Stop wasting money on dental marketing that doesn’t convert, says David Nelkin.
Here’s a question that should make every practice owner pause: would you rather spend £5,000 generating 70 enquiries with a 10% conversion rate, or 35 enquiries with a 20% conversion rate?
Most practice owners instinctively choose more leads. It feels like progress. But here’s what the thriving practices know: once you’ve built that higher-converting funnel, every pound you spend afterwards delivers double the results. One approach sets you up for sustainable growth, the other keeps you on an expensive treadmill forever.
The mathematics of smart growth
At Xcelerator Dental, we’ve helped practices achieve something remarkable: 50% more treatment starts without spending another penny on marketing. How? By improving just four conversion points by 5% each.
Those four points are: leads contacted, appointments booked, patients who turn up, and treatment starts. When you optimise all four together, the compound effect is transformational.
Let’s say you currently get 50 leads per month. You contact 70% (35 people), book 40% of those (14 appointments), with an 80% attendance rate (11 consultations), and 50% convert to treatment (5.5 new patients). Improve each stage by just 5%, and you’ll end up with approximately 8 new patients – a 45% increase.
And here’s the exciting part – 5% improvement at each stage is always achievable.
Where practices lose patients (and money)
The average dental practice loses 55% of their enquiries due to poor follow-up processes. Think about that. You’re paying to generate leads, then losing more than half of them simply because you don’t have the right systems in place.
We recently worked with a practice that thought their conversion was solid. When we implemented proper tracking, we discovered they were converting just 5% of website enquiries into orthodontic consultations. Within six months of systematic nurturing and follow-up, that jumped to 62%. That’s a potential additional £588,000 in annual revenue from the same marketing spend.
The difference? A systematic approach supported by the right CRM and processes.
How the award winners do it differently
In 2024, Xcelerator Dental won every Website of the Year award at all three major dental awards. But we’re not just about pretty websites – we’re about conversion engines that transform practice growth.
Our approach centres on three pillars: promote, convert, grow.
Promote focuses on generating high-quality leads through local SEO, paid advertising, and strategic content marketing. With 60% of searches now ending without a click, we’ve adapted our strategies to ensure practices appear in Google’s AI-generated results and map pack.
Convert ensures your website turns visitors into enquiries. Our websites typically achieve conversion rates of 6 to 12%, compared to the industry average of 2 to 3%. That’s double to quadruple the enquiries from the
same traffic.
Grow is where our CRM and practice success managers ensure every enquiry is followed up, nurtured, and guided towards treatment acceptance. Daily action lists, automated communication via email, SMS, and Whatsapp, AI-powered lead scoring – all working together to maximise conversion.
The smart investment
We would never suggest a client invests more in marketing if they don’t have a well-converting funnel. It’s like trying to fill a swimming pool with a garden hose when there’s a massive hole in the bottom.
The practices that thrive are those that recognise this fundamental truth: sustainable growth comes from systematically improving how you convert opportunities at every stage.
If you’re investing in marketing but not measuring your conversion rates at each stage, you’re flying blind. Once you start measuring and optimising your funnel, even small improvements create compound returns that transform your
practice’s trajectory.
That 50% increase in treatment starts from 5% improvements at each stage isn’t theoretical – it’s what we’re helping practices achieve every single month.
Ready to transform your practice growth? Contact Xcelerator Dental to discover how we can help you measure, track, and improve your conversion rates at every stage of the patient journey. www.xceleratordental.com.
This article is sponsored by Xcelerator Dental.
