Why Your Dental Marketing Isn’t Working (How to Fix It)

Marketing is a tricky beast. If you’ve been putting in the effort but still aren’t seeing a steady stream of new patients, it’s easy to feel frustrated.

We know this because…

It’s what we hear all the time from dental practices nationwide.

So…

Shannon and Kelsey dive into the most common marketing mistakes practices make …

By the end of these 24 minutes, you’ll learn…

• The #1 mistake draining your marketing budget without results.
• How to laser-focus your targeting to attract high-quality patients.
• The shocking truth about why traditional marketing is failing.
• A game-changing local SEO tactic that’ll skyrocket your visibility.
• The secret building unshakeable trust with patients.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

This isn’t your typical marketing advice.

You’re getting real, actionable insights that have helped our clients achieve massive growth.

Watch the video above and/or read the transcript below.

Shannon: Okay, Kelsey, we’re finally starting one of our series, “You Asked, We Answered.” We get a lot of questions from interested people, other practices, when we’re lecturing, our current clients, our new clients, that sort of thing, and servicing, taking care of nationwide practices, we see a lot, we fix a lot.

We’re going to just jump in and give you the facts, right? Kind of a real talk. So we have a few questions that Kelsey and I are just going to have fun answering. So, Kels, I’ll ask you the first one. The first question is, can you share some of the worst targeting mistakes you’ve seen dental practices make?

This is a fun one.

What are the worst marketing mistakes you’ve seen dental practices make?

Kelsey: This is a fun one, and the list is long. So I’m just going to list out just a few of the ones that I see on a regular basis. I’d say the biggest ones would be failing to target the right audience. Trying to cover everyone, to be everything to everyone.

Another one might be overlooking, not understanding, or not valuing local SEO and then relying only on traditional methods. Maybe that’s print media, mailers, or radio advertising, but not being willing to step outside the box and try something new.

It could even be something as simple as not offering online services. You know, not being willing to look at the different tools and the way technology is adapting and changing and just being too scared to step outside of the box.

Shannon: So, let me stop you because that was a lot.

Let’s just break it down a little bit, okay? Kind of for each one. So when you’re talking about failing to target the right audience, how do they know the right audience? Like, how do they target the right audience?

Kelsey: Exactly. And that comes down to creating your target or ideal avatar. So, look at your patient base— who do you get excited to see when you look at your schedule? Is it John? Is it Sally? Is it Bob? And that person that you’re excited to see come into the practice, that’s your target. That’s your avatar who you want to go after. So now you look at, okay, well, what does Bob do? What does Sally like? Where do they live? What’s their job? What are their demographics?

And now you’re getting a clearer idea. Okay, so these are the types of people we want to target. That’s how we can go after them because that’s what they do, that’s where they live, that’s what they like. And now you have that average.

Shannon: And I think why that’s important, what I’m saying when you’re setting these strategies up for people, is that those avatars, they hear the messaging right away. They get their attention. They’re attracted to the office. And so then they’re getting patients that they really like.

They’re a little bit more quality, and you’re not speaking really vaguely. Right. You’re just getting a lot more people biting.

Kelsey: Exactly.

Shannon: Now you mentioned overlooking or not valuing local SEO. There have been loads of changes with local SEO, including this ‘near me’ trend. Can you expound a little bit on that?

Kelsey: Yeah. I mean, SEO, just as a term, is often maligned a bit, right? Because there are so many in the industry that just go, “This SEO, that SEO.”

I think a lot of practices just in general get to the point where they’re either jaded, they don’t care, or they just don’t understand the value of local SEO, why they need it, how it can actually drive meaningful ROI or return on what they’re spending back into the business.

Shannon: interesting, especially considering how some practices are still relying solely on traditional marketing methods.

And I’ll speak to this one a bit, because when we look at practices coming to us that are doing that, like maybe using a direct mailer or having a sign up on the baseball field, we’re not saying not to do it. But it’s about doing something more interesting, waking people up, connecting it to the website, connecting it to the digital part of their marketing too.

So then, if the traditional marketing methods are somewhat working, or they’re working okay, we can try to make them worth more, do more, that sort of thing.

That’s pretty interesting. A lot of people don’t talk about that. And one thing I’m talking to people about too is neglecting the patient experience.

People love to hear about wellness. It’s about having that front desk really warmly welcome them, because that then feeds the whole referral base, the internal marketing of the practice.

So we can get a lot more lifetime value from the new patients coming in if we’re really helping them to like, you know, relook at your new patient experience to make it even better, something new, fresh, exciting for the team also.

Kelsey: Exactly, and that actually lends into something else I was going to get your viewpoint on—doctors and practices not using storytelling as a way to reach their patients.

Not using authentic photos or having videos; they’re just relying on stock photography all the time. And I think that’s a huge miss.

And I know you’re on the phone all the time, day in and day out with doctors, stressing the importance of that. So I wanted to get your feedback on this.

Shannon: I think this is probably one of the biggest mistakes because stock images just aren’t working, and video is too powerful to ignore anymore.

A really cool thing is that most of your competition isn’t taking the time to shoot high-quality videos that interest people.

So, this is a massive way to really win in the marketplace, but it’s also a trust factor because people need to know, like, and trust you.

They need to see you. And so, if we’re telling stories, using testimonials, really good video, even about the services, breaking that up, kind of making it omnipresent, you know.

Omni-channel is huge right now, not doing that, kind of becoming the thought leader in the area—I would say that fixing that is probably the biggest mistake that, if corrected, would massively shift their marketing and their patient base.

Kelsey: A hundred percent, I agree with you on that. And that actually leads into another failure that I see quite often—just using cookie-cutter messaging. You have the cookie-cutter aspect in terms of stock photography and videos and things like that.

Then we have the same thing, like “the best dentist” or “the hottest technology.” And who cares, right? I mean, that’s cookie-cutter messaging.

So that’s a huge fail and it affects practices that are willing to step out of the norm and really let their uniqueness come through.

Everybody’s a dentist. Everybody can put in a filling. Everybody can place a crown. Everybody can restore implants. That’s not what makes you, you. And that’s what patients want to see. Patients want to see your uniqueness. How are you different from the other 200 dentists that are in your area?

Shannon: And to speak to that, the messaging, the photos, the videos, here it is.

Here’s the sense of urgency, why we’re saying this and why it’s so important for you doctors to pay attention. Did you know that since 2020, our social channels, audience, eyes, and attention have doubled and sometimes tripled? What does that mean as a business owner? There’s so much more noise out there, so much more competition.

Yes, you have more eyes. That’s great because we can build up your practice. But if you’re not standing out, you’re wasting your marketing dollars. It’s not going to do any good. So please listen to that. I would say that’s such a big mistake that these guys are making that if you could take that one thing away, that is your gold nugget.

There you go. There’s something to think about. Okay, I have another question here. Do you have a question? Do you want to ask it?

Kelsey: Well, I have a question I’d like to go next.

This one’s a big one.. So…

What are some signs that a dental practice’s marketing efforts are not working?

Shannon: I would say that they’re losing their patients. Their patient churn is super high, and it’s higher than even the new patients that they’re getting.

Kelsey: Right.

Shannon: I would say that that is a huge alert for any practice.

Kelsey: Something else that I see also ties into that is maybe they’re not losing, right? So maybe they’re looking at their numbers and thinking, “You know what, it’s not that bad. We’re maintaining growth, or we’re staying kind of status quo.”

But actually, that’s a sign that your marketing practices aren’t working because if you’re just stagnant, if you’re just staying right where you are, you are losing. You’re falling behind the competition because your community is growing.

People are coming in, moving in. And if you’re just staying the same, then you’re not actually keeping pace with the growth and changes in your community.

Shannon: Yeah, and I would say a big complaint that I hear almost every day on the phone is that they’re getting a lot of unqualified patients and loads of no-shows. And their current marketing is not nurturing them to get them in. And, you know, using that cool content that we were talking about to get them into relationships.

So it’s that—getting way too many unqualified patients and the no-shows because that exhausts the team really quickly. Yeah.

Okay, I’ve got another one. Let’s keep it going.

So..

What metrics should dentists focus on to measure the success of their marketing investments?

You get asked that all the time.

Kelsey: I do. I mean, you know what? You’re speaking my love language here. You’re getting into numbers and metrics, and I get to kind of geek out. So, I think I’m just going to run through a list of ones that we see as valuable, and then we can comment on the meaning of some of those. One would be the customer acquisition cost, or as we refer to it, CAC.

So, how much does it actually cost you to bring a new patient into the practice, not just a lead or not just a phone call, but the actual acquisition cost? A lot of times, practices have no clue. They just think it’s around this or probably about that, and they have no idea what the true cost is.

Another one is the lifetime value. What is a patient actually worth to your practice? How long do they stay? Do they stay seven years, ten years? Because then you can take that annual value and find out that if you bring one patient into your practice, it could potentially be worth five to ten thousand dollars over the lifetime of that patient just doing regular maintenance.

It’s care, not even having any kind of treatment. And then looking at both the projected ROAS and unconfirmed ROAS. So if you’re running ads, this is really something that your agency should be looking at day to day is if I’m spending 2, 3,000 on ads, how much am I going to get back from that? Like what am I projected return?

And what is the actual confirmed return? Are they logging in? Are they going through the practice management software? And do they have hard numbers saying, look, you spent this, you’ve invested this much, you’ve given us this much of your hard-earned dollars, but we’ve made you this, and if they can’t tell you that, well, again, that’s a fail, right?

That’s on your marketing efforts. I’d say another one would probably be how long it takes you to get back to your leads.

Shannon: Oh, lead response time.

Kelsey: Yeah, I’d say that’s probably one of the bigger ones.

Shannon: Is that speed to lead or something like that in the industry?

Kelsey: So many times, Shannon. I mean, we’re talking to practices day in and day out.

Both of us on calls, and I think a lot of times practices and doctors, they mean well. And they actually do believe it when they say, “Oh, we get back right away. We’re really good at following up with leads.” But then you drill in, you actually start listening to these calls, and you find out that sometimes over half of the leads are never followed up with.

And the ones that are followed up with sometimes take three, four, five business days. And frankly, that’s not enough because they’re gone. If you get a lead that comes in and you don’t respond to them within five minutes and multiple times, you’ve just lost it to your competitor.

Shannon: Absolutely, because they’re on to the next, right?

Even after we do the first day, it’s also about follow-up, you know, for a week to make sure that they get on. It’s a lot of work to text and, you know, you need someone on the team who’s really in it to win it for the practice. Because marketing, yes, it’s expensive, right? To build out those good quality patients, so we don’t want to lose any of the opportunities.

And tell me a little bit about the qualifying rate. Explain what that is.

Kelsey: So the qualifying rate is, you know, how many people look at the ads, maybe they interact with the ad, maybe they even get to your landing page, but how many actually go through and follow through with booking an appointment, then show up for the appointment, and then accept treatment.

We look at different metrics of being able to actually qualify the leads as they come in based on a survey or based on a questionnaire.

So some kind of a list of where they’re not just now an interested top of the funnel but now we’re getting them to the bottom of the funnel where they actually want to show up. They can’t wait to meet you.

They’re excited to see the practice and to get to know the staff.

Shannon: Especially for comprehensive or high-ticket cases. I think that’s super important, too

Kelsey: I’ve got another question for you, though. You’re going to have most likely every day on sales. So you’re talking to these doctors, you’re talking to these practices. So, you know, maybe they’ve spent it in the past. Maybe they’ve talked to other agencies or they’re with another agency and they just had poor results.

So what would you say to them if they’re skeptical about investing in marketing?

What would you say to a dentist who’s skeptical about spending more on marketing after having poor results in the past?

Shannon: Well, I always refer to one of my favorite quotes from Henry Ford because he was a go-getter who built a huge business after many failures.

He said…

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

That’s where we love to step in. We educate and show what’s happening with strategy before tactics. Our metrics are crucial in distinguishing our doctors.

Honestly, I started in dentistry in 1987 as an assistant and at the front desk, and eventually, I marketed everyone through my agency.

Going to the dentist can be a hard sell; people generally don’t enjoy it. It’s similar when they’re choosing a marketing agency.

I can market dentists effectively because I understand both sides. Doctors come to us frustrated. You might meet a dentist who is very nice but performs terrible dentistry.

But let’s be clear, it’s about results.

And to be completely transparent, with social channels doubling and competition from AI, marketing has become more expensive with a lower ROI.

You must act intelligently because growth is not just an option but a necessity. That’s why we’ve implemented metric systems and nurture funnels, discussing our wins and what’s happening with doctors daily.

Our 50 team members take ownership of our doctors’ successes.

Running a dental practice daily is challenging.

I want to show you exactly what we’re doing. I want to give you metrics, a dashboard, a CRM—everything to show how your patient growth is progressing transparently.

We need to prove this to you, but we also have honest conversations. Want 100 new patients? That will cost you—on average around $2000. But we understand which levers to pull.

I completely understand the skepticism. With all the changes in human psychology, now you must use video and get directly in front of them. If we set it up correctly from the start, even though it’s more costly, you’re going to win.

Is there anything else you would add from these conversations?

Kelsey: Yeah, there would be. I mean, you’re right. The Yellow Pages are dead. Gone are the days when you could just flip through the book, and if you were listed under ‘A’, you’d show up first, and that’s who they’d choose.

Touchpoints are crucial.

People need to see you more than once.

And I think when you look across the spectrum of the most successful practices, one thing they have in common is that they’ve made mistakes. But when they make these mistakes, they don’t just quit.

They don’t throw a tantrum and say, “Well, I wasted my money and it didn’t work.”

No, they learn from their mistakes, right?

That’s really what sets an elite practice apart from the others. They know what didn’t work and what does work. And now, they’ve taken what does work and made it even better.

Shannon: And they’ve gone all in. You know, it’s not just practices—it’s every business. They’re running their businesses; we’re running it with them, jumping in together.

I ensure that the contracts don’t make them feel locked in. If they’re not seeing results after 90 days, that helps them. Let’s start with your number one priority—that would shift the biggest problem you have. We build our trust with you gradually.

I don’t try to sell them a huge, big thing if that’s not what they need, or they’re just not sure yet. It’s like, give us 90 days, and you’ll see what we can do for you.

And I think that’s the biggest shift for them, being able to meet with our team—the people who are in the trenches with them.

They onboard them, meeting the campaigns team, and they have one quarterback who takes care of them.

Seeing that onboarding process is one of the biggest things we’ve really honed in on because of the trust factor. I get where they’re coming from.

Some marketing agencies have let many down. So, we’re here to prove ourselves and turn things around, just like we have for all our other practices.

Kelsey: Definitely. One of our recent standout case studies is Hylan Dental Care. They were skeptical because they had been poorly burned by other agencies. Naturally, they were very cautious.

However, they chose to invest wisely in proven strategies and took the right steps.

The results have been impressive. Despite launching a brand-new site, their organic traffic has already increased by over 300% compared to their previous site.

Shannon: That’s right baby!

Their funnel, along with the strategies for the three locations, is a fantastic example. Building that trust took many conversations.

He’s extremely knowledgeable about marketing, so we also enjoy those discussions. This case study is a great example that we can share with anyone experiencing similar challenges.

Okay, one last question:

What affordable yet effective marketing strategy would provide a high return right away?

Kelsey: That’s a fantastic question. There are hundreds of tactics you can use, but I would narrow it down to three key items that are guaranteed to bring back a return.

One of those would be a lead generation function. This isn’t just about paid ads or advertising on Google PPC—anybody can do that. What’s crucial is having a proven system to actually generate qualified leads. This is guaranteed to bring back a return on your investment.

Another important strategy is local SEO, which we touched on earlier. Many practices fail to understand or value local SEO.

In today’s digital landscape, especially for brick-and-mortar businesses with multiple locations in one city or across several small areas, having a strong presence in Google Maps is vital.

For example, the term “dentists near me” averages 500 searches a day. If you’re not being found for that term, you’re essentially paying other practices to attract your potential patients, which doesn’t make sense.

The third item is looking at your website.

Many practices we talk to have websites that are 10 or 12 years old. They might say, “Yeah, but my daughter did this,” or “My son built it.”

The fact is, it’s out of date. A simple redesign, focusing on modern technology, can bring back a massive return on investment.

Shannon: And with those videos and photos that we talked about, it’s like a home run.

I love that. I would also add a little internal marketing, like creating a really cool and easy referral system for the team.

We have some great ideas for that. Consider looking at your current patient list and finding ways to nurture them.

Engage with them more meaningfully instead of just sending reminders about their cleaning appointments.

Share recipes, talk about oral systemic health, and use marketing psychology to build stronger connections.

These are strategies we frequently help our doctors with, and they can be highly effective.

Kelsey: Just be you.

Shannon: That’s right.

Kelsey: I have one more question.

Shannon: Oh my gosh. I thought we were done. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Let’s do it.

Kelsey: So…

If you could give just one piece of advice to a dentist who was struggling with their marketing, what would it be?

Shannon: Normally, when practices struggle, they don’t know where they want to go. They haven’t created a strategy to get there. As a result, they feel things should be working but aren’t, and they lack the numbers or data to back it up. They don’t have a plan.

First, I would sit down and conduct a SWOT analysis: identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

We must evaluate what’s working well and find ways to enhance those areas. Conversely, we must address what isn’t working and discard outdated methods. For example, if something didn’t work in 1997, it’s time to let it go.

We must step back and help them set their strategies, targets, and goals. Without this, they will remain frustrated and won’t achieve the results they’re looking for.

Kelsey: A hundred percent agree. You need to have reliable measurements in place so you can determine with certainty whether your marketing is effective.

Once you have those measurements, you can confidently assess whether you’re going to be successful or if something isn’t working and why. Having clear goals will help you make these evaluations.

Shannon: Having those measurements gives you the levers to make continual adjustments. It’s all about optimizing, split testing, and making shifts as needed.

This approach allows for a more intelligent and strategic conversation with your marketing agency. You can discuss what’s working, what isn’t, and whether you’re satisfied with the results. Based on these insights, you can decide whether to continue along the current path, make adjustments, or try a new strategy.

Kelsey: Great advice. Awesome.

Shannon: Oh, thank you, Kelsey, so much for hopping on and answering my questions. I hope it helps all of the peeps out there.

Kelsey: We’ll have more questions. I’m sure.

Shannon: Yes. We’ll be back with matching outfits.

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