How much should a new dental practice spend on marketing?

How much should you assign to your marketing budget?

As a dental practice, it can be challenging to determine an appropriate marketing budget to sustain your current new patient level and drive growth. How much is the right amount to spend? How much are your competitors spending? I think you might be surprised by the figure.

Key takeaways

Marketing spend should align with realistic revenue goals: The page explains that your marketing budget needs to be tied to expected income and patient targets rather than arbitrary percentages.
There’s no one-size-fits-all figure: It outlines why recommended spend varies depending on your market, competition and stage of growth — from start-up basics to scaling a practice.
Prioritise cost-effective channels first: New practices are encouraged to focus on fundamentals like SEO and website optimisation before overspending on ads or expensive directories.
Track cost per booked appointment: Success should be measured by how much you spend to actually secure an appointment, not by reach, impressions or clicks alone.
Reinvest based on performance: The blog suggests scaling up your spend on channels that consistently deliver new patients, while cutting back on underperforming ones.

Have you heard the phrase “You have to spend money to make money”? You’ll not only need to spend money to maintain an operable level of patients coming through the door, but also to drive business up exponentially.

Each practice we work with, whether big or small, has its own unique financial situation, goals, and local market. But they all need to acquire good leads and high-quality patients to maximise their revenue every month.

First, understand the numbers that drive acquisition

Sending regular newsletters or creating unattractive offers will not be enough to keep patients coming back and through the door. Let’s put it into perspective:

Dental practices, on average, only retain up to 75% of their patient base annually.
Most local practices will need a minimum of 20-50 patients per month to drive profit and basic growth.
Dental referrals continue to decline, and dentists should not rely on this as a steady stream of new patient growth.
New patients will spend around £500-£1,500, on average, in their first year.
Patients will typically remain with the same practice for 7-10 years if they like your service, availability and prices.
The lifetime value of one new patient is between £5,000 and £10,000.

Setting a marketing budget as a new dental practice

As a new dental practice, money will be a bit tighter – this will be mostly down to a lot of outgoing costs to set up and get started (we know how expensive your equipment and tech are, let alone anything else).

However, some might argue that now, more than ever, your marketing budgets need to start high and eventually come down to ramp up numbers and drive up profit.

While most dental experts would advise spending around 20% of your projected gross revenue on marketing, how much you need to pay will depend on your local market and competition.

Consider your area and competition when budgeting

For example, if your practice is located in London, you’ll be facing not only strong local competition but also citywide, especially for cosmetic cases. So, you’ll want to make a bigger investment and set aside 30% of your projected gross revenue for marketing.

That would be around £75,000 per year if you turned over £250,000, which gives you around £6,250 per month. Remember, this cost will have to cover your SEO, website design and maintenance, PPC, social media advertising, traditional marketing like A-boards and leaflets and any employee wages.

If you live in an area outside of the city, say, for example, High Wycombe, you can get away with spending a lot less (up to 20%), but you’ll have to remember that it still won’t be easy (it just won’t be as hard).

You can still set a budget you can afford

If 20% or 30% seems too high or unmanageable for you, you can still set aside a budget you can afford. However, to cover your dental SEO, you should always put aside a minimum of £1,000 a month to be in the running organically. Do remember, though, to adjust your expectations.

The lower your SEO budget, the longer it will take to achieve basic ranking results. So, if you’re relying on SEO and marketing to bring in new patients through the door, do bear in mind that the smaller your budget, the smaller your traffic and conversion ratio, as SEO companies like us will then be limited in the number of hours we can work on your website and the power we can give to it.

Don’t spend all your money on website design

A well-designed website with a seamless user experience and intuitive navigation is essential for driving conversions. However, all of that is pointless if you don’t have any traffic or anyone coming to your website to book.

In the beginning, it can be so easy to spend a lot of money on web design, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. So, don’t waste all your resources on the design.

In reality, you shouldn’t want to pay any more than £5,000 for a web design (and that’s pricey enough). We would recommend something basic and easy to work with, so when companies like us come in and take over, we can not only improve your traffic but also the design at the same time. It’s part of our service.

Don’t be scared to spend

With digital marketing, the industry is filled with companies and rogue individuals claiming to be experts, and sadly, not all produce the same results. Therefore, it can be challenging to determine who to entrust with your money and when to abandon a company that is not delivering impactful campaigns.

It’s essential to remember that, as a new practice, it will take time to develop. In the SEO world, with the work we do today, you won’t see the real results until 90 days down the line. So, if your traffic hasn’t jumped into the thousands (without PPC) in the first three months, there’s no need to be concerned.

Where to spend your budget and who to trust

That said, if you’re only going to rely on PPC to drive numbers, then you’ll only see the benefit when the ads are turned on – it won’t benefit you long-term or organically, meaning the cost per acquisition will likely be higher and unsustainable.

To determine who to trust, it will ultimately boil down to their long-term strategy for your website and the work they propose to do. You’ll want to ensure that copy and content are included in your package as standard and ask to see previous examples so you can test it out for yourself. If you wouldn’t buy from the websites they look after, they might not be the best fit for you.

See our dental SEO costs.

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