Ah, the age-old marketing question! Everyone wants to know how long before patients come streaming in the door. Here’s a simple visual to show the answer by marketing tactic, based on nine years of dental marketing experience and collaboration with other marketing professionals serving the dental community.
| Marketing Tactic | Number of Days before This Tactic Attracts New Patients |
| Promoting openings in the schedule | 1 day |
| Asking patients for referrals as they check out | 1 day |
| Google AdWords | 1 day |
| Yelp advertising | 1 day |
| Boosting a “Now Accepting New Patients” post on Facebook | 1 day |
| Facebook advertising | 1 day |
| Direct mail (time to develop and send) | 28 days |
| Radio advertisement (time to record and air) | 21 days |
| Television advertisement (time to record and air) | 21 days |
| Brand new website (time to develop) | 60 days |
| Search engine optimization | 90 days |
| Marketing for implants and other high-dollar treatments | 90 days |
| Print advertising | 90 days |
This is not to say that you should run only those tactics that take just one day to attract new patients. By contrast, it’s best to run only those tactics to which your best patients and their peers will pay attention. To uncover which those are, survey your best patients.
Overall, the right marketing mix has the power to consistently get you to your goals in 15 to 90 days. And it’s the right marketing mix that matters most.
