Dentists Make AI Sound Like You (E.339)

“Before you ask AI to write, make sure you’re giving it something worth writing about. AI can help turn that material into content, but you’re the source.” – Benjamin Lund

Episode Overview

AI can write about preventive care, technology, implants, or nearly any dental service within seconds. The result may sound polished, but without real input from the doctor, it could belong to any practice.

In this follow-up to When AI Makes Dentists Sound the Same, Benjamin Lund breaks down a generic dental ad and exposes the language that causes it to disappear in the scroll.

The conversation then moves to the information AI needs before it starts writing: how the doctor thinks, what the team does differently, what patients experience, and why the message matters.

Ben also shares the D.A.M.N. Questions, a practical framework dental teams can use to bring purpose, personality, and measurable direction into their marketing.

AI can organize the message. The meaning has to come from you.

What This Episode Reveals

• Why polished dental copy can still feel empty
• How generic prompts erase the personality of a practice
• Why patient stories and real experiences make marketing credible
• What AI needs from a doctor before it can create meaningful content

What You’ll Learn

• How to recognize marketing language that could belong to any practice
• What information to give AI before asking it to write
• How to translate dental technology into benefits patients understand
• How the D.A.M.N. Questions guide stronger marketing decisions

The D.A.M.N. Questions

Desired Effect

What should this message accomplish? Why does that outcome matter, and how will you recognize success?

Audience

Who are you trying to reach? Why should they care, and what do you want them to do next?

Message

What does your audience need to understand? What should they think or feel after hearing the message?

Numbers

What will you measure? What deadlines, budget limits, or other constraints shape the project?

If This Sounds Familiar

• Your website says you provide “comprehensive care,” but never explains what that means
• Your marketing highlights technology without connecting it to the patient’s experience
• Your social posts sound professional, but they could carry another practice’s logo

AI cannot discover what makes your practice meaningful on its own. You have to bring your experience, beliefs, stories, and language into the process.

Next Steps

Choose one piece of marketing from your practice and run it through the D.A.M.N. Questions.

Then give AI something real:

• A belief that shapes how you care for patients
• A patient question or story your team remembers
• The words patients use to describe what they want
• The outcome your treatment or technology makes possible

Once the source material is clear, ask AI to help organize it into content that sounds like you.

TRANSCRIPT
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00:00:00 Sara Hansen: Hey doctors, welcome to the Everyday Practices Dental podcast. Last week’s episode was part one, and in that episode, we covered the basics and really the impact that it’s having in marketing. During that episode, we asked the audience for examples so that we can coach it through real time. And today we brought back one of my personal favorites, Benjamin Lund, to help us walk through some of these examples. So hey, Reagan, how are you?

00:00:32 Regan Robertson: I’m doing fantastic. Uh, happy to be with both of you today and walk through some of these examples with Ben. It’s always, it’s just always so much nicer to have something to put against the theory, you know, and say, okay, I understand what maybe some of the rules are, but what does that look like in action? So thank you, Ben, for joining us again.

00:00:51 Ben Lund: Well thank you for having me back.

00:00:55 Sara Hansen: Well you are a fan favorite, that’s for sure. So Ben, get us a little bit caught up to speed. We talked about some of the basics. Today we’re going to be talking about some real life examples of what that looks like. Doctors, we want you to be able to take away, you know, some tangible things today. So Ben, walk us through just a little bit the basics of what we talked about last time. That’s going to lead us up to these examples today.

00:01:23 Ben Lund: Right? So we talked a little bit last week about how AI is having a massive impact on us. Well, everything from from your marketing to articles that people are writing. And, and we talked a little bit about some of the tells and how it’s impacting everybody’s authority and that it’s starting to make everything sound a little generic, uh, and kind of weak. Uh, so we have, uh, we have a real gross. No, I’m not saying gross. We have a cool example, uh, of, uh, some, some marketing here that’s, uh, we would call this maybe AI slop. And I’m sure that, um, if you’re on social media or like you’re kicking around Instagram or something like that, you’re seeing, um, a lot of copy that sounds a lot like this. And, um, would you like me to read it or share it? Do you want to read it?

00:02:24 Sara Hansen: Yeah. No, you kick us off, Ben.

00:02:26 Ben Lund: Okay.

00:02:26 Regan Robertson: So wait, you know what it reminds me of? I have to put this in. This is a great example. It reminds me of, you know, how you’ve seen veneers, like the doctors that do veneers, and it’s like everyone has the exact same smile. It doesn’t seem to fit. That’s what it feels like. Like we are so ready to abandon our unique, authentic tone because we think it’s what? Easier, smarter sounding, whatever the reason is. Yeah. And, and the reality is like, think of our beautiful doctor Wade Keefer and the smiles he makes each, each beautiful, full smile that he does looks it fits the person. It looks like the person. He’s not just swapping out the same smile over and over again.

00:03:01 Ben Lund: That’s when he’s not just putting clip art on his website either. So. You know, it’s, you can have a beautiful smile like this. And it’s some person that nobody’s ever met before with a wonderful smile. And but yeah, yeah, it’s it’s just like that. Yeah, yeah. Um, so alright, here’s that example. So here’s the headline. It reads preventive dentistry is about more than teeth.

00:03:29 Sara Hansen: Ooh.

00:03:31 Ben Lund: All right. And here’s the rest of it. It says in today’s fast paced scroll. Oh sorry.

00:03:37 Sara Hansen: Yeah yeah yeah, exactly. I’m I’ve already scrolled by at this point, but continue. Ben, for those who.

00:03:43 Ben Lund: Already.

00:03:43 Sara Hansen: Took a pause.

00:03:44 Ben Lund: For those who want to know what Prevented. Preventive dentistry is about like, you know, more than because. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so here’s the rest of it. It reads in today’s fast paced world, it can be easy to put your oral health on the back burner. Preventive dentistry is not just about avoiding cavities. It is about protecting your health, confidence, and future. It’s more than a cleaning. It’s an investment in yourself. Your smile matters. Your health matters. You matter. From prevention to confidence. Our team is here to guide you every step of the way. We empower patients, elevate experiences, and transform smiles. Because your healthiest smile starts from one simple step. Are you ready to begin your journey? All right, that’s the end of it. Now I’m going to go pull up my trash can and throw up into it while I’m throwing up.

00:04:43 Regan Robertson: Wait. Okay, I’m gonna play devil’s advocate. It wasn’t terrible. I know it was, though. I could see how easy it would be to approve that.

00:04:51 Ben Lund: Oh, it’s so gross. And I and the thing is, like, because, uh, dentists and dental professionals, they don’t live in our, our world where we’re sitting at our laptops diligently typing mellifluous prose all day. Right. So, um, they could probably look at this, uh, and just go, well, yeah, that that really sounds lovely. That sounds great. Yeah. Just think about how generic the whole thing sounds. There is nothing unique.

00:05:21 Regan Robertson: Oh, no. Yeah. It could apply to anyone. It could. Yeah. It’s just it’s like a slap and repeat. Yeah. For sure.

00:05:27 Sara Hansen: That. Yeah. That’s one thing that I want doctors to understand is doctors. If we can basically take your logo and slap it into someone else, you know, or vice versa. And the content, the content still sounds the same for whoever that’s going to be. That’s where it’s like we’re missing. We’re missing a part of you, right? The practice, the team, the what else? It’s the what else. And while that statement and that, uh, real life example is showing us some great things, I mean, as a patient, it’s like, wow, I’m the one. You’re healthy, you’re I think it said you’re like three different times as this like powerful statement.

00:06:12 Ben Lund: Mhm. But again, it is, it is putting the, um, the reader, the patient in the hero seat a little bit, but it’s, it’s still, you know, um, we were talking a little bit last week about some of the AI tells. Right. Yeah. And they’re, it’s, it’s become so prevalent in just about everything. There, there are so many people and bots that are churning out, um, all of this content using AI and they’re, they’re not, they’re not proofing any of it. And they’re, they’re just saying, I want you to do this. I want you to to write about this and AI because it’s using the path of least resistance, just uses patterns and patterns and patterns and patterns. So, right, you know, you’re, you’re going to see like the generic, uh, scene scene setter here. Um, you know, in today’s fast paced world. Come on, we know today’s a fast paced world. It’s been a fast paced world since nineteen sixty. Okay. Like it’s, we, we, we know that, but it’s, it’s so generic. And then you, you, you, you get into the weeds, we a little bit here, um, where we’re talking about polarity statements and, and, um, you know, forced contrast where they’re saying preventive dentistry is not just about avoiding cavities. You’re going to see that a lot in, in, in tons of marketing copy, copy through out for the rest of your lives. You’re going to, you’re going to find out what something is not. And then it’s going to tell you what it is.

00:07:44 Sara Hansen: Yes.

00:07:44 Ben Lund: It’s like, I don’t care what it’s not.

00:07:46 Sara Hansen: Yeah.

00:07:46 Ben Lund: I don’t care what it’s not. I want.

00:07:48 Regan Robertson: To know.

00:07:48 Ben Lund: Exactly what it is.

00:07:49 Regan Robertson: I would love the science on that because I think doing I call it a pattern disruption. So I by telling us what it’s not, it does force us to stop and think. The problem that I see with a lot of AI copy is it’s like one polarity statement after the next, after the next. And I find myself getting overloaded. Like the cognitive load goes so high, I start thinking like you just said, Ben, I think about more what it’s not than what it is. And by the end of it, I’m confused and I don’t know where to take action. And that’s where I think this whole thing falls apart.

00:08:19 Sara Hansen: Yes, yes, Reagan, you said that beautifully. There’s no action statement. There’s no bringing it back down to like a grounded level of what’s next for the patient or what have we established, um, within.

00:08:36 Ben Lund: This is what.

00:08:37 Sara Hansen: The purpose of this.

00:08:38 Ben Lund: This is what writers used to do when they knew nothing about a subject. They would just totally make make something up that sounded along the lines of what the thing is, right? Yeah. Now AI is doing it. Yay! Thanks. Um.

00:08:55 Sara Hansen: So Ben. Okay, so we shared an example, you know, of what this could look like. So and we talked a lot last episode about what are we looking for? What are the signs and how do we break out of that? Or what, what is our advice? So my question to you is the doctor starts to see this coming up more and more, maybe with competitors or, you know, other things like that. What are what what can we do? Because Ben, you know, I have other strengths, but my strength is not a writer, right? You are so talented. And not everybody has the pleasure of working with Benjamin London in their practice. So what is something that’s just kind of a basic of writing that the doctors or their teams, office managers, whoever can look at and just say, okay, let’s break it down into these tangible things to prevent that example that we just used.

00:09:57 Ben Lund: Yeah. So, um, the, the whole, the whole, the example that we shared was just just full of cliches and AI stuff and just like generic language. We want to get into specifics, right? So like if your advertising says, uh, comprehensive care. Well, first of all, comprehensive care is one of those terms that is so nebulous, it could mean anything to anybody at any time. I don’t know if that means comprehensive care within my mouth or within a specific tooth, or is it oral? Systemic? What is comprehensive care? Um, When when you’re putting this kind of content together, you. You need to know who the doctor is, um, who the, what the practice is all about. Um, how does the practice approach comprehensive care or preventive care or restorative care or implants? Um, or like, what is their technology do for the patient? Like we all know that technology is cool and it’s, you know, lots of cool gadgets and, you know, yummy and lasers and this is all like really interesting stuff. And you’re going to put that in my mouth. Oh my gosh. But it’s like, what is it actually going to do for yes. How does it oh my gosh, that’s so good.

00:11:30 Regan Robertson: Ben. It reminds me. This reminds me, do you remember when Doctor Bruce Baird we got to pull in a memory of Doctor Bruce Baird. I remember when he had a billboard. This was this was cheeky and I wish I could call him right now just to say, hey, remember this, that he had a billboard up that said, Come to Granbury Dental Center. We have paved parking. And it was a specific dig at another practice that had like gravel parking lot, if I recall correctly. Now it’s, I’ll say a legend. I didn’t see it in person. So but if my memory serves correctly. And that made me laugh so hard. And to me that is like, how do you define something and make it authentic? And you’re right. I would assume as a patient, everyone’s comprehensive. Like every practice is comprehensive. For years I thought every doctor, not just I thought dentists were the same. I thought doctors were the same. Um, you got whatever your insurance would provide for you. And I just automatically assumed that the quality was the same. So aren’t all dentists comprehensive in my mind as a patient? That’s where I go. So I love that you said it’s nebulous. It’s just like, you know how you can’t see your nose in front of your face anymore because your brain just ignores it. It’s exactly what I think.

00:12:40 Ben Lund: Now I’m looking at my nose or trying to look at my nose. Well, you know.

00:12:45 Sara Hansen: Ben, I’m glad that you called out the technology piece because as I talk to doctors all the time and they talk about we have really cool technology in our practice and they want to highlight that in marketing, which, yes, please, let’s highlight it. However, it’s about how we talk about it. While we as dental nerds think that technology is really cool and all the things that it can do, what we need to be communicating to our patients through marketing, how does it benefit them? So why is the technology cool? Why do we use lasers in dentistry? How does it make their patient experience better? It’s not just about the technology, but about how does it make their patient experience better. So that really is like that communication piece of not just using the words, but what is it doing for the patient? And is that something that we feel like AI can kind of uncover? Or is that really more of that authentic, you know, what our patients are saying? That’s the communication that now we’re bringing out and putting in the marketing is what are our patients saying? Who are we trying to attract?

00:13:54 Ben Lund: Well, and I think I think AI can help uncover some of that. If you provide it with specifics, you know, if you just say, um, you know, hey, hey, Claude, can you write something about yummy for me? Well, you know, it’s going to tell, it’s going to give you what yummy does.

00:14:10 Sara Hansen: Right?

00:14:10 Ben Lund: But how what, what are your patients walking away from saying, right? What are what are they saying? When, when they’re all done with their procedure and, um, they’re, they’re looking at their mouths in the mirror and, or, you know, maybe they’re having that emotional moment where they just completely break down in tears because they haven’t seen themselves smile in fifteen years. You know, um, when, if, if you’re doing that for your patients, that’s got to come across on your website. I mean, you can even, you can even put your hand on their arm as you’re talking to them about how this technology impacts them. Um, because that’s marketing too, right? Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think if you provide, um, your AI robot with, um, some, some content along those lines that that’s like specific or you tell it a story about you won’t believe, um, the response that I just had from, you know, patient Smith and um, could you help me turn this into some viable marketing? Um, it’ll, it’ll help you do that. Try that. I think that’s a, that’s a fun idea.

00:15:28 Sara Hansen: Yeah. Yeah. Ben, any other tangible nuggets that we need to be aware? So what I heard you say was who, who are we? Marketing.

00:15:41 Ben Lund: Yeah.

00:15:41 Sara Hansen: Like, who are we communicating to? Understanding our audience. What else?

00:15:46 Ben Lund: Well, like, um, specifically like like what, what problems? What problems do you catch? Like before patients are aware of them. Um, or like, what does early detection allow you to do for a patient? Um, and, and like, can, can you explain, you know, if, if, if you do it now, this is what we’re looking at. If you wait, this is what could happen if you wait even longer, this is how bad it’s going to get. Um, you know, talk about like, uh, what, what, what do patients tend to misunderstand about, um, their visits to the practice cleanings, exams, X-rays, uh, gum health, that stuff. Um, and answer, answer questions like what does the doctor and their team like wish every patient understood about prevention or restorative dentistry. Um, the more, the more of you that you can put into your marketing, the better your marketing is going to be. Um, and you can certainly use AI to, uh, help organize those thoughts. Um, but you know, your goal, your ultimate goal is to find the belief, the experience, uh, the story that really only this practice, this doctor, this team can contribute, um, every single practice can say the same thing that they offer this, we do this for you. We’re, we, we love families, comprehensive care. Um, what is it about you that sets you apart from everybody else, right?

00:17:38 Sara Hansen: Okay. Okay. Ben, when you said the story. Okay. I have to share an example of. I was planning, like, a lesson. I was teaching, um, for a church class that we had. And I was like, trying to find examples and stories to tie in different spiritual thoughts with real world examples. And so as I was using AI, I said, what is a real life story that I can tie into this type of, you know, conversation? What was so funny is what it kicked me back was like, tell a story about when someone da da da da da da da da. And I was like, that’s not a story. Like, that’s a thought. Like, that’s something that’s made up like. And so what’s interesting, I love that you said story is because, and maybe I needed to be more precise in what I’m putting in AI, but my thought process is we live life, right? We have all these stories that we tie in, especially in dentistry, like we are changing patients lives every single day through what we do through dentistry. And yet we hardly use those stories in our in our communication. And there’s no way AI is ever going to conjure up the type of impact that we’re making. And even when I tried to pull it in something that was non dentistry, it had a hard time like, you know, coming up with a story that I could share, like a real life experience.

00:19:09 Ben Lund: And it doesn’t know the specifics unless you give it to it. Right?

00:19:12 Sara Hansen: Yeah, yeah. And so what’s so crazy is it’s like we want again, AI has its place for sure, but AI will never replace that human part of what it is that we’re looking for in dentistry, right? The patients are never going to we’re never going to be able to replace that human with the type of communication that humans have. Like you said, putting your hand on their arm or things like that. Those are things that we cannot replace with AI. And to have even, you know, the stories that are coming, the emotional impact it. AI is not an emotional being like we are as humans. And so to bring that emotional part into it, that’s that, that ticket and that doctors is what I think, you know, is so powerful and we miss. And so tying those emotions into all of that. Reagan has a special, special formula, but that is what’s not replaceable. So finding the things that aren’t replaceable, that human side is really, I think, what we’re missing.

00:20:18 Ben Lund: Yeah. It’s massive. You know, if you if you really think about it, um, story and storytelling is so important and it’s almost the reason why anybody does anything at all. Yeah. To tell a cool story, right? Like you went to the dentist and you had a positive or a negative Experience. You’re going to tell that story to somebody else or like they changed your life and they, um, the, the, the dentist and their team provided you with an amazing smile that you haven’t had in fifteen years. And you sat in the chair and, and you cried for a half hour and hugs all around. Like that’s a story and that it’s, it’s, you’re right, missing, missing the story. Um, and not being able to use that, um, to tell your story. Um, yeah, it’s, that’s a huge, uh, huge element to not just marketing, but who you really are. Right?

00:21:20 Speaker 4: Mhm, mhm.

00:21:22 Regan Robertson: I want to dive into this formula, Ben. Let’s dive into it. It’s not, it’s not my formula, right? It’s your formula. Actually, it’s Meredith’s formula.

00:21:29 Ben Lund: Yeah. Okay. You want to talk about the damn questions, right?

00:21:33 Regan Robertson: I do, I want to talk about the damn questions.

00:21:36 Ben Lund: Um, we we work with an absolutely tremendously talented copywriter. Her name is Meredith Pond. And Meredith came to us from, um, agencies, I believe she came from, but she, she provided us with these questions called the damn questions. And the acronym is actually D a m N, so we’ll probably get censored. Sorry. Um, that was a joke. You can laugh. Um, anyway, it’s called the damn question for damn. Yeah, for damn d a m g rated, right? Exactly. Kids don’t listen. Um, but anyway, so Meredith provided us with these questions. Um, D stands for Desired effect. A stands for audience, M stands for message, and N stands for numbers. Um, so when we’re talking about this acronym, these are the these are the questions that questions when you’re putting together a project or some marketing or anything, you want to ask the damn questions, right? So D is the desired effect. What do we want this effort to do and why is that so important to our organization? How will we know it’s a success and what will we measure? That’s that’s what those are the questions we want to ask for D for the desired effect for a audience. We want to find out who we’re trying to reach or we want to determine who we’re trying to reach. Okay. Why should these people care? What do we want them to do? Um, in the end, um, em message. What is the knowledge our audience needs to take away? What is the feeling or emotion we want to impart? How do we want them to feel about what we’re trying to provide them with? And then numbers. Right? Well, when do we need this completed? What are our budgetary constraints? What, um, what other constraints do we face and like what, what, what is the outcome like numbers wise? There’s also another, uh, letter to this acronym, the sort of, uh, it’s another m, uh, but like, you know, it’s all about putting this together. So mandatory elements like images, logos, copy, add specs. ET cetera. ET cetera. ET cetera. Um, these are the questions that, uh, the writing team here at PDA will ask, uh, to, to start off on projects. Um, and now we share this with the world. So yeah, so.

00:24:14 Sara Hansen: So let’s go through it again. So d desired effect a audience, right? M message and n numbers doctors. That’s a good formula and you can teach that to the team. I like that very.

00:24:30 Regan Robertson: I love it so much because you can take literally any messaging that you have out in the market right now, and you can apply it to it and ask the question. I don’t know that a lot of people do have a goal attached to every single message or intersection where clients or potential patients are being interacted with. And I love the numbers at the end of it too. This is good.

00:24:48 Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:24:49 Sara Hansen: Well, numbers are important, Regan, because, I mean, we know the success of any marketing campaign, right? We need to know are our patients clicking on it? Are they taking action? If you’re running campaigns and you’re getting a lot of traction from it, then you know your content’s hitting, right. If they’re kind of scrolling by again within the back end of what we do every day, we’re a B testing, right? We’re looking at those things. We know that certain static images or videos will capture attention more than others. So I do like the fact that that we are bringing numbers into it because doctors like, you know, um, you know, patients respond differently to even different conversations that you have in the practice, right? And sometimes we test that out a little bit. So I think it’s awesome knowing, hey, what are our patients taking action on? You know, what’s, what is speaking to them? That gives you a lot of really great data of, hey, we’re getting this right, or maybe we need to pivot and try something else. So I think the more information, the better when it comes to marketing messaging.

00:25:57 Regan Robertson: Yeah. So we’re going to work through the ugly ad and make it beautiful.

00:26:01 Sara Hansen: Yes, yes, let’s do it. Let’s go back to our example.

00:26:06 Regan Robertson: Yeah. I’m curious where you start, Ben, like with this, this copy here, I’m curious using this damn approach, how do you walk us through this?

00:26:16 Ben Lund: I mean, if, if we’re, if we’re using the, the damn question. So like, what really? So what do we want to do here? We’re talking about, um, what are we we’re talking about preventive dentistry, right?

00:26:28 Speaker 4: Yeah. Mhm.

00:26:29 Ben Lund: Um, well, what I want to know is how. How does the dental practice? How does this particular dental practice approach preventive dentistry? Right. What um, what is the doctor and their team, uh, what do they think about preventive dentistry? Um, how do they handle it? Right. Yeah. Um, how, how do they approach preventive care? What, what, um, what does the team do?

00:26:55 Sara Hansen: Their philosophy of care. Yeah, exactly. You know. Yeah. Yeah.

00:26:58 Ben Lund: What do they look for during an appointment? Um, what do, what do patients tend to misunderstand? Like what, what are the big issues that they tend to have to figure out during an appointment that they wish that they didn’t have to. Right. Uh, and, and how can we get that across in this messaging? Right? And what makes, uh, what, what makes the experience of this practice different? Are they using like paraffin wax on, on your lips to make sure that they don’t crack while you’re keeping your mouth open the whole time or, uh.

00:27:33 Regan Robertson: I know I was.

00:27:33 Ben Lund: A chilly practice. And do you provide them with blankets? Do you have a little dog that walks around and just, like, jumps up on patients laps? Just I think that happens.

00:27:42 Speaker 4: I yeah.

00:27:43 Ben Lund: I’ve heard that happens. And like, you know, why, why should any of this stuff matter? Right.

00:27:48 Regan Robertson: Well, I was trying to think of the gravel driveway versus the paved parking example. Yeah. It will in terms of preventative. And so one thing that I thought about, although it’s it’s bloody. So I don’t know, maybe we’d have to have our writers, you know, definitely work the magic on it. But if I was a practice that was really passionate about preventative care, I would want potential patients to know that if you have bleeding gums, that’s that’s a serious health issue. And that that to me is an. So not having bleeding gums is an outcome of having preventative care, right? I don’t know if that’s how, how we would work that in, but I mean, down to that granular level of what words could a practice actually use to define how or to describe how they define their preventative care, like in, in that outcome based, like you were saying earlier, Ben, um, instead of just the, the, what it is, but actually what it produces, like what, how it transforms that patient.

00:28:46 Ben Lund: So what I, what I would say is, so, um, with that ad that we read earlier, I think it would be awesome if we kept it in the show notes. Um, and that, that anybody who’s interested can go back and read the generic ad that I read earlier and take a look at it and, um, you know, just see how kind of generic it, it really is. Um, um, I wouldn’t use, I, I really wouldn’t use any of the copy that that’s in there. I think if you’re, if, if you really want to get across what you do for, you know, as far as preventive dentistry goes, use plain language. This was all very. uh, I don’t know. They’re using a lot of five dollar words in here. They’re they’re, they’re, um, raising it up to sort of this, like esoteric. It’s more than a cleaning. It’s an investment in yourself. It’s very aspirational. Right? Um.

00:29:49 Sara Hansen: Yeah. And it leads to who our audience is, right. You know, like, that’s, so that’s our, you know, when we go through the damn questions and applying it to this, then you’re exactly right. I think one of the questions that we ask all one of the first questions we ask when it comes to marketing is who is your patient? What is your ideal patient? Who are we trying to attract? Because if the ideal patient for a practice is going to be sixty plus patients, your your ads are going to sound much differently. The content is going to sound different than it is to a middle aged mom or to a pediatric dentist. Right. So again, looking at who, who is our audience and why does that matter? Well, it matters because we’re speaking to them. That’s why it matters. You know, and we have to speak their language. Their language is not dental language. I mean, you know, how many thing they don’t know what root canals are? They don’t know the procedures. They don’t even know. They call it a deep cleaning. They don’t know periodontal disease what it actually is. So Reagan, back to your bleeding gums. Oftentimes in marketing messaging, we speak to symptoms because that’s all the patient knows. You know, they understand symptoms. They understand how they feel. They understand, but they don’t understand necessarily what those things mean. Um, right. And so that educational part. So Ben, you spoke to that, you know, really well about, about the audience. And then that leads us back to that messaging. So with the messaging, let’s say with this preventative dentistry, let’s say our, audience would be middle aged moms, uh, forty five year old middle aged moms. I’m saying myself because that’s easy. So what would that messaging then? What would be an example? So in that example, when it said, um, your smile matters, your health matters, you matter.

00:31:50 Ben Lund: Well, like that’s, that’s fine. Your smile does matter. Your, your health matters. You matter. That’s, that’s, that’s the, those are facts. Sure. But yeah, I mean, if we are reaching out to people in your demographic. Sarah. Sarah, what do you want in your smile? What do you want? Okay. Tell me.

00:32:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:12 Sara Hansen: Well, I want a good smile. I want a white smile. Right. That’s what I want.

00:32:18 Ben Lund: Okay. You want a white smile?

00:32:20 Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:32:21 Ben Lund: Okay. So you you want to be able to, um. What? Why do you want a white smile?

00:32:26 Sara Hansen: Because I think it looks pretty okay.

00:32:31 Ben Lund: So like, are we taking selfies and stuff or like smiling for family photos or.

00:32:36 Speaker 4: Yes.

00:32:37 Sara Hansen: Family photos. I mean, I’m getting older, right? So our teeth start to change a little bit. So. Right. You know, when I’m up on stage speaking, I want to have a good glowing white smile. I’m in dentistry. That matters to me what it looks like. Right? So.

00:32:53 Speaker 4: Right. Yeah.

00:32:54 Ben Lund: Okay. So we want to we want to incorporate some of that into this ad here, right?

00:33:00 Speaker 4: So yeah.

00:33:01 Ben Lund: We want to say, you know, um, have you, I hate doing this like off the cuff because I sit here as a writer and, and I can, I can spend twenty minutes on three words just to try to get it right. So, uh, everybody, please forgive me. I don’t suck this bad. Okay?

00:33:18 Speaker 4: But, Ben, I can.

00:33:19 Sara Hansen: See your creative juices flowing already. But yeah, we we get the process.

00:33:23 Regan Robertson: Yeah, right, buddy, be harsh on yourself.

00:33:26 Ben Lund: This is why I don’t do podcasts.

00:33:28 Regan Robertson: Let’s set up some dentistry. Live streams of crowns being placed in real time. Let’s turn up the heat. They’re like.

00:33:34 Sara Hansen: Yeah.

00:33:34 Ben Lund: And have a camera on the doctor’s face while we’re at it. So, um, but yeah, I mean, we, we want to incorporate things like, all right, so you want a whiter smile, you want straighter teeth. You, you, um, uh, you want to stay? This is I shouldn’t even say that you want to stave off the ravages of age. Right. Um, true.

00:33:56 Sara Hansen: I mean, you’re so poetic.

00:33:59 Ben Lund: But, you know, I don’t know that I would put that in the marketing, but, you know, along those lines, like, I.

00:34:04 Regan Robertson: Kind of do want to stave off the. Yeah, I kind of do want it. You’ve got my attention now.

00:34:08 Speaker 5: That’s what she that’s what I’m saying. Would you like to stave.

00:34:10 Ben Lund: Off the ravages of. Yes.

00:34:12 Regan Robertson: Yes.

00:34:13 Ben Lund: You know what I’m saying?

00:34:14 Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:34:15 Sara Hansen: Can we tie some Botox into that? My wrinkles are starting to show like, okay.

00:34:19 Ben Lund: I mean, it does the practice do both. Does this practice do Botox? Well, then great. Let’s talk about it. Not only are we going to talk about preventive dentistry, uh, preventing, uh, preventing your teeth from running away on you, um, so they don’t look yellow and cracked and old and, you know, but let let’s, let’s clean up the wrinkles around your mouth and your eyes and let’s, let’s just give you a full rejuvenation. Um, so not, not just we’re not just talking about preventive dentistry, you know, we’re talking about maybe doing a little bit of work to stave off, you know, bad things from happening. And then, oh, yeah, by the way, we do, we do Botox. So come in for come into our practice. Not only are we going to take care of your mouth. Yeah, we’re and, you know, we’ll take care of any of the problems and we’ll prevent any other problems from occurring. But we’re also going to clean up some of the wrinkles around your eyes and your forehead. And, um.

00:35:20 Sara Hansen: You know, I’ve already clicked for an appointment at this point now.

00:35:23 Ben Lund: Yeah. I mean, sure, if that’s.

00:35:25 Sara Hansen: I mean, you had me at White Smile. You had me at rejuvenation and helping with my wrinkles.

00:35:30 Speaker 5: So yeah.

00:35:31 Ben Lund: Work some of that in, um, to, to, to this copy. I think, um, the more specific and the more real world and the more plain spoken. Yeah. Your, your language is the, the better that anybody is going to understand. I mean, what do they say the average American reads on a sixth grade level, right? So that’s what they say, uh, the average American and I don’t know if that’s changed at all.

00:36:01 Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:36:01 Ben Lund: But the, the average American reads and understands what they’re reading on a sixth grade level. So when we start using, um, some major terms in there, um, that, that might even go over their head, but the more plain spoken you can be and the more real world and just, just down to earth. Uh, you know, I guess it also depends on your, your, um, the demographics in your area and the types of patients that you want to see. You know, if you’re in an area that’s. Uh, a little more, I don’t want to say blue collar, but, um, if it’s not as affluent or, um, if, if, if the people coming in are more, you know, salt of the earth, right. Um, your marketing copy ought to speak their language. Okay. And not, not fancy dental language that nobody’s.

00:36:57 Regan Robertson: That is such a beautiful example of how to use AI, Ben. Because I know for myself I will run copy through AI and ask it. So it’s not that I’m asking it to write it. I say, what is the reading level? And then I will ask it for recommendations to either increase the cognitive load or decrease it based on that. And what is so freaking cool about what you just said was, I know for Phoenix Dental Agency, the exhaustive and very comprehensive ha ha, um, Demographic and psychographic reports, that.

00:37:25 Sara Hansen: Is.

00:37:26 Regan Robertson: For each practice in the area. So you’re I mean, such a brilliant way, Ben, because you’re right, certain pockets of areas have, um, even like master’s degrees, you’ll see pockets and clusters of people who have master’s degrees. So say you’re in, say you’re in a town that has a big engineering firm, for example, we know that engineers speak a little bit different language. So you can still pull in your own words, obviously, but, uh, it’s, it’s just so disappointing to spend money and realize that you have tailored that message and the cognitive load is too high. Um.

00:37:57 Ben Lund: And that goes back to the damn questions, right? So, um, the a of damn is audience, who are we trying to reach? Why should these people care and what do we want them to do? So, um. Yay! Damn questions. Woo.

00:38:12 Sara Hansen: I know Ben, that was like, thank you for sharing that. I mean, I think it’s one of those things because we use it every day. I don’t think what a tangible gift that our listeners got today with being able to incorporate that into their marketing messaging by utilizing the damn questions, because it really will change your content doctors, um, by utilizing that understanding, what is that desired effect? Who are we trying to reach? What’s the message and the numbers? Um, that right there is a perfect formula that is so easy for our teams to incorporate. Regan do you clap clap clap.

00:38:56 Speaker 5: Do you want to close.

00:38:56 Sara Hansen: Us out since I opened.

00:38:58 Speaker 5: Us.

00:38:58 Regan Robertson: Ben, I well, thank you so much for being with us today, Ben, and thanks for opening up even vulnerably and sharing your creative process. It, it takes some bravery to be able to do that. And it’s an artistic process. And I think that’s really what, you know, listeners were hoping that you understand is that there are ways to use AI that can greatly benefit your practice, but using it to strip out your tone is not one of them, as we said in episode one. And and thank you, Ben, for giving us so many ideas and a fun acronym to work through for every piece of copy so that our listeners can get the most out of the copy that they are taking time to generate and pay good money towards, to reach the audience and not just reach them, but actually convert them into patients.

00:39:41 Ben Lund: No, it’s, it’s, it’s my pleasure. And, you know, I think, um, if, if anybody’s using AI to do anything and, you know, before you ask it to write, you just make sure that you’re giving it something worth writing about, you know, experiences, beliefs, stories, language. Um, you know, AI can help you turn that material into content. But remember, it’s not the source. You’re the source. Uh, and it, it, it can’t discover what makes your practice meaningful unless you bring meaning into the process.

00:40:16 Speaker 5: Yes.

00:40:17 Sara Hansen: Love that. Ben. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thanks, Reagan. Thank you.

00:40:22 Speaker 5: Everyone.

00:40:23 Ben Lund: Thank you.