How dental practices get new patient leads

New patients find a dental practice in a fairly small number of ways, and most practices already have all of them running in some form, usually half finished. This guide goes through each source and which ones deserve your time first. Then it covers the part most marketing advice skips, which is what happens after someone gets in touch.

Where new patients come from

Google search and your Business Profile

When someone searches "dentist near me," a map with a few nearby practices often appears above the regular website results. Those listings come from Google Business Profile, which is free. What's on that profile has a lot to do with whether the patient calls you or the next practice. Our Google Business Profile guide covers each setting.

Your website

Almost every other source sends people to your website before they call, to check your insurance, your office and your dentist. A separate page for each treatment, written for patients, also gives Google something specific to show for that search. Local SEO for dental practices explains how to build those pages.

Reviews

Google says review count and rating factor into local ranking, and reviews are what patients read when two practices look alike on the map. Practices with a steady flow of reviews usually got there by asking every happy patient, every time, in a way that's quick for the patient. Google's policies don't allow rewarding people for reviews. How to get more Google reviews covers the asking.

Referrals and word of mouth

A patient telling a coworker about you is still one of the best leads there is, because the trust arrives with the name. Ask at the moments patients are happiest and make your name easy to pass along. Rules on rewarding referrals vary by state, so check with your state dental board or counsel before offering anything. More in dental patient referral programs.

Your patients' families

The spouses, kids and parents of people already in your chairs are the easiest new patients you'll ever get. Ask at checkout whether anyone else at home needs a dentist, and offer back-to-back appointments.

Patients who stopped coming

Reactivation starts with a list. Your practice management software can pull everyone with no recent visit and nothing on the schedule. Some moved. Others never got around to rebooking, and a call from someone they remember at the front desk is a reasonable nudge. Rules on texting patients vary by state, so check with counsel before you start a text campaign.

Insurance directories

If you're in network with dental plans, their find-a-dentist tools send patients who are choosing by coverage. Check each listing for the right address, phone number and dentists, since these tend to get set up once and forgotten. This source matters most to general practices.

Paid search

Google Ads puts you at the top of the searches you choose, starting today and lasting exactly as long as you pay. It suits high-value treatments and urgent needs, where the person searching is ready to book. It's also the easiest place to lose money fast, so read Google Ads for dentists before you raise a budget.

Paid social

Facebook and Instagram ads reach people who aren't searching yet. That suits treatments people think about for months, like clear aligners or veneers, far better than a toothache. Before and after photos in ads need the patient's written permission, and advertising rules vary by state. See Facebook and Instagram ads for dental practices.

Community and local partnerships

Health fairs, youth sports sponsorships and relationships with nearby physicians are slow and hard to measure. They also build the name recognition that helps every other source. Professional referrals belong here too. A general dentist who refers out periodontal cases and the periodontist who sends patients back both gain from knowing each other.

Which sources to work on first

Get the free basics right before spending money: a complete Business Profile, real treatment pages and a habit of asking for reviews. After that, the order depends on the kind of practice you run.

General and family practices

Your best patients stay for years and bring their families, so the slow, cheap sources pay off most: your profile, reviews, insurance listings, family referrals and reactivation. Paid search can help with emergencies or with filling a new associate's schedule, but we'd get the free sources working first.

Implant, cosmetic and periodontal practices

Each case is worth more and these patients are fewer, so you need to reach a wider area and you can afford to pay for it. Treatment-specific paid search, detailed treatment pages and paid social for cosmetic work matter more here. For periodontists and implant practices, relationships with referring general dentists deserve as much attention as any ad campaign.

These patients also take longer to decide, and many want to see what's possible before they'll talk to anyone. That's the gap we built Smile Fitter for: a patient takes a selfie on your website, picks a treatment and sees a preview of their new smile in about 10 seconds, then can request a consultation.

A lead is only worth something if it gets answered

What happens after a patient calls or sends a form decides whether any of this paid off. A missed call at lunch or a form left in an inbox over the weekend can lose a patient you already paid to reach.

The research on response time is blunt. A 2011 Harvard Business Review study by James Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran and David Elkington, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads," audited 2,241 US companies. Firms that tried to contact a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that waited even an hour longer, and more than 60 times as likely as firms that waited 24 hours or more. The average response time among companies that responded within 30 days was 42 hours, and 23 percent never responded at all. Those were businesses in general, not dental practices. Still, a patient with a broken tooth is unlikely to wait 42 hours for a callback.

In practice, one person should own every new inquiry. Return calls quickly during office hours, check forms through the day, and follow up with anyone who doesn't book the first time. Our guides on speed to lead, the front desk playbook and following up with leads who didn't book go into the details.

Where to start this month

Do two things. Spend an hour on your Google Business Profile. Then pull last month's new patient calls and form requests and count how many were answered and how many booked. If that second count surprises you, fix the answering before you add a single new lead source.