By Dick Chwalek - Dental Marketing Coach & Consultant
Videos are a powerful way to communicate how your dental expertise improves lives. Putting videos on your website creates limitless potential for spreading the word about the value of advanced restorative and cosmetic dentistry, dental implants, and smile makeovers.
Whether it is a stock concept or a custom dental patient testimonial, website videos offer the public a deeper understanding of what modern dentistry now makes possible.
Below I have presented three basic concepts to think about before proceeding with your dental website videos.
- Value Presentation
- Consumer Context
- Content Quality
1) Dental Videos Value Presentation
Consider the value you want to present. Will the value focus on procedures or people? Much of the reason patients will proceed with treatment is because they get to a certain point in their lives it makes sense. Sadly, too many are just at the end of their rope and cannot wait any longer.
Even when dental consumers logically know they need treatment, many have not reached the emotional realization of its value to them now. Too often procrastination and illogical cost objections keep them from proceeding. Dental consumers put off dental treatment because "something" is missing in their decision-making process. Concentrating solely on the clinical benefits gives them only one piece of the puzzle. Patients also need to see the outcome of the benefits in human terms.
While immediate gratification is what we usually desire, dentistry requires some amount of time and significant involvement (we have to show up for our procedure). Therefore it is very important to present value in many different ways to move people farther along. Case presentation is very problematic when almost every objection is still under the surface. Video offers the "immediate gratification" of seeing and hearing what is possible. The combination of visual and auditory reinforcement together markedly intensifies value appreciation.
2) Dental Video Consumer Context
Procedural dental videos can provide a level of education that many consumers can benefit from. Yet the reasons for holding off are often centered somewhere else in the brain. If they think various dental treatments are only for someone else or rich people, knowledge of the engineering will be almost useless. Therefore, some element of "someone like me did it" reality needs to be presented.
Focus on this consumer context with your dental videos and you can complete the picture for them. This means having patients tell "your story and their story" about their dental care. Make sure your dental web video testimonials cover these areas to achieve the full "reality" context.
- Explain the reality of the dental treatment in their words
- Emphasize how the patient feels afterwards
- Show how dental patients look and hold themselves after dental treatment
- Present the dental patient's feelings leading up to the decision to proceed
- Build the value of your dental expertise
While dental patient testimonials will have the widest appeal, videos that include the dentist and the dental practice team can be very effective. Still portraits and messages about how nice and friendly the dentist and team are a start, but a video on your dental practice website is exponentially more powerful.
3) Dental Video Content Quality
Spending the right amount of time and thought to develop your video is of utmost importance; cost is secondary. There are many tools to create your dental video, many video developers that can do it for you, and some dentistry-related websites that offer it in various formats. Determining what you are trying to accomplish, how fast you want to accomplish it, and how unique you want it to be will determines the eventual cost.
The most important element is developing the content. Will it be stock video of dental procedures, your up-close and personal explanation, or dental patients extolling your value? If it is your patients, what will the pool of patients look like? What kind of questions will be asked?
Take time to discover what resources you have (patients, team, yourself, etc.) to develop the best content possible at this point. While you might start at a lower range than you would want in a perfect world, the "high quality portion" should be focused on what you achieve in your message and less on the pristine look of the dental video project itself. Great video production without the right content is destined to be a waste of time no matter how much or little you spend on it.
Dental Website Video Conclusion
The consumer needs and wants to have the benefits of advanced dentistry, but is still wary for many reasons. There are fear, cost/value, and even trust issues. Your dental website gives them a way to anonymously assess your services, expertise, and personality. Dental web video has the potential to greatly and powerfully alleviate and flatten their world of concerns.
Find a way to present a logical and emotional connection with your website visitors. You can develop it yourself or have a dental marketing firm do it all. However, the videos should promote your image and the value of your dental services. Don't shortchange your image health with the wrong level of "dental marketing treatment".
