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The Old Dental Marketing Playbook Is Dead - What Actually Works in 2026 | WOM 011 · The Word of Mouth Podcast

• Jeffrey Lunt: Welcome to the Word of Mouth Podcast, your weekly podcast breaking down the business, trends, and news affecting dentistry today. I'm your host, Jeff, and this is my co host, Sarah. Sarah Lunt: Hey Jeff, how are you doing today? Jeffrey Lunt: Doing awesome. ⁓ so last week we talked a little bit about the patient experience in office and how it affects how dental practices are able to grow and develop their practice. This week we're gonna shift focus just a little bit and talk a little bit more about the marketing and new patient acquisition for practices. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, Jeff, I think dental marketing used to be pretty simple, pretty straightforward, where you run Google Ads, you get listed on directories, and maybe send send out some mailers to the local community. ⁓ think marketing has changed drastically for dentists, and I think a lot of dentists are not keeping up with these changes. They're sticking to what used to work in the past. ⁓ I think A lot dental practices are taking a hit because they're not adapting to these changes. ⁓ Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, I mean, I think we kind of went through a similar thing in the early two thousands. For a long time, dentistry had all been about growing your practice through kind of your local community. ⁓ even going back to the original barber surgeons who kind of were dentists as well in the twelfth and thirteenth century, coming the way through into the nineteen hundreds, it was really about getting involved in your local community. community and becoming kind of the go-to guy for dentistry. Then the yellow pages came out and that became a thing. And then we saw that kind of die off with the rise of digital ads and the accessibility of running Google and Facebook ads. and now we're seeing that die off and we're actually returning back to what was working a little bit more in kind of the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, more of that community focus because people are so inundated with ads. Not that ads aren't a part of the strategy, but they can't be the whole strategy, which is where I think dentistry and a lot of industries got to over the last ten, fifteen years. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, like you said, people are just getting overwhelmed with ads. They're hearing this and that from all sorts of people. And so I think ultimately it comes down to trust. People want to go somewhere they trust, So they'll look into multiple options before making that choice. Whereas I think before it was a little more search dentist near and kind of go with the first option. Now With AI and even with an emphasis on this more luxury dentistry I think people are a little more picky with who they choose. And so I think these dental practices need to position themselves ⁓ in way that builds that trust and that attracts these people looking at multiple different dental offices. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, I think the best place to get a new patient is from a referral and it's because that trust is already built in. If I recommend my dentist to you, you trust me and that trust is passed to the dentist, where they feel like they'll have a good experience because I've had a good experience. I think a lot of that also comes down to the old adage that we're the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. So if dental practices are wanting to acquire more of a certain kind of patient, ask those kinds of patients that are already in your practice because the chances are that the people that they spend time with are people like them. And so if you're wanting to try and clone your best patients, the best way is to ask those patients for people who are like them. And I mean it's flattering too to ⁓ hear from a dentist, hey, we love having you into the practice. Do you know any other people who might be great patients like you? and so a little flattery goes a long way. Don't make it too over the top, of course, but I think that that's a great way for patients to have more trust and why referrals and kind of that local community of dentistry is coming back is people know that you can kind of farm good reviews now ⁓ so they're looking for other ways to develop their own educated opinion about a Sarah Lunt: And on top of that, Jeff, I mean, getting referrals is the cheapest way to do marketing, in my opinion, Just asking someone is completely free, doesn't take much time, you don't have to pay an outside marketing company to bring these people in. so I think it's it's cheap, ⁓ simple once get into the habit of doing it in your dental office. ⁓ And it's the most effective in getting the patients that you actually want, not just the ones coming in for the routine cleanings. asking for in the right way is very underutilized across dentistry. And I think these practices need to capitalize on this ⁓ opportunity to build their practice through referrals. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, I mean it all comes back to the Pareto principle where twenty percent of effort gets eighty percent of results. And if we look across all of the dental practices that we talk to, people are spending at least eighty percent of their time, money, and effort on Google ads, on SEO, on mailers. And they're spending twenty percent or less on refining ways to attract new patients to their office that do fit their ideal customer profile. we talked a little bit a few episodes ago about how insurance is like the most expensive marketing you could possibly have being part of an insurance plan. because ⁓ if you're every single time that patient comes in, you're paying the insurance $150 to have that. or whatever to have that patient in your seat, that that patient's cost of acquisition just continues to go up. where you get a referral who comes in and now if you're their fee for service you're or on the in-house plan, it's just ⁓ gravy. Like no added marketing cost to that outside of maybe a promotion for The patient who referred and a promotion for the patient who's incoming. And even those I think have a lot of nuance. Sarah Lunt: yeah, Jeff, and you briefly talked about SEO that kind of online presence for these dental practices. ⁓ And it's true that referrals are a fantastic source these ideal patients, it's important to acknowledge that ⁓ SEO online presence are important, but maybe not in the ways ⁓ that are approaching it. I think the approach has shifted online, and lots of dentists are unaware of how to deal with these shifts. And I think there are a lot of marketing companies that aren't making these shifts as well that are putting these dentists back when they could be moving forward and getting more of these ideal patients. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, I think look at the things that worked and a lot of it was kind of set it and forget it. Get a good website. ⁓ maybe run a blog, but a lot of it was kind of get a good website, get your Google business profile optimized, and sail off into the sunset. And now there's a lot more involvement between ⁓ some of those things, those efforts, but coupling them with efforts getting involved in local community, doing education events, sponsoring local teams. ⁓ we've talked in the past about like sponsoring a team and doing mouth guards and getting Patience to come or getting the participants in that team, getting the athletes to come into your practice ⁓ bring their parents and get to know you. doing more of those things that build trust. I think it used to be ⁓ that having a website was enough to build trust because there were so many people who didn't have a website. it used to be that having 500 five-star reviews was enough to build trust because most people got. But A a crazy trend that we've seen is that negative reviews are actually having a bigger impact on trust than positive reviews because people are confident that negative reviews are real. And so being able to see how the dentist and and the practice reacts to those negative experiences and how they make it right in their response and and those kinds of things are more valuable for the practice than 25 five star generic kind of reviews. And so a lot of it isn't necessarily doing less of the digital side of things of ads and website. It's just being more intentional about how you're implementing it and changing the strategic focus of it a little bit. Getting more intentional reviews, getting better referrals, having your website identify your involvement in the community and highlight those things. ⁓ all all of that Is encompassed in this kind of new age of dental marketing that we're kind of just on the forefront of and AI is just accelerated. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, and I mean we've talked about asking those ideal patients, those patients you love to see, you love to work with, the ones that are getting high-end services that you want to ⁓ more of, asking them for referrals, I think those are the types of patients you want to ask for reviews, right? They'll write the detailed reviews about why they like your service. Like you said, Jeff, quality of reviews matters. It's true that if you see a dental practice with a two-star rating, ⁓ that's gonna draw your attention more, not you want to go, but because you're curious why their ratings are so bad. You're gonna read those negative reviews. Whereas ⁓ there are lots of dental practices with 4.95-star ratings, that's maybe not as attention-grabbing anymore, but some of these more detailed ⁓ reviews can make a big difference for these practices if they are personal, if they feel real, if they're more detailed on service or the quality of the experience, not just, you know, staff was friendly just kind of the more generic reviews. It's easy to see through those a hundred percent, but ⁓ also testimonials. ⁓ Right. Getting these patients that you love working with and filming a quick testimonial, putting that on your website. like you Jeff, it's not doing less of this, it's just doing it more intentionally and building this trust and getting this reputation of being trustworthy, I think requires a little more creativity right now. We've talked a lot about the necessity of creativity in ⁓ dentistry now. And I think this is one of those areas where that definitely applies. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, I we went down to one of the practices we work with in Garland and just in the day that we were there, we got six patients who came in and gave a video testimonial and we'll be rolling those things out on their socials, on their website, in their newsletters and taking snippets and making a video that they can send out to new patients so that even before the patient comes in, ⁓ there's an opportunity to continue to build that trust just because they have an opportunity. opportunity to see the people's faces, to hear their voices, and it's so much more real than just kind of the keyboard warrior on a Google review. Even if it's positive, it feels less genuine because of how we all interact with with keyboards and written text on online in That it probably means just a little bit less than sitting down and or standing up and just taking a video on your iPhone. So they're super easy to capture, and most patients are happy to say to two sentences about their experience in your practice, but it does require the discipline of remembering to ask and and being willing to just be a little bit uncomfortable and and have your patients maybe be a little bit uncomfortable. But we talk a little bit a lot about this actu. But we talk a lot in our training that's gonna be rolling out in our school community coming up, about opportunity for these golden triggers, these moments where patients are already feeling kind of that reciprocity effect in psychology where you've provided an excellent service. They're looking in the mirror and they say, Man, my smile looks amazing. Thank you so much. and That's that's a golden trigger moment. You can say, We're so happy, you're pleased with your work. Would you be willing to share so that other people who are in your situation can get the same level of service? And and people are happy to repay the favor. They they feel like you've done them a great service and you have as a dentist. but taking advantage of that is something requires and focus. but also it's kind of those ⁓ non scalables take a practice from one step to the next. Sarah Lunt: Yeah. ⁓ Jeff, you mentioned social media. these testimonials and posting them to your social media. I think social media is a great place for these dentists to build this trust because we're all addicted to the dopamine hits these days. Not all of us are willing to go and scroll through a website and read the reviews or whatever. a lot of people are referring to social media to see, you know, does this is this practice present online? Do they post these videos? I think if you can get these short testimonials that you mentioned, one to two sentences. ⁓ People can just watch those, scroll through them real fast. And that's a very quick way to build this trust and to show kind of an inside look into your practice and what you prioritize and the way you treat patients and the cleanliness of your office and the services you offer and and all that stuff. I think it's just a great platform for these dentists to show, ⁓ you know, why stand out, why they're different from other dentists and. ⁓ It's a fairly easy another very cheap marketing source that brings in that has the a very cheap way of marketing that has the potential to bring in a lot of the types of patients they're looking for. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, I think it's also an opportunity to just get your message out. If you can have people engaged with your social media, tell your patients to follow you. That's another thing a practice we work with does is they offer a entry into a drawing for reviews. And worked with that practice to add entries for following them on social media. And so the more your patients are on social media, we we hear from dentists all the time that they lose a patient, an implant case or a full mouth restoration or some oral surgery that the patient doesn't think that their practice can handle. They think they go to their dentist for just hygiene and preventative care and then they go somewhere else for some of the more complicated stuff. Meanwhile that dentist is saying, hey, we had a relationship, but if the patient doesn't know you do implants and what that work looks like and those kinds of things, it's hard for them to kind of conceptualize and just guess that you do do those things and that you're good at them, because they their experience with you so far has been more of that routine care. And so the more opportunities you like targeted reviews, All of those things are opportunities for you to tell patients, perspective, and current what you do and continue to grow your practice in that way. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, I mean, we've been talking a lot in past episodes about educating your patients. I think that's a great way to culminate this community feel in very simple and small way for these dentists to really take the time to educate their patients on what they offer, So patients know that if they do ⁓ need Invisalign offered right there with their dentist, I think that's a great way to build trust. ⁓ not only on social media, on the website, put that stuff out there, but also in office is a great way to continue to build that trust with patients. And I think if a patient really does feel that trust, does feel that the dentist cares about them and their problems, is willing to talk through them, is willing to educate them, they're more likely to give those referrals. So I think lot of this community building is ⁓ happen ⁓ right? The dentist reaching out in the community, via social media, sponsorships, all that stuff. But I think it also happens within the office and the culture that they create there as well. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, for sure. so let's talk a little bit about some things that aren't working anymore. So I would say to start, generic websites is one thing that we just would say it's not it's not working anymore. Saying having a huge wall of text and ⁓ kind of that keyword stuffing strategy where You're not really capturing your practices personality. those the kinds of things that are not working when it comes to a website. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, and just kind of The more engaged they can be with the ongoing content and with the post to their Google Business profile, the updates to their SEO, the more effective it's gonna be. But unfortunately, a lot of dentists right now are doing the set item, forget it where they aren't ⁓ those ongoing changes. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah. And then I think with that, over reliance on digital and insurance for patient acquisition. I think that both of those are very expensive ways to get new patients into your practice now. They may be necessary. I'm not saying that it needs to be eliminated entirely, but ⁓ percent of practices that we talk to ⁓ ⁓ their strategy is just digital ads, so marketing budget there, and then I get insurance patients. And a lot of them are feeling like they want to drop these PPOs. ⁓ but that over reliance on the PPOs and the insurance patients and is certainly not something that's gonna work for much longer. And we already see a lot of patients kind of feeling and we already see a lot of dentists feeling that squeeze where ⁓ they like the things that were working aren't anymore, but they don't really know where to go ⁓ next it's been kind of an easy set it forget it like you said and that's just not working anymore. Sarah Lunt: And I think most dentists can acknowledge and the statistics can acknowledge that referrals are the best patients because they come in with that trust. And so we've talked about cheaper ways to get these patients in. So ⁓ spending a bunch on paid ads and all that stuff isn't the most effective and it doesn't get you the best results. with that, I think not having the systems in place to follow up creates a lot of missed opportunities. That drops the trust of their patients, And it causes them to misleads and to lose out on a lot of opportunities. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, we talked last week, I think, or maybe it was two weeks ago, about the number one indicator of a practice's success, and that ⁓ patient retention. ⁓ so if you're retaining patients, I think a patient that is retained is five times cheaper than finding a new one. And so having follow-up sequences, making sure patients are showing up for appointments, but then also just staying in touch, having a holiday email or a ⁓ kind of promotional email that goes out every once in a while, whatever you want to do, but just making sure that you're in that patient's life regularly, email, text, whatever, don't be annoying, but ⁓ twice a year, you definitely ca have some room in between those times when they're in your office where you can be in touch, ⁓ them about new treatments. if you're adding something like a peptide like curidont or AI to your treatment offerings. Put those out for your patients so that they're aware. basically do a a mini press release just for your patients where now they can be aware of those treatment options when they come into the office. And that's again something that builds trust and builds your credibility. And as long as you're not doing it every week, I don't think patients are gonna find it ⁓ super annoying, but it it definitely increases the value of your practice. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, and with some of this outreach, I'm sure it can feel pretty overwhelming to dentists to feel like they need to do all the social media, have these follow up sequences, these email blasts. But the awesome resource dentists have now that is making this stuff easier than ever is AI. and I think if dentists take advantage of this AI, ⁓ it just leads to a faster production of all of this You can automate these follow-up sequences, this outreach, you can create blogs and social media posts and email campaigns. ⁓ think While lot more is required of dentists to have this community engagement and build this trust, I think it's easier than ever to ⁓ do these things quickly and efficiently. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, and you want to make sure that it still captures your personality. that's always the balancing act using AI. But ⁓ we talked couple weeks ago about AI and dentistry from a clinical perspective, but also from a marketing perspective, AI is a great resource for dentists and really any business owner to be able to ⁓ kind of amplify what doing. And so if you have Have kind of your practice culture, your practice voice. creating content for it isn't a problem with with AI. but of course, our recommendation is ⁓ use as kind of the middle step. So come up with the ideas by yourself, use AI to kind of refine it, and then make sure there's a final proof on the back end that you're not sending out weird slop to people. And so yeah, AI is a phenomenal resource. And something that dentists really are ⁓ probably under-leveraging. and they're busy people, and that's why they hire us, ⁓ is we're able to ⁓ help them of tackle some of these things. But again, these are the kinds of things that we're hoping will go into our school community, which we hope to be launching soon for listeners of the podcast as well as any other dentists. and we'll just have resources where dentists who are trying trying to do things themselves or already have ⁓ someone in-house or or whatever who are wanting to add some of these things are able to have the resources that we use every day for our clients, but then really amplify those messages in their own practice. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, Jeff, I think we've noticed as we've been working with dentists and the services that we offer, really do focus ⁓ on creating a clear, repeatable system for these ⁓ dentists that focus a few key things. The first being visibility. can't find you if you're not visible. And so it's important that you're out there, that people see you that people can find you easily. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, that's really your SEO and your paid ads. the places where you're really trying to get organic ⁓ paid eyeballs on your practice, on your your content. And those are really the two ways to do it is through SEO and paid ads. And and social is something that i it's possible to get eyeballs on your practice that way. our approach to social media currently is unless the dentist is committed to filming and posting and leaning social media and creating that kind of brand persona around the dentist or the practice. Social media is maybe more of a place where trust is built, where you're directing people there from your website, from your emails, from your texts. and it's more of a resource than kind of this ⁓ visibility Sarah Lunt: Yeah, I mean, we've talked a lot about trust throughout this episode. I think that's really the thing that brings people in and keeps them coming around. Like you said, content on social media is a great way to build this trust. Good reviews that are a little more specific, a little more intentional, ⁓ and this branding, right? You wanna be Like you said, talking about AI, you wanna have a brand to what you're saying, to the message you're delivering, and that ultimately is what creates trust is that consistency throughout. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, and when you talk about brand, just to be clear, because we live and breathe these kind of marketing terms, when we talk about brand, it is not a logo and colors. It's more than that. That that may be part of it, but it's really the personality or the culture of your practice. Are you more of like a we want to be your friends and family kind of practice? Or are you more of a we're all business kind of come in, we'll get you through as fast as possible? Because different different kinds of patients like those different cultures or personalities or brands. and so just to kind of clarify for our listeners who may not be totally clear when we say brand, that's kind of what we're talking about is what's the kind of vibe ⁓ of of your practice. and that ultimately leads downstream to conversion. So that's in practice best practices, having standard operating procedures for your front desk, for your hygienists, for your dentists, both the practice owner as well as the associates, identifying those golden trigger moments where the patient is having an excellent experience and it's a good time to on a treatment plan or ask for a referral or ask for a review or ask for a video testimonial these kind of golden trigger moments and they just stack right they have one in the chair it's awesome they go out to the front desk have a great experience there every single one of those is an opportunity for ⁓ a practice to continue to develop that patient's value and elevate that patient's experience Sarah Lunt: Absolutely. And this conversion just leads to retention. And retention, I would argue, is the most important thing. I think it kind of bunches the rest of these ⁓ of steps or pieces or parts, however you want to say it, ⁓ one. If you can cultivate this good experience, if you can nail the the visibility, the trust, the conversion, that leads to retention ⁓ and this good communication, the follow-ups. having these in-office like talked about last week ⁓ leads to this retention. Having a positive patient is ultimately what is going to keep these patients coming back to you, and that's going to provide the most value for your practice is keeping the same patients coming back, Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah, so if we kind of go through a top to bottom, that's ⁓ of get your digital right, ⁓ make sure your digital presence, ⁓ paid ads, website, ⁓ Google Business Profile, all of those things are to date and reflect and capture your practice's brand. the next step moving down is make sure you have a content engine. You're posting on social media, you're getting content out, ⁓ there's follow-ups. ⁓ build that patient trust and that allows you to then convert patients so ⁓ increase case acceptance generate new referrals who already know like and trust your practice ⁓ generate reviews and then ⁓ finally retain those patients so building that value and helping patients understand all of the services your practice can provide them so invisalign implants mouth restorations all of these things in addition to cleanings whitenings making sure that the patient knows if they're looking for a service that you provide it if you do. I mean of course developing referral partners is another component of this that we didn't even touch on, but making sure that the patients are coming to you for the services you provide and you want to provide. Sarah Lunt: and it's important for dentists to understand that speed matters when they are communicating with their patients. we do live in a world of instant gratification, so the faster you can help your patients, the happier they'll be. Because that's what they're used to in ⁓ in other area of their lives. And the happier they are, the longer they'll stay with your practice. ⁓ And This lifetime value of the patients is often overlooked. I think a lot of new dentists are looking into how they can get new patients rather than focusing on how they can help their current patients stay for life in in their practice. And that's ultimately what provides the most value is keeping these patients around, building that trust, having them come to you for the higher end services you offer, and then giving those referrals. If you have the patients that are coming around. Forever for life, you want them bringing in their friends and family to to do the same. And that's gonna build ultimately a successful dental practice. Jeffrey Lunt: Yeah. What it ultimately boils down to, like you said, Sarah, is building trust at scale. It's not about who can spend the most. It it may have been in the past, but it's no longer just who can spend the most. DSOs spend more than any independent practice can justifiably spend. They negotiate better rates with PPOs. And so for independent practices to survive and thrive moving into the future, It's all about creating relationships, showing up consistently, communicating clearly with patients, and then creating the systems that ⁓ turn new patients and patients into loyal, lifelong evangelists for your practice. That is what it ultimately boils down to. Sarah Lunt: Yeah, Jeff. I think at the end of the day, the best marketing doesn't feel like marketing to these patients. They don't wanna feel like being sold to. the best marketing feels like and builds this confidence and clarity and trust. And that's ultimately what dentists need to focus on right now if they want to bring in these patients. Jeffrey Lunt: One hundred percent. And for our listeners, if you enjoyed this podcast, it's on YouTube if you want to see us and come hang out with us kind of in person. it's also anywhere where you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify. We'd appreciate it if you'd subscribe. and and come back, hang out with us next week. check out some of the old episodes. We love to engage with our dentist friends in the comments. So please leave a comment if you have a question or a thought about today's episode. And we'll look forward to seeing you in the next one.