Hello, and welcome. My name is Chris Pistorius. I’m the CEO of KickStart Dental Marketing. For those of you who don’t know me or my company, KickStart Dental Marketing is a digital ad agency focused on dentistry only. We’re based in the Denver, Colorado area. I wanted to send a quick message out to our current clients. I know we’ve been in contact a few times since this COVID-19 stuff has started, but I want to send something out and, and just talk about, in detail some of the opportunities that I think we can see from this. This is just a quick impromptu video. It’s certainly not going to be perfect, so I apologize for that, but I wanted to get something out sooner than later, so that’s why I’m, I’m kind of doing this impromptu. Look, there’s a lot of fear out there, and there’s a lot of unknown which is causing a lot of that fear.
(00:50):
Of course, there’s a concern for dental practice owners on what should we do? Should we close down? Should we pause things? Should we press forward? Should we be more aggressive? You know, what’s the best way to handle this? And you know, your local dental associations the ADA, the CDC, are certainly posting recommendations as well. But I believe that no matter kind of what you choose here, there’s a real opportunity here for you as dental practice owners to come out of this thing stronger than what you were when you came into it. And I know you might be throwing your eyes a little bit and thinking, Oh, you’re a true optimist, I guess, and you know. But, what I also want to come with you with is almost 20 years of local marketing experience.
(01:42):
I’ve been through economic downturns before. I’ve even been through viral epidemics before. I don’t know if the last one was an epidemic or pandemic or not sure what it was, but you know what I mean right. but you know, I want to provide you just a little bit of guidance, not even just to my current clients, but to anybody that owns a dental practice. It might be, you know, having these same issues because, you know, I think the better that you do during this time, it will be the quicker that you come out of this in the positive. So again, I wanted to shoot a really quick impromptu video here on what I think your opportunities are. And I can also talk a little bit about, I mean, we represent a lot of dental practices throughout the country. And I can talk a little bit more about what they’re doing and how they’re proceeding with this, some of this stuff as well.
(02:27):
So you know, the reality is is that the economy is going to be hurt from this. I think that it is possible that we go into a recession. I’m not an economic [inaudible] economic person, economic professional if you will. But I’ve been through downturns before. I think where this one’s a little bit different is that I think once we get through this and I think we will that things will rebound much quicker than what happened in the great recession a few years ago. And I don’t think we will get to that point. But I do think that we will recover from this quite a bit quicker than we did the last. Now again, I’m, I don’t have a crystal bar ball. I can’t tell for sure, but that’s my thoughts. Look, there’s businesses shutting down here in Colorado. They’ve shut down all of our bars, restaurants, things like that.
(03:19):
People are staying home out of fear. They’re watching the news. Which we’ll talk about a little bit more in a second. So you know, as a dentist, if you’re a general dentist or a cosmetic dentist or whatever it may be, you’re not going to get the same amount of new patients as you did a year from now or even a few months from now or a few months you were doing prior. It’s just not going to be the same. There is going to be an economic downturn, and the sooner that we can kind of put our arms around that, I think the quicker we can heal and get through this and grow. However, what I will tell you is that with these large economic downturns, what I have seen in the past is that local businesses like dental practices can pivot, move and rebound much quicker than major corporations.
(04:04):
I think major corporations, you know, certainly in travel and entertainment, no doubt, but even other large corporations are going to rebound from this slower than what dental practices will. And that’s because you’re going to have the ability to pivot, move and, and, and come up with new strategies on how to move forward and not getting bogged down with red tape and things like that. And that happened. That’s exactly what happened in our last downturn is we saw local businesses a lot of them anyway, I’ll rebound much quicker. So I think there is some opportunity there, but I do believe that we have to just, you know, realize that we are in a, a downmarket right now. Now, here’s the thing, patients do still need your services. They’re out there. They need full mouth restorations. They need cavities filled; they need cleanings. That hasn’t gone away, right?
(04:50):
What has gone away is them probably coming into your office for those routine type procedures, not everywhere. Not everybody. There are still people that are going to want to be seen. I know that, for instance, the American dental association has recommended that dentists only provide treatment for emergency based needs. So, you know, I know some, some dental practices are doing that. Some aren’t. Either way, there is an opportunity for you to still do business. I believe during this downturn; demand has not gone away. The what the ADA and CDA recommend are, are, you know, I, I see their points in that. And I think they’re very valid, but I also believe that there are opportunities for you to be able to do business during this time. Maybe it’s more of a pivot into emergency dentistry. I know that’s a little harder if you’re an orthodontist, right?
(05:48):
But if you’re an endodontist, for instance, there’s a lot of root canals out there that are in the merge emergency status, right? I’ve had one, so I understand it. I’m general dentistry. I know some of you don’t necessarily like to do emergency dental appointments, but that’s when you had a full calendar of cleanings and extractions and things like that. So now it may be time to move your marketing to more of a, more of a situation where you’re doing emergency or even take-home teeth whitening kits, things like that. But anyway there are two outcomes here I think in your mind of how this thing can go down. Right? I think that the number one scenario is, you know, you’re probably thinking in your mind, some of you is that this is it, this is the apocalypse. This is where it all ends.
(06:34):
I’ve got to shut down the practice and, and we’re done. I’m going to go back to bed, put my head under the covers and, and see what happens, right? And then there’s the number two situation. I think that is where people believe this is short term, but this isn’t a long lift thing. Whether it be a couple of weeks, a couple months, or even to the end of the year, people do believe that this will pass. And we’ll be okay. The economy will recover. You know, it’s probably not as bad as the news makes it out to be. And you know, I think that’s probably the side of where I am as well. I won’t say probably that is where I am and I hope that’s where you are too because that is what’s going to happen. We are going to come out of this, okay. The economy is going to recover.
(07:19):
So if you do believe that way, if you believe in the second situation that I talked about, then why not keep the pedal to the metal, if you will. Right? Why not keep going because you know that you’re going to come out of this and the economy’s going to rebound and people are going to come in for cleanings again, whether it be two weeks or two months or even the end of the year. See, this is how an opportunity is created for you because of a lot of other dental practice owners are not stretched thinking strategically. They’re not thinking about what happens when you come out of this. They’re thinking about right now, right? And even if you only think about the moment right now versus what’s ahead of you and you don’t take steps to grow through this, then you’re going to be left behind once you do come out of it.
(08:06):
So that’s where I believe that this opportunity is, it’s my advice. Keep the pedal to the metal, keep marketing, get your name out there as others don’t follow that aggressive pattern, or they just kind of fall off because they put their head in the sand, and they’re not sure what to do. That’s how you take over a market and that’s if you’re a Mar, if you’re a dentist that was maybe in the lower half or the middle in terms of competition, you know, online or you know, whatever, Facebook marketing, whatever, this is something that can catapult you and put you ahead of others once we come out of this. So we know people still need your services. Those of you that agree with me and think that we’re going to be coming out of this, it’s fairly short term. I think you now understand that there is an opportunity for you to propel yourself out of this.
(08:55):
If you continue to put out great content and those who are clients of ours know that we’re already doing that. But even if you can do it yourself, you know, short videos, right? Write some blogs, whatever it may be. Put strong content out there. Cause as others that don’t do that, and they stopped doing maybe what they’re doing now, once you do this and you come out of this, you’ve got to think about where you’ll rank on Google. Just that compared to where you were before, you’ll start catapulting some of your competition here. And in terms of SEO or search [inaudible] search engine optimization, how you rank on Google, you can come out of this being a market leader versus maybe somebody that was kind of middle of the pack or below. A lot of I shouldn’t say a lot.
(09:45):
A few of our clients have decided to stop pay per click advertising, and I totally understand because we do have some practices that have decided to shut down for the next couple of weeks. So I totally get that. However, I wouldn’t stop it if you’re staying open. And the reason why is because a lot of other people are going to stop doing it. And the way PaperClick works is that it’s all driven on competition. So the more competitors that are bidding for a particular keyword on Google, the price is driven up. It’s kind of like an auction if you will. So the less people that they are there are competing for a keyword like dentist in Sacramento or emergency dental in Denver. Right. The fewer people that are competing for that term, the lower the cost will be to acquire that potential new patient. So this is going to drive down your pay per click costs pretty significantly.
(10:37):
And it will drive down the cost it takes to acquire a new patient pretty significantly. And think about it with pay-per-click, the only time you pay for paid ads is when somebody that’s actually searching for you or a service that you offer in your local market. And they decided to click on the ad, right? So again, I’ll backtrack a little bit if you know we’re going to come out of this right and you know it’s going to be relatively short term, why slow down or stop that activity? This is going to help you come out of this much bigger in the end. So also, you know, in regards to pay per click and just, you know, really almost a non-marketing issue is that, you know, this could be a great opportunity for some of you bigger practices and better positions to scoop up and buy perhaps an agency or an agency, a dental practice that is struggling, right?
(11:32):
You could maybe buy somebody right now that you know, just doesn’t even want to deal with this and they want to go back and just be a dentist, and you know, work for somebody. This may be a great opportunity for you to scoop up a dental practice if you’re planning on growing at a very high discounted rate. Again, these are all option number two thoughts, right? We’re thinking ahead. We’re thinking strategically. We’re thinking, all right, what’s this gonna look like when I come, when we come out of this in a few weeks or a few months? Right? So I urge you, keep the pedal to the metal, create some opportunities for yourself. You can’t just sit around and wait for opportunities to pop up. This world in this country is driven by creating opportunities for yourself. So it’s my advice from years of experience in this is don’t back down. Don’t put your head in the sand, be aggressive and I promise you’ll come out of this stronger than when you came into it.
(12:23):
This kind of as a review, here are some things that we talked about. You know, I believe, I truly believe that the coven 19 opportunity represents an opportunity to take market share. You know, you still have demand out there. This will build a longterm competitive advantage for you because you can dominate a market and marketing right now while as others kind of ease off, you know, be sure to emphasize. I know we’ve worked with our clients about putting some messaging on their websites about, you know, the safety precautions you’re taking. You know, just some, some things that you’re doing, telling your client or your potential new patients that you’re open for business and you know, we’ve taken extra precautions to make sure that you and your family are safe in our office. You definitely want to communicate that to your patient base.
(13:11):
This is a big focus for your organic footprint in terms of where you rank on Google as others. I know I keep saying this, but as others let off the accelerator, if you put the pedal down, you’re going to overtake a lot of these practices, maybe huge practices that have spent thousands of dollars in the past and marketing, if they ease off that a little bit, it’s not that difficult to overcome them and stay on top of them once we come out of this. Keep paid, search running, you know, it’s a lower cost per lead, it’s less competition, and there are still people out there that want your services. So, you know, it’s difficult times makes us think a lot about, you know, our business, our employees. What’s next to come. Do yourself a favor. Don’t try to watch the news 24, seven.
(13:58):
You know, maybe just check in a couple of times cause that will definitely increase your anxiety for sure. You won’t get as much done, and you’ll, you know, you’ll start scratching your head and maybe even put your head in the sand. And, and as I, as we talked about, I, I just don’t believe that that’s the thing to do. I think now is the time to get aggressive, move on, and come out of this much stronger. But anyway, thanks so much for listening to this. If you have any questions at all, feel free to reach out to me. All my contact information will be below the video here. And you know, if you’re not a client and you just have questions, I’m not going to charge you anything to, to answer questions or anything like that. So just feel free to ask me, but have a great day, and we’ll talk to you very soon.
