Laura Maly

Laura Maly has been in the marketing field for over 10 years and opened the Wonderist Dental Marketing Agency, based in San Diego, with her husband in 2011. She started the agency with a 100-dollar bill and an idea, so she understands scratch start or start-ups.

Scratch start

Start by getting referrals from friends and family. Be the mayor of your town which means getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Train yourself to talk to everyone you meet. Carry business cards, talk to everyone, and hand them out. Be proud! Be excited and share your vision! This could also mean joining the Chamber of Commerce, PTA meetings, or choosing a local board. Get your boots on the ground.

Authenticity is key. When you’re out interacting with people, make sure to gather leads. Maybe print out your schedule for the next week and schedule people right there and then. It can be helpful to go to local events such as health fairs, festivals, and markets with a table with printouts and swag and gather leads that way. The more you interact with people, the more they will associate you with a member of the community. Make sure to wear a mask and keep your social distance when and where possible!

Wonderist is a proxy for who you choose to be in your business. They leverage the elements of your personality in your practice and roll it into your marketing strategies. Create pay-per-click ads, increase Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and make sure your social media is unique and full of personality. Make a website is both beautiful and built to perform.

Biggest Marketing Challenges Facing Pediatric Dentists

Time – usually pediatric dentists don’t have the time to manage their marketing. Usually when onboarding clients, Laura Maly notes that most pediatric dentists want someone to command the marketing “ship” and the client will advise.

Website Design for SEO: You must have text on your homepage with unique photos that make your practice stand out. Each service you provide must have its own individual page in order to perform well for SEO. Make sure to include a FAQ page to answer the who, what, where, when, and why and create a comprehensive base. This creates a mechanism for success.

Does Wonderist Create Unique Content for Each Client?

Yes, Wonderist is very stringent about creating unique content for each client. They write to what someone wants and who someone is. They ask about personality, what’s important to you, etc. Blogs will be written based on what is interesting to you and to include SEO opportunities.

Rural Client vs. City Client

In rural areas it’s easier to rank higher, faster because there’s less competition. You can dominate a market more quickly. However, dental practices in larger cities are more difficult to rank on SEO.

You can think of SEO as the marathon. Slow and steady wins the race. PPC or Pay per click can be the sprint. On the back end it works like a stock market and an auction combined. There’s a campaign that bids on peoples’ key word searches and as bidding goes on, you gain better information.

Print Media to Supplement Online Presence

Wonderist Dental Marketing Agency also offers print ads and direct mail. They use the Every Door Direct Mail program through USPS which is a mapping tool to search around neighborhoods near your practice and look at the statistics of each. With this tool you can view what percent of people in a neighborhood are a certain age, for example, under 19. By knowing what percent of people in the area are under 19, you can better target your ads to parents with children under 19.

Laura notes that a good mailer to send out is a new patient special for uninsured patients only. You could also advertise a giveaway or buy one exam, get a second exam free for a sibling.

Another great tip if you’re a parent is to join Mom groups on Facebook to advertise your practice when they ask for advice on which dentist to go to.

Internal Marketing

What are some ways to entice patients to provide referrals?

Make sure to schedule them for their next appointment before they leave and ask for a review. Send out newsletters with a limited time offer. Remember to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and ask for reviews from patients who had a great experience. In that same vein, ask for referrals from repeat patients who always have positive things to say. You could say, “We’d love to have more patients like you. Do you have any moms that you can refer over here?”

How do you track what’s doing well and what’s not?

Wonderist tracks everything they do including call tracking. Call tracking is when the site has a piece of code at the back of it that serves them a specific phone number that will log the call as that marketing source.

In addition, they provide a livestream of all your data on a dashboard. It shows your SEO, your PPC, your website, your social media, and your call tracking. What they see is what you see. From there you can see how well a campaign is performing and decide whether it’s effective.

Why use a dental specific marketing agency vs a general marketing agency?

They have a depth of knowledge on dentistry, pediatric dentistry, orthodontics, periodontics, and endodontics that will far surpass anything any local agency could ever come upon. They have seven years of experience exclusively in the dental industry. Because of this they’re able to speak your language better than a local agency.

Wonderist Dental Marketing Agency

You can visit wonderistagency.com and click on “Chat with Forest”. They’ll do some intake and get to know about you and your practice and then tell you a little bit about them and determine if they’re a good fit.