Key takeaways
- A dental marketing plan starts with numbers: how many new patients you need each month, what each one is worth and what you can afford to pay for one.
- Fix the leaks before buying traffic: answer every call, complete your Google Business Profile and ask every patient for a review.
- Split the plan into three jobs: get found, get booked and bring patients back. Most practices underinvest in the last one.
- Review the plan monthly on cost per new patient and booked appointments, and quarterly on budget and channels.
A dental marketing plan is a written, one-page-to-few-page document that sets your new-patient goal, your budget, the channels you will use, who owns each task and how you will measure results. It turns random marketing spend into a predictable system for filling the schedule.
Below is a step-by-step process for building a dental office marketing plan, followed by a free template you can copy. It works for a single-location general practice or a specialty clinic such as implants or orthodontics.
Step 1: Start With Your Numbers
Every plan should begin with four numbers from your practice management system:
- Current new patients per month, by source if you have it.
- Target new patients per month for the next 12 months.
- Patient lifetime value: the average collections from a new patient over their time with you.
- Allowable cost per new patient: what you can spend to acquire one while staying profitable.
If you know a new patient is worth several thousand dollars over their lifetime, you can decide rationally how much to invest to win one. Without these numbers, every marketing decision is a guess.
Step 2: Audit What You Already Have
Before adding anything new, review the basics:
- Is your Google Business Profile complete, with the right categories, services, photos and booking link?
- How many Google reviews do you have, what is your rating and how recent are they?
- Does your website load quickly on mobile and make calling or booking easy?
- How many calls go unanswered during business hours and after hours?
- Is your hygiene recall and reactivation process running?
These are the leaks. Paying for more traffic while calls go unanswered is the most expensive mistake in dental marketing.
Step 3: Define Your Ideal Patients
Write two or three short patient profiles. For example: young families who need a nearby general dentist and accept certain PPO plans; adults researching implants who compare several practices before deciding; and parents looking for an orthodontist for a child. Each group searches differently, decides on different timelines and responds to different messages.
Step 4: Choose Your Channels
Match channels to the stage of the patient journey:
| Goal | Channels |
|---|---|
| Get found | Google Business Profile, dental SEO, Google Ads |
| Get chosen | Reviews, website, before-and-after content |
| Get booked | Online booking, call tracking, AI receptionist, lead follow-up |
| Bring them back | Hygiene recall, reactivation, email, referral program |
A small practice is usually better with three channels done well than seven done poorly.
Step 5: Set a Marketing Budget
Many practices set their dental marketing budget as a percentage of collections, often in the low-to-mid single digits, and invest more during growth periods or when opening a new location. A better method is to work backwards: target new patients multiplied by your allowable cost per new patient. Then split the budget between fixed costs (website, SEO, software) and flexible spend (ads) that you can scale up or down. Our guide on how much a dental practice should spend on marketing goes deeper.
Step 6: Build a 12-Month Calendar
Plan around your local seasons and schedule. In Florida, that often means considering seasonal residents in winter, back-to-school checkups in late summer, and end-of-year insurance benefit reminders in the fall. Add monthly tasks such as Google Business Profile posts, review requests, a blog article or treatment page, and one email to your patient list.
Step 7: Assign Owners
Every task needs one owner: the office manager, a team member or your agency. Write it next to the task. Plans fail most often because nobody is responsible for running them each week.
Step 8: Track and Review
Track a short list of metrics every month: new patients by source, calls and missed calls, booked appointments, cost per new patient, review count and rating, and case acceptance for major treatment. Review the plan quarterly and move budget toward what produces patients.
Free Dental Marketing Plan Template
Copy this outline into a document and fill it in:
- Goal: ___ new patients per month by ___ (date).
- Key numbers: current new patients ___; patient lifetime value $___; allowable cost per new patient $___.
- Ideal patients: profile 1 ___; profile 2 ___; profile 3 ___.
- Fixes first (next 30 days): Google Business Profile ___; review requests ___; missed-call process ___; website ___.
- Channels and budget: SEO $___; Google Ads $___; social $___; software $___; total $___ per month.
- Retention: recall process ___; reactivation campaign ___; referral program ___.
- Calendar: monthly tasks ___; seasonal campaigns ___.
- Owners: task / person.
- Metrics: reviewed on the ___ of each month by ___.
From Our Experience with Florida Practices
When we review plans from Florida dental practices, the strongest ones are short. They set one clear new-patient goal, fix missed calls and reviews first, and only then add paid traffic. Practices that skip the fixes usually end up paying more for every new patient.
How Medihike Can Help
Want this done for your practice? These services put the ideas in this article into practice:
Related
- Dental Marketing in Florida
- Dental Marketing Agency
- Best Dental Marketing Tools & Software
- All Dental Marketing Services
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a dental marketing plan include?
A dental marketing plan should include a new-patient goal, key numbers such as patient lifetime value and cost per new patient, ideal patient profiles, chosen channels, a budget, a 12-month calendar, task owners and the metrics you will review each month.
How do dentists advertise?
Dentists advertise through Google Ads, local SEO and Google Business Profile, social media, patient referral programs and recall campaigns to existing patients.
Why do dentists need a marketing plan?
A written plan keeps spending focused on the channels that produce patients, sets clear responsibilities and makes results measurable, instead of reacting to whichever vendor calls next.
What is a good ROI on dental marketing?
Judge ROI by comparing the value of treatment from new patients with the marketing cost. Track cost per new patient and patient lifetime value over several months rather than reacting to one month of data.
How often should I update my dental marketing plan?
Review results monthly and update the plan quarterly. Do a full rewrite once a year or when you add a location, a provider or a new major service.
Can a small dental practice market without an agency?
Yes. Many small practices handle Google Business Profile, reviews and recall in-house and use an agency only for SEO or ads. The plan template above works either way.
Sources
This article is general information for practice owners, not legal, tax or clinical advice. Rules and payer policies change; confirm details with the relevant authority before acting.
