16 Things to Do Along the New TTC Extension

By: Aiman Ghori and Faiza Akbar with an introduction by Oren Baum

Infrastructure projects like subway extensions are once in a generation in most parts of this country. They help connect all citizens and expand our knowledge of the place we live. As part of UpOnline's Canada 150 activities, we decided to send staff to visit the new Line 1 subway extension in our hometown, and take a different perspective: Instead of all the great sights, sounds, and other benefits that commuters now have in getting downtown (or anywhere along the way) quickly, what do midtown and downtown Torontonians, many without cars, now have access to by going NORTH on the new extension!

You might even find some new destinations for you and your families this holiday season. Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year from everyone at UpOnline!

1. Downsview Park Station
Downsview Park is the first stop on the new line one extension. Surrounded by an industrial area it is located in Canada's first national urban park of the same name. Its design uses a unique combination of colors and textiles to creating a dynamic atmosphere that reflects the surrounding area.

There are several family friendly activities that you can now visit thanks to the construction of this stop.

3 Rules for Creating Interactive Content

By: Aiman Ghori

Marketing on social media is not like marketing on legacy mediums like television or newspapers. Websites like Facebook and Twitter allow for heightened immediacy in interaction between buyers and sellers that the previously mentioned mediums do not allow. This has led to the development of a whole new set of rules when creating content for prospective clients.

Customer engagement, service visualization, and content customization are some of the few elements that can and should be refined as much as possible to incite customers to interact with your office.

Below we outline 3 rules to keep in mind when creating content for your practice.

Customization

By trying to cast a wide net and appealing to a large audience, chances are you won't appeal to many. Audiences are usually able to easily differentiate between meaningful content and content that is generic. Content that is personalized and contextualized for a specific audience is more likely to attract user engagement. Content, whether it's a social media post or a blog post, can be as broad as users who live in a specific country, or as narrow as targeting neighbourhood blocks. There is a heavy saturation of content online and users are constantly receiving an influx of information as well as ads telling them to buy their product or service. However personalization allows your practice to gain the attention of prospective customers.

There is plethora of variables you can use to identify the kind of audience you want to attract and ultimately engage with, but that is only the beginning of customizing your content. From there you have to decide what the best way is to use the information you have on prospective clients and how to make the content interactive to keep them engaged with your practice.

Read More: 9 Benefits of Having a Newsletter for Your Healthcare Practice

Interactivity

Now that you have an idea of who you want to customize your online content for, it's important to figure out how to implement it. After attracting consumers to your service, you want to keep them engaged and turn them into customers. This is where interactivity comes in. If your audience comes to your social media page or opens your e-newsletter and finds there is no meaningful content they value, they will leave pretty quickly and most likely will not come again. So, it's crucial to create a unique interactive experience that will keep them coming back every time you post or send an e-newsletter.

Some ideas to throw around are: online polls, infographics, and possibly the simplest, genuinely engaging with users through comments or emails.

Online polls allow you to ask your audience directly what is it they want from you or the industry in general. Polls are a great way to find out how you can customize your content further. Using the results from those polls you can create engaging infographics that can be displayed back to the contributing audience. In this way they will be connecting with you as well as others in our audience. Try mixing and matching different ways to interact with prospective clients to find the one that works best for your practice.

Read More: Are You Using Social Media to its Full Potential?

Value

In the midst of all this content creation and interactivity it's easy to see your audience as a target rather than what they are, individuals. Individuals appreciate being valued and feeling that the service provider genuinely cares about their needs so the newsletter article you are sending them or Facebook post you're showing them should reflect that. Consumers in this time lean towards practices that put in extra time and effort to reach out to them and acknowledge their loyalty if they are a long time customer. This doesn't have to stop at a generic thank you, although that is very important as well, but goes beyond that. Personalization and interactivity should be interwoven in the way you appreciate customers/patients as well as in the content you create to attract prospective clients.

Read More: How to Capitalize on User-Generated Content

Making regular content for your online pages and newsletters is already a step in the right direction to gaining interest in your practice and the rules outlined above will only boost your image. Personalizing your messages to cater to your specific audience and keep them engaged with interactive content will build brand loyalty. Patients will appreciate the effort put in to give them meaningful information that is relevant to their needs.

To learn more about how to customize your online content and how it can benefit your practice, contact an UpOnline representative today.

9 Benefits of Having a Newsletter for Your Healthcare Practice

By: Faiza Akbar

Patient communication is one of the foundations of any healthcare practice. In an ever-evolving digital world, it can be difficult to grab the attention of new patients, and keep the interest of existing ones. Newsletters offer a dynamic and personalized approach for you to keep patients engaged, and also promote and grow your practice in a trackable, strategic way. If you're looking to retain existing patients, and also acquire new ones, here are a few reasons newsletters might be the tool you've been searching for.

Engagement

Email newsletters are one of the most effective ways of boosting your patient engagement. In fact, a recent study of 300 unique demographic target markets found that online newsletters generate a 70% higher response rate than printed counterparts. There are many ways you can encourage engagement through a newsletter. One way is to include informative articles in newsletters but instead of posting the entire article in the newsletter, include a "read full article" button right after an eye catching title and excerpt. You should also include links to your website and social media platforms, which after receiving and reading through a newsletter, a potential or returning patient is more likely to press, whether to book an appointment or just request to more information. Engagement does not stop after you have sent out your newsletter. Once sent, you should add past newsletters to a section on your website. A tip to keep in mind is to add past newsletters as text links, not graphics, making it easier for search engines to locate your articles and enjoy and increased SEO benefit. If there is an article in particular that might be of interest to a broader audience (not only applicable to your patients) someone might stumble across your website during an internet search. For those doing research on a particular topic, it is possible that they cite your article, further boosting your website back-links.

3 Ways to Optimize Your Practice for Mobile

By: Aiman Ghori
Mobile optimization is essentially setting up your site to be accessible and user friendly for visitors accessing it from various smartphones, tablets and other smart devices. 80% of internet users own a smart-phone so more searches are now done on mobile than on desktop, according to Google. Mobile platforms also host up to 60% of digital media time. This opens a up a whole new scope of marketing. Mobile marketing is the future and effectively using this could help increase new patients and elevate customer loyalty. There are several innovative ways to make your practice mobile friendly, and below we've outlined 3 specific ways to start.

Related Article: Why Your Business Should be Mobile Friendly

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?

As of 2015, Google takes mobile-friendliness into consideration when ranking sites for search results. This means not having a mobile site is not an option if you want high search results. Google looks for high quality, relevant, and quick loading content to provide the best results for their searchers and has even put together a guide to help website developers build sites customized for mobile. There are two major directions your office can take to optimize your site for mobile devices:


• Creating a mini version of your current site
• Making your current site responsive


A separate mobile site alongside your full desktop site can be fully customized, and for the sake of quick load time, hold the very basic information the visitor will need. This easy to implement option allows you to tap into the 95% of adults who primarily use their smart-phones to access content and information. However, it does come with its fall backs. Since the mobile site is on a completely different URL, extra vigilance is required to keep the content consistent, and properly code duplicate content for the full desktop site, making it more expensive to maintain.

Do your patients know which whitening you offer?

By:Faiza Akbar
Everyone wants a radiant and healthy looking smile. People often consider various methods to achieve this, the most popular being teeth whitening, a relatively simple cosmetic dental procedure. Teeth whitening can be a sensitive subject to bring up with patients. You want to remain informative, without offending anyone. There are many different whitening options on the market, some that patients can administer themselves at home, and others they can have done professionally in your office. With any service you offer, the first step to acquiring patients is providing them with information. If patients don’t know something is available, how can they pursue it? As teeth whitening is the most popular cosmetic dental procedure, with the industry expected to reach $7.4 billion by 2024, you want to make the most of it.

There is clearly patient demand for the service, so make sure to emphasize that whitening is not a one size fits all procedure - there are many options that patients can work with you to tailor to their personal preferences. So does it matter if patients know which specific whitening options you provide? Absolutely. If you want additional patient business, increased online and in-person engagement, and a stronger patient-dentist relationship, then including more information about your teeth whitening options could be a major way of achieving this.

Misinformation is rampant and many patients may simply be uninformed or unaware of the whitening options that are available. They might be under the impression that an over-the-counter whitening kit is the same as getting their teeth whitened professionally. It is possible that your patient previously had an unsatisfactory whitening experience, so it may be important to let them know that modern whitening solutions are faster, painless, more effective, and result in less sensitivity than procedures of the past. Some patients may also think you only offer whitening services in your office, and not realize that you offer take home whitening kits as well. Along with clarifying the availability of take home options, you should highlight the differences between those kits and the ones they can purchase from drugstores themselves to clear up any misunderstandings patients might have.

Just because someone hasn’t asked you about your whitening options yet does not mean they are not interested. Communicating with your patients and inquiring about their preferred level of tooth whiteness can get a conversation started. This conversation can begin with a consultation but carry its way through appointments and touch ups. A good time to mention whitening is around holidays and events, whether it be Christmas or back-to-school season, your patients are more likely to show interest in whitening solutions.

How you inform your patients is also important. You may choose to tell them directly during an appointment, or if you prefer a less direct approach, you can include information about whitening in a monthly newsletter, email, or through social media. Including more specific details about whitening options might also increase the engagement on your website. Does your website’s teeth whitening page contain a breakdown of different service options? This will make it more likely for patients to have the page open for a longer duration to read through the information, as opposed to briefly visiting the page to check for quick facts. Additionally, once reading the informative sections, patients will be more likely to press a call-to-action button to inquire further, increasing engagement even more. While most social newsfeeds will be saturated with quick facts and graphics, having the option of detailed information may foster interest for a longer time, and make click-through more likely, especially if you mention a promotion for the service.

Often times, patients are undecided about whether or not they will go through with whitening procedures and it is typically the uncertainty of results that is holding them back. They might be unsure of the following: If the results will be what they want How long the results will last How much of a time commitment the procedure will be. Providing your patients with information regarding the whitening options will alleviate any doubts or misunderstandings they have about whitening and make it more likely for them to follow through with the procedure they have been wanting.

You can mention that whitening exists on a spectrum, ranging from basic whitening toothpastes, to deep bleaching which you may provide. The key is to let patients know that there are many options available and you are willing to work with them to find the ideal one. Reassuring those patients who are undecided or skeptical will also lead to establishing trust, as they will now feel more comfortable relying on you to advise them on decisions regarding their cosmetic procedures. Patients may also shy away from whitening if they think it will be extremely costly and time consuming. However, most modern whitening procedures are cost efficient, quick, and non-invasive and can usually be included in a hygienist appointment. The different options may also vary in price, so patients could consider a less expensive option that still achieves their preferred results.

If you feel that your website and social media currently do not include enough information about the whitening options you offer, contact UpOnline to inquire about our social media, website, and newsletter services. We can help ensure your patients are informed and up-to-date about your services so they don’t miss out.

Five Ways to Spot an SEO Scam

By: Aiman Ghori
Search engine optimization can be complicated and sometimes difficult to understand, so you may be seeking help from an SEO expert to generate more traffic to your site, or, just as likely, those claiming to be experts may be seeking your business out, regularly. This creates the perfect opportunity for scammers to take advantage of you and your practice, potentially leading to detrimental results for your business. As with any hiring process, it's important to do research and ask probing questions to see if the SEO experts you're speaking with are legitimate and use ethical strategies/best practices, or if they're just scams. Below are 5 ways to tell if your SEO 'expert' is deceiving you.

"We Guarantee First Page Results"




Nobody can guarantee a specific result and if they claim to, chances are they're not following Google's guidelines. Some companies will claim they can increase traffic to your site incredibly in a very short amount of time but be wary of their promises. Due to the nature of how SEO works, there are no absolute guarantees and you should be aware of the methods they use. Despite there being no guarantees, there are certainly better chances of improving your SEO organically through ethical methods. Experienced SEO companies have spent years learning and refining what methods and work and which ones don't. Their techniques can guarantee that traffic will increase to your site but in a realistic amount of time. Plan to be in regular contact with your SEO service provider and their plan for improving your site's SEO.



"Our Strategies are Confidential"




Lack of communication between a company and client can lead to very bad results, SEO and otherwise. If your SEO expert is unwilling to include you in the planning process and won’t tell you how they’re going to improve your SEO, you should take action immediately. Chances are, they’re using unethical (or 'black-hat') techniques and the consequences could include your SEO falling sooner rather than later, or delisting, directly affecting your practice. If you're looking to hire an SEO company, make sure they are open to communication and provide references you can look into. Ask them for previous examples of their work and speak to their references on how they handled communicating their strategies. If you're currently working with an SEO provider, request timely updates or reports so you can monitor your practice's progress. Ask them to explain clearly the methods they're currently implementing.



"We Know Google’s Algorithm"




Any company or SEO expert that claims to know how Google's algorithm works is lying. Google's algorithm is private intellectual property and changes often enough for anyone to know it in its entirety. Even employees at Google's search department do not know how more than certain parts of the algorithm works, so it's impossible for an outsider to be privy to that information. Most likely, this is just a deceptive sales pitch to get your business. The best way to find out what works and does not work for search engine optimization is following Google's accepted guidelines as well as experimental changes refined over time. So, it's important to ask a potential company about previous experience and case studies. If you hear this claim or read it in a cold email, do not even consider them.



"We'll Link Your Site on Hundreds of Websites"




This is likely a 'black-hat', or unethical, technique where a company links your site indiscriminately on other websites and forums in order to trick Google's robots. Inbound links are great for building your SEO but Google will know almost immediately when those links are irrelevant and spam, and penalize your site for it. It's best to create meaningful and relevant content specifically curated for your target audience that they will be encouraged to share. It will also help to have your own active social media pages where you can link your content. So it's important to ask your current SEO expert or potential SEO company what technical as well as customized strategies they use to increase traffic to your website. Be sure to also ask them how they would use inbound and outbound links to improve your site.

Read More: The Importance of Content-Based Marketing.



"We Offer Free Trials"




Never give your website's access information to anyone you do not trust, particularly someone offering a supposed free trial for their SEO services. SEO optimization and its results take time to develop, they cannot be curated overnight. So if an offer sounds too good to be true in terms of results or price, it probably is and you should do further research into the company before deciding to hire them.

Finding the right SEO expert for your business or practice sounds like a daunting task. However, with the right amount of research and awareness you can equip yourself with sufficient knowledge to hire the best one for your needs. If you're looking for experienced and professional SEO managers, contact UpOnline and ask us about our search engine optimization services.

Tackling Your Online Reviews

By: Faiza Akbar

Today, more than ever, online reviews have become just as important as word of mouth, making it critical to maintain a positive online presence. Online reviews are often the first point of contact for many of your potential patients. They are an authentic and reliable way for potential patients to make a quick decision about whether or not they want to visit your healthcare practice. 90% of consumers state that they read less than 10 reviews to form their opinion of a business, giving you only a brief window to convince them why they should visit your healthcare practice. There is no doubt that finding a practice with stellar reviews and 5-star ratings would be a clear, convincing factor for most, but how do you get there? With countless platforms for online reviews, managing them can seem like a daunting task. However, as with any other facet of marketing, managing this diligently and proactively is an asset to your practice's reputation.

Related Article : Online Reputation Management for Practices

Prioritize

The first step is figuring out which review websites you need to focus on. Not all reviews hold the same weight. Google Reviews are the most frequently read, and what patients are most likely to be familiar with. Before a potential patient even gets to your website, the first things they see (if you have excellent SEO rankings [How to improve your SEO]) when they Google you, along with your contact information, are the reviews people have left.
After Google, your next two focal points might be a social media platform like Facebook and a general review platform like Yelp. Collectively, these three sites account for 80% of online reviews. Only after considering these should you turn your focus on industry specific review sites. Whether RateMDs or HealthGrades, you should focus on the one with the largest engagement in your area, which you might determine by searching "Best (Dentist) in (your area)", for example.

Update

Once you have decided which websites are best aligned with the interests of your patients and practice, it's time to get to work. Managing online reviews is not a one time project. It is something that requires your ongoing attention. 73% of consumers find reviews older than 3 months to be outdated and irrelevant, so it's important to ensure you have new and updated ones. Monitoring your reviews is the first step to achieve this. If you notice a streak of reviews that simply leave star ratings and no comments, you can encourage your patients to leave more detailed reviews. Try gently suggesting patients who give you positive feedback in person, to also leave an online comment. You can also ask for reviews in your monthly newsletter, on a section on the homepage of your website, through email reminders, or at the end of each appointment. This way, you can keep your reviews updated so that they appear more trustworthy and relevant to potential and returning patients.

Supersize Tweet: Twitter Doubling Its Character Limit (BETA)

By: Aiman Ghori

Twitter, since its conception, has carved out a niche audience that prioritizes brevity. The site allows users to interact in real time and to the point, mostly! Conversations about topics including politics, sports, social issues, and current or live events are often held in a witty manner- without the clutter of additional information.

On Tuesday September 26th, Twitter announced that it was testing an increase in character limit for randomly selected users. Those select users' tweets will now contain 280 characters, twice the number the social media site is known for. But not all Twitter users are happy about this increase, despite the claims Twitter makes about many users who are frustrated with the 140 limit. So why is Twitter making such a drastic change from its differentiating factor compared to other social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram?

139 characters pic.twitter.com/WkfdXL8oLh

— Caitlin Kelly (@caitlin__kelly) September 26, 2017

Aliza Rosen, Twitter's Project Manager who revealed this new test on Twitter's official blog, shares some of the research that went behind making this momentous decision. The blog explains that languages such as Japanese convey "double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages", particularly compared to English. Their research shows people who tweet in English hit the character limit more often than those who tweet in Japanese. So the increased character limit is an effort to level the playing field for users who tweet in English or French, and find the 140 limit too constraining. This will allow users who tweet in those languages to express more, while still maintaining the site's promise of brevity.

Six Reasons Why You Should Invest in Podcasts

By: Faiza Akbar

While commercial radio has been around longer than nearly the entire population has been alive, modern podcasts are a refreshing change to most other saturated marketing strategies. There are many reasons why podcasts are distinct, not only in their format but also in the way they operate and accomplish your goals. A podcast's approach is rooted in the dynamic user experience it offers that allows for flexibility and individual preference. So if you're exploring new ways to improve your marketing strategy, here are a few reasons that podcasts should be a top contender.

Uniqueness

Interest in podcasts is definitely on the rise but it is still an underutilized platform. Breaking into the podcast scene will set you apart from your competitors and allow your audience to interact with you in a unique, refreshing way. On the surface, it may appear that podcast listeners are a small, exclusive part of the population, but this statement grows more untrue each year. It is also important to note that most podcast listeners are highly committed, as 85% of them will sit through a majority, or the entirety of an episode. Once you garner an audience, they are very unlikely to bail halfway through your message. "Skimming through" podcasts is not really a thing. This allows you to provide more information, and overall have more of a presence in your listeners' day, making them more likely to return.

Branding: The Underrated Step to Building a Successful Healthcare Practice

By: Aiman Ghori

Why Build a Brand?

With hundreds of healthcare professionals providing similar services and carrying similar qualifications, skill, and experience, it’s difficult to convince prospective patients why they should choose your practice over another. This is where branding and marketing communications come in to help polish how your practice is viewed.

Branding is essentially the image your healthcare service conveys to an audience. Good branding practices will contribute positively to your practice’s overall reputation. Patients will choose to go to a service provider they can relate to and trust, which builds brand loyalty. Loyal patients will then be more likely to refer trusted services to others, and this gives your practice a competitive edge over other similar providers.

Related Article: How to Turn Your Company in a Killer Brand Name

Design: Branding Basics

If you have an established business or practice, it’s important to find out the reputation you already have. A simple Google search can reveal how patients see your clinic and what they think of your services. Key elements to look for are, what patients already like about your service, and where does it require improvement? This will help you later, when selecting the qualities and/or services you want to empathize through your brand. It is also a good idea to look up your competitors, identify their brand, and see what they’re doing successfully to build that brand. This will give you a better picture of the marketplace and what you’re up against. This could lead to identifying an untapped niche audience you could possibly target.

Search Engine Optimization: What You Should Know As A Dental Practitioner

 

By: Will Koziey-Kronas   As a dental practitioner, any investigation into dental marketing has no doubt involved encounters with the term "SEO" - and for good reason. "SEO", short for "search engine optimization", is a crucial component of a practice's marketing presence. To understand why, we have to start from the beginning: how are prospective patients finding dental practices?

Alongside referrals, another predominant source of patient traffic to dental practices are search engines. Prospective patients will generally search for the service they desire along with their location, such as "dental veneers Mississauga". From there - at best - they may browse the first two or three pages of results before finding a suitable practice. At worst, they won't make it past the first page, or even the first few results.

Now consider that your geographical area is likely home to well over ten competing practices. Then consider that search engines only display about ten results per page. The challenge is apparent: if your site isn't appearing within the first page or two, you miss out on a vital source of traffic - and with more than 10 other practices vying for those limited spots, the competition is stiff.

The snapshot of results for a Google Maps search of "Dentist Mississauga" (each red icon marks a practice). With that much location-specific competition, you need SEO to stand out.

 
This is the role of SEO: deliberately tune your practice's site so that it appears in the first few pages for searches such as "dental service + your location". So where does SEO begin, and what does it look like?

Top 3 Digital Marketing Trends in 2017

By: Noha Abou-Hashima

The digital world moves fast. And it can be overwhelming to keep track of all that happens in this fast-paced environment. So to mark our passage into the second half of 2017, we summarize the top digital marketing techniques for the year, and add our own perspective on some of the latest developments.

Content Marketing and Data Collection

For the past few years, digital marketers focused on tailoring their content (advertisements, promotions, emails, social media posts, etc) to their consumer base with the help of data mining. According to data from Smart Insights, content marketing remains the number one digital marketing technique preferred by marketers.



Although personalized marketing is not new, marketers in 2017 have shifted their focus from creating static content to generating interactive content that engages their audience and provides them with a more meaningful experience online. Research by Content Marketing Institute shows that almost half (46%) of marketers used interactive content early in 2017. Used by 52% of marketers, infographics were the most popular type of interactive content in 2017. Infographics were mainly used for content marketing purposes, as a way to make large amounts of information more palpable and interesting. However, in terms of achieving content marketing objectives, contests were rated as being the most effective during the first stage of awareness/discovery.

The Facts and Controversies of Google's New Ad Blocker

By: Will Koziey-Kronas

Ask anyone what Google is, and you're likely to hear "a search engine company" or "information providers". Ask a digital marketer, however, and you'll get a consistent response: "an advertising company". It's true that Google is a search engine, and a handy map, among many other forms of information distribution - but Google is above all else an advertising company, with 89 percent of their 60 billion a year profits coming from ads.

That's why it seemed odd for Google to confirm last month that they're developing an ad blocking extension for Chrome - ad blockers, like the popular Adblock Plus and uBlock - block ads from displaying on sites. Why would an ad company have any interest in making their own? In this post, we'll answer that question by looking at the facts and controversies you should know about Google's new ad blocker.

The Facts

Google's new extension has made the rounds under the title of "ad blocker" - but it's technically an ad filter. Whereas Adblock Plus removes all ad content (with exceptions the user can determine), Google's extension only filters out ads deemed unacceptably intrusive and annoying. That leaves us with two questions: what constitutes unacceptable annoyance, and who gets to decide?

The body of ad formats considered unacceptable are derived from an industry group called the Coalition For Better Ads. The group consists of several dozen digital advertising conglomerates, including Google and Facebook, who united to set new, better standards for web advertisements. Thus far, they’ve identified 12 ad formats that "rank lowest across a range of user experience factors", both on mobile and desktop.

How Dental Practices Can Benefit from Online Video Marketing

By: Noha Abou-Hashima

Video marketing is becoming more popular on the Internet than ever before. 78% of users watch videos online every week. 55% watch online videos everyday. Studies show that video content can increase conversion rates by up to 80%. That's a pretty big percentage. And if these numbers aren't convincing enough, consider what this dentist had to say about the benefits of using video marketing for her dental practice:

“I've had a lot of new patients join our office because of the feel they got from our website,” explained Dr. Lavigne. "Patients have commented that they felt like they knew me before booking an appointment. It's scary to choose a new provider, whether it's a dentist, an internist, or a hair stylist! The more they know about me and my practice, the more educated a decision they can make in deciding if we're the right fit for them. [...] “In 2016 patients want to be educated and informed about your practice, you and your team, and your philosophy," said Dr. Lavigne. "We've given a web personality to our practice and set ourselves apart through the use of video.”

Related article: Keeping Up with the Rise of Video Advertising

It makes sense, doesn't it? Customers looking for a service will want to gather as much information as they can about the service provider. And when it comes to dentists, knowing what to expect makes a huge difference, especially for those who already deal with dental anxiety.

The good news is that the short attention span of viewers means shorter videos, which means less work for you if you're producing them yourself. Although a better alternative is to leave the video production to a professional. Transitions, music, and other-post production changes can make a difference in how your video is perceived.

One benefit of video marketing is that it can seamlessly blend in with your current digital marketing strategy. Videos can compliment your existing website, adding to the content you already have, as well as work to improve your SEO. Additionally, you can host them on video-sharing platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. The advantage of these platforms is that they’re online and can be linked to on your website, or blog.

Tip: Maximize your market strategy by using videos to advertise the dental services your practice offers. You can place these directly inside or outside your practice, such as in-window, in the waiting area, or in an elevator if your practice has one. Note that the content of your video has to align with the medium you plan on using.

Now let's talk about content you can place in your videos.

Five Tips for Your Practice’s Staff Page

By: Will Koziey-Kronas

According to our internal statistics on organic website traffic and newsletter clickthrough rates, staff pages are often the second most visited or clicked for practices websites after the homepage. Prospective patients aren't just looking for a run down of your services, or your location - they want to know why they should trust you, both as a person and a professional.

To build a staff page that effectively forges trust between your practice and prospective patients, read on as we address the best practices for staff pages on healthcare sites.

Photos Count

The first consideration is often the headshot or portrait photo. This photo is the element readers will notice first, and first impressions are crucial. Treat this photo with care: set it against an attractive and/or neutral background, dress well, smile (promoting your services in the process), and use the highest quality camera you have access to - or better yet, get professional photography taken at your office. Dr. Carly Gordon from Maple Dental Health exemplifies all these criteria well with her portrait below:





If you don't have the resources needed to take a quality portrait, read our article on custom photos for a rundown on hiring photographers for staff portraits. Regardless of whether you take the pictures yourself or hire someone, take the photos in front of a background you can consistently replicate to ensure new photos down the road are consistent with old ones.

Are You Using Social Media to its Full Potential?

By: Noha Abou-Hashima

In order to stand out from the crowd, many dental practices smartly choose to take their business to their patients, rather than the other way around. They do this by utilizing social media. Why is this the smart thing to do? Because unlike your website, social media is an active platform that allows your patients to form a bond with your practice.

When you engage with your patients online, your practice becomes more than just another dental office. It becomes a familiar place where your patients know they can feel comfortable. Patient engagement online allows your patients to form an emotional bond with your brand, thus distinguishing your practice from the competition. But are you getting the most out of your social media?

It is generally a good idea for your practice to engage with patients on multiple social media platforms. But, do not make the mistake of treating all social media platforms the same. Not only does the type of content differ, but each platform also targets a specific audience with specific interests. In our previous blog posts, we have discussed how content like online reviews can improve your SEO or how you can capitalize on User Generated Content. This article will walk you through some of the more popular social media platforms, and how you can write content that caters to each platform and its audience.

Related article: 5 Ways to Reach Your Target Audience via Social Media

Twitter

Twitter is all about simplicity. The 140 character limit keeps users' feeds from getting too crowded with content. When writing a post for your practice's Twitter, keep in mind that your followers are looking for short, simple tweets that get the message across in a matter of seconds. See the example below of what a short and relevant tweet looks like.



Though short tweets are probably the easiest and least time-consuming to read, you can still use Twitter to promote longer content related to your practice. If your practice has a blog, you can link to it on Twitter, but remember that links are also restricted to the 140 character limit. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite not only helps you schedule your posts, but also shrinks links to fit the character limit. Use relevant hashtags and an interesting caption to prompt your followers to click the link to your blog post.

Five Social Media Best Practices for Healthcare Professionals

By: Will Koziey-Kronas As a platform for promoting your practice, social media is a flexible, blank slate that you can take in any direction you want. That's what makes social media a powerful component of your practice's online presence - but that freedom can also make social media intimidating to manage. If you've ever felt unsure about how to best capitalize on your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, read on as we discuss five best practices for dental social media pages.

Find the right balance between personal and professional


First, the content. Social media is an excellent platform for promoting your practice and all things dentistry - dental news, tips, and special offers, for example. But don't neglect the "social": if you or your staff have personal news worth sharing, social media gives you the chance to share those experiences and build a human connection with your patients.

Is there an expecting mother? A new hire? A birthday celebration? Personal news may seem irrelevant, but according to our analytics, the most commonly visited page on dental websites (beyond the homepage) is the "our team" section - your patients want to know more about you!





A good example of engaging personal content from Maple Dental health



Just remember to maintain a balance between personal and professional content. If you only share personal news, you miss the chance to promote your services - and you may disinterest followers who rely on your page for dental info.

3 Things to Avoid When Designing Your Website

By Noha Abou-Hashima

A well-designed, well functioning website is important to online users. It should be equally important to you as a business owner.

Websites are usually the first thing customers will look at to find information about your business. A majority of these customers (a striking 93%) begin their purchasing decision process with an online search. In order to attract customers to your business, your website should not only be a reflection of your brand, it should also be designed in a way that makes it easy for customers to find the information they're looking for.

It's not uncommon to get carried away when coming up with a design for your website. After all, there are so many creative ideas and designs out there. Those who get lost in that world tend to end up over-designing, creating noisy or cluttered websites filled with flashy text or over the top colors, making visitors turn away from both the website and the business.

Related article: What Makes a Good Dental Website?

Let's walk through an example of a poorly designed website. This will give you a better idea of what poor web design looks like, and might help you to evaluate whether your website is well-designed.
This is the current home page of Yale School of Art (yes, the actual Yale University). Not very impressive, is it? Let's discuss why:

The first thing that catches the eye is the yellow highlight. I couldn't help but be reminded of my school days when I overused the highlighter in my textbooks (maybe that's what they were going for?). Still, while using bright colors to attract viewers is a common design principle, it is not executed well in this case.

The Email Marketing Metrics You Should Know

By: Will Koziey-Kronas

Email marketing is a cost-effective and targeted way of promoting your practice. Even better, it's easy for anyone to track how their email marketing campaigns are doing - all you need to know are handful of key metrics. This article will cover all you need to know about email metrics in the world of healthcare, giving you the skills needed to analyze your email marketing campaigns with confidence. But let's start with a quick overview of email marketing for those who have not yet delved into that avenue of promotion.

What is Email Marketing?

 

Email marketing is the process of promoting your practice through email. Regular newsletters directed at patients are a good example of email marketing in the healthcare industry, but generally speaking, any email containing promotional content and/or offers sent en masse to a target audience is an example of email marketing, often an "email newsletter" or "email blast".

If your practice doesn't already run a newsletter, consider it: newsletters help maintain patient retention, ensure existing patients keep you top-of-mind, and forge a greater connection between you and your patients thanks to the increased lines of communication.

You may be wondering how to analyze your newsletter campaigns. Are they effective? What numbers and rates are most important? Statistics and other information, known collectively as analytic's, can give you valuable insights into your campaign, So if these questions sound familiar then read on - this is our cheat sheet and primer!

We'll first address the most important metrics used to judge the success of email marketing campaigns. Then, we'll look at the specific rates you should be aiming for in the healthcare industry.

How to Capitalize on User-Generated Content

   By Noha Abou-Hashima  

What is user-generated content? If you haven't already guessed it, user-generated content (UGC) is any content created by 'normal' users online. Normal users involve anyone not part of a marketing team, or a verified brand. Examples of UGC include comments, reviews, user-generated photos, videos, blog posts, and more.

Related article: Three Ways Online Reviews Could Improve Your SEO

But should you invest in UGC when you have a great marketing team creating content that you pre-approve? Well, if your goal is to have satisfied consumers, then you're probably doing your best to give them what they want. Now, with the ubiquitous popularity of social media, and the global desire for an authentic online experience, consumers expect to have a more personal connection with brands.

Millennials - who are quickly becoming the largest spending group - are not only different in terms of placing greater importance on people and social relations, but also in their shopping habits. 84% of Millennials report that UGC partially influences their purchasing decisions, while 86% said that UGC helps them determine the quality of a brand's product or service. And far more than their ancestors, 64% of Millennials (vs 53% Baby Boomers) believe communication with the brands they purchase from is an important factor for them.

If you've already got a marketing team, then you probably have at least one social media account for your business. You also probably use it to share news about your business, generate content that your consumers will find interesting, and use the platform to promote your products. That's all fine and good, but it may be little different than consumers getting all this information from a one-minute TV commercial.

All this to say: If you're going to step into the world of social media, you're going to need to be social.

Naturally, you won't be the first one to capitalize on UGC. In fact, you've likely seen, or even participated, in a marketing campaign that has utilized UGC. Some successful examples include Coca-Cola's 'Share a Coke' campaign, Starbucks' White Cup Contest, or Lay's' 'Do Us A Flavour' campaign. Not only did these brands execute highly successful marketing campaigns, but they also proved to their customers that they value their input and loyalty.

To ensure a successful marketing campaign that matches your goals, it will have to be custom-made for your brand and your customers. But perhaps the most important ingredient to having a successful UGC marketing campaign is establishing a personal connection with your consumer base.

Here are 3 ways you can utilize UGC to boost your brand:

Personalize



Social consumers don't like when a brand is too obvious with promoting its products. To avoid incurring their wrath, make sure you're being authentic - by not mechanically selling a product to a consumer. One way to do this is to encourage social consumers to engage with the product as Starbucks did with their White Cup Contest. Starbucks served drinks in blank, white cups and asked their consumers to design the cup and share a photo of it online with the hashtag #WhiteCupContest. This contest was so popular that Starbucks received nearly 4,000 designs in three weeks. At the end of the contest, Starbucks announced a winner. With this marketing campaign, consumers were given the chance to explore their imagination and share their designs with others online, all the while Starbucks' brand was at the heart of it.

Importance of Custom Photos For Your Practice's Website

By: Will Koziey-Kronas 

Stock photos on healthcare websites are, at best, just there. We only notice stock photos when they're particularly generic or hackneyed - otherwise, our eyes pass over them to the real points of interest. This isn't a bad thing. Stock photos are made to fill space. They become a bad thing, however, when they're used to fill all space, as certain areas of your practice's website are better decorated with custom images.

Custom images give both prospective and existing patients faces, locations, and personalities to attach to your practice. Custom photos reinforce the human connection and differentiates yourself from competitors.

But with those benefits comes challenges:

• Where are custom photos most effective?
• Where are custom photos inefficient?
• What are the standards for photo quality?
• If you need a photographer, what should you look for regarding their services?
• And what kind of photos should you take?
• How many photos do you need?

Don't worry - this article will address all of those questions, starting from the top.

Related Article:What Makes a Good Dental Website?

Where are custom photos most efficient?

First and most importantly is the "hero" image - the large, usually animated banner photo below the header on your homepage. The hero image is the first place to catch the eye of prospective patients, so don't waste your first impression with a stock photo. Use this space to show off your doctors, office spaces, staff, and even happy patients. Take a look at Maple Dental Health's hero image on their homepage, cycling between a picture of the dentist, a picture of the staff with happy patients, and then a photo of patients after their services. These images reflect both, the quality of the practice, and the people behind it - and loyalty is always stronger if patients can associate the practice with faces and names.

Three Ways Online Reviews Could Improve Your SEO

By Noha Abou-Hashima

Did you know that online reviews can help boost your SEO? Search engines understand that consumers rely on other consumers' experiences to help them make purchasing decisions. 90% of consumers base their purchasing decisions on positive online reviews, while 86% said their decisions were influenced by negative online reviews. If you want your patients to choose your practice over your competitors’ you should be utilizing the tools your patients use - one of which is online reviews.

Andrey Lipattsev, the Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, Ireland, revealed two of the top three signals that Google uses to rank search results: content, and links. But search engines rely on hundreds of factors for ranking search results, and online reviews rank pretty high on that list. In fact, review signals rank as high as fifth on local search engine ranking factors. That's right - fifth! You might be thinking: "but reviews are just people's opinions about a business, why do they matter so much to search engines?" Three words: User-Generated Content.


More than just a bunch of people praising (or cursing) your practice, online reviewers are a valuable asset to search engines when it comes to evaluating websites. Search engines look at reviews as original, organic content created by users. This content lends legitimacy to your website, as search engines look for honest testimonials about your practice.


Okay, so you know how valuable online reviews are to search engines. How exactly do they impact SEO? Simply put, reviews and ratings can help distinguish your practice from the competition in search engine results. Other than reviews being organic, user-generated content, search engines also look at the quantity, diversity, and velocity of reviews. In fact, factors related to reviews were among the top 50 factors that influence search results rankings. Some of these include: product/service keywords in reviews, positive sentiment in reviews, and authority of third-party sites on which reviews are present.


Related Article: Online Reputation Management for Practices


Now that you understand how important online reviews are to search engines, let’s talk about how you can use them to boost your SEO.

User-generated Content



An active site makes for a happy search engine. Sites stay active by generating content. However, this can be a tedious and expensive job. So how can a website keep generating content without expending effort and money? The answer: rely on user-generated content.

ODA Spring Meeting 2017 #ASM150 Highlights

It was great being able to see so many of our clients and practice staff, as well as connecting with all the attendees who dropped by our booth at the ODA Spring meeting in Toronto last week.

Since everyone really enjoyed getting their caricatures done last year at the ODA ASM16 and the AACD in Toronto, we really wanted to bring back the fun again this year!

Thank you to all the good sports who came by and generated fun new personal content for your online marketing! #uponlinesmiles

 

Those who dropped in their contact information with us are automatically eligible for a 4 month FREE trial of patient newsletters or social media posts. Please contact us if you spoke to us but were not able to leave a card or fill out a ballot!