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Is your dental practice ready to break free from the ordinary and embrace new marketing strategies that truly make a difference?
This episode features Shane Simmons from Crimson Media Group, who walks us through unique approaches that transform how dentists connect with their local communities. By leveraging the power of local Facebook groups, Shane shares the secrets to building meaningful relationships and promoting dental services through community engagement. Whether it's through exciting collaborations like organizing yoga sessions or axe throwing events with fellow local business owners, the insights shared in this conversation will open your eyes to the potential of grassroots marketing.
But it’s not just about joining any group—it’s about authentically positioning yourself as a part of the community. Shane shares the value of engaging with these groups using a personal profile to foster trust and connection. These small steps can lead to significant benefits, including cross-promotion with businesses boasting strong social media influence. To cap it all off, Shane extends an exclusive offer to the audience—a complimentary marketing analysis aimed at unveiling the intricacies of local advertising and helping you position your practice for maximum impact.
Discover new marketing insights that could reshape your dental practice—tune in now!
(This episode originally aired on December 26th, 2022)
Website: crimsonmediagroup.com
Facebook: facebook.com/crimsonmediamarketing
If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:
My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/
The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041
Michael: Hey Shane. So talk to us about uncommon marketing methods. Tell me one or a couple tactics or strategies that will help bring in new patients.
Shane: Yeah, so Michael, we've got one that a everybody can do. So if you've ever been in, you know, these local, like Facebook groups in your communities, you'll find that there's a Facebook group for everybody, moms, dads, but one in particular is small businesses in the area, and it's usually like shop small business or shop, you know, the community that you're living in.
And one of the things that we're starting to have clients do is get into these groups and find someone who has a small business in that group that's in your community that could come to your office and do some sort of, Event or just like team building exercise at the practice. so I'll get where, how this kind of comes into getting new patients in a bit.
Mm-hmm. . But the first way that you can look at this, is like as a team building opportunity. So think of people like, Yoga instructors or think of someone who maybe teaches people how to meditate. Invite that person to do a session at your office for your team one day. And one, it's gonna be a great team building exercise.
It's gonna be something that's beneficial to, you know, everybody on the team. But what you can then do is say, Hey, we would love for, you know, you to post this on your Facebook and your Instagram account. You know, talking about how you had this session here. We'll share. To our audience that way in case you know, people can go check out your yoga studio or whatever the case may be, but then if they're sharing that they came to your practice, they're going to be putting your practice in front of their entire audience too.
So it's obviously ideal. To find somebody who has a decent social media following, like, you probably wouldn't wanna do this with a yoga instructor, or somebody who teaches medication who's not on social media. Mm-hmm. . But, finding someone who has an audience and, and cross promoting with each other, um, through that.
But then the second piece of this, which is, you know, really the cool thing is if you're in with the Facebook group where you found that individual, you can then, Pictures and videos of that day where that yoga instructor or whoever came to the practice and give them a shout out and tag them in their business in that post saying, Hey, we wanna thank, you know Michael's yoga studio for coming to our dental practice and Rancho Cucamonga and doing a full day, you know, or a half day session or whatever the case is.
It's like definitely go check them out. And oh, by the way, if you guys need a dentist in the area, we would love to, be your dental home. So it's a way that you can promote yourself, but while doing so, you're promoting another business and you're not going to get kicked out of the Facebook group because it's not like you're just going in there.
And dropping a promotion, it's like you used somebody's services in that group. You supported another local business. So it looks, you know, it shows that you're supporting the community while also just putting yourself out there that, hey, you know, we're also here. We would love to, to help those in the community.
So that's really what we're starting to find is Almost like a ground marketing technique really, but just doing it through these Facebook groups, and again, there's so many different options that you could do with this. You could do an onsite, somewhere else where you actually go and do like, a obstacle course.
You know, somebody like that owns like an obstacle course thing in the area, whatever it is. I know one thing that's like really popular right now in the Midwest, I don't know if, it's like nationally. Ax throwing is like a thing Okay. That a lot of people like go and do now. So, you know, it's, it's all about just how can you get and support other businesses in the area and then talk to that person and ask about how can we, cross promote each other to our audiences to drive more business.
And the great thing about it is, it's free with the exception of whatever you may pay to get the person to come out and do the event, or if you go do. , activity at their place of business. Yeah. Okay.
Michael: So then how would you recommend we go about doing this? From step one, we're going inside the Facebook group.
We're looking betting, and then we're like, okay, let's see who has a good following. So would that take some time, I would assume, right. .
Shane: Yeah. So, yeah, it's just a little bit of groundwork at the beginning. Mm-hmm. . So the first thing you wanna do is, you know, go to Facebook and search small business and then type in whatever, city, town you live in.
That's the first thing. And join all of those groups, um, and you would join those from your personal, profile, your Facebook profile, but make sure it has. Listed on your profile, owner, dentist at such and such practice, so that that's listed in there. So first thing you wanna do is join the group.
Once you've joined the groups, you can then search the group members. And the first thing that I would personally do I would scroll through the Facebook group and look at. Who's actively posting in there? You know, who are people that are regularly posting or promoting something in that group and looking at what it is that they, do.
Are they real estate agents? Are they gym owners? what is it that is their profession? If you find somebody who's really active and you can. , that person could really benefit. my team, we could do something fun with them, have them come out to the office, do a day session, whatever the case is. Then that would be the person, you're trying to, reach. So I would just scroll through the group, look at, see who the active posters are, and then just make a list of, how could we use this service? Could we use this service? And, and then, you know, from there you can check out their.
Page profile and see how many followers they have, and then it's from there, Michael, it's just about sending a message to them, on that group and introducing yourself as a fellow small business owner in the community who had saw one of their posts and was like, Hey, I would love to, do this or have my team do this.
How can we, get set up with you guys and maybe promote each other, um, in the community. So it's really kind of three steps joining the. Researching the group and finding out, who would be a good fit to kind of partner with. Mm-hmm. and then just reaching out to that person and so far the offices that have done this that we work with, nobody's been turned down because everybody wants to partner with another local business if they can to help mutually benefit each other.
Michael: Yeah. Do you think they should also kind of like once they come in, let's just say it's like the ACT's throwing, right? You go to them. We ask like, Hey, is the manager here or the owner here, kind of thing. Like that. Or,
Shane: that's a great question, Michael.
Usually what we're finding as of right now at least, is it's usually the owners or like the main, manager, branch manager, who is like the member of these groups. Mm-hmm. , um, because they're the actively, the ones that are trying to. Grow their, footprint in the community. So if for these smaller businesses, it's usually, you know, the owners that, that we're seeing in the groups.
So it's a lot easier to, you know, be talking to the, the main person rather than going to their website and then having to see, you know, hey, who's the owner or the manager and contacting them. That way you may have a hard time getting through. that initial gatekeeper, but if you're reaching out to the owner directly on Facebook and you'll be able to find that out, you know, obviously by clicking on their profile and it should say if they're the owner slash operator or whatever the case is of mm-hmm.
such and such business.
Michael: I like how you mentioned join from the personal Facebook because that, I mean, I get that question.
Everybody gives that question like, should we, they wanna join with their like business Facebook? Why is that
Shane: not a good idea? Yeah, because I think we're the business. if you create, you know, business page and you try to join through the business group, it just doesn't have that personal connection that, you're looking for.
And it can sometimes raise red flags with group admins. I mean, you know, Michael, you're group admin. It can raise red flags of us. This person just gonna come in and spam the group, nobody wants that who's running one of these Facebook groups. So when you join in from your personal profile, it's showing that you're actually there trying to. Meaningful connections. You're not afraid to hide your face right, or hide behind the business, and you're just more likely to be looked at as like a legitimate person or poster contributor to that group, rather than going in and joining through the business page where in that case there's just no personal, touch to that.
Michael: Yeah, I can see that a hundred percent. Awesome. And then so when we go in there, we're talking to them, let's just say we're going in there, talking to them and then, The owner's like, Hey, yeah, yeah, come on in. Should we do something where're like, Hey, if your employees Or like, wait and then have them, you know, until you guys interact more.
What? What do you
Shane: think? Yeah, no, I'm glad you asked this because we would, suggest, or the way we're suggesting it right now is go in, you know, u utilize their service, whatever the case is, kind of use that the first time. And, and that's kind of it. but then follow up, a month down the road and saying something like, you know, Hey, we just wanna say how much we appreciated you guys.
Maybe you drop off. to go whitening boxes, you know, crest whitening strips, something along those lines to the, business and to the group, and put some membership. If you have a membership plan, which hopefully you do in the practice, practice, put some membership plan, graphics or a QR code that goes to your membership plan in that gift box as well.
And so when you give that to the, the manager there, let them know, you know, Hey, we just really enjoyed, you know, utilizing your service. Obviously, you know, we're another small business in the area. If you don't have, currently any like dental insurance that you're offering your team, because, you know, we understand small businesses, a lot of them don't have that.
here's an option for the people who work here where they can come to our office and join this membership plan. And so that's a way where you can then start to. Build that, relationship a little bit more, taking it to the next level and kind of showing them how you can, you with their team and, and provide those type of benefits.
But I would say wait at least a month after you've kind of really connected with that person, utilized their services already. That way it doesn't look like you're trying to get something from them. and that's it. You know, you want to look at this as, you know, how can we show them we're wanting to utilize their services as much as possible, we value them. And at that point, reciprocity just comes into play where they're gonna wanna be able to do whatever they can for you to help promote you and your business, um, because you've shown support to. .
Michael: Yeah. Awesome man. Awesome. I appreciate this, Shane, and I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find 'em on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?
Shane: Yeah, no. So they can, uh, always find us@crimsonmediagroup.com. It's a great way to reach out to us, through that platform. And yeah, we'd be happy to answer any questions you have about your current marketing or what marketing maybe we, you wanna explore doing, you know, definitely reach out to us and we'd be happy to be a resource.
Michael: Yeah. And real quick, you, y'all still do the free analysis, right? For.
Shane: Yes. So we do, just for Michael's audience here, we do a free marketing analysis for, any practice owners in this group. So we'll go through, we'll look at, what people are looking for when they're, when they're searching for a dentist, who's advertising in the area, what are they advertising? That way you get a really good glimpse of the kind of landscape in your community, and it's just really great insight, if anything. So, yeah, if you wanna check out. what that's all about. You can reach out to us through, again, crimson mediagroup.com and just let us know in the comments that you'd like to request a marketing analysis and, uh, we'd be happy to to do that for you.
Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be the first link in the show notes below, so go check it out, get your free analysis and shin. Thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode. Thanks Michael.