From Search to Smile: The Marketing Strategies That Fill Your Chair with New Dental Patients
Every dentist knows that the relationship with each patient is deeply personal and unique. From the very first appointment, when concerns are shared and anxieties are calmed, to the trust that grows with every visit, the patient’s confidence in your expertise and care is the foundation of your practice. Your relationship begins the moment they walk through your door —- or at least, that’s how it seems from your perspective. But in reality, their journey starts much earlier, when they first hear your name, research your practice, speak with your front desk, and schedule that all-important first appointment. While your interactions in the chair build loyalty, it’s your dental marketing that lays the groundwork for that trust, creating the foundational first impression that brings them to your door.
When crafting the best marketing strategy for your dental practice, it can be helpful to think of it in terms of a marketing funnel that maps out each stage of the patient’s journey. This funnel moves the patient through key phases of their experience with your practice before stepping through your door. The phases are Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Intent, and finally, Appointment Booking (or “Purchase”). At each stage, the patient’s interactions with your practice either move them closer to sitting in your chair or cause them to drift away. Neglecting any specific stage can create gaps, allowing potential patients to slip through unnoticed. On the flip side, a well-targeted dental marketing approach can plug those holes and flood your practice with qualified patients—the ultimate goal. Let’s explore how different types of marketing can either disrupt the funnel or maximize its effectiveness, securing a steady flow of new dental patients at every step.
Dental marketing strategies can be divided into two main categories: outbound and inbound marketing. Outbound marketing is the more traditional approach, and the examples of this tactic include TV and radio ads, print ads, and billboards. The goal is to broadcast your practice to as many people as possible. While this may seem ideal at first glance, even the most effective outbound campaigns attract a very broad audience, many of whom will not shift their phase in the funnel from being Aware to showing Interest in your practice. There are different reasons for that: some won’t be actively looking for a new dentist, while others might already have a preferred provider, find the location inconvenient, or perceive your services as too expensive. Given the high production costs and wide reach of outbound marketing, the actual number of new patients who convert may be relatively small. Nevertheless, outbound marketing remains a widely used strategy among dental marketing companies, often draining your budget while keeping your front desk busy fielding inquiries from people outside your target demographic.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, targets patients who are already interested in your services. Examples include Google Ads of your clinic that are only shown when the audience searched for the kind of services you provide in your area, blog articles on dental hygiene that attract a health-conscious audience, and newsletters sent to your existing patient base. With inbound marketing, the patient initiates the first step by actively seeking out your services, making them more likely to move toward the Consideration Phase.
The real challenge comes at the Intent Stage, where both the patient and the practice must match for moving the relationship forward towards appointment booking. To attract patients with the right insurance, located within your service area, and who are willing to invest in your clinic, a customized, data-driven approach is essential. This is where most dental marketing efforts fall short. Understanding your “buyer persona”—the ideal patient profile—is critical to craft a dental marketing plan that maximizes reach to your target demographic while minimizing budget waste on less relevant audiences. It requires precise data on which channels bring in the right patients and which ones simply drain your budget.
When we started our journey owning seven dental practices, we faced a common issue with every dental marketing company we partnered with: the lack of a data-driven approach. We were not given detailed information on where the budget was spent, why certain marketing channels were prioritized, or which channels generated the most—or least—revenue. The best data we could drag out of the dental marketing companies we hired were the amount of clicks on our website and the number of phone calls a marketing channel generated, which is barely significant when you don’t know how many of these patients were qualified, how many actually scheduled and showed up to the first appointment and stayed with the practice after. The process felt opaque, and even when patient numbers increased slightly, it felt more like luck than a result of strategic marketing efforts due to the monthly inconsistency of these results.
Industries like e-commerce have long embraced a data-oriented approach, tracking everything: which channels brought in the most revenue, the key traits of the customers attracted, and more. As owners of seven dental practices, the disconnect between the high-tech solutions used in other industries and the lack of data transparency from even the best dental marketing companies left us frustrated and searching for better options. This led us to create our own proprietary technology, the Rise DDS Platform, giving us the detailed insights we knew were essential for making informed marketing decisions.
Shortly after launching our technology, some of the top talents in the healthcare industry joined our team. Among them is Dr. Winterton, a Harvard-trained pain management physician and bone and joint specialist with over 25 years of experience. Dr. Winterton is associated with the Mayo Clinic and serves on the Executive Council of the Utah State Orthopaedics Society, and he now contributes as our esteemed board advisor. We’re also proud to have Mazin Kyzy, a leading dental clinic owner in Michigan, as our invaluable main dental clinic advisor.
Owning our own practices, we knew exactly what metrics we wanted to be available to us for the most precise and least costly dental marketing strategy development. This resulted, among other things, in our platform’s integration with Google Analytics, allowing us to track key traffic metrics across all locations, websites, and landing pages. We also developed tools like the ‘Booked New Patients’ dashboard, which shows exactly where new patients are coming from, what dental marketing channels brought them in, their insurance details, treatment interests, and how your front desk handled their call. You can also see how many dollars each patient generates, giving you a clear view of each marketing channel’s effectiveness.
In addition, our platform analyzes what we call “missed opportunities”, or calls from our target demographic that did not lead to bookings, as we provide detailed reports on why potential patients fell through. You can monitor every aspect of patient flow, from who answered their calls to how far out appointments are being scheduled. We provide you with demographic reports to help you target specific audiences, while our AI-driven tools provide real-time coaching notes and feedback, ensuring you’re always optimizing your marketing strategy. Whether you’re tracking individual campaigns, managing your Google My Business profiles, or identifying referral sources, our technology offers a complete picture of your marketing efforts, ensuring every dollar spent delivers measurable results, all in one platform.
Our team has supported practices across every time zone and coast, leveraging the extensive data and insights we’ve gathered over the years. We invite you to book a demo of our Rise DDS Platform to discuss how we can assist your practice and explore the many ways we can support your growth.
To book your first free appointment with us and see our software:
Call us at (888) 849-1816
Email us at hello@risedds.com
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