.
You need to fill in the gaps. We can't come to your office. You know, we can't fill out these release forms for your patients and post pictures and that sort of thing. You know, same with social. So I think, I guess I'm reacting to your question to say that the delineation is, well, what's the next step? And it's always being mindful of the dentist's time. And so there's always gonna be some aspect of it, I think, which is involve some sort of software support. And we're in an age where you can always find a tool for that.
The NexHealth Reviews product is a great example of that. Because, you know, but Google reviews. is should be a preeminent focus for any dental products. We don't need to go into that. But if you're manually asking and pulling up people's phones or sending a QR code, that's going to be a less effective or less positive use of your and your staff's time unless you have well-designed software to support how you want to solicit reviews and have a strategy in place to either reward positive reviews or respond to that sort of thing. So that's a good example because that's a measure in Google's mind of activity, engagement, and content, regular content. is going to be 10x, let's say 3x, something like that. And Google's like, these are adding content to sources and platforms that are related to your practice. So having that, let's, I think it was a little unfair to use the implantologist example, but for more maybe universal example, let's say we're trying to get, we're trying to create a strategy that puts your practice in front of people who may not already be patients.
And that's sort of easy because that's everybody. Dental is an essential function. Everyone needs to come to the dentist regularly. So let's say we're targeting new patients for a cleaning or for a regular checkup. So what you need to do is you need to position yourself in front of someone else regularly. So regularity is gonna be one of them. That's gonna be pre and post-, probably the most difficult for a dental practice. And we can talk about that in a second because I'm actually curious to see what some of your thoughts are about that. And I know we share similar feelings for how to get stuff out there, but bearing in mind, we're talking let's say a high traffic dental practice, you've got, we can ask one hour a week from a dentist, I think. I think that's a fair challenge to put in front of you. But I would say you have to start with the video.
I think that's where everything is. Content can trickle down from that. But I think... In general, if I were to describe this, it would be to develop a habit of creating video content. Now you've got to be careful with that because that's where there's the most exposure and there's also the most difficulty in becoming ordinary. Dentists don't want to hear this, but there are a lot of negative connotations around dental practices. So if you're going to start, and dentists, I would say like myself, I've inherited a lot of this from my familiar dental practices, I tend to get technical. You're probably noticing that from this podcast. I'll tend to get into the weeds with things, but patients don't wanna, they don't wanna hear about what makes your composite better or how you can, you know, or how you have a CEREC, maybe they do wanna hear about the CEREC machine, but you know, they don't wanna hear about a lot of things that perhaps you might get excited about. So the things that we would bring first in mind are like I said, leveraging your strengths. What are your specialties? A lot of positive reactions we see from a really well-defined culture. So does your practice look nice? Is your staff, do you have someone, some of your staff members you can put in front of them? Do you have a patient with whom you can agree to testimonials?
Obviously, that's gonna give one of the biggest, I think intuitively, a vote of confidence for potential patients who see you. Again, when you're putting yourself in front of non-patients, you're not asking them to, potentially it's someone who's never been to the dentist, but you're also asking someone to change their current dental practitioner. Again, we're talking GPs, we're talking. standard, the most generic sort of marketing targeting campaign I can think of. I would say that's the biggest challenge. So you're gonna, let's say you're gonna trigger someone who's already got that hook in their mind where they're unsatisfied with the way that they're treated by their current dental patient. So if you can show that level of personal touch that you show or how you care for your patients, that'd be a great way to do it. That'd be a great place to start, I think. Now we can't ask that for everyone. Every one of the clients, as I said, we're talking specifically about these rock star practices who are looking to do it. It's very likely that they have this sort of culture. It's very likely that they have this sort of stuff that's waving the flag that can pick this up. That's a great place to start.
Alec Goldman:
I'll add to it. I mean, I think the first thing that we're going, you know, you're, we're talking about just the sheer lack of time that practices have. The truth is, is that you prioritize and find time for the things that matter. So if growth matters to you and you understand that your potential, your target consumer, your target patient is. You have to meet them where they are. So they're online. Then it's that it becomes a priority. Right? Like if you understand that your patients are scrolling on any of the social media platforms I guess anything that is not Twitter, they're all video-based, that
Alec Goldman:
means you have to meet them where they are. And if you don't care to do that, then at some level you're saying, well, I'm going to make a choice, maybe I don't need to grow that much. So to me, the first question, I guess the first thing is, can you have this mindset change, which is, can I find time for the things that matter? Um, and I think there's kind of like a subset of that, which is, you know, you are not afraid to get on camera.
Chris:
Yeah.
Alec Goldman:
You can get just one of those things that people are really afraid to hit that big red button and just hit record because they have all of these fears about, you know, what perfect, what a perfect video needs to be. You need to have this grandiose microphone this unbelievable camera and this fancy backdrop. But something that I always recommend to dentists that I speak with is that great content is happening every second of every hour. of every day of every week in a practice. It is best practice to pick up a phone. It is how to do your procedures. It's after customers and patients are happy after they get a cavity filled or a veneer put in, right?
All of those are moments that happen right in front of them. And the only thing that they need to do is really, at least for a patient, is ask their permission to see if they would be willing to be on camera, asking the team, how's their day going. recording themselves saying, Hey, I'm having a great day. This is something that I worked on. It was really awesome to see how happy this patient was after this procedure. These are all moments, right? So it's really just a mindset shift of saying, am I willing to get on camera? Not that you need to find more time because you're spending this time anyway, right? So that's kind of the first thing. I think the second, from a process perspective, Is kind of what we were talking about before. If you know what you stand for, you know, who really, you know, the specific type of procedures you're looking for, you know, who your ideal customer is. Age, income, where they're from, what they're doing, like all of that stuff.
My recommendation would be to then interview some of those folks and ask the questions, you know, why, why did you pick me? You can interview your customers and say, why, you know, why did you come here? What was it? You know, what were some of the things that you looked at? What website pages, and what services? Why did, what was it that you, why did you trust me? And those are all ways to think about how do I double down on those pieces of content that you may already have out there and you don't even acknowledge that are doing so well for your business.
Chris:
Really smart.
Alec Goldman:
It's really informative for them to say, okay, well, what questions, you know, especially for new folks who may not be your customers, you would say, well, what questions when you look at my website, can you not answer today? And those are really great places for you to start filling in those holes and putting your on your blog, on your social channels, so that when new folks come in, they can find ways to answer those questions. Because essentially, that's the whole education process. Everybody has loads of questions. There's rarely just one question, which is like, okay, he does implants, great. You always have, what are their reviews, what other services do they have, and where is the location? What hours are they operating, and how can I book an appointment? Do I have to call them? You have so many questions as a consumer. So you really need to be thoughtful. But again, it sounds intimidating, but because your practices are filled with content. I just, you know, I think again, the reason people are not doing is not time. I actually just think it's fear.
Chris:
Yeah, I would say you're saying two things the mindset, the mindset. So we have this, we have this like tagline that we put out there where you say we support the good dentist and really that's an effort on our part to shift practices, mindsets to say, it's essentially you're using this, probably you're using this mantra as a way to entice and encourage that as you're already doing this, this is, this is, you should overcome your fear. So We use that slogan to say, we as an SEO company, let's say, we should represent what you're already doing. So, the best SEO efforts are having a good, again, in Google's mind or in a new patient's mind, when you're looking for new practice, they're looking for what's the best, Google wants to show the best results, people, potential patients want to go to the best or the most appropriate dental practice. So, all you're doing is showcasing the things you're already doing. And so then that's the, so we do try to influence that mindset shift when we talk to practices.
Again, just so you're not reactive, and just so you're not constrained by certain expectations, because I think that's a poor way to do about it. But I think what you're also talking about is something that we don't get a lot of a chance to talk about, which is getting people to start thinking about online marketing or content marketing as an extension of what they're already doing. So looking at their day-to-day and saying, and thinking, putting it through the lens of saying, okay, how can I just capture this moment? You know, and it could, the video might be intimidating, it could just be writing, and it could start there because that articulation is very important.
You and I are sort of assuming that articulation already exists, and it may not. So, and you know, this may be a challenging thing to hear for practices, so I do want to kind of break it down, be like, you know, there are bite-sized versions of this, but getting in front of the video, that's something, you know, getting in front of the video, you tell someone, what are you excited about? and they'll have two or three answers. What excites you about your practice? What makes your practice different? Whether or not it's articulate, they're gonna talk about it. And if they have to get technical, start with technical. Start with technical and get that comfort. What we're ignoring is there are probably some minimum purchases like a camera stand.
Let's start with that. You don't have to get the ring light, and you don't have to be all goofy in front of the camera. Be yourself, but use a phone camera. Use a phone camera. and practice with that in your office. Or a lot of dentists are off on Wednesdays, it's like golf day, that's like a tradition. Do it on Wednesday in your office at home right before you do the books or the payroll or whatever it is. Just get in the habit of articulating that as if you're speaking. If there's this fear dentists are already speaking, explaining their work to their patients, it's something that they have an enormous amount of pride in. One of the things, One of the things that I ran into at a young age, and I was, early on I was very confused by it, I think this kind of spills into our market, like what are these personas, or how do you understand who you are as a dentist, or how do we understand dentists, excuse me.
I heard a lot of dentists say, they consider themselves an artist. And you think about what they're doing all day, is there... they've got these glasses on and they're hyper-focused, they're laser-focused on a one by the one-millimeter square inch, or one by one square millimeter piece of tooth, piece of enamel. And they're getting everything to be just right and sculpting and also talking through patients, calming them down, putting systems in place to make them feel welcome at home. There's an incredible amount of... I would say skill involved in presenting treatment plans. That starts with when you're working. It starts with hygiene, you know? And they're already doing it. They're going to seminars for it. But how come the seminars aren't talking about taking that culture, taking those systems, and putting them into a tangible, into something that can be turned into the content? Something they can be proud of, essentially.
Alec Goldman:
Something that they could just share on the internet.
Chris:
Yeah,. You know, it doesn't have to be expository. There's a professional way to talk about these. I think what we're not talking about is, this is what I was going to ask you, what we're not talking about is keeping in mind this profile we're discussing, this busy dentist, what's an ideal regularity? Or, okay, what's an ideal regularity? And then what would you say is an appropriate starting point for, I'm a dentist, I know what I do, and I'm ready to start recording. What's an appropriate frequency?
Alec Goldman:
Sounds so intimidating. Sounds so unapproachable and it sounds so unrealistic. So the recommendation I make, and this is past just dentistry or past anybody working at NexHealth. This just is like anybody in life who needs to get in, who needs to improve the exercise and activity of sharing things publicly. is really what we're talking about. And the answer is to hold yourself accountable to whatever frequency feels tangible. So if somebody said, I have no time, I probably would respond by saying, Can you give me once a week? Can you give me one video a week and post it?
Chris:
That's what I was gonna say.
Alec Goldman:
And post it every Monday morning? You have no choice. Can you do that? Right. And you get that if you can't, then you need somebody to hold you accountable. Cause once a week to me, it's like you can, anybody can do anything once a week. You go to the gym once a week, you can eat well one day a week. Right. Like we're just talking about, like, can you do the thing you're committing to once a week? But once you go from once a week, and I'm not suggesting that necessarily you'd see the output that you want from once a week, which is a different conversation.
Like, will you be successful if you post every single day? Sorry, that you would post once a week for the rest of your life, you'd be more successful than not doing it. But my goal then would say, okay, you've now done once a week for a month. Can we do two times a week for the second month? Could we do it three times a week for the third month? We do four times a week to a point where you're building up the courage and confidence to get you to a place where these things are just like, Oh yeah, I'm going to pop on the camera. This thing's 30 seconds. Just part of your day, right? It's just part of your habit. And that's really what you're trying to trick your brain into doing, which is just, can you, can you trick yourself into making this thing that seems so intimidating?
Not intimidating at all. You're just hitting record on a camera and then building it into your daily activity and exercise. Right. So that to me, I guess the long wind, the short one, the short answer to a long-winded statement is my goal initially would tell you if you, if you're the type of individual who's saying, I, I'm not doing this, I'd say, can you do it once a week? That's it.
Chris:
Yeah.
Chris:
I think I totally agree with that. And I think there's something else that you're saying. And you correct me if I'm wrong. But I think this is what I would say. It sounds like you're implying that it probably makes sense to start with longer-form videos because of what you're implying. And I think there's a lot. I would agree that there is a lot of opportunity in short-form videos. But if you can start to develop that habit of a long form video and long form we're not talking long winded. a couple of minutes. Again, you're just trying to relay your culture, your practice. I think the testimonial is such a great idea because people are more or less familiar with it, You get that permission, and you ask them one or two questions, and you put a face to it, put yourself in there as well.
But you take those long-form videos, and there are tools online that you can chop that up and turn that into four or five small short-form videos that are just, they're just drawing eyes to your practice, drawing eyes to the way you do things. And you can schedule those out and you can sort of set up In a very short amount of time, if you develop that habit and you kind of spent some time implementing a couple of tools or get a staff member to do this, you can really quickly set yourself up for six months of content where you're not recording. And I don't want that to be the goal. But once you build on that, then you can start to get, and again, this is a baseline, but you can see how that small habit can transform into having an extremely dense social and content profile.
Alec Goldman:
Yeah, I think, I think something that you mentioned there that I would just add to it, I think trying to build a culture.
Alec Goldman:
You need to say, but essentially what I'm saying is you want to get the group of individuals who work at that practice to hold each other accountable. And if everybody is willing to jump in together, I think it creates a way for everybody to kind of be more complimentary. Oh, that video is awesome. Like that's really what you're looking for. Just like. very positive reinforcement after you do something that's scary. So instead of just the dentist looking at themselves being like, wow, this video, it's going to tank. There's no way anybody's going to watch it. Cause by the way, if you do one video, you're just, the truth is it's like, you're not going to get a ton of engagement online.
Chris:
it's a habit. Yeah.
Alec Goldman:
So figuring out a way to hack the fact that you're not going to have great engagement is to have the people around you being very supportive and complimentary of the activity that you're doing and trying to do something that's great for the business and, new and scary. Like me is something that I would try and install and just get the front office team and other dentists involved in the practice. So everybody's feeling that they're doing this together.
Chris:
I like that. And the discussion is, look at, if we're engaging in this discussion with one of our practices, they're already, they're like, how do I get out there? So it's always framed through the lens of, you wanna be, what part of your practice do you wanna put out there to put publicly? You know, what are you gonna expose? And then I think getting the, you're already talking about this, you're already excited about it, your staff's excited too. So getting everyone involved, and creating that habit, I think the tools follow, I think. with content because, you know, we are sort of ignoring the writing aspect of it because those are implied in the video. You want to develop a voice. You want to be comfortable. You want to develop comfort. You want to layer it into your day-to-day. You don't want to be obnoxious either. You don't want to intrude in the way that you're handling the press. You want to reflect that. I think it's worth mentioning. You know, AI. Is part of the conversation right now. I would say that. it's more a tool to be used, maybe to help supplement some of that time crunch, but by no means should it be relied on because you wanna put forth your voice. You wanna discover that you wanna find it, and you want that's what people are gonna be buying into when they're coming into your practice.
Alec Goldman:
I heard a great statement. AI right now, especially the generative stuff, is based on everything that's already on the internet. So inherently, if you were to use it, you would be building nothing unique.
Chris:
Okay, yeah, I like that.
Alec Goldman:
Right? So the question is not, don't it's, you know, should I use this? Of course, you should, but it should be something that helps you get started. It's a good V1 if you will, but it's not, it's not your finished product.
Chris:
You mentioned before in a conversation, you mentioned it was a driver. And I like that mindset. It was like, look at him, I need to be, I need some oomph. And I think that's where it was really helpful. And there are other tools, obviously, but you're always gonna need to put some QA on it or some sort of extra little touch.
Alec Goldman:
Yeah. Chris, I know we're coming up in time. I want to give you kind of just the last opportunity. Any last thoughts on, I mean, obviously this is a very in-depth conversation as to not just what it's really what it takes to build a content strategy mindset, tools, strategy, all that. But what are your last thoughts here?
Chris:
I think what I was what I was stricken by in the last thing you said and I'm going to start borrowing that is the mindset shift that is required. So it's not something that we would think it's I think it's very appropriate for this podcast and what you're trying to do here because anyone who's interested in this conversation I think would be receptive to something like that to thinking about creating demand. thinking about not being restricted by what's, you know, this conversation is frankly, you know, in a very crowded space and there's a lot of stuff out there that has some validity but isn't, it doesn't really do justice to what really is necessary. And it's restrictive to patients, to dental practices who become too focused on trying to game some sort of system or trying to, you know, even what we're saying right now, I think we've done a great job of getting out of the weeds. and really just trying to encourage the impulse to get out there.
There, I guess if I had to say one last thing, it's my experience with all the dental practices that we made that not a lot of practices are doing this and doing it well or thinking about it. It's a fit and where I'm specifically talking about in the local environment where they compete, you look at any mid-size suburban environment and you've got. twenty to thirty dentists all competing for the same set of eyes and there are not a lot of dental practices that are doing this. So this is really a conversation about early adoption and getting out there in front of everyone. So even just engaging at this, I would say I'm trying to lower the bar for success being regularity is probably the most important thing at this point. I don't want to deemphasize the quality that you should be putting out but
Chris:
You will have in the local sphere a lot of success just by becoming more regular than ever else because no one else is doing it. You're gonna provide all your patients, all the search engines, all the social indicators, dozens of indicators that your practice is thriving and engaging and burgeoning and deserves attention.
Alec Goldman:
The best time to start is now. Chris, thank you so much for joining today. I know you got to hop to another meeting, but it was great having you on the show and I'm sure we'll do it again soon.
Chris:
I like this is great. I learned a lot as well. Great to meet you. Great to talk. We'll be in touch.