The stock smile gallery
Date: January 7, 2014Category: Author: David Hall
One of the key marketing principles involved in selling dentistry on the Internet is that a dentist needs a smile gallery in order to have credibility as a cosmetic dentist. A study done by Sesame Communications several years ago documented that when prospective patients are looking for a cosmetic dentist, they will often go directly to the smile gallery and whether or not they like what they see will determine whether they stay on the site or go look for another. When I am talking with a new client and they tell me they want to attract cosmetic dentistry patients, I will always ask them if they have before-and-after photographs that we can use for a smile gallery.
Occasionally, if they say they don’t, they’ll ask if we have some photos of my work or other stock photos that I could post for them. We will absolutely refuse to do this. To me, this is an ethical issue that is pretty clear cut. A smile gallery of stock photos is an attempt to deceive. You want the visitor to think the dentist did the work, and the dentist didn’t.
I wrote a blog post for another website where I critique an ad in a local newspaper for cheap veneers, and when I went to the dentist’s website, there was a smile gallery. I got the dentist on the phone, and he admitted that the photos were “canned.” See my blog post on this bogus smile gallery. We see this a lot around the web. In fact, there is one dental websites company, Prosites, that has a stock smile gallery it routinely uses for its clients. To dramatize this, I thought I’d post here screen shots of smile galleries for four of their clients:
I make my point.
My take-home lesson for those dentists who are serious about their cosmetic dentistry: Put up a smile gallery, make sure that it is your own work, but more than that, make sure that it is perfectly clear to the visitor that this is your own work. To be the most effective, include a little blurb with each set of before-and-afters about the case. Give it a little personal warmth by telling something about the patient, why they were concerned about how their smile looked, what was done to fix their problem, and how they felt about the result. That will help show that you are not only an artist, but a caring, sensitive artist.
I really like this post, I think it so important that patients see the dentists actual work and that there is an honest communication between the patient and provider. Just like any other profession there should never be an attempt to deceive.