Sakaduski Marketing Blog

If you got shut out last year, go to www.oralhealthamerica.org right now and lock in your seats to the Oral Health America Gala on February 26 at Navy Pier (during the Chicago Meeting).  This is a don’t-miss event, but it has gotten so popular that it sells out early.  This year, for the first time, you can reserve seats online.  Reserve by the seat or reserve a whole table.  You can pay by credit card or just asked to be billed (a great option if your company is picking up the tab).  There are also sponsorships available (call Joe Donohue at 312-836-9900 for info).  A sponsorship is a great way to pick up some solid cred in front of the industry kings and king-makers for less than the cost of a single trade ad. 

OHA is also looking for items for the silent auction, so if you have a vacation place, know a celebrity who would donate an autographed item, have a bottle of fine wine or a nice antique or jewelry item to contribute, give Joe a call. 

Did you know you can get M&Ms with your own name on them?  How about custom shoes with your own design, colors, style, and graphics?  It’s the era of me-tailing, or mass customization– personalizing products to appeal to consumers who increasingly feel “it’s all about me.”

Although the dental industry hasn’t always been on the forefront of consumer trends, this one might be worth a passing consideration.  Would a hygienist pay more for gloves or masks with her own initials on them?  Would a dentist choose an intraoral camera because the color matches the operatory decor?  How about customized graphics on chair upholstery?  Personalized communications systems?

If any of your products can be easily personalized, you may want to ask your customers whether they would pay a premium for that luxury.  My bet is you would have a few takers.

Tomorrow’s historic election will signal a turning point in the direction America takes. This long and devisive campaign has raised partisan feelings on both sides, but on November 5, it will be time to get this country moving again. We have seen what a sharp downturn in the economy can do to our industry, and if there is going to be any chance for recovery, it has to start with a new president.

Whatever your political persuasion, take part in the process tomorrow. Voting is still the best way to make your point. All the rants and raves mean nothing, if you can’t take the time to cast your ballot. No matter who wins, that person has to begin moving our country back on a better track. One can only hope, that the process starts in earnest on Wednesday.

On the way home from the ADA, I met a friend who remarked that I had not posted a blog in a while. He wondered if it was a health issue, and I assured him it was not. I had just taken a few weeks off, and when the economic crisis hit, I figured one more blogger ranting about how bad things were would not help improve anybody’s mood.

Speaking of the ADA, it seemed to be a mixed bag. I talked to someone from a large equipment company that had a great show, and I talked to smaller manufacturers who had a dreadful show. It seems that the venue, lower attendance and general economic malaise took its toll. I heard more than one person say that they are skipping New York this year. Not a good omen.

That last few years have seen dental practices build their income by doing more discretionary procedures such as whitening, veneers and implants. Dentists flush with cash, low interest rates, advantageous tax laws and the availability of capital led to record sales years in 2005 and 2006. In 2008, however, we may be at the tipping point that debunks the myth of a recession-proof industry. When patients see their portfolios begin to evaporate, they stop spending, and the fecal matter begins to roll downhill and starts to pool at the feet of the manufacturers. They, in turn, are forced to cut costs to stay in the game, and they can only go so far before they are in to reducucing human capital.

With the election imminent, things will change one way or another. But no matter who you support, things are not going to get better anytime soon. The unthawing of the credit markets may help some smaller manufactures survive, but the whole industry is going to have to get leaner and meaner (and greener!) if it is to remain viable. In the next 6-12 months it is time to take a hard look at the way you have been doing business, especially if you are a small to medium manufacturer. Do you really need to attend every meeting? If you market to a specialist, be sure yopu are at a specialty show. Dealers hold huge national sales meetings and expect vendors to foot the bill. Is there any value in this? If your product is unique, then maybe it is worthwhile. Train your reps over the web. Webinars can train a lot of people for a very modest fee. And nobody gets on an airplane or uses a hotel room. Use e-mail blasts to reach customers. Fast and easy, they get your message out quickly and economically. Regarding your products, provide value to your customers. Small technologies can make a practice more efficient and can provide new techniques to build patient traffic. Provide the practice with ways to save time and money, two valuable commodities in this day and age. And last, but not least, have faith in our industry and do whatever you can to make it better.

Think you’ve seen some terrible ads?  Check out these oldies, but not goodies: http://www.weirdomatic.com/creepy-ads.html

When developing an ad start with a “first do no harm” approach!

Do you send out promotional emails?  If so, consider this:  According to Marketing Sherpa, more than 60% of decision makers now read their email on a mobile device.  Although the number may be lower for notoriously low-tech dentists, the number of younger and/or more tech saavy dentists who use mobile devices to read email is no doubt climbing.

Why does this matter?  Because your carefully designed graphic-packed email promotions won’t look like much after the images have been removed and the messages garbled by the mobile device.  In fact, the email may be impossible to understand.  Some corporate email servers also block images. This may affect any communications you send to dental dealers, manufacturers, or large clinics and institutions. 

For this reason, consider plain text emails, which are easy to read on any device.  If you want readers to click on a website link, provide a spelled out URL like this one:  http://sakaduskimarketing.com.  Include a phone number (mobile phone users may be able to click on it to call).  If you include graphics, make sure to repeat any information contained in them as plain text as well.  Never embed critical information in an image.  As with any promotional message, keep it short, clear, and to the point.

By taking this approach, you will assure that the money you spend on email promotions won’t be wasted and your message will be readable, no matter what device the recipient is using to receive it.

In the June, 2008 issue of Proofs, there is an article on page 10 outlining the Dental Trade Alliance’s position on dental trade shows. The DTA’s position is clearly articulated and reflects what many in the dental industry know, that the number of shows is sucking the lifeblood from our business. Couple the vendor cost of supporting these shows with the extraoridinary costs and hassle of travelling, and you can see why this position makes so much sense. The DTA not only listened to manufacturers and dealers, but surveyed dentists as well. That certainly adds credibility to the findings. As I have said many times, we are a face-to face industry, but the trade show burden has begun to negate many of the advantages of pressing the flesh. When you are paying $400/night for a hotel room, and the customers you hoped to see are sitting in CE courses, it certainly creates a lot of ill will.

Kevin Henry, the editor of Proofs, is interested in your opinion. E-mail him at kevinh@pennwell.com. This issue is too important to sit idly by. Support the DTA on this matter!

For those of you who would rather read a good book than work (but would rather that the boss didn’t catch you at it), here’s a hilarious website that has taken great works (Fitzgerald, Twain, Dickinson, Tolstoy, etc.) and reduced them to PowerPoint presentations that, when viewed from a distance–say from the perspective of a boss strolling by–make it look as if you’re hard at work.

http://www.readatwork.com/

There is an excellent article in the Harvard Business School newsletter http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5957.html

on price increases.  The article is based on the (undoubtedly true) premise that, due to the nearly universal awareness of increasing oil prices and the cascading effects that is having on prices of consumer products, customers are more price conscious than ever.  As a result, people are looking for areas to cut back, reuse, postpone, or eliminate.

In the dental industry, the impact will likely be seen in several areas:

1. Dentists may postpone or eliminate discretionary expenditures, unless they can be depended upon to increase revenues.

2. Products linked to discretionary patient expenditures (such as whitening and cosmetic procedures) will likely take a downturn.

3. Dentists will be looking for deals (this may represent an opportunity for small companies able to undercut prices).  American companies will likely feel even more pressure from competitors in countries such as China that have lower labor costs.

4. Trade show attendance may drop even more, as dentists evaluate whether the expense is worth the value, when CE is readily available through other means.

5. The cost of a sales call will rise dramatically with increasing oil prices.  Companies able to sell online or through other means will have an advantage.

6. Customer behavior may change (both dental professionals and patients), so it will be harder to predict buying patterns.

7. Dealer relationships may take some heat as distributors try to keep costs down (or pass them on to vendors) while their sales expenses rise.  Vendors may also find dealers stretching out payment terms.

There have been a number of recent articles regarding the slowing of growth in the dental industry. Some of the dealers and manufacturers have seen slower sales in items such as braces, crowns, implants and veneers. This means a slowdown in spending for discretionary cosmetic procedures that often drive most of the profits in a high-volume practice. When the slowdown begins at the patient level, it means people are concerned about the future of the economy. You don’t hear people complaining about $3 milk or $3 bread, but everybody gripes about $4/gallon gas. We have seemed to have crossed a barrier once thought impenetrable. And I have not found anybody who thinks the price of gas is going down anytime soon. People know that $4 gas is not a good thing, and it gives them pause to consider where they can cut costs. So patients postpone procedures,dentists stop buying, dealers reduce inventory and manufacturers curtail production resulting in a general industry malaise.

Maybe there are some silver linings in these black clouds. Maybe we will see more products that are not marketed to make the dentist more money, but products that will make the practice better for staff and patients. Products that screen for oral cancer, for instance. Maybe we will see more movement to advertising on electronic media sites that offer great promotions and plenty of information to help the customer make an informed immediate buying decision (and I don’t mean silly videos showing people sitting poolside in dental chairs). And just maybe we will realize how inefficient dental trade shows (and dealer sales meetings) have become. Higher aifares, higher cab fares, higher hotel rates and higher convention costs to attract fewer attendees makes even less sense now than a year ago, and will make less sense a year from now.

It is hard to predict if and when the economy will improve dramatically anytime soon. What we may be seeing are permanent changes that will affect the way business is done over the next five-ten years. They may be just the kind of changes our industry needs.