Your Best New Patients May Already Be in Your Practice!

How much marketing do you do to your existing patient base? You know – patients of record?

If you’re the average practice? Little to none.

Maybe you send out a back-to-school mailer. Or a “use it or lose it” letter in November about insurance benefits.

But, other than that? Most marketing in dentistry is aimed at new patients.

Which believe it or not from a business perspective is strange.

Because a healthy general dental practice should be generating 65–70% of its revenue from patients of record.
Let that sink in.

If that much revenue should be coming from your existing base… shouldn’t you pay some attention to them?

Table of Contents

• What Marketing Is Actually For
• Dentistry’s Marketing Blind Spot
• The First Problem: Retention
• The 20% Illusion
• What Retention Actually Requires
• The Second Layer: Stop the Bleeding
• The Third Layer: Actual Marketing to Your Base
• Inside-the-Office Marketing
• The Beauty of Video
• The Fourth Layer: Targeted Marketing to Patients of Record
• The Leverage
• The Real Question
• Final Thought

What Marketing Is Actually For

Let’s start simple.

Sergio Zyman, who served as Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-Cola and authored The End of Marketing as We Know It and Building Brandwidth, put it bluntly: “The sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more people more often.”

That’s it.

Marketing isn’t decoration. It isn’t branding “fluff.” It isn’t “awareness.”

It’s about selling.

Think about how people buy things. No one buys a hole saw because they love hole saws. They buy it because they want a hole in their door. No one buys veneers so they can point to tooth #8 and say, “That one cost me $1,600.” They buy veneers because they want to look better.

People don’t buy the thing. They buy what the thing gets them.

And marketing is what moves them toward that decision.

Dentistry’s Marketing Blind Spot

In dentistry, marketing usually looks like this:

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Mailers
• Implant funnels
• New patient promotions

All focused outward.

And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that. You absolutely should. Do a lot of it. New patients are important and please, please, please make sure you focus on getting as many as you can.

But here’s the blind spot:

You already have a list of people who:

• Know you
• Many of whom have most likely been diagnosed at some point for needed treatment.
• And you’re probably barely communicating with most of them!

The First Problem: Retention

Let’s do some uncomfortable math.

Say you have 5,000 total patient charts.

How many of those patients have a “next visit date” in your software after today?

If you’re the average practice?

Maybe less than a 1,000. Or 1,500 if you’re lucky.

That means 3,500-4,000 people aren’t scheduled at all!

And this is where the system breaks.

Think about how much effort goes into getting a new patient:

• Marketing dollars
• Phone conversion skill
• Appointment confirmation
• Case presentation

Everybody is on their A-game.

But once that patient becomes a patient of record?

Effort drops.

They miss their recall appointment (if they had one to begin with), or have to reschedule it. Then?

• No one chases it aggressively.
• Months pass.
• Then a year.
• Then two.

Then someone decides:

“They’re inactive.”

So you stop calling. You stop marketing. You “purge” the chart.

It’s one of the strangest habits in dentistry. Other businesses do not do this! To wit, think of the emails, catalogs and other mailers you get from stores, businesses, etc. that you haven’t set foot in for years!

Fix the “Leaky Bucket” First

If patients aren’t coming back, more marketing won’t solve it. See where your practice stands!

The Hygiene Formula will walk you through a couple of basic metrics and show you exactly how good your practice’s retention is – actually.
Download the Hygiene Formula Spreadsheet

The 20% Illusion

Here’s what really happens.

About 20% of your patients are the easiest to work with: meaning compliant, aggressively seek better oral health, listen to you (well), etc. You see these folks and you think “where can I get more people like this?.”

If you were cancel their appointment due to a snow day, they’ll call you to reschedule.
But the next 60%?

Good people. Just busy. Not as easy to handle. They take more work.

• They need reminders.
• Follow ups.
• Phone calls, etc.

The last 20%, we discuss during MGE Communication and Sales Seminar A “Taking the Stress and Pressure Out of the Sales Process,” and are patients that are most apt to cause problems in the practice.

So, we have 80% of people we work with who are able to be handled. Some take more work than others. If you only allocate effort to the 20% who are easy…You’ll only keep 20% of your base.

What this tells you is that retention is not accidental. It is operational.

RELATED PODCAST: 🎧 Learn how to fix retention and stop losing patients—listen here:

What Retention Actually Requires

First: make it someone’s job.

If no one owns reactivation, it doesn’t happen.

Second: continuous communication.

• Texts.
• Calls.
• Emails.
• Letters.

Not once a year. Consistently.

Now let’s go back to that 5,000 chart example.

If 3,500 don’t have a next visit date and you want to contact them once per week…
That’s 3,500 contacts per week.

Seven hundred per day. That’s a HUGE team. And not super realistic for most practices. Heck, I’d be thrilled if you have one – maybe two people full time. I’ve seen practices with 4-5 people doing this full time. And guess what, if you reactivate a ton of people and don’t need that many people calling anymore – chances are you’ll find something productive for them to do in the practice!

If you consistently worked to reactivate these inactive patients – while make sure to retain the ones that are currently active, you’d start to clean up the backlog.
And as you clean up the backlog and patients start coming back?

You immediately increase production without spending another dollar on new patient marketing.

To prove my point – go and look at your incomplete treatment list – you’ll find one common denominator with a ton of these patients – they are inactive (not-scheduled). Getting this needed treatment done begins by getting them to show back up!

Bring Your Inactive Patients Back:
Download the FREE MGE Reactivation Program

RELATED VIDEO: 🎥 See how to improve retention, increase production, and stop losing patients—watch here:

The Second Layer: Stop the Bleeding

Beyond chasing the backlog, two simple rules:

1. No patient leaves without a next visit date.
2. Promote regular checkups as a priority.

Many offices promote Invisalign, sleep apnea treatment and implants.

They don’t promote:
“It’s critical that we see you every six months.”

That should be a loud drumbeat in your practice.

• From the hygienist.
• From the front desk.
• From you.

The Third Layer: Actual Marketing to Your Base

Now let’s move beyond retention into real marketing. Because retention keeps them coming in.
Marketing moves them toward treatment.

Start simple.

Quarterly newsletter.

Not some glossy canned corporate piece.

Something that looks like it came from you.

Include:

• Educational article.
• Office updates.
• Team highlights.
• Before/after photos.
• Service spotlights.
• Call to action.

And yes — you need a call to action.

“Call today for a complimentary consultation.”

Otherwise it’s just a feel-good letter.

Inside-the-Office Marketing

Most practices underutilize the marketing power inside their own four walls.

If you do implants, veneers, Invisalign, full mouth rehab…

Are you promoting it in your reception area?

You should have:

• Tasteful posters.
• Before/after photos.

And video marketing: Short educational videos and Patient testimonials

Not blasting audio.

• Subtitled.
• Professional.
• Running on loop.

Patients sitting in your reception area are a captive audience.

Plant seeds.

I say this as I remember a few years back (and I’ve heard plenty of stories like this), a client that was upset because they had a patient come in for a recall appointment – with Invisalign they had done at another practice. This doctor did Invisalign. When they asked the patient where they had it done, etc. they finally asked why they didn’t do it in her practice. The answer? “Wow, I didn’t know you guys did that!”

Ugh.

You may think that patients are aware of everything that you have to offer. I can confidently say that most are not.

Why?

Well – how would they know unless you tell them? The answer: Marketing!

The Beauty of Video

Here’s the multiplier effect.

If you record simple educational videos explaining:

• What an implant is
• What clear aligners do
• What an onlay is
• What full mouth rehab accomplishes, etc. etc. (whatever you have to offer).

You can:

• Play them in your reception area
• Put them on your website
• Upload to Youtube
• Turn into TikTok shorts
• Use the transcript as website copy

One piece of content becomes ten.

And now you’re not just marketing inside your practice.

You’re building digital assets.

The Fourth Layer: Targeted Marketing to Patients of Record

This is where it gets powerful.

You already have diagnosis data.

You know:

• Who needs implants
• Who has incomplete treatment
• Who declined veneers
• Who needs crowns

Why are you marketing generically?
Instead:

• Run a list.
• Pull patients missing teeth.
• Send a specific implant campaign.
• Email.
• Mail.
• Follow-up.
• Show before/afters.
• Explain outcomes.
• Include a call to action – something like: “Schedule your complimentary implant consultation.”

It’s not creepy. It’s smart. Google does this every day. You search for a light fixture and suddenly every banner ad shows light fixtures. You’re simply using the information you already have to market intelligently.

Why This Changes Everything

Here’s what happens when you do this consistently:

1. Retention increases.
2. Case acceptance improves.
3. Treatment completion rises.
4. Referrals increase.

And here’s something most doctors miss:

The patients who refer the most are the ones who complete comprehensive treatment.

Satisfied patients talk. Patients who still have outstanding treatment and are only doing what insurance covers? Not as much.

When you complete treatment plans, referrals go up naturally.

The Leverage

If you implement:

1. Strong reactivation
2. Consistent communication
3. Quarterly newsletters
4. In-office service marketing
5. Targeted patient campaigns

You can double or triple treatment volume in an established practice. Without doubling your marketing budget. Without chasing endless new patients. You’re simply monetizing the asset you already built.

The Real Question

Why do most practices ignore this? Because new patients are exciting.
They “feel” like growth.

Reactivation feels like admin work. But the math doesn’t lie. If 65–70% of your revenue should come from existing patients…Why is 80–90% of your marketing aimed elsewhere?

Final Thought

Here’s what I would rather see.

• You get a patient.
• You restore their oral health (health, function, aesthetic), then
• You keep them active.
• You communicate consistently.
• You market intelligently to their needs.
• And you build depth instead of constantly chasing width.

Practices that do this operate at a different level.

• Higher customer service.
• Higher case acceptance.
• Higher productivity.
• Higher profitability.

And ironically? They still get and TON of new patients. Because their existing patients are healthier, happier, and referring more. Stop ignoring the most valuable asset in your practice.

It’s already sitting in your software. And don’t forget to download your Free Reactivation Program!

And if you want help building systems like this into your practice, we’re happy to schedule a free Consultation with you. Simplyclick here!