Most practices don't start thinking about marketing until things get slow. By then the patients who were looking have already chosen someone else.
Dr. Lorne Lavine interviews his co-host Naren Arulrajah on what separates the practices that dominate their market from the ones spending more every year and going backwards.
The three numbers every practice owner should know, and 95% don't. Your phone conversion rate — the average practice books one in three new patient calls. Your cost per new patient call. And what each channel actually costs: around $60–70 a new patient through organic search, against roughly $650 through Google Ads.
Why a PPO patient quietly costs $3,500 over five years — and why those same patients are the least likely to accept high-value treatment, because in their mind it isn't covered.
The practice that went from $650,000 to $1.3 million while cutting a full day off the schedule.
Plus: how patients actually search now that AI sits inside Google, why running ads can damage trust before the relationship starts, and why you only need to dominate your own neighbourhood rather than the whole market.
THE ONE THING FROM THIS EPISODE
Find out your phone conversion rate this week. The average dental practice books one in three new patient calls. The target is 70%. You cannot fix a number you have never measured, and this is the one that decides whether everything else you spend is worth spending.
WORK WITH US
Marketing — book a strategy meeting with Naren's team at ekwa.com/wired
Technology — schedule a call with Lorne at thedigitaldentist.com/call
Subscribe at wireddentistry.com/subscribe
