Fast track new patients with emotional videos

People watch dental practice videos either because they want to get a feel for a practice or they are thinking about going for a certain type of treatment and are a bit nervous (so they want to see and hear from someone else who’s had it).

In both cases it’s essentially about trust: can they trust you and your practice, and can they really trust your patient’s account? One of the most crucial factors in dental videos therefore has to be that the subject sounds genuine, and one technique we’ve developed to do this is to interview subjects in a conversational way. This allows the patient to be spontaneous and honest when talking about their experience and, if this has been positive or even life-changing, it must be allowed to come across naturally.

Emotions have particular resonance in dentistry because of the fear and elation that precede and follow successful treatment in many cases. If you can capture genuine accounts of that emotional journey on camera and show it to potential patients it can’t fail to establish trust because those potential patients, as humans, are hardwired to respond to the emotional cues of the subject they are seeing and hearing. The key to getting this kind of priceless material is making patients feel at ease so they can relax and talk naturally.

I’m always surprised at how many patients are eager to help. Teeth and dentistry are so personal so if, as a dentist, you really help that person, what they’re going to say, provided they’re not nervous, is going to be very strong. Compared to other industries the feedback from customers is striking in its sincerity and emotion. I filmed one lady who said she lived in Perth but visited her dentist every time she was in the UK because she trusted him so much.

Very often we get tears (the good kind), which always make for the best videos. But whatever material comes up, you’ve got to tell the patient’s journey in quite a short space of time and really get to the nub of their experience without getting lost in any detail that isn’t useful to the audience. Most online videos are viewed for no longer than two-and-a-half minutes, and good patient testimonials won’t need much more than two minutes to convey the emotion; remember, when it comes to patient testimonials, emotion trumps information every time.

Callum

[email protected]
+44 (0)7979 425681

Here’s one we did recently for One80 Dental, a centre of excellence in Sheffield.