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Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode of Monday Morning Marketing! In today's episode, we're sitting down with the esteemed Dr. Tyler Brady to delve into the dynamic world of startups and crafting an authentic image as a dentist. We discover why authenticity trumps all in the realm of dentistry, as Dr. Brady shares insights on leveraging organic social media marketing to make your mark. From debunking sales pitches to allocating your resources wisely, we uncover the true ROI of your personal brand. Dr. Brady's firsthand experiences shed light on regional marketing nuances, the surprising impact(or lack there of) of mailers, and why you may not need a marketing agency starting out! In a world of algorithms, algorithms, and more algorithms, learn why the heart of successful marketing lies in forming genuine connections with potential patients.
This episode is brimming with actionable tips for marketing your startup on social media, so let's dive in with Dr. Tyler Brady!
You can reach out to Dr. Tyler Brady here:
Website: https://www.haven-dental.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haven.dental/
Other Mentions and Links:
For more helpful tips, strategies, ideas, and marketing advice:
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Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041
Michael: Hey Tyler, so talk to us about startups. What advice, suggestions, or methods can you give us that will actually help us with our
Tyler: startup? I think strategizing. I think having a plan and just going all in on it, you really have to dedicate yourself to this. This is a beast.
Starting your own business in any field is extremely difficult. cash is always hard to come by at first because You don't have cash flow coming in. So maintaining your working capital is huge. Spending money in the right places I think is probably. Was my biggest struggle because you get all these sales reps coming in, you hear about all these cool products, about all this technology, all these things that, oh, standard of care.
If you don't have this, you're not gonna be successful. I think a salesperson's job is to sell you what they have to sell. so being, open-minded to new ideas and new things, but also being. Uh, having open eyes to seeing what's really gonna have a good return on investment. I think honestly these, these groups on Facebook were probably one of my biggest resources of places to go.
Products to try people to talk to. Um, Ashley's group has been huge for me. I haven't participated in a lot lately just 'cause I've been so busy. but what she created doing that. Has been, I mean, it's probably saved billions of dollars as far as startups go with dentists spending money in the right places and not wasting, and not being taken advantage of.
'cause you're able to go on and say, Hey, what did you spend for this? Or Hey, I have this, is this a fair price? Or what about this equipment? Things like that. I mean, that, that group has, has changed dentistry forever and it's really cool. I don't think she knew that. Starting out. I think when she started she was like, Hey, here's what I'm doing.
You guys wanna watch? Great. Let's do it together. And, and it's turned into this awesome thing where she's, she's made some huge connections for people all over the world.
Michael: Yeah. Cool. No, that's awesome, man. So you mentioned r o i. Yeah. What to you has been the best r o i so far when it comes to marketing and brand awareness and attracting new patient and what's been the worst where Yeah.
Tyler: You kind of wanna give people warnings. the best r o i, by far has been me. Mm-hmm. Doing the social media. social media is free. it's mind blowing. I was talking with, with another doctor who's an orthodontist who. Whole other thing. I'm actually doing a podcast with her tomorrow. Um, about the power of social media and how much money people used to spend to get in front of just a few thousand people, or 10,000 people, or a hundred thousand people, I mean, Superbowl ads.
Think about it. 30 million people the way the internet works. If you're consistent enough, you can have an audience of tens of thousands of people without even having tens of thousands of followers. and we were talking about the influence of putting yourself on social media, not necessarily your practice.
I mean, everybody thinks that a dentist is a dentist. There's no way, like, oh, cool, you have an iTero, or, oh, you have digital x-rays. Like that's nice, but what they're really buying is. The dentist. Mm-hmm. Am I gonna go to this person? Are they gonna treat me well? Are they gonna take care of me? Do I like their personality?
Do I like the, their approach to helping people, I think is, is the biggest thing. And I know it's really hard at first, it was hard for me at first. Um, and that's the nice thing about these Facebook groups is you can do it in front of your friends, in front of your colleagues first. You can get on and practice live.
you can sign up. and message Michael to see if he'll do a podcast with you and you can practice Uhhuh. No, that's good. Um, so yeah, and, and putting yourself out there is probably, I mean, by far been my biggest r o I. The thing that hasn't worked for me was, as far as r o i is probably mailers. I don't really, I, I tried a good effort.
They were good mailers. They had all the things that marketing needs. But in my market, it just didn't work. Mm-hmm. And I think that might just be specific to me. 'cause I know it works really well in some other areas. Just like Yelp. Yelp in Chicago and New York and Boston is huge in Dallas. Mm. People use it to find a restaurant, maybe that's about it.
Mm-hmm. So, um, you have to kind of be aware of what your market uses for marketing, and spend money in the right place. But, That's the awesome thing about social media hashtags is how you can do that. You just find your local hashtags and you use those in your posts and you're, you instantly have access to at least a few hundred people.
Mm-hmm. Um, even if you live in a small town, that might even be better because you have more people paying attention to little things going on in in town.
Michael: Yeah. No, that's really good, man. Wait, you said, um, putting yourself out there. So then what, what is specifically are you doing to put yourself, what are you saying?
What,
Tyler: you know what I mean? Yeah. the thing I feel like that gets the most attention is answering people's questions. you can do it on TikTok, uh, you can respond with a video on TikTok, which is awesome. Or I go in my stories on Instagram and I just say, ask me a question, and I just literally put a random picture of like my kid eating pancakes or like a tooth that I pulled.
I mean, it can literally be anything. I have noticed that they usually ask questions that kind of pertain to the photo that you're posting, but it doesn't have to be like anything. It could be a hammer grade. You ate for lunch yesterday, and you'll be like, what kind of foods are bad for my teeth?
Like, you'll get questions like that and then you just get on Instagram and you answer those questions. Sometimes. I did find a cheat code with this. If you don't have a lot of followers. You can answer your own question. You can type in like, whoa, what's your favorite color? Or Where did you go to school?
What was your favorite thing about this? And you can kind of cheat that way. I don't really do it that often 'cause now I get enough responses. But initially it was like no one has answered me questions. Yeah, I'd get on and I would say like, oh, what sets you apart as a dental office? Or What do you think about, this procedure or that procedure?
And you can kind of get yourself out there. Even if you're answering clinical questions, you're still, it's you asking those or answering those questions. And people all the time come into my office, like they already know me. They're like, oh, how was your trip to Boston? Like, what's your name again? Mm-hmm.
So it's, it's really cool that you can develop that connection with people before spending any time or money on or vice versa. They feel Less tied down, I guess less commitment, which can be kind of a good thing when you're trying to get new friends. New patients. Yeah, new followers
Michael: through, is it through Instagram or TikTok, or you utilize both?
Tyler: I do both. I think right now TikTok is what Instagram was. all of these social media platforms are generational. So right now, and we've talked about this before, mostly grandma and my mom use Facebook a lot. Mm-hmm. So if you're doing implant marketing, maybe cosmetic marketing, that kind of thing, Facebook is fantastic.
Or decision makers, or probably using Facebook more. Right now, Instagram is kind of that 20 to 30 year old. Or like young moms. Mm-hmm. Or, or young professionals, that kind of audience. So that would kind of be more where you would wanna go, uh, for cosmetic work. And then TikTok is kind of that younger generation, maybe like college, high school age, junior high even and, and all of that.
People stick with that social media platform. So when I. Dental school, Instagram was becoming popular. And so everyone that's my age has kind of followed Instagram as they get older. Instagram's age is aging. It's progressing, it's staying that same audience, and TikTok is doing the same thing. So it's, it started out as maybe like junior high and now it's like high school, college, and then it's even, I see it now creeping into that young professional.
Um, bracket too. So, I'm sure there's gonna be another social media platform. And then MySpace. MySpace is just kind of there. I don't even know if it exists anymore.
Michael: Yeah. Mom's
Tyler: our friend. He's my friend. Yeah. No. Okay. Every
Michael: day, man. Do you, do you get new patients through, how many patients do you get from Instagram and TikTok?
Have you, do you know, like the difference? Like TikTok, we get 10 or, yeah, I'd say
Tyler: TikTok is, Percentage wise, it's probably like 10 or 15%. I haven't really put a ton of effort into it just because I've put so much effort, like, I was talking about, I'm committed to Instagram, so I'm kind of following that, age group.
but I'm seeing the power of TikTok. I think I really started taking TikTok seriously about a year ago. I. 50,000 followers on there now. So what, what, what
Michael: does that mean? You took it seriously now? Like
Tyler: what are you doing? I mean, I started posting regularly. I started putting non-generic content up.
I think I had five or six posts a year ago, and now I have, I don't know, like 50 or 60 maybe. Yeah, I probably post on TikTok like once a week, but I should be doing it more. Um, gotcha. I'm trying to do it daily, but
Michael: So with the advice that you're, with the advice that you're giving, uh, for startups Yeah.
Instagram then, or what are you thinking? Or like how, if you were to give us like a guideline here for a
Tyler: startup, if you're an orthodontist or a pediatric dentist, I would say do TikTok heavily. I think TikTok is where those teenagers are looking for content. and I see dentists on there who have like tons and tons and tons of followers, so I think that's like a starting point.
But it's all about consistency, just like being successful at anything. The more you just pound your head into the wall mm-hmm. The more successful you're gonna be. There's no shortcuts, there's no tricks. It's really just being consistent. You don't have to perfect every post that you put up. You can watch for trends, but you have to have the volume of content in order to be able to see those trends.
Oh, more people respond when I do this, post, less people respond when I do this post. And so you make more of those posts that people respond to, and then even then you're like, oh, maybe it was actually this chunk of that post that people really enjoyed and maybe it was this part that people didn't enjoy.
And so you kind of find your sweet spot after a while. Even then people get bored. I mean, if content works for a while on a specific thing and then it kind of fizzles out, you've gotta find a new angle, something else, a different type of photo to post, or a different story to try out. Um, I've noticed when I do a lot of question and answer things, people kind of get tired of it, and that's mm-hmm.
human nature these days. Yeah. and you can even cross post, you can post the same exact thing on TikTok that you do on Instagram. They're gonna have different, different algorithms, different effects. Mm-hmm. And I think that's a way to actually save a lot of time. You
Michael: Yeah. To do that.
Nice man. Okay. So then with the social media that you're utilizing right now, is that all you're doing for, for marketing?
Tyler: Um, I'm not paying for any marketing. I run a few ads on Facebook. I.
I pay to boost things on TikTok, but not a whole lot. I have hired my sister part-time and she helps me come up with content and she'll come into the office two days a week and like we film a silly video or we brainstorm on things. I don't pay her a whole lot. Mm-hmm. She just needs something to do and she's creative like me.
but I don't, I don't, I mean, most of our ideas we're copying other things we see on social media. It's not, it's not new stuff. Yeah. So, no, that's
Michael: good. I feel like a lot of the times we get boggled down, like, oh, we're gonna have this agency take over
Tyler: everything. Right. It doesn't work. Yeah. I, I hate to admit it.
I mean, I'm friends with some of the people that do that, and I feel like it just becomes a little less authentic. in some situations it works really well. And even with my sister doing stuff, I'm like, I wish she wouldn't have worded it that way, or I wish she would've used this picture instead of that picture.
but also too, people just, they don't want perfection. It's funny, the same orthodontist I was talking about, Small businesses think that we need to have stock photos in Photoshopped things in Canva and Canva's actually. Great. I love Canva. Mm-hmm. But like we need to look big. And it's funny, if you look at these big corporations, they're actually contacting micro influencers to give them content.
Their micro influencer is a person who has like a few thousand followers, maybe 10 or 20,000. And it's funny because the big companies are seeing the value in this authenticism and these people, they're like, oh, I just went to Walmart and here's what I bought. And they show like the clothes that they bought for back to school, Walmart's paying a lot of money to those people.
And then the, the small businesses are trying to make themselves look big when really they just, they want authenticity. Mm-hmm.
Michael: And that's what people want, right? Like that's what they see. Yeah. 'cause I notice you're like live sometimes on Instagram. You're just. You
Tyler: just turn it on and I'm like, the breeze.
I know that's like about sometimes I'm like, come your hair,
Michael: man know. You're just like, you're there and you're like,
Tyler: Hey, hey. You know? Like, this is pretty cool. I like it. I like it. I'm just hanging out with my friends and I don't know, I might change that in the future, but right now that's kind of where I'm at.
I feel like, owning a business is still stressful and I, I mean, there's huge stresses going on with that course. Like that's just life. But I think you have to do what makes you happy. And I think if you're trying to fake something that you're not, people can smell it. Mm-hmm. Like a lot of times, I hate to bring it up, but like dentists who are out there dancing on TikTok and you can tell they hate what they're doing, you can just see it.
Yeah. Or they're singing a song and it's like, this isn't you. This is what you wanna be, or what you think people want you to be, and you shouldn't do that. it doesn't work. Yeah. Just get on and talk about, I mean, you can talk about what you made for dinner last night and people will be like, oh, this dentist loves to cook.
I love to cook. I'm gonna go in it and I'm gonna talk about how I make homemade repair wrong at my cleaning. Mm-hmm. And they, all they want is a connection. And it's really easy to make that connection. Yeah. If you're yourself.
Michael: Yeah. Awesome. Tyler, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions you can find 'em on the Dental Market or Society Facebook group or where can they reach out to you
Tyler: directly?
best place is Instagram, um, just dmm me Haven Dental. I don't even use my personal one. I don't even think it's logged in anymore because my personal one is my work one, so yeah.
Michael: Yeah, no. Awesome, awesome. So that's all gonna be in the show notes below. And Tyler, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing
Tyler: episode.