
Establishing a name patients respect: Shaz Memon shares his guide to building a strong dental care within your local community and beyond.
When I say ‘famous’, I’m not talking about paparazzi chasing you outside Greggs at lunchtime (though that would make for an interesting story!). What I mean is building a reputation so strong that your name becomes synonymous with excellence in dental care within your local community and beyond.
Start with the foundation
Before diving into any marketing strategy, remember this: no amount of marketing can make up for sub-standard treatment and customer service. The foundation of a thriving dental practice is built upon delivering exceptional value. You can’t ‘get famous’ without being outstanding at what you do.
Patients don’t stay loyal to flashy marketing campaigns – they stay loyal to the experience and quality of care they receive. If your practice isn’t delivering exceptional quality, pause here. Focus on mastering your craft, refining your systems and ensuring that every patient leaves feeling valued.
Why quality comes first
Exceptional service creates loyalty, and loyalty breeds trust. Trust isn’t just a feel-good factor – it’s a powerful marketing tool.
In every successful practice setting I have ever worked with, an ecstatic patient becomes your advocate, spreading the word to friends and family and that is far more powerful than paid advertising of any kind. Without a strong foundation of care, even the most sophisticated marketing strategy will crumble under the weight of unmet expectations.
If you’re still working on getting your practice to this level, don’t be discouraged. Use this as your starting point: improve quality first, then build your fame.
Next, we work on visibility
We know the foundations of a business that grows, is built on quality. Quality and exceptional work are not enough, if visibility is absent.

If I received £1 for every time a colleague shared their opinion on another dental professional’s work – often with annoyance, claiming that the dentist is only popular because of social media hype – I’d be rather wealthy!
But what if we could strive to be both exceptional and the best-known? It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Stage one – the first impression era
Iconic and memorable branding
Craft a brand name that is short and memorable. If you can’t do that as that decision has already been made, then review your brand identity. The foundations of success stem from having an identity that is iconic, clear and timeless.
My company helps with brand identity design, but recently we have gone one step further and done the hard work for you with OneBrand. Click here to learn more.
Further reading: Design me a dental logo that ‘pops’.
A dental website proven to convert more patients
Every aspect of your marketing – your signage, the quality of work you deliver (which is a form of marketing!) and any paid campaigns – all rely heavily on your website. I’ve been designing websites for over 20 years, and one thing I’ve learned is that websites are often designed not for the patient, but for the practice owner.
Digimax websites are the highest converting in the dental industry. When you get the website right, using proven data from tracking patient behaviour across hundreds of dental websites, a clear trend emerges. We call this our ‘success formula’. It enables us to design sites that keep patients on your website for as long as possible. The longer they stay, the more likely they are to enquire.
Dentists often tell me: ‘Once I get the patient in front of me, converting them into a paying patient is easy.’ Most practices are losing thousands of pounds without even realising it.
Click here to enquire with Digimax about your dental website, or Click here to get a quick review your dental website for free.
Further reading:
- Things they don’t tell you when designing a website
- Digimax ‘success formula’ contains 20 years of learnings in one dental website
- What can a dental website learn from Amazon?
- The power of purchase beacons in website design
- A five-step dental website design guide (that anyone can follow).

Intensive customer service systems
Every dental practice growing rapidly shares a common trait. It’s not just about superior dentistry, prime location, elegant interiors or competitive fees. It’s simpler, yet often perceived as complex; it involves consistently exceeding patient expectations, genuinely from the heart, without relying on key individuals.
Discover the precise, repeatable strategies used in five-star hotels, and apply them to your dental practice to ensure growth and attract more of your desired patient type.

I wrote a book to emphasise that I truly believe there is no better marketing return on investment than investing time in building up your customer service standards to a ‘wow’ standard.
Using the same easy-to-follow format from my global bestseller Instagram for Dentists, you are sure to be engaged from cover to cover.
Put word-of-mouth marketing on steroids.
It can take decades to build a great reputation, but it takes just moments to ruin it. Thousands of £££ spent on marketing is not going to magically grow your practice or increase the free referrals your practice could receive.
Through practical customer service systems, you can sustainably grow a dental practice brand through patients rave about you beyond just Google reviews! They tell their friends and family about their experience – no, they ‘insist’ that their friends see you.
If your practice already benefits from consistent referrals (as most do), implementing the straightforward strategies in this book will elevate your reputation and brand presence to new heights.
Customer service isn’t something you do, it’s something you become. Let’s think differently about customer service.
Click here to buy ‘Experience Marketing for Dentists’ on Amazon.
Attacking your locality
Put yourself in your patients’ shoes. If every single person in your local area – and your target areas – doesn’t know about you, or if that isn’t currently your goal, make it your goal.
When I started Digimax Dental, I quickly realised that to be successful, I needed every practice in the country to associate dental websites, dental SEO, and dental branding with Digimax. I didn’t want everyone to be our client; I wanted to work with clients who were the right fit for us. That can only happen if you have enough enquiries coming in because of your reputation and visibility.
Similarly, you don’t want to treat everyone – you want to attract the right patients. To make that choice possible, every person in your locality needs to know who you are.
So, what can you be doing locally? Set up open days, host community events, partner with local businesses, collaborate with gyms, advertise in cinemas, establish a presence in shopping centres, or team up with restaurants. Do absolutely anything that increases your visibility to potential patients.
Most patients already assume dentists can deliver great dentistry. Often, their choice is made purely based on visibility. Repeat your message: consistency creates familiarity. Keep showing up, and soon, people will know your name.
Speaking engagements
Get involved in speaking about dentistry. Ideally, start locally – at schools, community events or even by hosting your own events. This could also be done as a webinar, but in-person interactions are always more impactful.
I used to be really scared of public speaking, and now I get paid very well to do it. If you get nervous, then fake it like how I do:
Imagine you’re speaking to a friend
Picture yourself having a casual conversation with a friend, and let the information flow naturally.
Avoid direct eye contact while making your audience feel seen
I look at the back of the room, which gives the impression I’m making eye contact with everyone. This way, no one’s expressions can throw me off. Once I’m in the flow, I may glance at individuals occasionally.
Speak slowly and clearly, with intentional pauses
Pause after important points to give your audience time to process what you’ve said.
Encourage audience engagement
If you want interaction, ask a question and raise your own hand to demonstrate that you’re inviting participation.
Add humour to your talk
Humour makes you memorable. I like to use the kind of humour that makes me laugh – it’s not a rehearsed joke but something authentic that suits my personality.
Turn your nerves into excitement
I stole this idea when I would be crapping myself about public speaking. Transforming excitement into fear is a powerful mental shift rooted in science that can significantly improve public speaking performance. When you’re about to speak, your body often triggers the same physiological responses for fear and excitement – like an elevated heart rate, rapid breathing and heightened energy.
Research suggests that by consciously reinterpreting these sensations as excitement rather than fear, you can harness their energising effects to your advantage. This mental reframing boosts confidence, as excitement is seen as a positive emotion that enhances focus and enthusiasm, while fear tends to inhibit performance.
Instead of trying to calm down or suppress your nerves, embrace the adrenaline surge and tell yourself, ‘I’m excited,’ which primes your brain to channel that energy into delivering an engaging and dynamic presentation.
Google reviews
You don’t need me to explain this one.
Further reading: How to collect 100 Google reviews in six months, with three easy-to-follow email templates.
Google Business optimisation
Optimise your own Google Business listing, and increase your visibility easily by following the steps here:
Don’t make these mistakes with your dental Google Business listing
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Organic Google optimisation is the most trusted online marketing method available. It works and becomes more effective over time. Patients trust organic Google listings more than paid ones, which is why it’s the most popular ongoing marketing service we offer at Digimax.
Click here to enquire with Digimax about ranking your website high on Google
See how we work here: digimax.dental/dental-seo-google/
Further reading:
- The ultimate dental SEO guide
- Dental SEO versus PPC: choosing the best strategy for your dental practice
- DIY SEO tips for better online visibility.
Stage two – building the framework
Personal brand
I sometimes receive more enquiries through my personal brand than directly via Digimax. Similarly, when patients recommend you, they may use your name more often than your practice name.
This highlights the importance of investing in building your personal brand. This includes professional photos, engaging videos, a personal brand website, a dedicated Instagram profile, and contributing to discussions as a thought leader. By increasing your visibility, you can build trust and ultimately drive more business into your practice.
Many people don’t like this idea as a business isn’t meant to rely on any one individual to succeed. By catapulting yourself to the front, means that patients will want to see you only, right? Wrong… all is explained here: the agony of self-promotion.

Your own social media presence
Be consistent with your own social media. You only need to make one story post a week to stay relevant.
You will attract more of the patients that you love and those that love you. Attract your tribe, and it’s less effort than you think.
Read my international best-seller Instagram for Dentists, now on its second edition to learn everything you need to know. It’s an easy read.
Click here to buy Instagram for Dentists on Amazon.
Referrals
Encourage referrals in a way that feels natural and personal. Don’t overcomplicate it – be direct, authentic and sincere.
A simple and honest approach works best:
- Provide a tangible reminder: hand them a referral card as a gentle nudge, but avoid over-incentivising it. Over-incentivising can make the request feel transactional and less genuine
- Leverage reciprocity: patients are more likely to refer others if they feel valued. Express your gratitude first: ‘Thank you for trusting me with your care. It truly means so much to us all’
- Be honest and relatable: build a deeper connection by being transparent about your goals. For example: ‘We’re really trying to grow our practice with wonderful patients like you, and your support would mean the world to us. Do you have any friends or family who might like to see us?’
- Make it easy: ensure the process of referring is super simple!
Stage three – the spotlight stage
Zero ROI marketing
Invest in marketing efforts that get you noticed. Not all marketing is measurable, and that’s why I refer to it as ‘zero ROI’.
It may not be trackable in a traditional sense, but it does pay off. I’ve proven this to myself countless times and so have the practices that consistently come out on top.
All is explained here: Is zero ROI marketing madness?
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
If your dentistry is exceptional, your customer service is on point, and the practice is turning a good profit, then we can use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to elevate your brand presence.
I’m not a huge believer in ‘advertising,’ but I strongly believe in the power of brand awareness, and PPC can accelerate this. Often, people jump into PPC as a primary strategy, but it tends to be less effective without a well-established brand due to a lack of patient rapport, the costs involved, and the intense follow-up process required.
Digimax clients find vetted PPC suppliers here or on the Digimax Perks App.
Paid social media
Similarly to PPC, social media can be used to accelerate your visibility. If all other aspects of your marketing strategy are well-executed, paid social media campaigns can enhance your reach and visibility effectively.
Digimax clients find vetted paid social media suppliers here or on the Digimax Perks App.
Becoming ‘famous’ in the world of dentistry isn’t about chasing fleeting attention – it’s about building a lasting reputation founded on quality, trust and visibility. By mastering the fundamentals, creating a memorable first impression, and consistently putting yourself and your practice in the spotlight, you can establish a name that patients respect and recommend.
Fame in this context isn’t just about recognition – it’s about becoming a trusted leader in your community and an inspiration in your industry. Take it step by step, stay authentic, and remember: the path to becoming a household name starts with delivering exceptional care.
This article is sponsored by Digimax.