Why Storytelling Remains An Engaging Strategy

October 14, 2022
Advertising Media, Blogging, Dental marketing

At ProspectaMarketing, we specialize in providing wide-reaching, impactful digital marketing for dental practices. One of the core tenets our blogging, local listing, and SEO specialists all share is an affinity for creative solutions. This is why today, we will be covering the power of storytelling in dental marketing!

Robert McKee, creative writing instructor and author of the bestseller Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting, claims that “Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” So, how can you apply this? Is this advice even helpful for a dental practice looking for a viable online brand strategy?

Of course! After all, what is marketing if not a transmission of ideas? What is it, if not short-form storytelling? Every time a patient sees an ad, whether it be on television, online, or in a magazine, they are responding to a micro-story, complete with a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

But what about the other part of the question? How do you apply it? In order to fully grasp this, it is crucial to understand the potential of dentistry specifically as a storytelling medium. After all, how many of our outreach efforts begin with hypothetic anecdotes?

“If you have ever suffered a traumatic accident that knocked a tooth loose, you’re not alone! Visit our practice for a host of restorative dentistry options that can fix your smile in no time!” or “Do you find that your social life is suffering from yellowing teeth? Come to our practice for whitening services and regain your confidence!” Right there, we have solid story structure!

We begin with a potentially dangerous and inciting incident, like a bad fall or a social faux pas, transition to a journey, as seen in the request to visit our practice, and eventually arrive at the conclusion; a happy patient with perfect teeth!

By adhering to basic story structure, you can craft engaging ads, blog posts, marketing copy, and even brand social media updates! It applies to all avenues of digital marketing. Our team has put together a basic primer of marketing avenues that could be improved through engaging storytelling. Check it out below!

Marketing Options Where Storytelling Shines

  • Blogging: This is the most obvious option, but blogs are perfectly set up for story structure. They consist of large swaths of text and one or two associated images. This wealth of space provides an opportunity for a dental practice to really expand on an idea. Try starting a blog post with a quote (like we did) and see where the story takes you. Or begin with an anecdote based on a patient’s experiences. Just remember to omit personal or identifying information. Whatever your choice, make sure your micro-story has an introduction, a transition, and a conclusion. The three act format has worked for years to convey change, and in the end, this is what we want. Our patients are living with a specific situation – whether it be yellowing teeth or jaw issues – and our job is to encourage them to change this situation through effort. Thus, a structure wherein a problem is presented, discussed, then fixed, fits perfectly as a persuasive technique.
  • Advertising: Whether you’re getting your image out there through local listings, online ads, word of mouth, or a combination of all three, storytelling is a crucial part of your advertising efforts. Unlike a blog, most advertising avenues don’t actually give you a ton of space. In this case, we recommend compressing the story structure to one or two sentences. Practice condensing complex concepts to their core ideas. For example, if you want a patient to come in for TMJ pain, you can write marketing copy to the tune of: “Suffer from jaw pain? An oral appliance can set you free!” Here, the intro is condensed, but still presents the conflict, the transitionary section is almost nonexistent and consists of only the identification of the oral appliance, and the solution is a breezy, catchy “set you free.” And yet, the story structure still draws your attention to the situation, transitions to a new phase, and provides a satisfying conclusion!
  • Website Copy: A website consists of a whole group of stories, and the way you write your copy should adhere to the same storytelling standards we’ve been referring to so far. Your home page should have an easily visible title, tagline, and high-quality image. This trio of elements serves as your introduction, ensuring your patients know who you are and what you’re about. Your transitionary elements – ie, the second stage of story structure – consist of call outs and links, so ensure they are attractive and contain short, punchy keywords that will both attract readers and Google index bots. Your conclusion consists of the patient landing on a desired service page, then navigating to the appointment button. However, when they land on the aforementioned page, there must be a story there, too! To clarify, your website is your overall story, but your individual pages should tell their own stories as well. There’s nothing more damaging to site authority than a link that leads to a paltry amount of information – except maybe one that leads to an error page!

At ProspectaMarketing, we encourage all dental practices to consider how basic storytelling structure can improve their marketing outreach. If you are a dental practice looking for experienced marketing specialists that can spin your yarn of dental success, ProspectaMarketing can help!  We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

Readability Matters!

August 26, 2022
Blogging, Dental Advertising, Dental marketing, internet dental marketing, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

ProspectaMarketing endeavors to meet our clients marketing needs and extend their reach through every possible medium. Audiovisual elements are absolutely crucial in this endeavor and if you haven’t read our article on the core tenets of visual media, check it out immediately! However, another vital element we have covered on this blog – one that is at least as important as audiovisual media – is written content.

If you have read our article on the importance of engaging website copy, then you already know the core elements of creating this text-based content. However, how are you supposed to check if that content is tracking well with readers and getting the correct message across? In an arena like dental advertising, it can be even more important to transmit your goals and information effectively and objectively, as patients are often looking for health-related facts that leave little room for subjective writing. Readability checkers are, at least partially, the answer.

What Is A Readability Checker?

You can infer what a readability checker entails pretty easily by the name: it’s a tool used by blog specialists, website copy writers, and content creators the web over to ensure that their content is grammatically and structurally correct. However, it’s more than just a glorified spell-checker. A properly designed readability checker will also test your content for proper flow, repetition of words, transition phrases, and a host of other fluency and syntax standards. In short, it will make sure your work sounds as professionally written as possible.

There are three types of spell-checkers our blog team recommends when creating written content.

  1. Yoast Plug-in: This particular spell-checker mainly applies to WordPress users. If you’re generating content for a blog, mailing list, forum, or media gallery, using the Yoast Plug-in is a good way to check your progress. When enabled, it will show a color-coded symbol to the right of your blog posts in your blog viewing window in WordPress. The color ranges from red to green, respectively indicating low to high readability levels. Red means your post needs work, yellow means it’s almost there, and green means you’re good to go. The plug-in also enables a similar column with identical symbols for SEO optimization, which means you can use it to both check the accessibility of your text and test how high it will rank on search engines. Yoast not only lets you know that you Readability or SEO are low; it gives you suggestions to help you fix it. All the steps you can take are arranged in an easy-to-access drop down menu so you can easily get your post in the green.
  2. Microsoft Word Readability Checker: What if your written content is not being generated via WordPress? Our best tip is to either create your text entirely on a blank document on Microsoft Word (or a similar, text-based application), or at least copy paste it into a blank document before posting it to your preferred back-end web service. Why? Microsoft itself has a hidden readability checker that few people know about. Making use of it is easy and free! While you’ve got your Word document open, search the top row of toolbar options for the “Review” tab. Then, find the category titled “Spelling & Grammar.” At this stage, you’ll be able to choose spell-check options, but, depending on your version of Word, there should also be a category or option titled “Readability Statistics.” With this pop-up page, you will be able to access statistics like your text’s Fleisch Reading Ease Score. Metrics like this can be helpful in examining whether your text flows well and is understood easily by your intended target audience.
  3. Grammarly: Though focused primarily on grammar and spelling, Grammarly is also great tool for ascertaining how to improve the clarity, fluency, cohesiveness, and vocabulary of written content. It offers real-time assistance and a host of tools. The only drawback to this robust readability system is that most of the features are locked behind a paywall. The only free features are grammar and spelling!

Why Is Readability Important?

In an ever-evolving online landscape, your practice’s potential patients will have no patience for improperly written walls of text riddled with mistakes. They have the ability to quickly click away to another page and come equipped with the increased online literacy of a generation raised on the internet. These standards make readable content an absolute cornerstone to your advertising campaign.

At ProspectaMarketing, we can assign you a specialized blog writer and even help you iron out clunky marketing copy. We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.

SEO-Friendly Blog Posts: 5 Easy Steps

August 15, 2022
Blogging, Dental Advertising, internet dental marketing, Search Engine Optimization

So, you are a dental professional who keeps up with our blog posts and you have taken our advice on the importance of blogs in marketing. You have set up a solid website with appealing design, informative text blurbs, attractive images, and you have added a WordPress blog to it in order to generate fresh content. Now, you are staring at a blank page and wondering how to go about writing your first blog post. ProspectaMarketing can help!

If you haven’t followed all these steps yet, make sure to check out our previous articles covering topics like the power of the blog, engaging website copy, appealing visual media, local SEO tips, and Google indexing strategies. If you have, then you have likely already read these articles and are wondering how to go about crafting a blog post that will have a good chance of getting picked up by Google’s bots and wind up high on search engine results.

Our team has put together a list of tips to get you writing and to ensure you adhere to SEO-friendly parameters, in order to further maximize your visibility and the impact your dental practice can have.

5 Easy-To-Follow Guidelines

  1. Use Proper Headers, Footers, and Contact Info: Guiding your reader’s eye to accessible information about the practice is a crucial part of any blog post. Before you write any text content, ensure you have a good title and that contact info is available somewhere in the post. Your best bet is the bottom, so craft a footer with large, easy-to-read text that details your practices official name, address, phone number, website and/or e-mail. Make sure to place it at the bottom of any and all blog posts, to create a sense of uniformity and professionalism in your blog.
  2. Make Use of the Official Practice Name: We recommend using the name of the practice twice in every blog post; once at the beginning and once at the end. Doing it only once – or not at all – might mean it fails to stick in your reader’s mind. However, doing it too much will stink to a reader of generic SEO fodder.
  3. Include Unique Location Names: When it comes to creating content that is attractive to Google index bots and search engines, location-specific vocabulary is key. What better way to make your writing stand out than to mention uniquely-named locations that your practice serves? Do it at least once during the actual text, and consider adding it to the title, if applicable. “Quick Toothache Solutions” is a good title; “Quick Toothache Solutions in Silverton, CO” is better.
  4. Start With A Story Or A Quote: In the end, writing is all about story; even advertising copy. Pick a good quote about teeth or smiling and place it at the top of your post. Or start with an interesting patient anecdote – make sure to omit any names or personal details! This might kickstart some ideas and help you structure the rest of the blog post.
  5. Adhere To A Structure: A blog post is like a good essay; it presents a persuasive argument, offers supporting evidence for it, and wraps up with a conclusion on the general benefit of the position being argued. Anything you can write will follow these steps. Use sub-headers to separate each of these sections. Come up with an attractive title for each one. For example, if you’re stuck on a blog post about a new teeth whitening service your practice is offering, write a header like “Tooth Whitening News for Norfolk Residents,” then write two sub-headers like “Why Choose This New Method?” and “The Name of Practice Difference.” Just like that, you have the basic structure for a blog post, complete with an introduction to the idea, supporting arguments, and a conclusion that brings it all together.

Just Start Writing

The most important tip is to start creating content. In modern philosophy, there is a concept known as the infinite monkey theorem. It presents the idea that, if a monkey hits random keys on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time, it will eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare. Many take this to mean that there is no way to be original, as random chance could produce the same result as an artist, given time. At ProspectaMarketing, we believe that, since this feat would take an infinite amount of time, it is also proof of all the unique permutations that exist between the random text and Hamlet.

This means you are very unlikely to write something stale, repetitive, and worded exactly the same as another blog post. You would have to sit in your chair for an infinite amount of time in order to achieve the same exact thoughts, worded the same exact same way, as someone else! So, just start writing! We guarantee that, as long as you come up with the text yourself, both your potential patients and, more importantly, the Google algorithm, will view it as unique copy and respond to it organically.

If you represent a dental practice that needs help writing blog posts, ProspectaMarketing offers a wide selection of blogging services, ranging from basic to fully customized. We are an experienced Internet marketing firm specializing in dental practices and the tools of Internet marketing. We help you reach key prospects who are looking for what your practice has to offer. Our unique and thorough approach provides visibility, financial accountability, and ongoing refinement and improvement. You can find out more by contacting Lane Anderson toll-free at 1-877-322-4440 Ext 101, by email using the form on our Contact Us page, or online at ProspectaMarketing.com.