Sarah Blyth explains why your dental practice is the perfect place to use Smilevision to advertise to your patients and lists some of the options available at your practice.
Henry Ford, William Lever and John Wanamaker are all attributed with having complained that they knew half of their advertising budget was wasted, but not which half.
What none of them benefitted from was a captive audience. Ford didn’t have a waiting room regularly full of prospective car purchasers, nor Levers a room full of toiletry buyers, nor Wanamaker a crowd of customers waiting outside his shops.
But dental practices, however, do have the benefit from this rarest of commercial luxuries: a continual stream of patients with nothing better to do whilst they wait, than to be engaged with. What’s more, they’re in just the right frame of mind to be educated about what their practice can offer. Quite simply, it’s a golden goose of an opportunity not to be missed.
Patients are certainly not motivated to improve their oral aesthetics or informed about what their dental practice can offer by reading magazines, so it’s over to the big screen, but what should you show?
Understand your options
Standard TV – whilst popular with some practices, I cannot for the life of me recall Mr Kyle or the news being concerned with my oral healthcare or what my practice has to offer. So this will just be a cost to the practice with no return on your investment or educational benefit to your patients.
Dental video content providers – surely a better option would be to have a screen with just dental treatments on it from an off-the-shelf content provider (such as DVDs). But research has shown that whilst patients may watch the screens initially, after a couple of minutes of dental overload (that never seems to change) they stop watching. Therefore, not only will it take up your valuable time, but the return on your investment may be even worse than standard TV.
Have content produced or make your own – if you were to consider making your own content by a simple but limited tool (such as Powerpoint), ask yourself how professional this will make your practice look and realistically how much time it is going to take. Conversely, professionally produced content is typically very expensive (with a single 30-second video likely to cost around £3,000). Aside from these considerations, both these options will also suffer from the same issues as above.
Further insight – you may also ask, how about split screen content with effects such as RSS news feeds etc. Whilst they initially may appear attractive, they have proven to be significantly less effective than the full screen. The conclusion is the key messaging is not delivered due to all the other distractions on screen.
The answer – Smilevision has developed a service that is based on extensive research carried out across hundreds of dental and orthodontic practices up and down the country. Understanding how to engage, educate and entertain patients is vital and this research has shown that the type and mix of content is key, or you could say ‘content is king’.
What’s on offer?
Smilevision provides its members with a free set top box, no bigger than a pack of cards, simply converting your screen into your very own bespoke TV channel. The automatically updated channel plays out a series of productions in a 15-minute programme.
Research shows the optimum spot length for each category of content is 30 seconds and the content mix is imperative. This mix is proven to capture and hold patients’ attention whilst delivering key messaging. Fully personalised to your practice, you choose the relevant content and promotions as often as you like with just the touch of a button. The final two thirds of the channel are automatically updated ensuring your patients will always see something new every time they visit.
This is why Smilevision can boast that 90% of patients watching the screens, have an improved experience and feel more informed about what their practice has to offer. Resulting in members reporting significant increases in the uptake of lucrative treatments and over the counter product sales.
The effects are immediate and sustained. These kinds of results are the envy of marketers the world over, yet so easy for today’s dental practices to implement.
For more information and research statistics visit www.smilevision.co.uk or call 0207 993 3888.
