I’ve been in the writing business for about a decade, and almost half of that time has been spent serving clients in the niche field of dental copywriting. Through the years, one of the more difficult problems I’ve found is in explaining to people with a PhD education level or higher that writing for consumers is very, very, v e r y different from writing scholarly articles. Your dental website and blog should not read like the dissertation you composed at your alma mater (though I’m sure it was excellent for a scholarly audience). Einstein has some awesome quotes that the average smart person understands. He also discovered the theory of relativity and led the Manhattan Project, which was the creation of the atom bomb. But when it came to communicating with regular American folk…
He got it.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Writers call the way a piece reads its tone or voice. You have a unique voice, and the tone you use to speak to your golf buddies isn’t the same tone you used in the aforementioned dissertation. Your casual tone is the voice we need to capture for your dental website and dental blog. By getting to know our clients, our copywriters learn the appropriate voice to apply for each practice we serve. Some are more casual than others; and some are pretty darn clinical. We do our best to unwind the vocabulary and style of dentists who prefer scholarly writing. In doing so, we can keep content professional and clinically accurate without scaring away potential readers – ie: potential patients.
I am not a dentist, nor do I play one on TV. As a dental services consumer, I want to know that I can talk to my dentist on a casual level, and I also need to feel that my dentist is a knowledgeable professional who understands dentistry inside and out (literally). If I find a dentist’s website and read content that is over my head, I know that I won’t feel comfortable around, and may not even understand, the dentist.
Have you ever had a mechanic that started talking about the level of torque required for proper… (blah, blah, blah) or construction contractor who started talking about city code for wiring? (Why should I care? Just wire my big screen already so that I can watch the game!) Most people want to do business with professionals who show enough competence to ensure trust, but who don’t get into all the gory details. Most consumers don’t have time for the specifics. They want a professional whom they feel understands them, can solve their problems, and will charge a fair price. Be that guy!
I say all this to prove the point: your website and blog, and any text that represents your dental office, should make readers – potential patients – feel good, not stupid; interested not bored; inspired to call you, not inspired to go to the next dentist in the Google list.