Dental marketing consultant for practices and DSOs. More new patients who accept treatment and keep their hygiene visits.
Say you spend $15,000 a month on ads and your PMS shows 50 new patients. That's $300 a patient, if you can trust the count. As your dental marketing consultant and fractional CMO, we tie new-patient calls, treatment acceptance and hygiene recall to one set of numbers, then run the plan until production grows where you want it.
Seven places a dental practice loses production.
A practice grows when the right patients call, book, accept treatment and come back for hygiene. Each of the seven dimensions controls one of those steps.
- Problem 01Marketing strategy
The ads attract PPO shoppers, not the cases you want.
The practice wants implants, clear aligners and fee-for-service patients. The ads pull PPO shoppers looking for a free cleaning. The schedule fills, production per visit stays flat, and the doctors spend chair time on low-fee work. Decide which patients you want before you buy another click.
- Problem 02Marketing data
You can't trace an implant case back to its source.
The PMS, the call tracker and Google Ads each report a different new-patient count. Without source data at the procedure level, you keep paying for channels that bring checkups and cut the ones that bring full-arch and aligner cases.
- Problem 03Funnel friction and CRO
New-patient calls go to voicemail at lunch.
Calls hit voicemail at lunch, after hours and on Monday mornings. Online booking asks for insurance details before it shows a time. Say you miss 20 new-patient calls a month and half would have booked. That's 10 patients you paid for and handed to the office down the street.
Where new patients drop out before booking - Problem 04Marketing process
Unscheduled treatment sits in the PMS untouched.
Patients leave with a treatment plan and no next date. Nobody owns the unscheduled treatment list or the overdue hygiene list. Production you already diagnosed expires a little every month. Give both lists an owner and a weekly call block.
- Problem 05Marketing team
The front desk is trained on billing, not on booking.
Your team runs insurance, check-in and the phones at once. Nobody has coached them on the caller who opens with "Do you take my insurance?" or "How much is an implant?" So the most expensive call in the practice gets the least prepared answer.
- Problem 06Marketing technology
Your PMS, phones and reminders don't share data.
Dentrix or Eaglesoft holds the chart, a separate tool sends reminders and the call tracker lives somewhere else. Staff retype the same patient three times, and recall texts reach people who already booked. Tracking also has to stay HIPAA-aware, with no ad pixels on forms that collect patient details.
The healthcare practice marketing stack - Problem 07Marketing communication
Your website sounds like every other dentist in town.
Stock smiles and "gentle family dentistry" give a nervous patient no reason to choose you. Show your doctors, how you handle anxiety and pain, and what a first visit costs with and without insurance. That is what a patient compares before calling.
How we fill a dental schedule with patients who stay.
We start with your PMS and phone data. Every change gets measured in booked, accepted and completed treatment.
- 01
Weeks 1 and 2
Inspect
We pull production by procedure, new patients by source, call recordings and recall rates by location. The dashboard puts spend next to new patients who showed and what each one cost.
Then we listen to how the front desk handles a first-time caller asking about price and insurance.
What you getA dashboard of production, new patients and cost per new patient by source and location.
Marketing Impact OSDental practiceInspectMarketing attributionLast 90 days vs the 90 beforeNew patients437+7%Cost per new patient$128+1%Show rate72%−2 ptsRevenue$528,400+7%Source Spend Booked Showed Revenue Cost per patient Google Ads $27,000 180 135 $162,000 $200 SEO $9,000 150 120 $156,000 $75 Meta $13,500 150 75 $67,500 $180 Zocdoc $6,600 60 44 $48,400 $150 Referrals $0 70 63 $94,500 $0 Total $56,100 610 437 $528,400 $128 No ad pixels on patient pages
- 02
Weeks 3 and 4
Ideate
We rank fixes by production: answering more calls, reactivating overdue hygiene, changing how treatment is presented, or moving spend toward implant, aligner and emergency searches.
Each fix gets a dollar estimate and an owner. You approve the order before any work starts.
What you getA ranked plan of fixes, each with a dollar estimate, an owner and its expected gain.
Marketing Impact OSDental practiceIdeateThe plan, ranked by impactGains per month- 1Confirm every booking by text and callMeta bookings have a 50% show rate.+20 new patients+$24,000 revenue
- 2Move $1,500 a month from Google Ads to SEOSEO costs $75 per new patient. Google Ads costs $200.+12 new patients+$15,000 revenue
- 3Answer every call before the third ringMissed calls book somewhere else.+8 new patients+$10,000 revenue
- 4Ask for a review at checkoutMore reviews lift your rank on Maps.+4 new patients+$5,000 revenue
If the plan holds+44 new patients a month
- 1
- 03
From week 5, biggest fix first
Implement
Call handling, booking and follow-up get rebuilt first. Then Google Ads, local SEO and the website.
Your team gets call scripts for insurance and price questions, a recall cadence and one dashboard per location. Each task shows who owns it, the week it's due and whether it's done.
What you getCall scripts, a recall cadence, one dashboard per location and a work list with owners.
Marketing Impact OSDental practiceImplementThe work2 of 4 done- Two-way confirm texts 48 and 2 hours outFront desk lead · Week 1Front desk leadWeek 1Done
- Move $1,500 a month from Google Ads to SEOAgency · Week 2AgencyWeek 2Done
- Overflow calls to a second lineOffice manager · Week 3Office managerWeek 3In progress
- Review request at checkoutFront desk · Week 5Front deskWeek 5Next
Monday check-in Every open task gets a status. A late one gets a new date and a reason.
- 04
Every week, with a review every 90 days
Iterate
Every week we review new patients, case acceptance, hygiene reappointment and the unscheduled treatment list. When a location or channel slips, the plan changes that week.
What you getA before-and-after of new patients and production every 90 days, with a review naming the next decision.
Marketing Impact OSDental practiceIterate90 days laterBefore → after- Cost per new patient$128$106−18%
- New patients437530+21%
- Show rate72%81%+9 pts
Cost per new patient by monthZachary's reviewNew patients went from 437 to 530 on the same $56,100. Show rate went from 72% to 81% once every booking got a confirm text. Next: start recall so these new patients book their next visit before they leave.
The numbers a dental practice runs on.
- Cost per new patient
- New-patient call answer rate
- Treatment acceptance rate
- Hygiene reappointment rate
- Production per new patient
- Unscheduled treatment value
The right level of help for where you are.
A single-office practice usually starts with the Marketing Impact Roadmap: about four weeks to find the biggest leak and put a number on each fix. The Fractional CMO Retainer then runs the plan every week. Groups and DSOs adding offices often need the Fractional Marketing Team, so every location follows one playbook and reports into one dashboard.
Compare all fractional CMO servicesBrands we have worked with
- Schaefer Dental Group
- Renken Dentistry
- Galleria Oral Surgery
- Art of Dental Marketing
Frequently asked questions.
What does a dental marketing consultant do differently from an agency?
An agency runs ads or SEO and reports clicks. A dental marketing consultant owns the result across all of it. We look at call handling, treatment acceptance, recall and the PMS data, decide where production is leaking, then direct the agency, the front desk and the tools to fix it in order.
Should my practice market to PPO patients or fee-for-service patients?
It depends on your fee schedule, your chair capacity and the procedures you want to grow. Many practices keep PPO patients for hygiene volume and market implants, aligners and cosmetic work to fee-for-service patients. Dropping a network is a big move. We model both mixes from your own production data before recommending where a dollar goes.
How do you market a multi-location dental group or DSO?
One playbook, local execution. Each office gets its own Google Business Profile, call tracking and budget, while brand, reporting and the front desk process stay the same. We compare offices side by side, so a weak one gets help before it drags the group down. Zachary has helped a healthcare practice grow to 16 locations.
How much does a fractional CMO cost for a dental practice?
Pricing depends on scope: how many offices you run, how much of the work we own, and whether you already have a coordinator or agency. We quote after the assessment call. Ongoing dental engagements are month to month, with no setup fees.
How fast will we see more new patients?
Fixes to call answering and overdue hygiene usually show first, because those patients are already calling or already in your system. New campaigns and SEO take longer to build. The Roadmap lays out the order and the expected effect of each move, so you know which number to watch each week.
Where to next.
Start with your free Marketing Impact score.
It takes a few minutes. You get a score from 1 to 5 on each of the seven dimensions of your marketing and see where to start. If you’d rather talk first, book a free 30-minute call.