Attracting Patients
to the Dental Clinic

Practice managers often find themselves wondering how to respond when competitors slash their prices and demand starts to dip, and what can be done to keep dentists' diaries full and build patient loyalty. The first thing most of them encounter in that search is a wall of articles about marketing in dentistry.

In my view, ninety-five per cent of it is padding — segmentation, customer focus, endless buzzwords — none of which will actually help you.

What are they weighing up when deciding who to turn to for help? What motivates them to act, and what holds them back?

First, let's set aside a word that tends to mislead: "marketing". Let's replace it with something far more straightforward: "reputation". A great deal is written about marketing in dentistry these days, weighing up the effectiveness of one advertising channel against another — but deep down, you already know that something else has been drawing patients to your clinic all these years. Not marketing. Reputation.

Reputation is what brings you loyal patients who never ask for a discount. Reputation is what starts word of mouth spreading. Reputation is what allows you to raise your prices. Reputation is what fills your waiting room. Ask yourself instead what you can do to build reputation and visibility, and it becomes clear you don't need to go looking for a marketer at all — you already know exactly what to do.

The crucial difference between these two words is this: think you need to work on marketing, and you'll go looking for a marketer. Decide to work on reputation instead, and it becomes obvious that only the dentist themselves can build it. No marketer can produce a good before-and-after case. No marketer can carry out a beautiful full-mouth rehabilitation and photograph it properly. No marketer can sit down with a patient on camera and talk through their problem with genuine understanding. No marketer can write a proper professional article for a journal. And that is the essential difference between those who hand the responsibility to someone else, and those who take their own fate firmly into their own hands.

To make this clearer, let's draw a parallel. Imagine you needed to settle a dispute over expensive property in court, and you were looking for a good solicitor. The cost of getting it wrong is high, there's no going back to change the outcome, and a good solicitor's time doesn't come cheap. What would you rely on when choosing one — an advertisement, or the number of similar cases they've actually won?

I think dentistry and law have a great deal in common. Both carry a high cost for error, the time of a genuinely skilled professional is expensive, and the consequences of unprofessional work are often irreversible. Which is exactly why that word-of-mouth reputation matters so much. It's why people read reviews carefully, and trust the recommendations of those who've already been through the treatment themselves.

When a practice owner calls me to discuss building a website, I raise two subjects straight away: first, a proper live photoshoot at the clinic, and second, implementing a photo protocol. I give a presentation showing the best ideas I've seen across dental clinic websites and implemented in my own projects — and I always point out the silly things clinics copy uncritically from one another. And I always dwell in detail on publishing "before and after" clinical cases, and on a clear, easy-to-understand price list. Look at your website analytics to see how attention is actually distributed across the page, and you'll find that it's the prices and the before-and-after cases that patients study most carefully of all.

We can integrate clinical cases beautifully and conveniently, completed and described in proper detail by the clinic's own dentists.

Here's a simple thought worth holding onto: to earn the trust of someone who's uncertain, you have to put yourself in their shoes. Faced with a difficult choice, the patient feels anxious. They know they have little information to go on, no real point of reference, and they're being bombarded from every side — adverts, questionnaires, calls from clinics. Comparing prices only deepens their doubt; making the decision feels hard, and treatment gets put off yet again.

The patient will choose you if you answer their difficult questions honestly, thoroughly, and with proper reasoning.

Show them examples of how you've solved similar problems before — this settles the question of quality. Set out a clear, all-inclusive price list, with the option of instalments or staged payment — this settles the question of affordability. Ease their anxiety with a warm, supportive video showing genuine understanding and sympathy, aimed purely at reassuring an anxious person. A video without medical jargon or clinical description, focused entirely on moral support — this is what gives them the strength to finally decide. They'll know they won't be left alone if a complication arises; they'll know they're being looked after.