Email Marketing For Dentists
Our CEO, Chris Pistorius was featured on the “The Sales Evangelist” Podcast with Donald Kelly recently. He talks with Donald about how he uses a new(er) video tool called Loom to increase email open rates.
Read The Interview Below
Donald Kelly:
Everybody wants to get in touch with a prospect, but not everyone is willing to do what they need to get in touch with a prospect. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk to you about a strategy that actually works to get in touch with the prospects, no matter who they are, that you’re trying to get in touch with right now, and this is going to really help you. Check it out.
Donald Kelly:
Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to another great episode of The Sales Evangelist podcast. I’m your host, Donald C. Kelly, the sales evangelist, and I’m so excited for another great episode. I’m so excited to be here with you today. And on this episode, I have a fantastic guest. His name is Chris Pistorius. He is the owner and founder of a company called KickStart Dental Marketing. Now, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, Donald, this guy, he works with dentists. I’m trying to work with executive. The cool thing about Chris is that not only does he run his own organization and he knows how to sell to a wide variety of people, but he’s also worked with other major corporations that sold to the executives. So the principles that he share has been helpful for him, not only selling to the market he’s focusing on right now, but also, the principles applies no matter what industry you’re in. So he’s going to share his insights with us.
Donald Kelly:
So let’s talk about Loom. So Loom is kind of like that lumpy letter, or this something that’s, it’s going to be a little bit unique here. But where do I start? Because I know I can go and send these videos and I know I’ve tried it. Let’s back up. What are some of the people get wrong when it comes to towards sending videos and outreach method?
Chris Pistorius:
I think they don’t have a process in place. I think the first thing you’ve got to do is just map out your process of what this is going to look like, right? So I use Lucid Chart for that, and it’s like a mind mapping software, and it just lets me be creative and draw what I think this process is going to look like in the beginning. First of all, let’s buy a list, right? Let’s get a list of email addresses or phone numbers, whatever it may be. And then the next step is to-
Donald Kelly:
Where do you get those lists from yourself?
Chris Pistorius:
Yeah, I get it from a few different places. My most recent is DMB, typically works the best for me, but there’s a lot of organizations out there that does it. But the list is pretty crucial, right? But I think the first step into it is map it out. Just don’t wing it and half-ass things. Map it out, have a plan. The plan will change, right? You’ll have to tweak it when you see what’s working and what’s not, but start with that initial planning session.
Donald Kelly:
So what’s a typical process look like? Say I’m reaching out to, go back to your AOL type days, and I’m reaching out to the CMO of a major company. What might a process look like if I have kicks and giggles here?
Chris Pistorius:
Yeah. So the first thing I would do would be, I always identified my dream 100. And it can be dream 50 or whatever. And everybody probably knows it, but that’s basically a list of 100 prospects that I want to go after. These are the ones that I want to do business with, right? So I don’t have a list of 1,000 or 50,000 records, right? I start with 100, right, because that’s what I can handle pretty easily. So I start there and then I come up with my method of the way I’m going to do things. So at AOL, I did it by revenue potential. And so FedExes would go out to maybe the top 25% on that list. The others, I would use more traditional channels like phone calls. This is really going to age me, but I used to send fax messages.
Donald Kelly:
Come on, bro.
Chris Pistorius:
Yeah, just blind fax messages, if I could get a good number. It’s kind of like the Mark Cuban type, beat cop marketing type stuff. You go in banging down doors and do everything you can to get that initial rapport, that initial meeting, right, and you don’t let anything stop you. It’s not about the 90 people out of 100 that say no. It’s all about the 10 people out of 100 that say yes. And I think too many people get really focused in on no, no, no, nos and they get beat down, and I get it. But you got to focus on the few that’s going to say yes.
Donald Kelly:
So go back to now this idea of Loom. We have the sequence. How many of those emails you’re sending to that one prospect have Loom videos inside of them, or have a video inside of them?
Chris Pistorius:
So we approach it two ways, okay? We have one sequence that will send just a plain text email. And by the way, I would really advise sending plain text emails versus HTML emails. Delivery rate’s better and people respond better, because they don’t see it as a commercial sales pitch. It’s just like a text-based email, right? But anyway. We’ve got two different sequences. One sends an email saying, hey, I put together this video for you about your website for ABC Dental. I’ve got some feedback for you. Do you want me to send it over to you, right? So this is what we send out the most, because then we don’t have to take 20 minutes, put together a video and hope that they respond, right? We send that out and then once they respond to that, then I shoot the video.
Chris Pistorius:
I can get it done in 15 to 20 minutes now. And then I send that to them, and then it’s more of me following up personally. And then the other one is is we actually will pre-do a video. This is top 10 stuff, right, of that dream 100. We’ll do 10 of them for those top guys. And we’ll just go ahead and send it out. And Loom allows you to see when somebody’s watched it, it’ll alert you, and who’s watched it. And so when they watch it, I will follow up with them pretty quickly after that, just to try to engage in a conversation then. So, that’s kind of how we have that set up.
Donald Kelly:
So in the Loom videos, what do you say? How long are your videos tend to be when you’re outreaching, or doing the outreach to a prospect?
Chris Pistorius:
Yeah, they’re pretty quick. It’s got to be pretty much to the point, because you’ll lose people’s interest and you’ve got to write it kind of like a news article. You got to have the bang in the front, so that they stay engaged with it, and then you can slow it down towards the end. But you got to get the most critical part of your message in the front of it. But typically, the initial videos are a couple, three minutes long. And then once they engage and I’ll do a deeper dive, that’s a little bit longer. I can get more into a proposal type video. But again, the whole point of the process is to get them actually in a strategy session. So I don’t want to give them too much, because I want to engage with them personally on a Zoom call so that we can really start to develop a rapport, versus just back and forth emails.
Donald Kelly:
Yeah. 100% on that. I love that. And then when you say short, is it 30 seconds?
Chris Pistorius:
Couple of minutes, I would say, for that initial one, yeah. And I always, with Loom, you can share your screen. If you guys aren’t using Loom out there, I’m sure you are, but if not, check it out. It’s awesome. It used to be free. I don’t know what the plans they have now, but I’m on a paid version, but it’s pretty cheap. But it allows you to share your screen. So for instance, when I do a video, I’ll be kind of small down in the corner, and then the client’s website, for instance, will be my shared screen when I’m recording, so they know it’s a very personalized message, right?
Donald Kelly:
It’s them. Yeah.
Chris Pistorius:
Yeah, absolutely. And now, another tip, pro tip, if you will, is that with Loom, you can embed a GIF image. So basically, what I’ll do is I’ll take a whiteboard, a little mini whiteboard, and I’ll write their name on it or something, for the very beginning of the video, and I’ll hit record and I’ll put that welcome, Tom, from ABC Dental, or whatever it may be. I’ll have that on the whiteboard in front of my camera, and then I’ll be waving on the other side. And so what they see in that embed when they get the email is they’ll actually see their name on a whiteboard with me waving at them, right? So you can’t get much more personalized than that. And it’ll be their website also that they’ll see. So that really helps with open rates and engagement rates.
Donald Kelly:
What am I not asking that I should ask when it comes towards videos?
Chris Pistorius:
I think that a lot of, and I fell into this trap for a while, everything has to be perfect, right? And that’s not the case. I mean, look at my background right now, right? I got lights streaming everywhere and it looks like crap. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It needs to be done. Right? So done is better.
Donald Kelly:
One more time for the people in the back.
Chris Pistorius:
Done is better than perfect, right? Because if you sit around and just try to make your studio perfect and your sound perfect, you’ll never get it done. You’ll just keep tweaking and tweaking and spending money and not sending out one proposal or one email, right? Just do it. Get in front of a laptop with whatever you have, and just start doing it. You can tweak it as you go, but just do it. And most people get caught up in the details and try to perfect everything.
Donald Kelly:
If folks want to get in touch with you to get some more of your advice and tips, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?
Chris Pistorius:
Yeah, even if you’re not a dentist, which I’m sure most people aren’t out there, but go to my website at kickstartdental.com. There’s a free strategy session button there. And it’s made for dentists, but I don’t care what industry you’re in. I don’t care what you’re doing. I’ll give you some free advice. Just click that button. I do all of the strategy sessions. Schedule a time on my calendar, and I’ll help you out as much as I can.
Donald Kelly:
That was Chris Pistorius. And if you want to go ahead and connect with Chris, you can find information about him in the show notes. Take advantage of the strategy session and be able to learn from him, and to see how this can help you as a sales rep or as a small business owner, no matter what you do, the principles he share, it is guaranteed to be able to provide some results for you. I promise you. I promise you, it all comes down to taking chances. I’m doing this, because I want you to thrive. I want you to succeed. I want you to find more of your ideal customers. I want you to know what to say when you reach out to them. I want you to close more deals. But most importantly, I want you to go out each and every single day and do big things. Thanks so much for watching.
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