Welcome to The Confidence Club E-zine

In This Issue

• Why What I Do With This Ezine Matters to Your Dental Practice
• The History of Client Communication
• Then Along Came Blogging
• So What Has This Got to Do With My Dental Practice?
• Back to Me, Me, Me for a Mo
• Conclusions for Me
• Conclusions for You
• For Sale: Saturdays

Why What I Do With This Ezine Matters to Your Dental Practice

The real fans will notice that my ezine output has dropped dramatically in recent months.

• A Favor Please, 03 July 2010
• Free Live Teleseminar, 07 June 2010
• Dental Business Club - Mastermind Group 2010, 14 May 2010
• The End Game - Episode 2 - What's the answer?, 04 May 2010

Its been bugging me for some time now - and the primary reason for the lack of copy has been my work schedule.

Yes - I'm very busy and working very hard to avoid the danger of over-promising and under-delivering in the coaching.

I want to start this ezine by talking about me, me, me - but ask for your patience because the conversation will evolve into one about you, you, you.

The History of Client Communication

I can recall my first "newsletter" as an independent fee-based financial planner in the early 90's:

• dictation machine once a week
• p.a. transcribes
• p.a. prints as Word document
• p.a. sticks 250 copies in envelopes, adds a stamp and mails

My subject matter every week was a quick overview of what was hot to trot in the world of financial and tax planning (clients were business owners) and some general thoughts from me on business - a very early prototype of business coaching.

So essentially I was using "print media" because that was all that existed - in 1992 the internet was not an everyday event in our lives!

My first email newsletter probably appeared by the mid-90's - although identifying which clients knew how to receive it was a challenge!

And when I say "email newsletter", what I really mean was the same Word document as an attachment, rather than printed.

Click-through rates (the number of people who actually opened and read it) were very low and unpredictable - in keeping with a lack of technical knowledge and slow download speeds.

By the end of the 90's, early 00's, we had the opportunity to employ list management systems like Constant Contact - so now the issue of the "ezine" and management of the community became much streamlined, automated and delegate-able.

Then along came blogging - my first blog post was 17th September 2004 and, as an early-adopter, I was soon posting away as thoughts and experiences occurred.

Then Along Came Blogging

Then along came blogging - my first blog post was 17th September 2004 and, as an early-adopter, I was soon posting away as thoughts and experiences occurred.

Since then 1,359 blog posts by me and 2,230 comments by readers.

And that was pretty well where we stayed until a few years ago - and the explosion of digital media and social networking.

The reason my ezine issue has been "faltering" is because there are now multiple distribution channels for my content:

• the ezine (1465 subscribers with a 60% click through rate)
• the blog posts (246 subscribers who have an RSS feed and others who check in)
• the free downloads on the blog
• my main Facebook page (1521 "friends")
• my Leadership & Confidence Group on Facebook (839 members)
• Twitter (746 followers)
• Linkedin (287 connections)
• Foursquare (the fastest growing and hottest topic today - 28 friends so far)
• direct emails to distinct groups of clients - Virtual, Mastermind's and Elite
• Camtasia video reviews of web sites and literature (I haven't told you about that have I?)
• the use of a You Tube channel to create video
• Slideshare for distribution of presentations
• teleconference calls and webinars - either self-generated or guesting
• other people's digital magazines (for me, Apex and Dentinal Tubules)
• other people's print media - Dental magazines and other publications
• creating material for public speaking events

So the fact is that I am pouring content out all the time - the habit of a lifetime - but that content is now distributed and diluted across a much wider field of vision - so much so that even I have difficulty remembering what I've written or created where.

And my "audience" is equally fragmented - clearly there is overlap in the numbers quoted above - perhaps a core of 1000 tribe members - but almost impossible to accurately calculate.

This morning (Friday) I'm looking at a to do list that includes:

• this ezine
• an article for Dentinal Tubules
• an email to my Virtual coaching clients, outlining a task for them to embrace before the end of the month
• a new recording prior to the next Apex "askcoachbarrow" teleconference
• an article for the Scottish Dental Magazine
• a posting to my Facebook Leadership Group

All a bit daunting.

Now - the positive.

1. there is never a week goes by without an email from a dentist that reads "Chris, I have read your ezine for some time now and like your approach - please contact me to discuss your services"
2. I recently had an email from a dentist which I paraphrase as "Chris - I saw your photo on Facebook at the Practice Plan Club Weekend in Mallorca and it reminded me to contact you - can we talk about coaching please"
3. Speaking invitations arrive from people who read my blog
4. Writing invitations arrive from people who hear me speak
5. being "out there" improves my Google ranking - and that brings enquiries from home and abroad from those who are looking for advice
6. even the Dentistry Top 50 result can be attributed to all of this viral activity
7. and that has led to requests for Non-Executive Directorship from a number of larger dental organisations

So the benefits are numerous and positive - no doubt.

So What Has This Got to Do With My Dental Practice?

We are in the same boat, you and I.

I listen very carefully to my clients - and they are telling me that between 1 in 3 and 2 in 3 of new patient enquiries are coming from digital marketing:

• Google Adwords
• Search Engine Optimisation
• A retail web site that encourages enquiries through
• special offers
• content that matters
• a brand that appeals
• video interviews and tours
• Facebook groups, pages and events
• the use of external digital marketing like www.mycitydeal.com

But I still find that very few of you are:

• regularly blogging
• issuing an ezine to existing patients
• issuing an ezine to prospective patients who haven't visited your practice but did visit you site and left their data
• creating your own You Tube channel
• actively managing your Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Bebo (Scotland) and other social networking accounts
• and now - managing your Foursquare profile and posts

It all sounds very exhausting doesn't it? I hear you asking:

• how do I dream up all of this content?
• who is going to manage all of these methods of delivery?

Good questions.

Back to Me, Me, Me for a Mo

Yep - its true - I too am getting overwhelmed with all of this.

I have no problem producing content - every day at work and at play delivers material:

• tales of dental practices and the people I meet
• tales of customer service I receive
• tales of what I'm up to

And I "get it" that, as a business coach I have more to write about than a dentist - although I would argue that your tribe of patients would respond to content that stepped outside of the normal parameters.

The challenge for me and for you - is that we need to adopt a co-ordinated social media strategy.

I'm probably ahead of you in the existing use of social media (as above) - that means I can save you some time.

Phillippa and I have been discussing this for some time - and I've been asking my other professional advisors what they think.

My prompt for asking was a blog post by Seth Godin in which he reminded his readers that he does not use SEO or any other artificial device to increase his Google ranking - he just writes good posts!

That got me thinking that Seth only actually does three things, very well indeed:

1. A fantastic blog that sits in the top 5 worldwide
2. A fantastic book about once a year
3. A speaking tour every now and then

Here's my ever-faithful IT lady and iPhone app developer Kimberly Black:

I think you're doing a terrific job on the social marketing side of things. Probably the only
thing I would do is just to add Foursquare on your links on the blog since it seems to be coming up.

You do have 1400+ subscribers and about 60% of them open and read it on a given
basis. I think you could reduce your overhead if you just wrote one article for each
ezine. The rest could be gleaned from your blog posts, twitter posts, facebook, etc.
Might be interesting to go back in time with a blog post from the past as well.

You can write the single ezine article "on the hoof", by email.

I think that your readers look forward to your ezine articles, and if you just eliminated
them completely, you would lose quite a few folks. The ezine becomes a "just in case you missed it"
notification email with one addition to keep them in tune.

This phases everyone into reading the "other" content instead of just the ezine or just the blog
or just the twitter. I would see the ezine going by the wayside after you've done this for a bit.

If you're going to model after Seth, he's never produced an ezine and I'm sure you could eliminate
yours if you migrated the readers to another resource.

You have 246 subscribers to the blog feed. But you have others who actually read the blog on site
and have never subscribed to it.

Let's really put this into perspective.

1. Where do most of your clients come from? Do they really come from the ezine or the blog
or where? The most come from other sources. The blog and ezine content is keeping them
up to date with what CB thinks. Your readership isn't 1400 dentists. Its 1400 people who
have an interest in what CB has to say. Many of them will never be clients, however,
many of them drive your popularity.

2.You have 246 people who are in tune with technology enough to subscribe to the blog feed
and even more who stop by every few days to read the blog.

You have 738 twitter followers. You have 1400+ facebook friends.

You have 1400+ people who have subscribed to the ezine. Can the ezine folks be trained away from the ezine?

Kim"

and Krishan Joshi of Dental Focus:

"Hi Chris

My 2 cents:

You're offering 3 frequencies to follow you:

The Ezine subscription allows people to 'opt-in' to a weekly email.

The Blog subscription allows people to 'opt-in' to a daily email.

The twitter, blog, youtube, facebook, linkedin are all to follow you 24/7

I believe your blog is Rome - and all roads lead to Rome.

Your tweets should refer to all your blog posts - as you already do really.

I wonder if the Ezine should simply be a cut and paste job with references to the Blog - this might make it easier for you to create?

The blog is the place you want to have all your fresh unique content as that is great for your SEO - if you do care about SEO, if so, what keyphrases? We need to make sure you know how to inherently optimise your blogging.

If you're on top of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and we're about to start a load of YouTube videos - in the UK - I think you're pretty much on top of your 'online' social networking. I think the rest of the social sites are really overkill as everybody refers to these top 4 first...

Krish"

Conclusions for Me

I intend to keep the ezine going for the foreseeable future - BUT - to issue the ezine as one MAJOR article on a subject of relevance

1. To get back on track to issue that ONE BIG ARTICLE on or as near to a weekly basis as possible
2. To focus on the blog as the place where quick fire ideas, photos, stories, recruitment opportunities, adverts and other such take place - many more blog posts on a wider range of subjects
3. To keep doing all the other things mentioned above BUT
4. to appoint a social media manager to

• manage the community - subscribers, readers, contributors and commenters
• manage the content - decide what goes where
• manage the distribution - decide when stuff goes out
• manage the mediums - overall co-ordination of web. blog, video and social networking sites
• manage the future - to keep us one step ahead

The role of Social Media Manager for The Dental Business Club and for Chris Barrow is now open.

Its a virtual position - I don't mind where you are or what your background is - and you will be a freelance member of Team CB.

Let me know if you - or somebody you know, would be interested.

Don't ask me about money and hours - I don't know - it will evolve.

Conclusions for You

If you are recruiting less then 20 new patients, per month, per dental surgery - you are missing a trick.

If less then 1 in 3 of your new patients find you via digital marketing - you are below average.

You need a social media policy and manager for your practice.

For Sale: Saturdays

Chris has given his blessing for this small advertorial...

LOST WHILST WORKING OVERTIME - several weekends. Last seen in 2009. Going by various names - 'mini break', 'booze cruise', 'reunion', hen night'. Will answer to anything.

If you are losing family time, holiday time, drinking time, golfing time, party time or any free time because there are simply too many tasks or projects on your 'to do' list - invoices to send out, letters to send, clients to call, appointments to make, trains and planes to book, bills to pay, money to chase - we currently have capacity for an additional client here at Essential PA.

Regain your free time, increase your productivity and transform your business.

Phillippa Goodwin

O: 01647 478123

www.essentialpa.co.uk

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