Trending Articles

In the competitive world of dental care, attracting quality new patients is the top priority for dentists who want growth. While some dental offices moved solely to digital marketing due to perceived ease and cost savings, successful offices continued to embrace print marketing for its tangibility and localized impact. Now digital-only practices are realizing that this approach has caused a drop in new patient flow and market share, driving a resurgence in print marketing. Business owners who are focused on growth don’t choose one over the other; they harness the power of both physical and digital marketing. A 2024 study by the Direct Marketing Association reveals that campaigns combining physical and digital elements see a 24% higher conversion rate compared to digital-only campaigns. Direct mail gets the message across quicker, it’s easier to understand, and it drives action. In fact, multiple studies show that more than two-thirds of direct mail recipients visit a website after receiving mail, and for dentists, repetition builds recognition and trust, which are critical elements for attracting and converting new patients. This underscores the importance of leveraging multiple touchpoints to reach prospective patients. So, what makes the combination of physical and digital marketing so effective? And how can dentists use this to grow their practices? [Sc hedule a FREE Consultation ] The Science Behind "Better Together” & Why Integrated Marketing Works 1. Multi-Channel Exposure Builds Trust Consumers are more likely to trust a brand – or, in this case, a dental practice – that they encounter multiple times across various channels. Research shows that it takes 7 to 13 touchpoints for a prospect to convert into a client. When physical and digital marketing are integrated, they create cohesive brand messaging across these touchpoints, making it easier to build familiarity and trust. For example, imagine a prospective patient receiving a beautifully designed newsletter highlighting your clinic’s friendly care, expertise, and special offer for new patients. Later, they drive by your office and notice your name, and then they see your clinic’s Google Ad reinforcing the same message. This multi-layered exposure strengthens the likelihood of your target audience getting comfortable with your brand and scheduling an appointment. We see this meandering patient journey often as we track results through Practice ZEBRA®. 2. Tangibility Meets Accessibility While digital ads are efficient and cost-effective, they can be fleeting as users scroll past quickly, and messages are often forgotten. In contrast, physical marketing materials, such as direct mail newsletters, have a tangible quality that demands attention. A 2024 Postal Marketing Survey found that 72% of consumers are more likely to read and recall physical mail compared to digital ads. And today, physical marketing isn’t limited to phone engagement. This is where digital marketing bridges the gap. A newsletter with a QR code that directs users to your website ensures that your message stays both memorable and actionable. 3. Enhanced Targeting & Personalization They’re geo-centric. When digital and physical campaigns work together, data collected from one channel can inform the other, leading to more effective targeting. For example, we can identify high-value neighborhoods for your direct mail and digital campaigns using advanced demographic and psychographic insights. And, digital retargeting can follow prospects who have interacted with your neighborhood newsletter and subsequently visited your website. This geo-centric synergy between direct mail and digital marketing campaigns creates a system where leads don’t slip through the cracks, ensuring your marketing investments work smarter. Get data-driven for 2025 success. For dentists seeking to maximize the potential of integrated campaigns, Patient NEWS is an industry leader. With over three decades of expertise in dental marketing, we provide cutting-edge solutions that seamlessly combine physical and digital strategies. Use a next-level, data-driven approach. Data-driven marketing is the gold standard for 2025 because it allows dental offices to make smarter, more informed decisions that drive better results. When we say that our campaigns are data-driven, here’s what we mean: Using advanced analytics, we look at each dental practice uniquely to determine exactly where the practice is pulling market share and which households are driving the best revenue. This allows us to create like audiences, identify households most likely to respond to the practice, and geo-fence the hot core area for precisely targeted marketing investments. Digital retargeting to close the loop. By integrating your direct mail and website, Google Ads, Meta Ads, and email campaigns, prospective patients gain trust due to consistent branding and messaging. This ensures new patients who receive and act from your newsletter or visit your website see your ads across the web and have an improved likelihood of booking an appointment. Data-driven neuroscience with unbelievable customization. How we construct each dental marketing campaign – whether a print newsletter or dental website – from copy to imagery to placement of CTA (call to action) text has been neuro-analyzed to ensure that the content positively impacts the human brain and the user experience. This not only ensures the message is memorable and positive but that it resonates with the target audience and triggers action. Every word written and layout designed uses this science to create custom campaigns that highlight the unique value proposition of each dental practice. Our analytics are next generation. This allows dental offices to make smart decisions that lead to growth. By measuring the success of your campaigns in real-time, your practice gets valuable insights to continually optimize marketing results. With address, phone, and email attribution, dental offices can see the patient journey and how all the various touchpoints work in conjunction to lead to more new patients. Call scoring and analytics help drive operational and training decisions to support new patient growth. The data provides complete transparency to results, providing dental practices with next-generation results. Local “neighborhood” marketing expertise. With hyper-local targeting capabilities, we ensure that campaigns reach the right audience – families and individuals most likely to become loyal patients at your clinic. One of the most significant advantages of using an integrated approach is the ability to resonate with your ideal patients. By combining the tangible warmth of physical marketing with the convenience and reach of digital, you communicate in a way that reflects your dedication to care, quality, and trustworthiness. This also leads to production growth and new patient success. Users of our systems generated 25% more new patients than industry average, with production that is 2X that of industry average. For dental clinics, marketing strategies are no longer “either-or” decisions. The best results come from combining the enduring impact of physical marketing with the precision and scalability of digital campaigns. Dentists and dental marketing managers who embrace a “better together” approach will attract more patients and position their practices as modern, approachable, and trustworthy in an increasingly competitive market. With Patient NEWS, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Our integrated marketing solutions provide the tools and expertise you need to drive real results, helping your practice thrive in 2025 ! Yes, I said it! 😂 Here’s a snippet of a powerhouse practice combining all the arts of physical and digital marketing with Patient NEWS. This is an actual screenshot from Practice ZEBRA for the last 365 days. Neighborhood newsletters, websites and SEO, and Google Ads. A spend of $72,000 with projected new-patient revenue in the first year alone of almost $2 million. Not bad!

Prospective patients aren’t passively thinking about dental treatment, nor are most homeowners surrounding your practice passively wondering about your dental office. The modern patient journey doesn’t just start at search – people need to be prompted to think about dental treatments. They need to be made aware that your practice exists and that you’re the choice they should make when considering treatment. Using newsletters to reach your target audience is not only proactive but also guarantees reaching 100% of your ideal new patient households. The newsletter format adds a special touch for dentists wanting to attract quality new patients. Female head-of-household decision-makers are looking for quality information to make good decisions for their families, and they appreciate the value-added content of a newsletter. These decision-makers still make over 90% of all healthcare decisions. Direct mail campaigns trigger interest and drive consumers to call and check you out online for more information. By combining paid media with direct mail marketing, dental practices benefit from a multichannel approach by being visible where your audience lives, works, and plays. [I’d like more information] Multiple studies suggest that when direct mail and paid media are combined, the effectiveness of online campaigns improves by up to 400%. This is attributed to the high trust level that consumers have for direct mail. Statistics show that over 80% of consumers trust direct mail most when making a buying decision, and neuromarketing studies have shown that a four-page newsletter delivers the highest trust scores, with an almost 2X impact over digital and postcards. It all makes sense, doesn’t it? Reading something in print requires less cognitive effort, and the tangible physicality is proven to have an enduring effect on brand recall. As a crazy example, I was looking at a client today who had discontinued their direct mail campaign at the end of 2023 and still had direct inbound calls from the newsletter through 2024 and even into 2025, with a new patient booked just last month. That’s an enduring impact! People hold onto great information! Combining print with Google and META Ads offers dental practices an improved opportunity to capture new patient attention in their local community. Patient NEWS elevates it even higher with our high level of targeting, developing like audiences for both online and offline efforts, ensuring that the practice becomes more visible and consistent with the consumers they want to attract. At Patient NEWS, we precisely target consumers surrounding each practice with a geo-mapping analysis, capturing demographics, interests, and online behavior. This chart shows the results for an actual client who incorporated a Google Ads budget into their overall strategy for the combined power of Google Ads, custom website, and neighborhood newsletter, generating a superior ROI across all channels.

Congratulations to our wonderful client, Dr. Hazel Glasper, on her recent induction to the Class of 2025 (Peer to Peer) World’s Top Doctor . ♥  Isn’t this a fun, authentic photo?! #physicianoftheoralcavity No cookie-cutter here. Every website we create is written and designed with unique content and custom branding. We go through rigorous duplicity checks to ensure Google puts your website first – including coordinating your photo shoot to elevate your brand, build trust, and boost conversions! Please don’t dread updating your website. We make it all easy and convenient! It won’t disrupt your processes, it won’t create work for your team, and it will improve results ! Do you know who originally said the very common phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words?" It’s primarily attributed to Freddy Barnard, who wrote about images in advertising in 1921! Others are credited with the sentiment, including da Vinci, who said, “A painter can depict something in an instant, while a poet would be overwhelmed before they could describe it in words.” No matter who coined the adage, the fact is that humans process visuals 60,000 times faster than text – and images impact emotions quicker and more powerfully than words. Don’t dread changing your website. A modern, high-converting website with your own imagery will improve results and positively impact all your dental marketing campaigns. Plus, we make setup a breeze and include custom photos that will engage patients. Let us take care of it all for you! Schedule a consultation to find out more! Build Trust Perception of competence significantly and positively influences patient decision-making. Did you know that beyond the landing page of your website, the next most important page for a dental clinic is the About page? From a branding perspective, having up-to-date images and content when introducing yourself and your team is critical. Potential patients want to see their potential dentist and team and get a genuine feel for what the practice will be like. Create Emotional Connections Positive, fresh, and current photos of you and your team will help build a warm connection with your visitors, triggering positive emotions and building trust with the potential patients checking you out online. Great pics help people feel more connected when they see your authentic self, which makes them more likely to choose to do business with you. You don’t have to face any hassle trying to find and book a professional photographer, prepare for the shoot, figure out what type of images to capture, how to pose, or what to say. This will all be taken care of by the team at Patient NEWS! Get professional photography and video solutions with your website design and update. Schedule a consultation, and our team will run a complete online audit at no cost to you. You can also find out how we create like audiences based on your best patients to better customize and target your campaigns. This is all free as part of our consultation process. Find out more with a quick consultation Resonate with patients. With our professional system locked down, you can rest assured that your high-end photography session will yield great results and build an authoritative, accurate, true, and trustworthy brand image. Cohesive branding. By scheduling a professional session, we’ll be able to create a cohesive presentation of all doctor and team photos, plus interior and exterior shots of the practice to show patients the great experience they will have when they choose your practice. Show who you are. Updated, professional photos and videos will demonstrate to prospective patients what you’re like, the personality of the practice, and help form a trusted bond before they step into your office. Repurpose across all marketing. Once you have new imagery, it can be repurposed and used across all marketing campaigns, social media, direct mail, Google profile, Meta ads, local news outlets, etc. This will help build and enhance practice brand consistency and recognition. Encourage action and boost conversions. High-quality visuals are 43% more effective! With your new, high-converting website, users are more likely to take action. Our sites are fast, secure, video-enabled, accessible, SEO-optimized, and feature a mobile-first design. They also include social posts, unlimited call scoring, an analytics dashboard, online forms, and much more! Plus, our SEO programs deliver results. And with our amazing Account Managers at your side, you’ll never have to use a ticket system again! With Patient NEWS, it’s EASY (as easy as saying yes) to get a beautiful, high-converting website! Find out more by scheduling a free consultation meeting to see how you can benefit from a high-converting website from Patient NEWS. Our awesome team would love to help you get there! Call your Account Manager today to find out more, or schedule a call here !

When it comes to dental marketing, we’ve seen it all in our 30+ years of working exclusively with dentists. Check out today’s article for 25+ best dental marketing strategies for 2025 to help you grow your clinic, increase awareness and visibility, and make 2025 your most triumphant year yet! Schedule a free consultation The best growth marketing strategies for dentists are data-driven, consistent, and highly focused on local marketing. A successful multichannel strategy includes the best tactics to acquire and retain quality patients, expands your practice, and increases production in both digital and traditional marketing. No dental marketing strategy will have a 100% response, but every campaign can be optimized to improve results. In no particular order … 1. Examine your current website . User experience should align with practice goals. Want more new patients? Conversion needs to be easy, with quick access to contact information via multiple methods, which improves the experience. 2. Like audiences. When launching any new patient acquisition program, use analytics to create like audiences to geofence and precisely target those primed to respond. 3. Competitors. Understand the level of competition you’re facing and level up your investment in staying visible in market and top of mind in search. 4. New photography. We’re all guilty of leaving that picture up from five years ago. We looked pretty good, but fresh, current photography in your materials will give your brand an up-to-date feel and appeal. 5. Encourage reviews . Reviews are a key factor in building trust. Patients read reviews. Thoughtfully manage reviews with positive responses to every review. Consumers appreciate it when a business responds. Never engage or be defensive in negative feedback; instead, politely redirect those back to the practice. That’s your opportunity to show professionalism, honesty, and integrity. 6. Promote reviews on Facebook. The importance of reviews can’t be overstated for dental clinics. Social proof shows patients the quality of care they can expect from your practice. Create a standard template and cut and paste the actual review to use as a post. This adds valuable information that patients want to see to your feed. 7. Local SEO. Almost half of all searches have local intent. Your website and relevant keywords should be fully optimized, all listings accurate, and your Google profile connected. 8. Google Business Profile. Optimize your profile with relevant keywords and consistently add service posts linking back to your website for brand consistency and authority. Keep your information updated – especially contact information. 9. Build your social media presence. These are free opportunities for your practice to increase brand awareness and stay connected with existing and potential patients. Have fun sharing what your practice is all about, and get some ♥ ! 10. Digital ads. To truly stand out online, digital and retargeting ads can help get you to the top of search for your relevant keywords while building your SEO foundation. They also help ensure you reach potential patients at the right time. 11. Google Ads. Thousands of consumer search studies prove that more than 90% of people choose results that are featured on the first page of SERPs. Get fast, transparent results and accelerate your website traffic through highly targeted campaigns for your ideal demographic. 12. META (Facebook/Instagram) Ads. Unlike Google Ads, which catch people while they’re searching, META campaigns build top-of-funnel awareness by getting into people’s feeds. You’ll want a comprehensive awareness campaign that includes authority-building, lead generation, and conversion elements and optimizations. 13. Direct mail. No other marketing tactic will build more awareness for your practice in your target area – when done well. This is not a hit-and-miss campaign. Dentists who mail consistently to their target audience, month over month, while their practice intends to stay in its current location, reap the best rewards. 14. Stay with the plan. Remember: People may overlook or ignore marketing messages for various reasons. Some may not be in the market for a new dentist at the moment, some may miss a message or be unable to differentiate from other dentists, and some may be busy with other priorities but keeping your name back of mind for the future. Others may simply need education! It’s like brushing and flossing to keep teeth and gums healthy. Flossing every once in a while – or for a couple of days in a row – and expecting great results will not work. Stick with the plan. 15. Track and score inbound calls. Critical to maximize results from your new patient marketing campaigns. Not only does this help track campaign activity, but more importantly, it reveals the percentage of inbound calls that are answered live and what percentage move on to an appointment for the practice. This informs decision-making around staff training, job assignments, business decisions, and operations. Top tip: Just answer more inbound calls live, and you will onboard more new patients … regardless of source! 16. Email marketing. This is a very powerful tool, especially when you can automate an ongoing series of touchpoints. These keep your name top of mind with active patients and leads. 17. Retention campaigns. Nothing loses a patient more than perceived indifference. Invest a small portion of your budget in activities outside of transactions or emails. A quarterly mailed patient newsletter that hits homes has a significant impact on retention and referrals, and keeps patients connected to your practice in a way that many clinics simply don’t. Important statistics: Just 40% of working adults visited a dentist last year. 25% of patients are in “danger status” with no visit in over nine months. 75% of working adults PLAN to visit a dentist in the coming year. How will you capture some of the 75% planning to see a dentist? Schedule a free consultation 18. Loyalty programs that reward patients for commitment. This improves engagement and satisfaction. Every practice loses 20% of its patients annually due to naturally occurring attrition. Subscription models, contests, VIP gifts, referral games, and events are all worth consideration. That patient newsletter is a loyalty play, too, helping promote referral programs, membership opportunities, elective services, and more. 19. Reactivations matter. As noted above, on average, a dental practice hasn’t seen around 25% of their patients in over nine months. What happens when your reminder system peters out? Most patients just fall off the radar. Reactivate lapsing and inactive patients with a dedicated win-back campaign. These people know and (hopefully) love you and your team! 20. Become a local sponsor. Or focus volunteer efforts on one major cause that the practice can get behind to build community awareness and engagement. 21. Encourage word-of-mouth referrals. Outstanding customer service will always hit the mark, so don’t forget to ask every patient if there is anyone else in their household who needs an appointment. Make it easy for them to get one! If allowable in your area, offer referral incentives and contests. 22. Use attractive promotions . Don’t discount the discount! Most consumers want a quality dental experience, and new patient value proves that offering initial discounts, free consultations, bonus items, etc., to initiate that first visit does not impact the revenue contribution to the practice. In 2025, the average new patient will spend $2,000 versus $1,000 from an active patient, plus the referrals of other friends and family members. 23. If available in your area, invest in a membership program. These prove especially effective for practices working to reduce insurance participation, and they give front-office team members a way to convert patients looking for an in-network provider. Often, the annual membership to your practice will be less expensive than insurance coverage with more benefits to the patient. Patients and prospective patients should be consistently educated on this offer. 24. Train your office team on call conversion. The average practice misses 25% of new patient inbound calls and converts around 50% of those answered. The team answering the telephone needs to be “on” for all calls. Their job as the practice’s representative is to WOW all new patients and wipe out their need or desire to interview other competitive practices. To a new patient caller, your front-line team IS your practice. Clarity and enthusiasm give motivation to the call handler and others. It’s not always easy; it’s a skill, and it’s critical for marketing success. 25. Say thank you. As a company that has scored almost three million dental patient calls, it’s incredible how seldom call handlers thank the patient for calling or booking an appointment. Say thank you on the phone, in texts, in emails, and in person. Gratitude research has found that not only does saying thank you feel good to the giver, but it also helps build trust and closer bonds. 26. Bonus tip! Pay for the right advertising and stick with the plan. We look at strategies on an annual basis because it takes work and effort to increase practice visibility and gain the attention of very busy consumers in competitive markets. It takes time to coach teams to answer and convert calls, as well as establish practice authority with prospective patients … but repetition builds recognition and results. For a marketing plan to be successful, it needs to get your practice in front of your target audience – consistently. Of course, you want to ensure individual campaigns are performing so you can make educated decisions about future ad spend, but don’t be too quick to cut when trajectories look good. Tracking and attribution are difficult for all businesses, and this is only going to get more challenging as we move into 2025. A prospective patient receives direct mail, visits your website, drives by your location, talks to a friend, gets more direct mail, sees an ad in their social feed, and then calls from your billboard. Which touch gets attribution? First touch or last? It’s hard to say, but follow the patient journey and consider that if you’ve added one new initiative to your marketing campaign, and “coincidentally,” new patients increase…. 27. Bonus tip #2! Start your year off right with a complete market share, competitor, and demographic analysis. You can get your own 24-page detailed report from the team at Patient NEWS at no cost to you – a $795 value! Book a time to speak with one of our experts today and find out more. Schedule a free consultation

Attracting more new patients has a direct impact on clinical success, and one of the most efficient means of building greater awareness of your presence and gaining more new patients from your neighborhood is direct mail marketing. With email inboxes and social media feeds overflowing into an unmemorable blur, direct mail stands out and can provide instant credibility. Given today’s highly competitive dental market, dentists who recognize the advantages that this powerful weapon can provide will experience a differential advantage. Find out more Potential patients need a basic awareness of your practice before they can do business with you. Direct mail is the only way to reach 100% of a target audience and provide an extended shelf-life of the brand in homes. But not all direct mail is the same. Readers trust publications they read, and that gives your message instant credibility. Readers also regard newsletters as the most trusted format when it comes time to make a decision, offering a 17-day shelf life versus 3 days for a postcard. Newsletters tell them who you are, where to find you, and what services you offer. The format also provides a positive first impression – that you are the expert they require. Newsletters enable you to cultivate how your practice is viewed, your professionalism, your technology, your services, and your quality. There is a required formula to ensure that a direct mail campaign is effective. Be data-driven. Precisely target the households most likely to respond to your services. At Patient NEWS, we help our clients do that with advanced demographic analysis and patient mapping to create like audiences for list development. Great content. Newsletters are powerful! Newsletters are non-threatening because they contain additional helpful and interesting information that people want to receive, read, and respond to. Newsletters are valuable because they enable you to promote specific goals. Track results. Be sure you’re able to track results using address matching and call scoring. New patients who receive your direct mail piece may initiate their first contact with your practice via a website, form fill, or social site. Monitoring the full patient journey allows you to make good long-term decisions for practice growth. Are you persistent? This will lead to a more profitable practice. There are always obstacles to overcome. Encourage your team to focus on improving call handling and conversion. Stick with your marketing plan. Follow through on all aspects of it. Provide the necessary budget and adhere to the timelines you’ve identified. Direct mail has many benefits for your dental practice. Neighborhood newsletters help you keep in touch with current, lapsing, and new patients. They educate patients about new or additional services, establish credibility of the doctor and team, reinforce the capabilities of the practice, motivate word-of-mouth referrals, and bring in more new patients. Users experience a 6x ROI within one year . BONUS: For a short time, you can add 2,000 extra households to your neighborhood newsletter direct mail campaign with Patient NEWS at the lowest price ever! Schedule a time to chat with one of our experts and find out more. You’ll also get EXCLUSIVE USE of our newsletter solution for your area. No other dentist will be able to access the program. Grab your territory today! Sound interesting? Look at the number of new patients you saw in 2024. Was that an increase or decrease compared to 2023? It’s important to remember that the competition for new patients is intense! Patient NEWS clients attracted 25% more new patients than industry average, with average production at $2 million for 2024. Ready for growth in 2025? Get our proven program working for your office. Sign up here!