Hello and welcome to Ascent Dental Radio. A program dedicated to the balance between the clinical aspect of health care and the business of health care. And now here is your host, Dr. Kevin Coughlin.
Kevin: Welcome. This is Dr. Kevin Coughlin. You’re listening to Ascent Dental Solutions and it’s brought to you by Ascent Radio. My special thanks are always to Mr. Doug Foresta and his company, Stand Out and Be Heard. Without his expertise, the over 80 podcasts that we’ve produce would not be possible. I’d also like to give a plug to Short Circuit Media and the owner of that, Mr. Aidan Crawford. His marketing skills have brought my dental and dental consulting business to the next level.
Tonight, I’m pleased to announce that we have a special guest, Mr. Kellen Kautzman. Kellen owns the company Send it Rising. It’s an internet marketing and he’s a manager of a team of at least 20 internet marketing professionals. One of his claims to fame is his first book Everybody’s Doing It, which was the number one new release on the CEO category of www.amazon.com. He was also the keynote speaker at Planet Hollywood on the Las Vegas strip and he’s spoken at various universities. He’s also been part o the Lance Tamashiro podcast. Kellen holds a master’s degree in education and has taught for five years before transitioning his career as an internet marketer.
As a health care professional with a business degree and 14 locations and a fairly large dental practice, I can tell you that at least the dentist that I know, Kellen, certainly are remise and have a lack of education and knowledge when it comes to internet marketing. And an expert like you certainly should be a great adjunct to this podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to join this podcast.
Can you tell us what you think the biggest mistakes that health care professionals make when they try to market themselves, their services and their company?
Kellen: Sure. I would say that they forgot that they were once young. All of the amazing stuff that’s happening in internet marketing starts in that 16 to 20, 22-year-old demographic. That’s where Facebook started, that’s where Instagram is taking off now. And so all these things that will become dominant are now in the land of, “We don’t really have to worry about it.”
And so there’s this curious phenomenon that when we’re in junior high or high school and we’re asked to step in front of an audience, we can feel the perspiration and we can feel that anxiety. And the second, as adults for many of us, we have the opportunity to avoid those circumstances, we do. And so when it comes to YouTube, as a good example, this is now and aged platform on the internet, there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever as to why a dentist should not be making continuous content, video content, and placing it on at least YouTube.
Google, which the overarching company is called Alphabet Now which owns Google and YouTube, has artificial intelligence that is absolutely mind-bogglingly intelligent. It’s smarter than you and me combined and every other human on planet earth. It’s so smart, in fact, that it now speaks and understands English incredibly well. If you want an example of what this looks like, create a YouTube video, upload it and then click on the little CC icon, the little closed captions box that appears in the upper right hand corner once it’s uploaded. And what you’ll see is that within two minutes of the file being uploaded on YouTube, there is an automatic captions box that — with call it 98 percent accuracy — will tell you exactly what you just said.
And so for most dentists, as they attempt to get more patients through the door, they think I have to create blog content or I need to be posting more on Facebook. But the reality is that if you just stare into a camera and speak, all of those words are understood by the artificial intelligence and its job is to judge where your site appears in Google.
Google is still incredibly important in regards to getting patients through the door. If you rank for dentist, dentists, dental practice, tooth, whatever, you name the keyword, YouTube can get you there because in the description of the YouTube video, you can add a link back to your website. And for those of you that have studied any SEO at all, you know that a link is a vote and the more votes, the better.
Kevin: Kellen, staying with the topic of YouTube, with your expertise and your company’s background, is there a specific length of time that is suggested for, let’s say, a beginner like myself that’s interested in uploading content into YouTube? Is it 30 seconds, is it four minutes? What does the data suggest?
Kellen: That’s an excellent question and a good segue into YouTube advertising. If you’re not familiar with AdWords, look it up. Via AdWords, you’re able to create what’s called an in-stream video. In-stream videos are the yes, annoying videos that appear in YouTube prior to the video that you actually want to watch. Here’s the magic of in-stream videos; you’ve got six seconds before the patient, in this case, has the opportunity to hit the skip button. And so the great travesty is creating YouTube videos that in the first six seconds don’t say your name, don’t say your company name and don’t give your contact information. So if you move forward with YouTube videos, make sure that in those first six seconds, you’re putting out that information.
If you run these ads via YouTube, you don’t pay, and it’s bears repeating, you do not pay until the viewer gets to 30 seconds. Twenty nine seconds or less, it’s free. That is incredible. So when people are skipping those annoying ads, they’re actually doing you a favor because you’re walking away with free impressions. With the understanding that you will explore YouTube advertising which can be geo-targeted, so you can pick your area, you can pick your keywords, maybe it’s braises for kids, maybe it’s Invisalign, maybe it’s Fastbraces — that’s a new thing — whatever it happens to be, you’re getting them in via keyword and you’re getting them some good content.
That basically says don’t make videos that are less than 30 seconds. That will be a mistake. If you have 20 seconds and you’re throwing these ads outs, you’re paying when you get to 20 because the video is over. So at least 30 seconds and the rest of it, that’s art. Because I just released a book called Everybody’s Doing It and the video we just created is over 20 minutes, Kevin. Over 20, incredibly long. And as I was editing this video, I thought to myself, this is too long. I’ve never done something quite this long. I know it’s really good, I worked really hard on this, this is great content, I know it is, but it’s really long. Put it out there, so many people have told me that this is one of the best videos I’ve ever done. They watched the entire thing, they love it, it’s great, hurray!
So I can’t say definitively yes or no, but typically, our videos are in like the two to four minute range. Because if you even get close to kind of saying the same thing over and over again, people’s time is too valuable. Move on.
Kevin: In your expertise, Kellen, and in your company’s expertise, I know that content is incredibly important but you touched based on the artistic aspect of it. Do you get a better response when there is a music, do you get a better response when you’re using certain audio/video special effects, or do you just focus in and get the content out there, don’t mess around and just make it straightforward to your viewers?
Kellen: I think anything that prohibits you or stops you from moving the ball down the field should be avoided. So if you’re going to spend time trying to mess with this graphic and it’s been 45 minutes and you’re getting frustrated, forget the stupid graphic. What you’ll find is over time you will evolve incredibly. As an example, my first YouTube video, bad audio, lighting was rough, but now we’ve got the double lights, the condenser mic, the lapel, the double camera angles, the whole nine yards, it’s great. But you can’t get there just by — maybe you could do your research, but you get what I’m trying to tell you which is you have to grow into it.
There’s two pieces of the puzzle that folks should walk away with from the video production angle that are really sharp. If you’re unfamiliar with the vernacular picture in picture, think of a news anchor with a little box in the upper right hand corner where that just pops up, you can do that easily in almost any video editing software like iMovie. The other is a Kanban’s effect, which is the small pan into the video in or out or to any angle. With just those two things you can take a pretty boring video and make it interesting.
Kevin: Great information. Thank you so much for that. I can tell you that at least in the health care providers that I know, and I interact with literally thousands of them, most of us did not get any of this training in our medical and dental education. So most of us need to reach out to an expert such as you and your company to get help, get information and knowledge in how to pursue this. You touched on this a little earlier. I know with the podcast it seems to me that if we can continue to do podcast weekly, the following increases. Is there a repeat with YouTube? Would you suggest or did you mention earlier in this podcast that you felt weekly by weekly, monthly? What’s your recommendation for content?
Kellen: Consistent, that’s the hardest thing. It’s whatever pattern you want to establish, you want to stay on that. There’s a part of our brain that sounds like you’re going faster, it’s called the basal ganglia and it’s walnut-shaped right in the center, that old reptilian mind that fires when we’re on autopilot. There was an incredible study done where a gentleman had lost a part of his hippocampus due to a virus and so he had no short term memory at all and they put him in front of this board and they had him pick either A or B. And A, when he flipped it over, would be either green or red. If it was green, that was good, red was bad. Over the months, he just started picking the green ones. He had no idea why he was doing it and when they studied his brain, they found that this basal ganglia was firing.
And so when you start a new habit, know that whatever frequency you administer in the beginning is the frequency that will create that habit. You could drive yourself crazy and be like, “I’m going to do something every day,” and you could develop a habit. But guess what, other aspects of your life are going to make way for that habit. Succeeding could actually be detrimental to your practice. So just be very cognizant and assume you’re going to succeed. If I were to succeed creating, let’s say, a monthly podcast, would it be enough? Would it drive me crazy? Would I have too much on my plate? And so assume success and then get into that habit.
Kevin: Kellen, could you take a few minutes and explain to the audience about link building and how we go about it, what your suggestions are to help the health care profession improve their ability to community with their clients, their patients, their team members, etc?
Kellen: We can do a segue from YouTube links all the way into one of the pieces of a secret software which is Pinterest, believe it or not. In your YouTube videos, in the description you can add a hyperlink. It won’t turn blue and it won’t be a link if you don’t include the http://. If you forget that, you get no link. It’s very important to include that. So you can get a link from YouTube. There’s something called Google Search Console, it used to be called Google Webmaster Tools that if you have Google Analytics installed on your website you can easily install this. You’re literally about a minute away. So remember Google Search Console. In the backend of Google Search Console you can see how many links you’ve earned.
And this is important information, and there’s a bunch of other important information, but the reason I’m mentioning it is when I log into the backend for a couple of our websites, I see tens of thousands of back links from Pinterest. It’s almost as if Pinterest found me and not the other way around. So when I was looking at Google Search Console I went, “Whoa, what’s this?” And so I started digging into why this was happening.
What I found is that if you create an image that’s funny or interesting of shareable in any way, shape or form, for some reason, if you put that image on Facebook, you might get two shares, maybe. You put that same image on Pinterest, you might get 20,000. And every time — it’s called the Pin in Pinterest — every time this image, this pin is re-pinned, it duplicates the image and when you click on the image, it takes you to the website. So the image is the link, not your standard text link.
So start thinking about viral images. How could you poke fun of yourself as a dentist? What kind of stupid derail jokes, what kind of dumb dentist jokes could you throw out there? What interesting information could you talk about hygiene or the new tech that’s coming out or any of those things via images on Pinterest? A lot of people get confused here and they say, “Yeah, Kellen, but nobody’s going to come to my website from Pinterest.” I know that. I’m not under any impression that they will, but tens of thousands of links from a relevant social media platform will jump your Google rankings. And when those jump, the phone rings.
Kevin: That is just an eye-opener. I can tell you, I believe I mentioned, this is probably the 80th podcast and the information you’re providing myself and our listeners is just fantastic. Can you take a little bit of time and explain how we can reach out to you? How do you help us? What does your business do? I don’t want to put you on the spot, but do you do a formal contract, is it a consulting agreement? How do our listeners reach out and you help them improve their communication, their business and ultimately, their bottom line?
Kellen: As you mentioned at the top of the show, I used to be a teacher and so I come at this from a very different angle. We are as honest and transparent as it’s humanly possible and so we do month to month contracts. So if anyone’s interested in working with us, know that if it’s three months in and things are looking great, hurray! Wonderful! If they’re looking bad, we would be the first folks to tell you that they are. So no contract of any kind, none of that nonsense. We provide everything you’d expect: SEO paper click, social media, internet marketing, the whole line.
The book that I just wrote, that’s the easiest way to kind of start digesting our philosophy and what we’re all about. All you have to remember is Everybody’s Doing It. If you go to www.amazon.com and you punch in Everybody’s Doing It, I’m Kellen Kautzman, I’m the writer, hurray! It’s 15 bucks, no big deal. On Kindle it’s ten bucks. And then the audio book which, by the way Kevin, if you really, really just love hearing the sound of your own voice, let me recommend recording and editing your own audio book. It’s so much fun. Choirs of Angels, is just so much fun. That’s also out as well.
Kevin: Terrific. Again, I don’t want to embarrass you or put you on the spot, but can you give a range? What would it cost our listeners to participate with your company? Give us a ballpark or a range of what our commitment is. I know you mentioned there’s no contract, you can do it basically at will, but can you give us a range so we know what our investment would be?
Kellen: Absolutely. The smallest client we have is of $100 a month consulting, giving them direction, that’s great. Our median price is $700, our largest client is north of $4,000. So it just really depends. And these are wildly varying clients with wildly varying needs. That kind of gives you a sense. And then if anyone’s interested, the number is 702-263-0141. And I believe in transparency, I’ll give you my personal email address, just shoot me a mail. It’s Kellen@senditrising.com.
Kevin: I want to say a special thanks to Mr. Kautzman. Kellen, you’ve been a terrific participant, a terrific guest. The information that you and your company are providing I think will provide unlimited amounts of return on investment.
You’ve been listening to Dr. Kevin Coughlin, Ascent Radio. The name of my consulting firm is Ascent Dental Solutions, with a focus on knowledge, consultation, development and training. I hope you enjoyed Kellen’s podcast. The information that he has I can’t emphasize enough how it can help our bottom line. Any time we can learn to improve communication with our team members and our patients, it’s a home run. His book, Everybody Is Doing It has already been ordered by me and I would strongly recommend the rest of you consider this book. Kellen, thank you so much for joining today’s podcast.
My special thanks to Mr. Doug Foresta, his company, Stand Out and Be Heard. Without his expertise, this podcast would not be possible. And special thanks to Mr. Aidan Crawford and his company Short Circuit Media.
Kellen, thanks so much for participating and we look forward to speaking to you in the very near future and you can expect a call from me and my organization in the next few days. Thanks so much.
Kellen: Thank you.