As we head into the last quarter of 2025, dental practices must stay competitive and continue attracting quality patients to finish the year strong. This means they must implement the latest proven dental marketing strategies.

Drawing from recent insights shared by the longest-tenured leaders in dental communications: Dentaltown (founded in 1999), ProSites (founded in 2003), Dental Marketo (founded in 2019 with 20 years of experience in dental marketing), and, of course, Big Buzz (founded in 2007), here are the three biggest marketing trends shaping the year for dental practices according to these top dental marketing companies:

1. No one can tell your practice’s story like your happiest patients.

Design your website–and all your marketing–from the perspective of the patient to improve conversions.

As Dentaltown, founded in 1999, puts it in their June 2025 blog, “Best Practices for Designing Dental Websites with Patient Conversion in Mind”:

“Think like a patient (because they’re the ones clicking around). This is your golden rule. Your practice website should be built for the people who matter most: current and potential patients. That means making it easy to navigate, mobile friendly, and loaded with the info people actually want to find.”

As we say here at Big Buzz, no one tells your practice’s story like your happiest patients. In 2025, marketing is about relevance and simplicity. Your website and marketing campaigns should quickly answer what you offer, why it matters and how to get started, whether a patient is browsing on a phone or desktop.

Most dentists feel sick when they think about marketing. Overwhelmed. Confused. Apathetic. My book, KABOOM!: The Method Used By Top Dentists for Explosive Marketing Results, offers the cure. This concise handbook shines a light on how dentists can fully capture the perspective of the patient, put a method to their marketing and safeguard the practice for years to come, in any economy.  

2. All marketing efforts should lead to the practice website, and every website interaction should lead patients closer to crossing the threshold into your office.

ProSites emphasizes that your website should be the center of all your marketing efforts. They offer this checklist titled Create an Optimized Dental Marketing Website:

Your website is your digital first impression. It needs to be easy to find, navigate, and figure out how to book a first appointment. How do you do it? Here’s a quick checklist:

• Responsive design – this means it will resize correctly on phones and tablets
• Good user experience – your site is intuitive, easy to understand and navigate
• Informative dental care content – to answer patient questions and increase traffic
• Calls-to-Action (CTAs) – these attract the eye and encourage getting in touch
• Social Proof – patient reviews are the new word-of-mouth advertising
• Service Descriptions – each service should have its own page

At Big Buzz, we believe all marketing efforts should lead to the practice website, and every website interaction should lead patients closer to crossing the threshold into your office.

For a detailed guide on how to precisely call patients to action at every stop, get our latest eBook, Calls to Action that Work: The Industry Insider Report. 

3. Document your desired marketing outcomes, just as you do in treatment planning.

Marketing only works if you know what you want to achieve. That’s why Dental Marketo urges practices to take a strategic approach, and we agree. In their blog, “The ultimate dental marketing checklist to attract new patients,” they explain, “Specific dental marketing goals and objectives result in more new patients at a lower cost… different goals require different dental marketing strategies.” 

Once each quarter, Big Buzz founder and CEO Wendy O’Donovan Phillips leads a strategic meeting with client Dr. Seth Hall, his associate and his front office manager to resolve any issues, review the practice’s Strategic Marketing Plan and set the vision for Dr. Hall’s Desired Future State. This ensures the team stays on track to meet the goal of increasing new patient numbers from 90 to 106 per month–with 40 from online and 60 from internal referral. Get access to the full blog and an image of a sample one-page strategic marketing plan for dental practices in our case study, How Big Buzz® Increased a Dental Practice’s New Patients from 30 to 116 Monthly, Supporting in Growing the Practice from One to Three Doctors. 

This year, the most effective dental marketing will not necessarily come from bigger budgets. Instead, it will come from smarter strategies. Think like a patient, optimize every touchpoint and align your marketing with business goals. Here’s to your strong finish this year!

Since 2007, Big Buzz® has helped Stage II to Stage III organizations systemize marketing to achieve growth goals. Founder and CEO Wendy O’Donovan Phillips is the author of two books available on Amazon, Kaboom and Flourish, multiple data-driven eBooks, has been published in McKnight’s, in Forbes, and has been quoted in The Washington Post, ABC News and Chicago Tribune. She has lectured dozens of professional organizations in front of audiences ranging in size from 25 to 6,000. She has been honored by the American Marketing Association for excellence in her field and has been named a Gold Key Award Winner by the Business Marketing Association. In her two-decades-long career, she has consulted with hundreds of organizations globally to support improved marketing clarity, strategies and outcomes. Get details: visit www.bigbuzzinc.com and follow Wendy.