Welcome to this week’s BANKNOTES newsletter.

It’s the season of sweets and indulgence. And we all know, eat too many sweets and a less than pleasant trip to the dentist’s office is in your future.

But what if the dentist was a fun experience? And what if you found your dentist not through a Google search or word of mouth but through … TikTok?!

This week, BANKNOTES caught up with Dr. Suhail Mohiuddin, who has built a growing dental franchise across the Chicago area, and is bringing in 25% of his new customers through TikTok referrals

Also this week:

• 🍜 Instacart investigates the influence of viral TikTok recipes
• 📉 iStock releases 2023 marketing trends
• 🛠️ Creator Corner: Meet Sanju Patel

Dentist goes viral on TikTok, showing the fun side of oral health care!

No one really enjoys going to the dentist right?

Even Dr. Suhail Mohiuddin, founder of Chicago-based Dentologie, acknowledges that if you’re going to search for a dentist via reviews, you’re likely going to end up shaking in your exam chair.

“If you look at NPS scores of dental offices, the average dental office has a score of one, which is somewhere between standing in line at the DMV and your cable company,” Mohiuddin joked with BANKNOTES.

With that, Mohiuddin (or Dr. M as he’s known) flipped all of this on its head.

Not only the dental experience—opting for vibrant colors and an overall aesthetic that feels similar to the vibe of a spa—but also how people find and interact with their dentist.

Basically, Dr. M is TikTok famous.

Dr. M’s first dental video was in February 2020. He shared tips on how to get whiter teeth, and within 24 hours, it had half a million views.

Over the coming years, Dr. M became the face of Dentologie and began to build his practice as not only a service you only need when you're in pain, but an actual brand.

“Within the first year of posting, I looked at the data of our intake forms. Only 2% of my following is in Chicago, but one of every four new customers who walk into our practice is from TikTok and Instagram reels—and we never spent $1 on marketing,” he said.

So what can marketers and sales teams drill (see what we did there?) down on from Dr. M’s strategy?

1. Adopt a DTC mentality: Whether you’re indeed a DTC brand or you’re B2B or even in a medical field everyone should be adopting DTC tactics to reach their customer base.
   
   
2. DTC tactics are changing: As Dr. M says, “It used to be so easy to market through Instagram ads. What I think a lot of people didn’t realize is how being the face behind your brand drives tons of traffic to your door.”
   
   
3. Forget the follower count and just provide value: Even though Dr. M’s content works well for the TikTok algorithm, his goal was never to make content solely for it. Instead, he focuses on creating the type of content his audience wants to see and then optimizes it to do well in TikTok’s algorithm.
   
   
4. Don’t worry about being uber-local: Like we noted, only 2% of Dr. M’s TikTok audience is in Chicago, yet 25% of new clients come from this social media channel. Much like water finding its way, good content will find its way to the right audience and customers.

Read more over on BANKNOTES!

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Instacart investigates the influence of viral TikTok recipes

Remember when everyone was making baked feta pasta and posting it to social media?

The recipe went so viral that some communities couldn't keep feta in stock!

Well Instacart has released a cool website that looks to track what impact these so-called viral recipes have had on Instacart ordering trends.

While some TikTok recipe trends did make their way to the dinner table, not all trends made the cut. Just like with brands, some virality leads to sales while some just leads to awareness.

"Despite Butter Boards going similarly viral as Baked Feta Pasta on #FoodTok, it didn’t have the same influence on Instacart orders," the website states.

iStock releases 2023 marketing trends

What do consumers want to hear from brands and marketing campaigns over the coming year?

iStock, the online royalty-free stock photo, video, and illustration marketplace, this week released a research report, led by its creative insights platform, VisualGPS, to guide and inform businesses marketing strategies ahead of 2023.

The report found that brands need to:

• Be empathetic
• Prioritize social connections
• Think about “small luxuries”
• Not forget emotional and physical wellbeing

“Our VisualGPS research reported, 2 out of 3 people globally expect businesses to show empathy towards them,” said Dr. Rebecca Swift, Global Head of Creative Insights at iStock. “Small and mid-sized businesses have an advantage to further engage with their audiences in this new economic context if they manage to translate these values to their audiences through the right images and videos and meet their audience’s expectations.”

What does this mean for marketers and sales team?

The iStock report solidifies what many marketers have been saying for awhile now: Brands need to be honest!

"80% of people appreciate when companies they do business with acknowledge the challenges they personally face," a press release from iStock states. "According to iStock’s visual experts, what this could mean for businesses in 2023 is a need to picture their offerings through experiences that improve their customers' individual and loved ones' well-being; while acknowledging the problems and concerns they are currently experiencing and will continue to cope with over the course of next year."

Creator Corner: Meet Sanju Patel

DIY creators have a superpower—they take us on a journey from random scraps to a beautiful finished product. It’s the reason we love Sanju Patel. He’s a father from Houston, TX who takes his DIY projects to the next level with infectious storytelling and filmmaking. Read the comments, you’ll see what we’re talking about. Most days are spent with us on our phones or computers for hours. Sanju inspires his audience to take action with their hands after watching his DIY projects. Check out this comment from the video: