Okay, so these are teeth you might want to show! If you have them, flaunt them!

I was in the waiting room today at 7:50am, for my first perio therapy visit.

My dentist is promoting Invisalign and so I looked at the brochure.

It is disgusting.

I am involved with dentists and dentistry and have been for many years. But even I had trouble looking through this brochure. I just didn't want to look at it after glancing at it.

There is a difference between looking through something, and reading it, and seeing it.

Looking through dental marketing material means just getting an overall impression. Do I want to read this? Is it something that draws me, that attracts me?

The answer is a definite no.

So I didn't want to read it either. And I didn't want to see it anymore. I put it down and walked away.

Are you making this big mistake, the one that Invisalign is making?

But avoid these types of pictures! People want to see whole people and whole faces.

Avoid this big dental marketing mistake

Let's cut to it right now. I am turned off and even a little nauseated by thinking too much about what is going on in my mouth. Hey, it's dirty and disgusting in there. I know you make your living working in my mouth and patients' mouths. But to me, it's a big turnoff.

So don't show me full smile and full arch photos, please.

It's like this. Think if you are selling flour. Consumers don't want to buy flour. Very few people do. What they want, is delicious bread, rolls, cakes and pastries and pies.

If you are selling flour, you don't try to sell me a bag of flour. You sell me on how easy it is to bake the things I like to bake, and have them really come out. The fear that home bakers have is that their work will come to naught — they will work to bake something and it won't come out.  So if you are selling flour, you market to your customer by harping on how easy it is to use your product, your flour, and how the final product will come out.

Same with what you are selling. Don't sell ugly, horrible and disgusting (to consumers) pictures of the inside of people's mouths. I would expect the Invisalign people would know that but they don't.

Instead, have beautiful and pretty and diverse people, of different ages, genders, and ethnicity, and use real full faces and full torso and full bodies to sell your dentistry.

If you have a "before" picture, make it a full face picture. And make the "after" picture full face.

This is a huge and important tip. Pay attention. Pictures are very high in the emotion department. I didn't read the Invisalign brochure, but instead, I looked at it and was repulsed.

Don't make the same mistake. Use full faces and full bodies in your marketing and on your website. Never show full arches, full smiles and insides of people's mouths.

"I had my whole team read your book"

And please make sure you snag one of my free books, the third edition all time bestselling book ever on how to present and get high case acceptance, and how to do dental marketing. I get notes all the time, as I just got one yesterday "Richard, I had my whole team read your book." Do you think that thousands of doctors, most of whom paid $60 for this book, would be reading it and having their team read it if there wasn't real value there?

I will never share your info and you can opt out anytime. Go for it!