#105: Your Top Patient Sources, Revealed (In 5 Minutes)

Join Mark Thackeray in this episode of the Dental Marketing Secrets podcast as he uncovers the top patient sources that can elevate your practice in just five minutes. 

As we step into a new year, it's the perfect time to reflect on past strategies and set impactful goals for 2026. Learn why many dental practices overlook crucial opportunities and how you can capitalize on these insights to grow your patient base. 

Tune in for actionable tips to enhance your marketing efforts and drive success in the coming year. 

Accelerate Your New Patient Growth

If you would like help ramping up your new patient growth, contact our team and we can schedule a time to talk. Email Maria to get started: maria@markthackeray.com

#DentalMarketing #PatientGrowth #Podcast

Transcript

0:01

Welcome back to another episode of the Dental Marketing Secrets podcast. My name is Mark Thackeray, excited to have you with me today. We are on episode 105, your top patient sources revealed in five minutes. And I bring this topic up right now because we are at the start of a new year. And it's important to gain clarity on what's worked in the past so you can do more of that in the future. So in the next five minutes, I'll help you find the 20 % of your marketing that drove most of your new patients. Forget about impressions, forget about clicks, forget about likes, and ask yourself one question. Where did our best new patients come from? Again, we're not focused on traffic or leads right now. I'm talking specifically about patients that came in the door, they showed up for their appointment, and they were great to work with. We want more of those type of patients, so let's focus in on those. Next, I want you to write down every single new patient source. So as you've talked to patients, Maybe you have it in your new patient forms. How did you hear about us? List out all those sources. If they mentioned Google Maps, that goes on the list. If they were a referral, that goes on the list. If they saw a Google ad, that goes on the list. If they were from a community event, that goes on the list. Write down every single one on there and make a tally mark for those that mentioned that more than once. So if someone said, you had several referrals, which I'm guessing you do, dozens, hopefully, then you make a tally mark alongside each time that that comes up. Because the next step, you're gonna circle the top two or three sources because we wanna zero in on the 20 % that are driving 80 % of the results. It's the old Pareto principle where it focuses on the vital few instead of the trivial many. So now circle those top two or three sources. And I like, you don't have to do this next step, but I do like taking a minute and looking at what do these three sources have in common? Chances are there's going to be reviews or some type of trust, signal, reviews, referrals, relationships, those type of thing. It could have been maybe more visibility driven. So a Google ad, for example, SEO, organic search. or possibly follow-up, could be reactivation, could be just calls, phone calls, things like that. What are the common commonalities between these three sources? We wanna look for the patterns. And then the final step is just to decide to do one, to do more of this in 2026. Okay, so zero in on those top two or three sources and then identify or brainstorm what are some ways that I can. I can focus in on this even more in 2026. In the next 12 months, list out several proactive efforts that you can make to augment what you've done in the past for that specific source. Let's take reviews for example. You saw that your primary, a primary driver of new patients is reviews. And what are some things that you can do in 2026 to bolster those? Well, you can ask more of your patients. You can take some of those reviews and add them to your website on a regular basis. You can create a graphic out of those and add them to your Google business profile or social media. You can even create in-office posters that showcase some of those reviews. Now let's take another example, referrals. Chances are this is going to be on your list. I hope so. What can you do to bolster your referral efforts. Well, if you're not already recognizing those referral sources, those patients that are sending out good vibes, they're getting people to come to your office or phone the office, then write them a letter, write them a thank you card. You can stay in contact with your patients on a monthly basis. You can do an email broadcast once a month that just connects with them, lets them know that they're appreciated, or just gives you general updates on what the practice is doing, share patient stories, some education, things like that. That's one of the big drivers of referrals is just maintaining that contact, staying in front of those people. You can also break this down. You can do the same exercise, but it's specifically focused on referrals to identify those 20 % of your referees. who are sending the most referrals, sending the 80 % of the referrals, because you will see a pattern like that. It's really cool. So that's it. It's just a very simple process to identify where you're getting most of your best patients and how you can focus more on that in 2026. And if you want help identifying your top 20 % or building a plan around it for 2026, our team can help. We would love to work with you. Reach out to Maria to get started. It's maria at markthackery.com and we can schedule a time to talk more. Happy New Year.