Sakaduski Marketing Blog

There is a new alliance in the dental industry. A group of laboratory products’ manufactuteres have banded together. This group will share marketing expenses, websites and convention costs. By forming this group, each manufacturer realizes that the sum is now greater than the parts. Leverage is increased and each now has a bigger voice. Maybe the time has come when companies in other segments should be thinking along the same lines. Consolidation has limited distribution and on the manufacturer side has created large powerful companies. Smaller companies working together makes all the sense in the world. It should work for dealers, as well. The limiting factor in the dental industry has been the strong entrepenurial spirit which makes sharing ideas tough. In a slowing economy however, sharing may be the best chance for survival.

Yesterday, I heard an employment ad on my local radio station for a project manager. They wanted someone with expertise in “blogging, tagging, flickr, podcasts, vidcasts, myspace, and other social marketing applications.” Is there anyone over the age of 30 who would fit that bill? Aside from being forced to ponder my own path toward geezerhood, I started thinking about this whole social marketing phenomenon.

If you are not familiar with myspace, this is where (almost exclusively) teenagers post provocative pictures and profiles of themselves and invite 500 or so of their closest friends to interact with them. Part exhibitionism, part communication, part performance art, this new medium, some predict, will spill over into many other areas, resulting in a new kind of Internet. This Internet, which will include networks of people grouped by interests, age, occupation, etc., will change the way we receive information.

What does this have to do with the dental industry? If the techno-crystal balls are correct, these social networks will be prime areas for marketing. Customers will essentially self select themselves by demographic factors and buying interests, which is one of the goals of a targeted marketing campaign. An early form of this can be seen with DentalTown, where dentists socialize, share information, and generally hold forth.

According to an article in Fast Company, advertisers spent an estimated $865 million on social networking in 2007 and are beginning to realize they can get more value by launching their own targeted community sites. Check out Turner Broadcasting’s www.SuperDeluxe.com, a site that “deepens its relationship with young men who love comedy and already watch TBS and Adult Swim.” Proctor & Gamble has set up several community sites in hopes of learning more about its target customers.  One, Capessa, http://health.yahoo.com/capessa, features content created by female consumers without promoting specific brands. Such sites eliminate the hard sell and focus on learning more about the customer.

We all need to keep an eye on new technologies and electronic media, constantly adapting our marketing skills to these new vehicles. The dental industry likely won’t be the first industry to embrace new Internet communities, but these social marketplaces are bound to affect all of us down the road.

Comment posted by the Dental Insider:

HR departments are now scanning My space when looking at perspective hires. Having a picture of you at a party doing a beer bong does not bode well for your future employer. This topic has been hot lately, I have seen articles regarding this subject in several newspapers around the country and online.

We have been asked why there are no comments from readers posted on this blog. We initially allowed comment postings and were deluged by spammers. Apparently, these sick folks aren’t content with jamming email inboxes. They also seek out blogs and post phoney comments, filled with hyperlinks to their own websites. Rather than subject our readers to this, we decided not to allow readers to post comments. That said, you are always welcome to email us with a question or comment, and we will post it on the blog. Simply email us at *info@*sakaduskimarketing.com (remove the asterisks) or use the Contact Us link on the main website. We love to hear from our readers!

As dental industry consultants, we try to keep up with trends not only within the dental industry, but also general trends that can affect the dental industry. Here are some of the trends we see affecting the dental industry now or in the future.

1. Concern for youth and beauty has transformed dental care from something that many people avoided to a cosmetic process that some consumers seek out. The desire to look younger and better is fueling a new interest in dental treatments.
2. Consumers are just beginning to realize the impact that dental health has on overall health, and so demand for dental services (and respect for the dentist) will continue to increase.
3. Initially, the dental industry was characterized by a large number of small, entrepreneurial or family-owned businesses. This is changing through consolidation and large outside companies (i.e. Danaher) entering the market.
4. The world is increasingly moving to the Internet.  This will affect how dentists and their staffs research products, make buying decisions, and eventually, purchase products.
5. Like other industries, the dental industry will be impacted by tightening energy resources, which will result in higher costs, slower delivery cycles, less travel, and greater interest in products and services that reduce energy consumption.
6. The aging population will fuel demand for dental services, while the shrinking number of dentists will result in less access to care, particularly in rural areas and less demographically desirable areas.
7. More women are becoming dentists, which is beginning to affect the design of dental equipment (stools that can adjust lower, for example) and spark creative service offerings such as pinktooth.net.
8. The use of sealants, combined with fluoridation, will reduce the need for some dental procedures and products in the future but will generate more demand for procedures to prolong the health and appearance of the teeth.
9. An increasing interest in orthodontia has contributed not only to higher rates of children receiving orthodontic services, but a new market for adult orthodontia.
10. Growth in home dental care products will probably continue, with more people willing to perform whitening procedures and other techniques at home in order to save money and eliminate the need to visit the dental office.

Each industry has its own unique characteristics that affect business entry, competition, pricing and distribution structures, marketing vehicles, and other factors. As consultants working exclusively in the dental industry, we have the opportunity to observe what makes the dental industry different from other industries (Caution: generalities ahead):

1. Dentists are strongly price-motivated. Despite having become the highest paid healthcare professionals, dentists are still conservative in their purchasing and very conscious of price. It is probably the only industry in which customers whose income is well into the six figures will stand in line to spin a wheel for a pack of gum.
2. Dentists have been slow to adopt new technology and to embrace the Internet. Many dentists still do not have Internet access in the office and are only starting to wake up to online vehicles such as dentalcompare.com. We recently encountered a dentist who not only had no email, but did not have a fax machine.
3. Dental products are largely low-tech. Other than a few new technologies such as cone beam x-ray, there have not been many major advances. Handpieces and chairs haven’t changed much in decades and there have been no breakthroughs that would revolutionize the dental industry.
4. The dental industry has been slow to adopt new technology and to embrace the Internet. Many companies are still not maximizing the use of their website as a marketing tool and are not utilizing email marketing.
5. The dental industry is largely distribution-based and is heavily controlled by two major dealers.
6. The dental industry is still largely a person-to-person in structure: dentist-to-dentist, sales rep-to-dentist, wholesale rep-to-dealer rep, etc. Personal contact is key throughout the buying process, which may help explain the next item.
7. There are an unusually large number of trade shows in the dental industry. Unlike other industries where there are one or two key shows a year, the dental industry has dozens.
8. Ergonomics is a big factor that influences product design, clinician preferences, practice productivity, and even the health of the practitioner.
9. Up until very recently, the industry (both professional and the trade) has been overwhelming dominated by men. Although more women are becoming dentists and there are a few dental companies run by women, this is still a largely male industry.
10. The primary customer, the dentist, may not research the product or even purchase the product directly, although the dentist controls the buying decision.