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The ones that cost nothing but attention
1. Ask for reviews at the right moment. When the treatment is done and the patient is relieved, send a link on WhatsApp that takes thirty seconds. Reply to every review. The count next to your name on Google decides more calls than anything else on this list.
2. Finish the Google Business Profile. Every field, the right category, real photographs of the clinic, correct hours, the treatments listed. Most clinics have a half-finished profile and wonder why the clinic down the road is on the map and they are not.
3. Answer the phone, and the WhatsApp, in minutes. Count last month’s enquiries and the time to the first human reply. If it is hours, this is the idea — and it is the one nobody sells.
The ones that cost a little
4. A website a patient can book from on a phone at night: fast, the treatments and the area named, the real clinic shown, a call button and a WhatsApp link where the thumb is. Not a nine-field form.
5. A referral programme that is actually run. Most new patients at a good clinic come from an existing one, and almost no clinic makes it deliberate. Ask, at the moment of relief; thank the referrer, with something small; track it. A discount on the next clean is enough — the reward matters less than the asking.
6. Seasonal offers for the treatments you want: whitening before the wedding season, a check-up package for the school holidays. One at a time, to past patients on WhatsApp, with a date on it.
The ones that cost real money, and when they are worth it
7. Ads for a specific treatment — implants, aligners, cosmetic work — in your area, with a page for that treatment and call tracking so you know what each booked patient cost. Worth it once the first four are in place; a waste before, because the ad sends a patient to a clinic that will lose them.
8. Local partnerships — the gym, the paediatrician, the school — for a referral arrangement. It works in a settled neighbourhood where the businesses know each other, and it is slow. Worth doing once, properly, with three partners, rather than sending a flyer to thirty.
One to skip, and one to think about
A chatbot on the website is usually not worth it for a clinic. A patient with a toothache wants a phone number and a person; a bot that asks them to describe their symptoms sends them to the next clinic. A WhatsApp link does the job the bot was meant to.
Social media is worth thinking about, not obsessing over. An honest feed of the real clinic and the real team reassures a nervous patient who has already found you on the map. It does not find them. Post when there is something real to post, and put the effort into the first four ideas instead.