Struggling to Grow? More Leads May Not Be the Answer. Here’s What Else You Need to Consider.

In dentistry, as in other areas of business, new client acquisition is a hot-button topic. When a dental practice wants to fill up the schedule or expand a specific service, the instinctive answer is to get more leads.

On the surface, having more leads feels like growth, but volume alone doesn’t tell the whole story. If the wrong people are calling or the team is too busy to respond to inquiries and follow up on promising conversations, a practice or business can end up spending more money while missing valuable opportunities.

That’s why the real question isn’t just how many leads a practice can generate but how well it attracts the right prospective patients and turns interest into scheduled appointments, accepted treatment and long-term relationships.

To illustrate the difference, consider two dental practices in the same market. Both want to grow and attract new patients, and both are willing to invest in marketing. One invests heavily in new leads, while the other takes a different path. How does each one fare?

Practice A: The more leads, the better

The dentist at Practice A believes that higher volume leads to growth. When the number of new patients is low, and the patients coming in aren’t accepting treatment, the dentist’s first instinct is to get more leads by increasing ad spend and launching a new-patient discount offer in hopes that the phone will start ringing off the hook.

At first, this strategy seems to work. People call the office in droves, and the schedule fills up quickly. However, the team is quickly overwhelmed by the sudden increased volume. They miss more and more incoming calls, forget to check voicemail, return phone calls, respond to online inquiries and essentially stop following up on treatment conversations.

As a result, the number of new patient inquiries drops once more, as does the number of scheduled appointments. While initially, the strategy attracted more opportunities, too many of them slipped through the cracks, and volume slowed to a crawl.

Practice B: Quality over quantity

The dentist at Practice B decides that the best path forward is to focus on improving the new patient experience and creating an acquisition system that attracts the right people and converts more of the opportunities the practice already has. She invests in a marketing campaign to boost lead generation but also understands that can’t be the entire strategy.

The priority for Practice B is to attract quality patients who are a strong fit for the services, values and clinical experience the practice provides. She knows that the practice’s website, messaging, online reviews and follow-up process must work together to inspire confidence and prompt prospects to schedule an appointment.

The team has a clear process for responding to new patient inquiries on every marketing channel, focusing their conversations on the patients’ needs and guiding them toward an appointment. As part of their daily responsibilities, team members set aside time to return phone calls, reschedule cancellations and follow up on treatment conversations to ensure patients and prospects receive the attention they deserve.

What’s the difference?

In our example, Practice A places all the burden of new patient acquisition on its marketing, while Practice B treats marketing as one part of the acquisition process. Practice A may generate more raw leads, but because the team doesn’t have time to answer inquiries or a system to manage them efficiently, too many of those opportunities get lost in the shuffle.

Practice B, on the other hand, converts a higher percentage of opportunities because there’s a process in place to take a prospective patient from interest to appointment to treatment acceptance. Instead of continually generating new leads, Practice B gets more value from the ones it already has. The practice doesn’t rely solely on volume to grow. Instead, the team works on creating a patient experience that helps to attract and retain quality people.

The patient experience starts before the appointment

The new patient experience begins long before a patient sits in the chair. From the first impression online, a prospective patient is deciding whether the practice is a good fit for their needs.

That decision process continues through the first phone call or message and carries into every additional touchpoint. When that experience feels personal from the start, trust begins to form before the person ever visits the office.

Do you need more leads or a better system?

Whether you’re a dentist looking for more new patients or an investment consultant seeking to increase assets under management, before investing in more leads, look closely at how you’re handling the ones you already have. Are you:

• Answering every call?
• Responding to emails and voicemails promptly?
• Guiding initial conversations toward scheduling an appointment?
• Tracking every opportunity from inquiry to sale?
• Following up on conversations that don’t result in a sale?

If you can’t answer yes to all of those, more leads may not solve your growth problem. Instead, consider strengthening communication, focusing on the new customer experience and creating a disciplined acquisition system to help you convert more of the prospects you currently have.

Once you do that, additional marketing investment becomes far more powerful because you are no longer simply paying for more attention but turning the right attention into lasting relationships.