Marketing
10 Things I’ve Learned About Dental Marketing in the Last 10 Years By Jackie Ulasewich Cullen
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new year is always a good time for reflection. This year, my dental-focused marketing agency, My Dental Agency, is celebrating a big milestone: our 10th anniversary. Just as your dental practice has likely experienced significant shifts over the past decade, so has our agency — and our approach to marketing has evolved dramatically. Rewind even further, and the changes become even more noticeable. Twenty years ago, digital marketing was still in its infancy, and social media marketing wasn’t even on the radar. Today, consumer behavior is evolving rapidly, and it’s shaping how we develop strategies for our clients. The good news? What we’ve learned through these years of trial and error can offer valuable insight into how you should be marketing your practice today. Every lesson we’ve gathered isn’t just about how we’ve grown — it’s about what’s working for dental practices now and how these strategies can help you attract more quality patients, build loyalty and grow your business.
1. Testing Is Your Best Friend Marketing is always evolving, and testing is essential to staying ahead. Whether it’s images, landing page copy or headlines in your ad campaigns, continuous testing ensures your efforts are aligned
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with what works. Assumptions can be misleading, and what seems like a winning idea might not deliver. For example, we once tested a sleek, newly designed landing page against an older version, expecting the new design to outperform it. Surprisingly, the original page delivered better results (more new patients requesting an appointment). This experience was a powerful reminder that marketing is driven by data, not assumptions. The key takeaway? Testing and tracking aren’t just optional — they’re the only way to uncover what truly works for your practice.
2. Call and Form Tracking Is Key Without tracking phone calls or online form submissions, it’s difficult to understand how well your marketing is performing. Tracking these interactions gives your practice valuable insights — not only into the number of new patient inquiries, but also into how effectively those inquiries convert into appointments and treatment plans. This data is essential for identifying which marketing strategies are driving the best results, so you can focus your efforts where they matter most. At My Dental Agency, we prioritize closing this loop with our clients. While we can track the volume of inquiries, it requires coordination with each practice’s office team to determine how