The concept of “new dentistry” is reshaping how practices achieve sustainable growth, but most dentists and marketing professionals have never heard of it. New dentistry is a strategic shift that focuses on organically expanding your practice by taking full advantage of an often-overlooked resource: existing patients. Rather than focusing solely on attracting new patients, new dentistry aims to nurture relationships with current patients so they will return, accept more treatments, and refer others.

Beyond New Patients: A Strategy for Lasting Success

Image of a laptop with a calendar on it. Overlay that says, "Implementing a reservation fee without losing patients"

Many elite dental practices have reservation fees to preserve the quality of their patient base and services. When implemented correctly, a reservation fee acts as a filter, ensuring that patients who schedule appointments are genuinely committed to receiving quality dental care. However, as with any strategy, its success hinges on proper execution.

Tips for Implementing a Reservation Fee Without Losing Quality Patients

a picture of a phone with the tik tok app open showing our post

Whatever your opinion about TikTok, there’s no denying it’s a popular social media platform with a growing number of content creators and users. Small business owners, especially, are finding TikTok to be a useful tool for promoting products and services and educating customers. You might be surprised to learn that a number of dentists have successfully created accounts, attracting thousands of followers. I know that TikTok is not for everyone, but for practices looking to grow their social media following, it can be an excellent addition.

Leveraging TikTok to Promote Your Dental Practice

Word of mouth is still alive and kicking in the digital age. A friend’s recommendation carries a lot of weight if someone is looking for a dentist they can trust. When it comes to word-of-mouth referrals, digital marketing is influential on both sides of the equation: the patient making the referral and the potential new patient they are referring. In essence, a consistent and strong digital presence boosts referrals.

Digital Marketing is the Key to More Patient Referrals!

A Google Business Profile is more than just a listing with your practice’s address, phone number, and website. It is one of the primary ways your potential patients will find your practice and engage with it online. If you have not completed your practice’s GBP profile yet, you should do so soon, and you’ll want to follow this guide to building and optimizing it to attract new patients.

Optimizing Your Google Business Profile to Attract New Patients

As much as a dental practice may strive to keep patients happy, providing excellent care and service, sometimes negative reviews happen. We asked Dr. David Pearce, retired owner of a lucrative practice and current dental coach and MDA CAB member, to share some advice about how to deal with negative reviews.

The Dreaded Negative Review: What to Do if You Get One

Dentistry is about more than just creating healthy smiles. It’s also about fostering strong, lasting relationships with patients. Because patients have a wealth of choices and plenty of information at their fingertips when it comes to selecting a dental practice, it is crucial for dentists to adopt a patient-centric approach to marketing. Building trust and loyalty is vital not only for a dental practice’s success, but also for the overall well-being of the patients who rely on it for the sake of their oral health.

Patient-Centric Marketing: How Dental Practices Can Build Trust and Loyalty

Dental fear is a real challenge for so many patients and dentists alike. Patients who fear the dentist are usually the ones who need care the most, and dentists often struggle with how to help them set aside their fears to get the treatment they require. Thankfully, with more information widely available to the public and the option to use digital media as an educational tool, dentists have more opportunity than ever before to help their patients understand their fear and overcome it.

Targeting Patients with Dental Fear