Dental Practice Marketing Plan: Free Template + Walkthrough

Part of the complete dental marketing guide for UK practices. This is the planning framework we use when onboarding a new practice — adapted so you can apply it yourself or use it as a brief for an agency.

Before you build the plan: three questions to answer first

1. What does success look like in numbers?

Vague goals produce vague results. Get specific: how many new patients per month, for which treatments, at what average treatment value? A practice that wants '10 new implant patients per month at £3,000 each' has a very different marketing plan to one that wants '30 new Invisalign patients per month at £4,500 each'.

2. What is your current situation?

Before adding new marketing, audit what you have:

• How many enquiries are you currently receiving per month and from where?
• What is your conversion rate from enquiry to booked consultation?
• Do you have a patient database you could reactivate?
• Where do you currently rank on Google for your key treatments?
• How many Google reviews do you have, and how recent?

The answers determine where the fastest wins are. A practice with 2,000 dormant patients in their Practice Management System has a different priority to a new practice with no patient list at all.

3. What can you actually respond to?

Marketing generates enquiries. Your team needs to be able to handle them. A practice with a receptionist who works 3 days a week and no out-of-hours response system should not invest £3,000/month in Google Ads that generate evening and weekend enquiries. Honest assessment of your response capacity shapes the plan.

The 90-day marketing plan structure

Month 1: Foundation

The first month is infrastructure and quick wins. No advertising yet.

Week 1–2: Audit and fix the basics

• Optimise your Google Business Profile: complete every section, add photos, update categories and services
• Set up a review generation system — QR code cards at reception + automated SMS post-appointment
• Review your website on mobile: is it fast (test with PageSpeed Insights), does the phone number click-to-call, is there a simple enquiry form?
• Extract your dormant patient list from your PMS: patients not seen in 12–36 months

Week 3–4: First revenue — reactivation

• Run a reactivation campaign to your dormant patient list: SMS or WhatsApp message, then email follow-up, then a second message after 5 days
• The message is simple: 'We haven't seen you in a while. We're welcoming back existing patients with a complimentary hygiene appointment to get you up to date. Reply YES to book or call us on [number].'
• This single activity, done correctly, often produces £5,000–£30,000 in treatment bookings within 30 days

Month 2: Paid acquisition

With the foundation in place and the reactivation running, add paid acquisition for new patients.

Google Ads launch

• Start with one or two treatment campaigns for your highest-value treatments
• One campaign, one treatment, one dedicated landing page
• Set up call tracking and form submission tracking from day one
• Minimum spend: £1,000–£1,500/month in your first month to accumulate data

Follow-up system

• Install automated SMS confirmation on form submission
• Ensure someone calls web enquiries within 5 minutes during business hours
• Set up a 7-day follow-up sequence for non-responders (via WhatsApp, email, and SMS)

Month 3: Optimise and expand

With 4–6 weeks of campaign data, you can now optimise based on evidence rather than assumptions.

• Identify which keywords are generating enquiries and which are spending budget without converting
• Pause or reduce spend on non-converting keywords; increase bids on converters
• Review landing page conversion rates — if you're getting clicks but few form submissions, the page needs work
• Add a second treatment campaign if the first is performing
• Start building content: one treatment guide or FAQ article per week

Budget framework

Month 1 allocation (foundation month — no ad spend yet):

• GBP optimisation (one-off): £200–£500 if outsourced
• Review system setup: included in ongoing management
• Reactivation campaign: £100–£300 for messaging + setup

Month 2 onwards:

• Google Ads spend: £1,000–£3,000/month
• Google Ads management: £600–£1,200/month
• SEO (optional from month 2): £400–£800/month
• Content creation: £300–£800/month (2–4 articles)

For a full cost breakdown by channel, see the dental marketing cost guide.

KPIs: what to measure

Most agencies measure vanity metrics. Here are the numbers that matter:

• Enquiries per month — total, and by channel
• Cost per enquiry — by channel and campaign
• Enquiry-to-consultation conversion rate — the percentage of enquiries that become a booked appointment
• Consultation-to-treatment conversion rate — the percentage of consultations that result in treatment acceptance
• Average treatment value — across all booked treatments from marketing
• Cost per booked treatment patient — total marketing spend ÷ number of patients who started treatment
• Marketing ROI — (revenue generated from marketing patients ÷ total marketing spend) × 100

If your agency can't report on most of these, you don't have visibility into whether your marketing is working. Track these monthly and the decisions become obvious.

Common planning mistakes

• Starting with the wrong channel. Practices with an existing patient list should almost always start with reactivation. Practices with no list should start with Google Ads, not SEO — they need patients now, not in 6 months.
• Launching ads before the landing page and follow-up are ready. Sending ad traffic to a slow, unoptimised homepage with no follow-up system produces expensive, wasted leads.
• Treating all enquiries the same. An enquiry about teeth whitening and an enquiry about full-arch implants are not equivalent. Your reporting, your conversion targets, and your follow-up investment should reflect the different lifetime values.
• Stopping when it 'works enough'. The practices that grow most over 2–3 years are those that keep optimising even when results are good — because their competitors are doing the same.

Ready to implement this?

If you want the plan executed rather than having to implement it yourself, the first 100 leads pilot is the starting point — we set up the reactivation system, Google Ads foundation, and follow-up automation, so you see results before committing to a full retainer. Or book a 15-minute call to discuss your practice specifically.

Skip the planning — let us execute it

We run this plan for UK dental practices every month. Start with the first 100 leads pilot and see what your practice can do.

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