📍 Welcome to episode 79 of No Silver Spoons. I'm Sarah Beth Herman, your host and CEO of dentistry support. Where we serve dental practices virtually to support billing, phones, eligibility, and operational strategy. And today we're talking about referrals. Now, I love marketing. I light up when a campaign is built with strategy and purpose, but if we're being honest, I've been cringing lately as I look around at what's being called marketing in the dental world today.

We see discounted crowns, free whitening for life. Refer a friend and get entered to win a free movie night or the classic win a free iPad drawing. We've got to stop pretending that cheap is clever. Every dental website, it looks the same, the same stock photos, the same five page template, the same lack of strategy and patients.

They're smarter than we give them credit for. They're not looking for gimmicks. They're looking for an experience for connection, for something worth talking about. Dare I say something worth sharing on their Instagram stories about, in this episode, I'm asking you to pause. Not just to hear ideas, but to rethink your framework entirely.

What if your dental referral program wasn't a program at all, but a byproduct of how exceptional your experience feels? We're gonna talk strategy, yes.

But I'll also walk you through ideas I've used with real clients I currently mentor as we revamp the way they market, the way they communicate, and the way they connect with their patients. I'm gonna share numbers, examples, and a perspective that may challenge you, but it will elevate you two. By the end of this episode.

I want you thinking not just about how do I get more patients in the chair, but how to deserve more patients. And what kind of experience, culture, and systems actually make your practice referable without saying a single word. So let's get into it. Here's the truth. Your patients don't want another key chain or another free whitening program or another free x-ray coupon.

They want to feel seen. And every office that I work with has been learning the idea of adopting spa-like comforts, like paraffin, hand dips, warm towels, eye masks, red light therapy. They're seeing a clear bump in the word of mouth referrals. And not because we're asking for them, but because patients leave and they talk about them.

In most cases, they're literally pulling out their phone to do a real or a slow moving cinematic video of what's going on in this amazing dental practice they're in. Don't assume, first that you need to overhaul your office to create comfort. Start with one thing like maybe lavender scented towels post cleaning.

Then track what patients say. You're creating a moment and moments drive memory and memory drives sharing. This isn't about being bougie, but it is about breaking the mold. If you scroll Instagram, if you scroll TikTok or Facebook or your favorite Pinterest page or following, you will start to see some trends.

You will start to see that the world is moving towards experiences and the old outdated strategies that you were taught in the eighties, nineties, and early two thousands, dare I say, aren't what's working anymore. I wanna talk about memberships for a moment, not the dusty two cleanings and x-rays per year kind.

One of my clients added tiered memberships, including things like comfort upgrades, quarterly cosmetic add-ons, and even access to all exclusive self-care bundles. And they now have over a thousand active members. Now that's more than just recurring revenue.

That's actually retention. That's predictability. That's a reason to refer because patients feel like they actually belong, not like they're just saving money. Ask yourself, what is something that you could include that costs your office very little, but it feels like luxury to a patient. Now as I've been talking, maybe you're thinking we're dentistry.

I just want patients to come in, get their cleanings, see if they need any dental work, and move along to the next one. Okay? If you want to run a dental mill, then hey, that's on you. Go for it. But I'm talking about actually building buzz with purpose around your practice. One of my favorite things to do with clients is building community referral plans that don't feel corporate-y or pushy.

Now, I know you've been scrolling Pinterest and literally searching keywords like patient referral program ideas for dentistry. If you've been doing that, then I need you to listen up. I want you to think differently, like high school mouth guard programs, oral health days at local gyms, or partnering with a yoga studio for a wellness event.

Now, these aren't just nice gestures. They're actually creating connection. You're getting into your community and connection leads to conversations, which leads to referrals, which leads to more revenue. Now, I'm not just trying to be money hungry, but we are building a for-profit business and if we are truly building for-profit businesses, we've got to be thinking about what's going on right now.

What is appropriate for your business to continue thriving and driving new patients? There is a huge mistake that I see in dental practices today. They're trying something, they see no magic and they give up. Up, but you can't dabble your way through referral growth. You need an actual plan. You need to create a calendar, assign responsibilities, know your metrics, and start thinking like a PR strategist because your brand and your business deserves that, and so do your future patients.

Here's the thing. Most websites for dental practices, they aren't actually broken. They're just boring. And boring doesn't get shared. If your site doesn't have a refer a friend page, a strong SEO backbone or any sense of community relevance, you're not capturing your referral potential. With one of my clients, we built a referral landing page with tracking testimonials, team photos and social share buttons, and guess what?

It ranks locally for dentist referral near me, and it's converting consistently. SEO Backlinking and Conversion focus pages aren't just for big corporations. They're for you right now. So as you think of that calendar, as you think of responsibilities, as you think of things you want. Done. You have to incorporate all aspects for your dental practice.

It's not just about creating a business card that asks for referrals. It's not just about creating a cool experience. It's not just about being in part of your community. It's about thinking about all of that and really taking a look at what your PR strategy is. What does it look like for you?

Listen up, dentistry doesn't have to be lonely. And one of the biggest shifts I've led with clients is a collaboration mindset. Now, often dental practices are fearing other nearby practices. I want to help you learn something different. That whatever is meant for you is meant for you.

And what is meant for someone else is meant for them. No one can rob what is meant for you, so I don't want you to fear nearby practices. I want you to think about partnering with them. Host a co-branded event share Instagram lives feature each other on podcasts. These cross practice collaborations build shared audience trust and trust transfers into patient.

You can be the practice that leads this shift in your very town. Be bold enough to say we're not competition. We are all committed to raising the bar for care. There is something truly beautiful , that comes with you partnering with other places and knowing that you're linking arms with your community.

Let's just say you exist in a town that has 50,000 people. Can you handle 50,000 patients? No, you cannot handle 50,000 patients, especially if you're a four, six, or eight operatory practice. The average general practice has a patient base of four to 6,000, so there will require other dental practices that are in your nearby location.

Link arms with them. Build a community of trusted dentists. Be the one that does this. Be the one that sees people not as a threat, but as an opportunity to serve your community well. I wanna break down ROI for a minute where strategy actually meets result. I want you to start understanding how you can see what the ROI or return on investment looks like with your practice, because it's really great for us to get out here and talk about ideas on ways you can grow your practice, how you can get referrals, ideas for your practice to actually generate more revenue, but how you actually know what that looks like.

So your ROI calculation, go ahead and grab a pen and paper and start writing down a few things. Your ROI should equal new patients times average value minus cost divided by cost. So let's say your average patient brings in $1,500 per year and you get 20 new patients. From a campaign that cost you $5,000.

So your math on that would look like 20 times, 1500 minus 5,000 divided by 5,000. That equals a five times ROI. Let's talk about what your strategy benchmark should look like. If you want to see this all written out, check the show notes of this episode.

After you're done listening, I've written out all of this so you can actually copy and paste and take a look at what this looks like for your practice. So let's talk about strategy, spend, estimate, and expected. ROI. So strategy, let's say we're talking about SEO and referral pages. If you don't have any experience in SEO or creating referral pages, you might find someone who can build these for you.

It might cost you $1,000 to $4,000 a month depending on who you use to actually get these created. Your expected ROI or return on investment should be three to five times that amount after about six to 12 months. These are just realistic timeframes and realistic budgets or estimates that you should be looking at.

Let's talk about pay-per-click ads. The average dental practice is spending about 3000 to $5,000 a month on pay-per-click ads or PPC ads. Your expected ROI is about 300 to 500%. Holy cow, that's a great one. Let's talk events. You might sponsor an event for your local community.

Let's say you do an event at a football game or at a local community fair, or at a farmer's market. You could spend anywhere from $100 to have your table all the way up to two or $3,000 for a table, choose that wisely. But depending on the event, you may get 30 to 50 new patients. Memberships. These are cost neutral, so you can be looking at an expected ROI of $200,000 a year or more potential by just having memberships and then add-on amenities.

They might cost your practice anywhere from 200 to $500 a month for those add-on amenities, but they will give you a 20 to 30% referral increase. The clients I support who commit to budgeting three to 5% of gross revenue for marketing and then measure it are the ones who scale. Predictably, I wanna talk about you creating an action plan.

We've talked about a lot of things today, and I'm gonna recap all of what these look like. When you think about the action plan for your practice, you don't need to try everything. You need to do one thing or something. Well, I'm gonna give you six line items that I want you to take note of. One, audit your website.

Does your website convert patients or does it just sit there? What does that look like for it to convert patients? What are you seeing that you're missing? How does your practice look the same? As every other dental practice and then answer the question, how can it be different? Number two, launch one, membership tier.

Make it really special. Meet with your team and talk about what that looks like. Number three, add one new experience for your patients next month. Decide on what that looks like for your team. Is it a red light therapy blanket that you wanna introduce next month doesn't cost anything?

The patients can opt to have that during their appointment to help calm them post what the effects or what the benefits are of red light therapy. Number four, choose one community partnership and plan something really real. Figure out how you can make a community partnership work with you, and show your community what you're about.

Number five, assign a team member to lead quarterly marketing reviews. What do these look like for your brand? How can you make things better? What ideas does your team have? And number six, build a marketing calendar and treat it like operations. Now I wanna remind you, this isn't throwing spaghetti at the wall.

This is a strategy that scales try to find one of these that work really well for you, and maybe even take all six of these and figure out how to work through them this year. Every episode at No Silver Spoons always has That's good moment. We started with the Truth. Old referral methods are tired and your patients deserve more.

We've unpacked how curated experiences, meaningful memberships, digital infrastructure, community strategy, and smart partnerships all come together to make your practice referable without asking. Now, I'm not saying that I don't want you to ask for referrals, or I don't want you talking about referrals in your practice.

I'm saying that there are ways that you can start implementing new referral strategies, new marketing strategies that don't require. A lot of asking. You can still ask, but these are ways that referrals will just continue to build in your practice. The clients I serve today aren't discounting their dentistry.

They're elevating their identity, and whether you're scaling or just starting dentistry, support is here to help you grow smarter. We provide virtual billing, eligibility, support, phone support, and so much more. So you can reduce payroll or expand capacity without hiring more people. Our systems free you up to focus on the front where referrals happen.

So stop waiting for compliments, start designing conversations and build a practice that people rave about, that people share on their stories about be the Pinterest able practice and that my friend is your, that's good moment. Thank you for joining me on episode 79 of No Silver Spoons.

For free training downloads or working together, visit podcast dot dentistry support.com or our free training site dentistry support.com/freetraining. And as always, please follow us at no Silver Spoons Podcast or dentistry support underscore on Instagram. I'll catch you on the next episode. Until then, keep building  📍 something worth talking about.