Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Spring 2020 - 57

Administrative

Presentation Summary

Master the Changing Marketing
Technology to Grow Your Practice
Dr. Christine Hong
Dr. Jasmine Faldu
PCSO Bulletin Contributors

Ms. Beth Leach
PracticeMarketer

Presented by Ms. Beth Leach at the PCSO Annual
Session, Oct 5, 2019
Beth Leach was able to share her knowledge on
the ever-changing and developing technological advancements that keep leaving clinicians
in the past. With an extensive background and
studies in technology, Leach is the president
of two companies: PracticeMarketer and Practice Retriever. She has helped more than 3,000
orthodontic practices grow into booming offices
that are well equipped to use technology and are
not overwhelmed with all of the options. She is
passionate about "helping dental and healthcare
practices realize their full potential through effective marketing and communications." Leach helps
create marketing strategies that will improve
office websites and social media platforms. She
is an expert in what is happening now and what
your office needs to know to filter in the right
patients for your practice.
Leach encourages doctors and office staff to
remember that technology is an assistant to
what you do daily; you are still the connector that
needs to be present for patients to feel comfortable. Healthcare providers are irreplaceable but
are even more valuable when they use technology correctly and to their advantage. Leach
explains strong marketing strategies, common
social media platforms (and ones to stay away
from!), and technology companies that are here
to help.
The Future Is Here: Technology Is a Growing Part
of the Practice
There are many tools to integrate into your
practice, so it is important to use what works for
your office and your patient population. There
is practice management software, websites,
chat, text, messenger, social media, and artificial
intelligence. Leach shared that you don't need all
of them at once. It's important to use technological aids as a guide to help your practice become
more efficient. Leach stresses that technology is
an assistant and not a replacement for the doc-

Spring 2020 PCSO Bulletin

tor-patient relationship, but it's important to post
every day to keep fluid active user movement to
the social media pages.
Digital Natives
Leach expressed that the adolescent patient population and younger individuals who are being
treated now are considered digital natives. These
patients were born directly into the digital era,
so they are masters of any social media platform.
Therefore, it is critical that your team also keeps
up with the new phone applications and takes
advantage of the interests of this particular patient pool. If offices are shifting to using technological tools that their patients use all of the time,
the practice gets much more exposure on a daily
basis.
Know Your Numbers
There are many tools out there to help track office
values, and it is critical to measure which tools
are effective and which ones are not. Leach shares
the following tools that she feels make practices
run more smoothly: Gaidge, Practice Management Software, and Orthazone (inventory tracking and cost comparison between companies).
Marketing
The hidden secret to marketing is using Pinterest.
Post images on your website that link back to Pinterest. This will allow users to see your office page
when they are searching for certain keywords
on the Pinterest website. This will increase the
office's website search optimization and is easy to
implement directly on the webpage. Leach shared
that she saw a 175% increase on a private practice
orthodontic website after they started to link
photos to Pinterest. This not only increases the
practice's visibility but also improves the location
of the office webpage on a simple Google search.
If a webpage is gaining more traffic through the
addition of Pinterest pictures associated on the
site, more users will be driven to the page and in
turn, Google places the webpage higher up on the
search results. When building a new practice, the
company Insights has tips and tricks on where

Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Spring 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Spring 2020