If you’re a dentist who wants to grow your dental practice, marketing is something you’ve had to think about from day one. You open the doors, you’ve got the clinical skills, you’ve got the team, but at the end of the day you still need new patients walking in to be successful.

So you start looking around. What can you do for marketing? What should you try? What are other practices doing? And once you start looking into it, you realize there are a lot of marketing companies out there telling you they have the solution to your problem.

And if you sit down and talk to them, every single one will confidently tell you the same thing: what they sell is the thing that will bring you more new patients. The SEO company says SEO is the answer. The Google Ads expert says paid traffic is the fastest way to grow. The website design agency says your website is holding you back.

And if you’re a dentist who’s been practicing for a few years, you’ve probably tested a few marketing strategies. Some might have worked really well. But most were probably just a big waste of time and money.

Now imagine this. Wouldn’t it be much easier if you could just go to other dentists across the country and ask them straight up: what brought you the most new patients? What actually worked for you in marketing? And what would you never do again because it was a total waste of money?

That’s exactly what we wanted to find out. We created a survey dentists could answer anonymously, and asked them what they’ve actually tried over the past ten years to grow their practice.

And then for every strategy they said they tried, we asked them:

We wanted to understand what really happened when they tried it. So let’s break down what dentists actually tried, what worked, what didn’t, and where they saw the best return.

Let’s start with some good news. There are a few marketing strategies that are completely free. And when we looked at the data, some of these free strategies actually outperformed the paid ones.

So which ones came out on top? Let’s look at the top three.

89% of dentists in our survey had actively worked on getting more reviews. And when you think about it, it makes sense. When a patient needs a dentist, they go to Google and type in “dentist near me,” they see a few clinics, and they pick based on who looks the most trustworthy.

And for dentists, Google reviews are a big part of building that trust. If the practice down the street from you has 400 reviews and a 4.9 rating and you have 30 with a 4.8 rating, patients will pick your competitor down the street.

Also, Google reviews brought in good quality patients too. 48% of the dentists that tried Google reviews rated the patients they got a 5 out of 5.

Now, when we asked dentists what they did to collect reviews, most of them weren’t doing anything complicated. Some used automated tools like Weave or BirdEye or Trustpilot to send follow up messages after appointments. Others just asked patients directly. The dentists who got the most reviews just had a consistent system for tracking and asking for them.

But here’s something one dentist pointed out that really highlights the main issue most practices have with collecting reviews: “Getting reviews depends heavily on your staff. If your front desk isn’t asking, it doesn’t happen.”

As a dentist, you’re in the operatory most of the day. You don’t really see how your staff interacts with patients at the front desk. You don’t know if they’re actually asking for reviews, or if they’re just telling you they are.

And here’s something we’ve been telling our clients for years. If you actually want to grow and beat your competitors on Google reviews, the easiest thing you can do is get a whiteboard.

Write your practice name on it, then add the names of your top five competitors. Every week or month, track how many new reviews each practice gets.

Now suddenly everyone in the office can see the score. Your team sees if you’re falling behind. They see when a competitor is pulling ahead. And when your number goes up, they see that too.

It turns reviews into something visible and measurable. And once it’s on the board, it becomes something the whole team starts paying attention to.

Here’s a funny story. A couple of years ago, one of our clients kept hearing the same thing from his staff for months. They told him they ask patients for reviews every day, but nobody wants to leave reviews. Patients are busy. They just want to get out the door.

So he decided to try something new. He told his team that if they managed to become the most reviewed dental practice in their very competitive area, he would close the practice for a few days and take the entire staff on an all inclusive vacation to the Dominican Republic. He needed about 350 reviews to become the top rated practice.

Guess what happened? They got there in 3 weeks. They collected more reviews in 3 weeks than they had in nearly 3 years.

Now to most of you this may feel extreme. That vacation probably cost him $10,000 or more. However, because he became the most reviewed dental practice in the city, they brought in so many new patients that the investment paid for itself many times over. They generated an additional $1.2 million in production the following year. So was it worth it? Yeah, definitely.

So set a clear goal for your team and put a prize on the table. Because when your team can actually see the scoreboard and the prize, they start caring about the score, and suddenly asking patients for reviews goes from something that happens now and then to something that happens after every appointment.

77% of dentists in our survey said they had actively worked on getting more referrals. And out of every strategy we looked at, referrals produced the highest quality patients.

In fact, 59% of dentists who received referrals rated those patients a 5 out of 5 in quality. Higher than any other marketing channel in the entire survey.

And it makes total sense. A referred patient was sent to you by someone they already trust, like a close friend or a family member. So they walk in already confident in you. They’re not comparing you to three other practices down the street. In their mind, the decision has already been made.

And when it comes to generating referrals, most dentists in our survey weren’t running complicated reward programs or anything like that. They said referrals were simply happening naturally.

One interesting comment a dentist left in the survey was that referrals tend to bring in like minded people. Your best patients send you more people just like them. So if you already have great patients and they refer someone, there’s a very good chance that new patient will also be a great fit for your practice.

From a marketing standpoint, referrals have one big limitation. They’re not very scalable.

You can’t just throw more money at referrals and suddenly double the number of patients coming in next month. Sure, you can try things like referral rewards or incentives, but those only work if the patient experience is already great.

Because at the end of the day, the real engine behind referrals is the experience patients have in your practice. If someone has a great visit, they might tell their friends or family. If they don’t, they won’t.

And the challenge is that you can’t really “turn up the dial” on that. If you’re already providing a great patient experience, there’s only so much more you can do. Referrals either come in, or they don’t, and you don’t have all that much control over them.

That’s why referrals tend to be inconsistent. Some months you get a lot of them. Other months you barely get any. They’re incredibly valuable when they happen, but from a marketing perspective they’re not something you can reliably scale or depend on to consistently grow your practice.

This is something many dentists have probably thought about at some point. Inside your patient management system, you already have a huge list of patients who came to your practice, had a good experience, but never booked another appointment.

Maybe they got busy. Life got in the way. They meant to call back and never did.

In our survey, about 20% of dentists said they had tried recall campaigns. And the way they reached out was through a mix of SMS, email, and phone calls. They weren’t relying on just one channel. Reaching out in multiple ways increases the chances that the patient actually responds.

When it came to managing the campaigns, 86% relied on their own staff to handle it. No agency, no outside help. Just their existing team using their patient management system.

The remaining 14% used dedicated third party tools to automate the process. The platforms that came up most often were Weave, Solutionreach, NexHealth, and Dental Intelligence.

And dentists who tried recall campaigns didn’t just run them once and move on. Most kept them running for 12 months or longer. Which makes sense, because this isn’t a one time effort. Every month, new patients become inactive. So the campaign just runs in the background and continues bringing people back.

When we looked at the results, most dentists rated the quality of returning patients a 4 or 5 out of 5. And that makes total sense. These people already know you. They’ve already visited your practice and had a good experience. You’re not trying to convince them to choose you. You’re simply reminding them it’s time to come back.

So before you spend money trying to attract brand new patients, it’s worth looking at the ones already sitting in your system. They’re the low hanging fruit.

Now let’s move on to paid strategies. When most dentists think about marketing, they usually think about spending money. Running ads, doing SEO, sending flyers, or investing in something that will bring in more new patients.

But not all marketing strategies are created equal. You could spend one dollar on one strategy and get two dollars back. Spend that same dollar somewhere else and get ten dollars back. Every marketing channel has a different return on investment.

It’s no surprise this is the most popular paid marketing strategy we found in the survey. When a patient in your area searches for a dentist, Google Ads puts your practice right at the top of the search results. You’re not waiting to show up organically with SEO, which could take 6 to 12 months or more. Ads are instant and you can show up at the top of the page right away.

And for many dentists, that’s incredibly appealing. If you’re starting a new practice or you simply need more new patients right away, Google Ads gives you immediate visibility. That’s why so many dentists rely on it.

Google Ads can work very well, but it’s not cheap. To actually generate new patients, you need to be willing to invest a meaningful amount each month. In our survey, most dentists who reported good results with Google Ads were spending between $1,000 and $2,000 per month.

But that number can vary quite a bit depending on where your practice is located. If you’re in a smaller market where not many other practices are running ads, clicks can actually be pretty affordable. You might get away with $500 to $1,000 in ad spend and pay a marketing company another $500 to $1,000 to manage it. In that kind of market, Google Ads can absolutely work within a $1,500 to $2,000 total budget.

But here’s the reality for most dentists in North America. Dozens of practices in your area are probably already running Google Ads, because it’s one of the fastest ways to get new patients. And when a lot of people are bidding on the same keywords, the cost goes up.

In most competitive markets, you’d need at least $1,500 in ad spend alone just to have a real shot, and then you’re paying your agency on top of that.

Another thing dentists need to understand about Google Ads is that it usually takes time to really start working well. You might get some results in the first month. But if you want to get the most out of your campaigns, Google Ads usually needs to run for several months. That’s because the system is constantly learning. It’s figuring out which keywords bring the right patients, which ads people actually click on, and which searches lead to phone calls or appointment requests.

Over time, the campaigns become more optimized and the results usually improve. In our survey, dentists who ran Google Ads for 12 months or longer were much more likely to say it brought them a steady flow of new patients compared to dentists who only tried it for a few months and then stopped.

When it came to patient quality, 78% of dentists in our survey rated the quality of patients they got through Google Ads a 4 or 5 out of 5. When someone searches on Google for things like “dentist near me,” “emergency dentist,” or “family dentist,” they’re usually looking for care right now. 

They already have a clear intent to book an appointment. So by the time they click on your ad and call your practice, they’re not just casually browsing. They’re actively looking for a dentist.

And when it comes to how dentists actually run their Google Ads, 91% aren’t doing it themselves. Google Ads is a complex system and if you don’t have experience with the platform, it’s very easy to burn through your budget without getting the results you’re hoping for. That’s why most dentists rely on an expert to manage it.

When it comes to SEO, dentists usually have one of two experiences.

Some dentists understand that SEO takes time. They know it’s a long term investment, so they commit to it and give it the time and budget it needs to work. Others go into it hoping for quick results. When they don’t see a big improvement in the first month or two, they assume it isn’t working and they stop.

From there, the receptionist can ask a few discovery questions to understand the patient’s situation:

And our survey data showed a very clear pattern. The dentists who actually saw results were the ones who committed to SEO long term. Most of them ran SEO for 12 months or more and invested somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 per month. On the other hand, dentists who spent less and stopped after just a few months usually saw very little return and thought SEO was a waste of money.

A proper dental SEO strategy usually involves several things working together. Optimizing your website, improving your Google Business Profile, building backlinks, and publishing content regularly.

And that’s exactly what we saw in the survey:

The key takeaway here is that none of these things work very well in isolation. Optimizing your website alone usually isn’t enough to rank. Working on your Google Business Profile alone usually isn’t enough either. SEO works when all of these elements are happening together and consistently over time. That’s why dentists who only tried one or two things and stopped early rarely saw much progress.

When it came to patient quality, 70% of dentists rated the quality of patients a 4 or 5 out of 5. When patients search on Google, they can clearly see which results are ads. Google labels them as sponsored, so people know those placements are paid for.

Organic results tend to carry more trust because they feel earned rather than bought. People who call you because they found your practice organically on Google have this perception that you’re showing up because you must be a good practice. They are generally very high quality patients who are easy to book.

Now let’s talk about the marketing strategies dentists tried that ultimately turned out to be money down the drain.

In our survey, dentists had a lot of different marketing strategies to choose from. But a few of them kept coming back with the same story: a lot of money spent and very little to show for it. And what’s interesting is that some of these strategies are still being used by dentists today, and in many cases they’re still being actively pushed by marketing agencies.

On the surface, it sounds like it should work. Your practice name gets broadcast across the city, thousands of people hear about your clinic, and it feels like you’re getting your name out there.

But when we looked at what dentists in our survey actually got back from radio advertising, the story was very different. Most dentists who tried radio ads were spending $3,000 or more per month on these campaigns. And despite that level of investment, not a single dentist said it brought them a significant number of new patients.

One dentist even shared that the only reason they tried radio was because they won a free campaign. They said they got very few patients from it and wouldn’t recommend it.

And the reason radio ads struggle for dentists is actually pretty simple. When your ad plays on the radio, most of the people listening aren’t looking for a dentist. They’re driving to work, cooking dinner, or just going about their day. So you’re paying to reach a massive audience, hoping that one of those listeners happens to need a dentist at that exact moment and then remembers your practice later when they decide to book. That’s a very expensive gamble.

Once the patient feels heard and understood, promoting the practice stops feeling like a sales pitch. It just flows naturally from the conversation.

By this point the receptionist knows enough about the patient to make it personal. They’ve asked the right questions and listened carefully. So instead of just saying a generic list of services, they can highlight exactly what makes the practice a good fit for that specific person.

So let’s look at what the dentists in our survey actually experienced.

About 60% of dentists said they had tried social media marketing in some form. Most of them focused on organic posting. Things like sharing photos from the clinic, before and after pictures, team updates, or educational content. About half of the dentists said they only posted organically and didn’t run any paid ads at all.

Some dentists did experiment with paid ads on top of their posts. But most of them were spending less than $500 per month. And the dentists who spent money on social media ads reported almost the exact same results as the ones who were only posting organically. In other words, adding paid ads on top of social media posting barely moved the needle when it came to bringing in new patients.

Overall, the results from social media were not very strong. Not a single dentist in our survey said social media brought them a lot of new patients. Most said it brought them only a few. And many said they weren’t even sure if it brought them any patients at all.

When it came to patient quality, the ratings were also lower than any other strategy we looked at. On average, dentists rated social media patients 3 out of 5. And that probably explains why many dentists didn’t stick with it. About half of the dentists who tried social media stopped within six months. What’s interesting is that even the dentists who continued for 12 months or longer didn’t report much better results.

So why doesn’t it work? The answer is that social media is an entertainment platform. People open Instagram or Facebook to see what their friends are doing, watch funny videos, kill time. They’re not looking for a dentist. So unless your content stops them mid-scroll and makes them genuinely interested, the algorithm starts to hide it. People don’t find dental content on social media interesting. It’s not sexy. It’s not funny.

A lot of the content dentists post simply isn’t very interesting. You often see stock photos, generic dental tips, or captions that feel very corporate and boring. Things like “Don’t forget to floss” or “Your smile is important.” Content like that usually doesn’t grab anyone’s attention.

That said, there are dentists who get a lot of engagement online without going viral. Their posts get shared, and patients in their community actually pay attention to what they post. We put everything we learned from those dentists into a free social media guide that we update every year with new examples and strategies. You can find the link at the bottom of this article.

26% of dentists in our survey tried it. Most got back only a few new patients. When it came to patient quality, the ratings were also very low, 1 or 2 out of 5, making it one of the lowest rated strategies in the entire survey.

Some of the comments from dentists were pretty telling. One dentist said they tried it once and it wasn’t worth it. Another said they experimented with it years ago and the return on investment just wasn’t there.

And it’s not hard to understand why. Direct mail lands in a pile of other mail that most people flip through for about three seconds before most of it goes straight in the bin.

The people who do respond are usually responding to the offer: a free consultation, a discounted exam, a whitening special. So you’re attracting deal hunters, coupon clippers, and price shoppers. Patients who came in because of a discount are less likely to stay long term, less likely to accept bigger treatment plans, and more likely to leave the moment another practice offers them a better deal.

So in the end, many dentists reported spending a lot of money to acquire patients who weren’t very loyal and didn’t generate much long term value.

So let’s say you’re a dentist in a competitive market. You’ve decided to invest in marketing, and you have a monthly budget of about $1,500 to $2,000. The question is: how should you spend that money to bring in the most new patients?

First, focus on Google Reviews.

They’re completely free, they’re relatively easy to get, and you don’t need an agency to help you with this. Most practices can handle it in house with their own staff.

You can ask patients directly for a review, set up automated messages that go out after appointments, track how many reviews you’re getting every month, and make it a real priority for your team.

Reviews also have a compounding effect. The more reviews you have, the more trust you build online. And the more trust you build, the easier it becomes for new patients to choose your practice.

If you want a structured system for getting more Google reviews consistently, we created a Google Reviews course for dentists that covers exactly how to do this.

Google reviews help you build trust. But trust only matters once patients actually know your practice exists. You could be the best dentist in the city, but if nobody knows about your practice, you’re basically the best kept secret.

Now if you want to get visible and in front of patients who are actively searching for a dentist, you really have two options with a solid return on investment. Google Ads or SEO.

With Google Ads, the cost really depends on where you’re located. If you’re in a smaller market where not many other practices are running ads, clicks can actually be pretty cheap. You might get away with $500 to $1,000 in ad spend and pay a marketing company another $500 to $1,000 to manage it. In that scenario, Google Ads could absolutely work within this budget.

But here’s the reality for most dentists in North America. Dozens of practices in your area are probably already running Google Ads because of how effective they are and how quickly they can get results. And when a lot of people are bidding on the same keywords, the cost goes up. In most competitive markets, you’d need at least $1,500 in ad spend alone to have a real shot, and then you’re paying your agency on top of that.

And there’s another thing to understand about Google Ads. It’s like a tap. The second you turn it off, the water stops flowing. You stop paying Google, you stop showing up. You don’t exist.

That’s why with a budget of $1,500 to $2,000, you’re usually better off putting that into SEO.

Think of it like the difference between renting and owning a house. With Google Ads, you’re renting your visibility. Sure, the monthly cost might feel manageable, but the moment you stop paying, you’re out. With SEO, you’re building something you actually own. You’re earning rankings and building a reputation online that doesn’t just vanish when you stop writing checks.

Now just like a house, it takes upkeep. If you stop maintaining a house, it doesn’t fall apart the next day. But slowly, over time, things start to deteriorate. It’s the same thing with SEO. If you reach the first page on Google and then stop all work completely, your rankings aren’t going to disappear overnight. But without any ongoing effort, you will slowly start to slide down. It takes a while, but it happens.

The point is, with SEO you’re building an asset. With Google Ads, you’re renting one. And when your budget is limited, owning beats renting every time.

At the end of the day, getting a new patient in your chair isn’t just about running ads or getting more reviews. It’s a whole system working together.

You need visibility so patients find you. You need trust so they choose you over the practice down the street. Your staff needs to make a great first impression and actually convert that phone call into a booked appointment. And you need to track all of it, so you always know what’s working, what isn’t, and where you’re losing patients you should be keeping.

That’s exactly what we do at RevUp Dental. We handle dental marketing end to end, which means we take care of every piece of that system for you. And unlike most marketing companies that will run your ads and call it a day, we don’t stop there. If patients are finding you but not booking, that’s still our problem. We focus on the whole patient journey, from the moment someone searches for a dentist to the moment they sit down in your chair, and everything in between.