ProSites has released the 2023 State of Dental Marketing Report, providing essential insights into the current state of dental marketing and where practices are headed in 2023, and many findings may surprise practices.
Given the economic backdrop of 2022 and recession predictions for 2023, one might understandably expect that dental practices would be cutting back on marketing budgets. Yet 74% of surveyed practices are planning to increase their marketing budgets in 2023 or keep them the same. This includes the 10% of practices making $1 million or more in annual revenue. These same practices are planning on spending more on monthly marketing in 2023 than overall findings across all budget categories.
Evidencing the increasing shift by practices toward more digital marketing, the report examples a marked change in how practices view word-of-mouth advertising, which practices have traditionally viewed as one of the best ways to attract new patients. Where 80% of surveyed practices considered word of mouth most important in ProSites’ 2022 report, favor dropped dramatically to 25% in ProSites’ 2023 report, and 27% of practices are planning to cultivate more online patient reviews (which represent word-of-mouth advertising).
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“In an increasingly online world,” says Tiffany Isbell, VP of Brand & Content Marketing, “the shifts toward digital marketing reflect goals by practices to keep step, stay competitive, and grow in an increasingly competitive dental services market.”
Paralleling practice growth trends in digital marketing, the report also shows that practice average annual revenue grew in 2022. Despite a challenging year, the number of respondents who reported annual practice revenue of $500,000 – $750,000 increased over 3x from 9% to 30%. Across the board, practices in all revenue categories (except $1 million or more) reported more in annual revenue than the same categories reported by practices in ProSites’ 2022 report, and this upward trend aligns with past performance indicators and an overall upward outlook for the dental industry in 2023 and beyond.
As busy as practices are, the report unsurprisingly shows the number of surveyed practices using an online marketing provider has greatly increased (38% in ProSites’ 2022 report to 58% in ProSites’ 2023 report).
SOURCE: PRWeb