Dentist marketing: where new patients actually come from

Two agencies have quoted you a monthly retainer for dentist marketing. A directory wants a listing fee. A voucher site wants to send you bargain hunters. And you are not convinced the holes in the schedule are a marketing problem. You are mostly right. Most of the holes are patients you already had, lost to a recall that never went out and a phone that rang at lunch. Filling a schedule is mostly systems that catch those, plus being the practice the whole neighbourhood already knows. Very little of it costs much.

The empty chair at two o'clock was a patient you already had

A patient who was due in March and never heard from you. A new caller at 12:15 who got the lunch voicemail and phoned the practice down the road. Someone who filled in your form on Saturday night and heard back Tuesday. A caller your front desk asked to call back later because the book was open on the wrong screen.

None of those is a marketing problem. All of them look like one, because the result is the same: an empty chair at two o'clock. An agency will happily sell you new patients to fill it. Cheaper to stop losing the ones you have.

The call at 12:15 that went to voicemail

A missed call is a patient who phones the next practice. It happens most at lunch, after five, and on Saturday.

You do not need another receptionist. You need the missed call to get a text back within a minute, with a link to book, and you need the form filled in on Saturday night to turn into an appointment before Monday. This is exactly the work an AI employee is good at and a person is bad at. What that looks like for a small business here is one post; setting it up for a practice so it runs without anyone watching it is the AI side of what I do.

The patient who was due back in March

Every patient in your file is due back at a known date. Most practices send the reminder when someone remembers to, at the end of a slow month, in a batch. By then half the list has drifted to the practice that reminded them first.

A reminder that goes out automatically at the right interval, by text, with a link to book, is the cheapest appointment you will ever fill. The same AI that texts back the missed call can run this too, and follow up with the ones who do not reply. It costs a setup afternoon and then nothing. It keeps working while you are in the operatory.

Eleven reviews, the newest from 2022

That is what a new patient sees when she searches "dentist near me" on her phone and your practice comes up on the map. Eleven reviews. The newest from 2022. Three doors down, a practice with forty, the newest from last Tuesday. She does not read your website. She taps the one with last Tuesday.

If the practice does not show on the map at all, this is usually why. Then make asking for a review part of checkout for every patient who leaves happy. The hygienist is the best person to ask. One sentence, while the patient is still in the chair feeling good about her teeth.

The man with the wisdom tooth at 11pm

He is not typing "comprehensive oral care." He is typing "wisdom tooth pain" and the town, on his phone, in the dark. Someone else is typing "dentist taking new patients." A parent is typing "when should a kid first see a dentist." A page on your own website for each of those, written in those words with your number at the top, catches the search without a click fee and keeps catching it for years. One page per treatment, one per problem, one for the emergencies. The common mistakes are in the five SEO mistakes health and wellness businesses make.

The neighbourhood should know your hygienist by name

Most of the people who will become patients this year are not searching yet. They have a dentist they are lukewarm about, or they have not been in three years and feel bad about it.

Facebook and Instagram ads put your practice in front of every household within a few kilometres for pennies at a time. Not an offer. The hygienist on video explaining what actually happens at a first visit. A thirty-second tour of the office. The dentist answering the question every parent asks about when to bring a toddler in. People see it every few days for months, and when the lukewarm dentist finally annoys them, yours is the name they know. This is the cheapest thing on this page, and it is the one most agencies will not pitch you. The catch is that someone has to get on camera and someone has to keep it current. Not every day.

"Emergency dentist" on a Saturday morning

Whoever is typing that has already decided. They are not comparing. They want the first practice that is open and answers. Google Ads put your emergency page at the top of that search for a price per click, and the click is worth paying for because the person behind it books today.

"Dentist" plus the city is a different search. It is expensive and it brings everyone, including people looking for a job and people three towns over. Pay for the treatment and the emergency, not the word. What a click costs in your area, and what a booked appointment should be worth against it, is in how much a Google Ads click costs in Halifax.

Count appointments, not clicks

For one month, write down every booked appointment and where it came from. Recall. The missed-call text. The map. A page. An ad. Then put what each one cost beside it. The first two columns usually cost almost nothing, and no retainer was ever going to fill them.

Most of what fills a schedule is systems, and most of those systems can now be run by an AI employee: the missed-call text back, the recall, the follow-up, the booking. It works nights and Saturdays and never goes to lunch. On top of that sits a little marketing, the hygienist's videos in the neighbourhood and an ad on the emergency searches. That is what I set up. If you want it, book a call. Twenty minutes. Bring last month's schedule and whatever you are paying for now. If it is already working I will tell you so.

Frequently asked questions

How do dental practices get new patients?

Mostly from the map listing and the reviews on it, from pages on their own website that match the searches patients make about a treatment or an emergency, and from being the practice people in the area already recognise. Before any of that, a practice keeps the patients it already has by answering every call and sending recall on time. Google Ads on specific treatments add to all of it.

Do I need to pay an agency to market a dental practice?

Not to fill most of the holes in the schedule. Recall reminders, a text back on every missed call, a current map listing and recent reviews fill more appointments than a campaign, and they cost almost nothing to run once set up. An agency or a consultant earns its fee when it builds those systems and runs the ads that add new patients on top.

How much does a new patient cost to acquire?

It depends on the source, and most practices have never measured it. Count the booked appointments from each source for a month and divide what you spent on that source by the number. A patient from recall or from a map listing costs almost nothing. A patient from an ad costs what the clicks cost divided by how many of them booked.

What should happen when someone calls and nobody answers?

They should get a text back within a minute with a link to book, and the practice should see the missed call on a list that someone clears every day. A caller who gets voicemail at lunch phones the next practice. The text back is work a person should not have to do, and it runs while the office is closed.

Which is better for a dental practice, ads or the map listing?

The map listing, because every new patient checks it before calling and it costs nothing but reviews. Ads add new patients on top once the phone is answered and the listing is current. Ads on top of a missed-call voicemail pay to send patients to the next practice.