How to get new dental patients: the 6-part system from Google profile to booked consult

1. Google Business Profile: patients see it before your website

Search for a dentist in your town and Google shows the map, the names, the star ratings and the opening hours above any website. Google's own help page says local results "are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity" (Google Business Profile Help, read October 2026).

The same page says "businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results." Distance is fixed. The rest you can change this week:

• The right primary category, phone number and opening hours, holidays included.
• Every treatment you offer, listed as a service.
• Real photos of your rooms and your team.
• A booking link that opens your calendar.

2. Reviews: Google bans asking only the happy patients

Your rating and review count sit next to your clinic's name, and Google says "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking." Its content policy for Maps also forbids you to "selectively solicit positive reviews from customers" (read October 2026).

So ask every patient after the visit, with a direct link to your profile, and ask for a referral in the same message. Google's policy also bans incentives "such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services" in exchange for a review.

Tor Dental had fewer than 20 Google reviews when we started working together. In October 2026 it had 516 across its 3 clinics in Märsta, Uppsala and Sundbyberg, rated 4.8 and 4.9 (Google Maps). We built them up with the clinic, and every one comes from a real patient. Reviews like those belong in the ads.

3. The patients you already have: bookings with no ad budget

The patients in your records can book again without an ad: the ones you haven't seen in a long time, and the ones who left with a treatment plan and never booked it.

For the clinics we work with, the Reactivation Agent picks a batch of past patients every day and writes each one a message that fits their history. A person on our team approves everything before it goes out.

If you do it yourself, start with a short list so the front desk can keep up with the replies. Send a short, personal message from someone at the clinic and offer a specific time.

4. A text in under 5 minutes, then a person who qualifies

On our dental accounts, every new patient inquiry gets a text in under 5 minutes, 7 days a week, while the phone is still in the patient's hand. Then a person follows up. Nobody should hear from their dentist through a robot voice.

Harvard Business Review found in 2011 that "most companies are not responding nearly fast enough" to inquiries from the web (The short life of online sales leads). For calls, the ADA suggests a "missed call" text to anyone you missed, and its guide Phone Calls from Prospective Patients says to aim to "answer every phone call by the third ring".

What the first text says

• Who is writing, and from which clinic.
• An answer to the question the patient asked.
• 2 specific times, so the patient can reply with one word.

An illustrative example:

Hi Anna, thanks for reaching out. It's a no-⁠strings 30-minute consultation where the dentist goes through your options. We have openings Tuesday 09:00 or Thursday 14:00. Which works best for you?

4 questions that sort a consultation from a price check

Before anyone lands in your calendar, the person following up asks:

1. Which treatment are you asking about, and what's bothering you today?
2. Have you had an exam or a treatment plan somewhere else?
3. When would you like to get started?
4. Which times suit you: mornings, afternoons or after work?

On our accounts only the ready ones reach your calendar; the rest get an answer and a follow-⁠up later. The ADA's intake list for new callers starts in the same place, with the reason for the call and availability.

5. Ads filmed at your clinic start once parts 1 to 4 hold

Ads are the part of dental marketing that costs money every day, and every click lands on your profile, your reviews and your reply speed.

Our photographer comes to the clinic about 1 day a quarter and directs the shoot. The films show your dentists, your rooms and patients who chose to tell their story. Give every ad its own idea: the ad platforms treat near-⁠identical ads as one. Send each ad to a page about that one treatment, with the film, what the consultation includes and a way to book it.

In Google Search ads, the page's landing page experience is one factor in each keyword's Quality Score, judged on "the usefulness and relevance of information", "ease of navigation" and "the expectations users have based on the ad they clicked" (Google Ads Help). In the US, section 5.F of the ADA's ethics code bars dental advertising that is "false or misleading in any material respect" (ADA).

Point the campaigns at booked consultations for the treatments that carry the clinic. Advertise cheap check-⁠ups and you take budget from them. Valdemarsviks Tandläkare, a clinic we've worked with, tripled revenue in 3 months, from the first campaign to the third.

6. Count booked consultations per ad, all the way to a yes

Follow every ad to a booked time, a kept appointment and a yes to the treatment plan. Count only inquiries and you can move money to the wrong ad.

Your cost per booked consultation is your ad spend divided by the consultations booked in the same period. Illustrative numbers, not a client result: campaign A brings 100 inquiries and 10 booked consultations, campaign B brings 40 inquiries and 22. At the same spend, B costs less than half as much per booked consultation. Count check-⁠up and implant bookings apart, or a campaign full of check-⁠ups can beat one that books implants. The full method, with a calculator, is in why cost per lead is the wrong number to optimize for.

Tor Dental's result is counted the same way: 50 implant consultations a month.

The whole system comes down to 6 numbers, one per part:

The ads, the reply and the booking are the steps Attract, Qualify and Book in Camera to Calendar, the system we run for clinics. The consultation lands in the calendar with the notes, the front desk gets call scripts for the follow-⁠up, and every Wednesday we drill the objections with the week's real calls.

If you're choosing someone to run it with you, put every agency through the 7 tests for a marketing agency for clinics, us included. If you'd rather buy the booked consultations themselves, here is what a booked appointment service should include.