Dental practices have more marketing options than ever, but that hasn’t made filling the schedule any easier. Patient acquisition costs keep climbing, and the way patients find a dentist is shifting.
That shift is changing where marketing dollars pay off. Spending more on ads and SEO no longer guarantees new patients, especially if those patients don’t stay. Instead, some organizations are focusing on what’s harder to copy: authentic patient outcomes, a clearer understanding of lifetime value, stronger internal marketing and an in-office experience that lives up to what the marketing promises.
Four dental leaders discussed what has fundamentally changed about dental marketing, and where organizations can still build a lasting advantage, at Becker’s 5th Annual Future of Dentistry Roundtable in Chicago.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: As patient acquisition becomes more expensive and the way patients find providers changes, what has fundamentally changed about dental marketing, and where can organizations still create a durable advantage?
Muazzam Farooq, DDS. Dentist and Practice Owner at Affordable Dentures & Implants (Virginia Beach, Va.): It’s not just about buying attention online anymore. It goes a lot deeper than that. It’s about building trust by sharing your cases and the great outcomes you’re generating in your office every day. Before, there was a lot of stock imagery online. Every practice looked the same, and they were all saying they provide great services. Now it’s real-life testimonials. Even DSOs are spending a lot of money on patient experience and getting their testimonials in front of potential new patients. That proof and trust online is the majority of the marketing now, because patients want to see that they can get the same results. If your organization is doing that, you’re winning.
Tom Feary. Vice President of Marketing at Vitana Pediatric and Orthodontic Partners (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.): I think there’s a maturing understanding of lifetime value. We tend to say, “Those Google leads or Zocdoc bookings cost me a lot of money, so I don’t want to do that because it’s too expensive.” But it’s important to gain a greater understanding of lifetime value. That means not just the patient we just acquired and how long they’ll stay with us, but the whole household, whether we’re looking at orthodontics, pediatric dentistry or multifamily households in general dentistry. Then there’s the lifetime referral effect on top of that. With that understanding, you have greater ability to be agile in how you go to market, how you acquire patients, which channels you focus on and how you develop your whole mix.
Alix Laurain. CEO of Viridian Dental Partners (Nashville, Tenn.): When I first started my company, it was very much keywords, blogs and the whole SEO game. It felt like the ground shifted underneath you every time you thought you had your arms wrapped around it. What I’ve noticed is there’s much more focus now on internal marketing and how those opportunities sync up with new patients. There’s a greater understanding that if your front door and your back door are open at the same time, you’re not getting anywhere. So there’s a lot more focus on data around retention, lifetime value and conversion.
Robert Rubino. CEO of Qualitas Dental Partners (Sharon, Mass.): There’s no end of people who will call you up and say they can do your marketing. They just want to get into your wallet. One thing we think about a lot is how to develop proof points of success in your business that actually underline your value proposition. On the question of trust: How do you prove it? You can have interesting testimonials, but you also need referral networks that think highly of you, and you need the people in your own office to buy into what you’re trying to do when patients come in. That way, when word of mouth gets out through your marketing, it’s legitimate. The customer experience really has to hold water in your marketing, and then you have to figure out how to build it into an integrated marketing plan. There’s no end of quick-fix solutions where you can spend $5,000 or $10,000 a month per practice and think you’re doing something. But if patients walk in and it’s not a good experience, they’re just going to go out the other door. Today more than ever, people are a little immune to the sheer volume of marketing coming at them. You have to differentiate, and you have to be truthful about what you’re trying to do.
