One-on-One An Interview with Dr. Paul Homoly Simply Beautiful A ...

a couple of days after this information gets submitted to Officite, you’re up on the Internet. You have a site that’s just as
legitimate and just as visible—maybe more so than somebody who’s had a Website for five years.
GL: That’s right. And the beauty of Google AdWords and this pay-per-click strategy is that if you’re willing to spend
more money than competitors in your area, you can be listed number one or two fairly quickly. The other nice thing
is, unlike the Yellow Pages where you pay $8,000 and your ad starts in March and goes to the following February, with
this pay-per-click strategy you can pause your campaign budget at anytime.
So, if you see great results spending $200 a month, you can increase it to $400 or $500. We have some doctors spending
$2,000 a month on pay-per-click advertising because they are getting a high return with new patients. Some
of our doctors get 80 or 90 new patients running their pay-per-click campaign, so it works. And if for some reason
it’s not effective in your area, you can turn it off tomorrow. You’re not committed to some multi-thousand dollar
investment.
MD: Wow, that’s fantastic. Yes, with the Yellow Pages ad, you are doing it half a year ahead of time and you’re committing
for the whole year. I mean, I’m 44 years old, so I’m neither young nor old, but I can’t even think of the last time I
used the Yellow Pages. In fact, the environmental waste of delivering it to everybody’s front porch…I mean, maybe people
still use it to order pizza, but I ordered Domino’s the other day on my TiVo (laughter). I don’t know if the Yellow Pages
are even relevant for that anymore. I guess if your target market is patients 70 and older, the Yellow Pages might still be
a good idea, but for everybody else…
GL: Anybody else…whenever I speak at events, that’s one of the questions I ask early in the presentation. I always ask,
“Who remembers where their phonebook is at home?” Not many people raise their hands. We’ve gone from talking
about how everybody is going to have a computer in their house to now—not only does everybody have two or three
computers, but also they are online 24/7. That’s convenience; the world has changed since we moved from dial-up to
broadband. You know, that was the big switch, when everybody switched from using AOL to using their local cable or
Yahoo! or Gmail or whatever it is, to access the Internet and their e-mail. Everybody is online 24/7 now, so if you need
something—if you want to know the weather or buy a camera—the first place you’re going is online. And then from
there, you may still go out to shop for it. But everybody is using the Internet as their number one resource for looking
things up.
MD: I just think it’s such a sophisticated way to market a dental practice because you can have a very classy looking
Website. And let’s face it: not long ago, your only marketing choices were the Yellow Pages and the ValuPak (or whatever
coupon book), where you’re going to be in there with the dry cleaner and the new Chinese restaurant (laughter). I mean,
how classy was that? You can be a lot more elegant and sophisticated on a Website, don’t you think?
GL: Agreed. You can have different photos, whether they
are stock photos or photos of your patients, the imagery
and colors, the logos—you can make it look much more
professional than you can with just a regular ad. And you
can separate yourself from the noise. That’s a great way to
differentiate yourself, to brand your practice. If you have
certain colors or a look and feel to your practice, you can
incorporate that into your Website. So again, the first time
a patient goes to your Website and sees a certain branding
and feel and look, when they walk into your office and
get that same feeling it only enhances that experience.
Anything’s possible with the Website.
MD: For those doctors whose practice is a little slow right
now, they may think, “Well, it’s going to be too late for me to
market.” That might be true with the old style of marketing.
But if you’re slow right now in June and you want
to be busier for July, it sounds like a Website and
Google AdWords campaign can be up and running
in just a few days, which translates into literally getting
new patients next week. Is that correct?
The Economics of a Dental Website61