How to Hire a Dental Marketing Agency

Most dental practices hire a marketing agency the same way: a sales call arrives at a busy moment, the proposal looks professional, and the contract is signed before anyone has asked who will do the work, how results will be measured, or who owns the website when it ends. Some of those relationships go well. Others end with a practice that has paid for a year of reports it couldn’t interpret and can’t take its own phone numbers with it.

Good agencies exist, and the right one can save a practice a great deal of time. This guide helps you find it and protect the practice while you work together: decide whether you need an agency at all, understand what agencies sell and how they charge, interview them properly, recognize the red flags, get the contract and account ownership right, and manage the relationship with numbers that mean something, including how to leave cleanly if it isn’t working.

Agencies sell; Teeth Shakers explains. None of this is anti-agency. It’s what a careful buyer does.

Chapters

1. 01Do you need an agency?In-house coordinator, freelancer, dental-specialist agency or generalist agency: how a dental practice decides what help it needs and what to do itself.
2. 02What agencies sell and how they chargeSEO, ads management, websites, social media and review software, and the pricing models agencies use: retainers, percentage of ad spend, setup fees, per-lead.
3. 03Questions to ask before you signThe interview that separates good dental marketing agencies from good salespeople: who does the work, reporting, references and what they need from you.
4. 04Red flags when hiring an agencyGuaranteed rankings, agency-owned websites and ad accounts, long auto-renewing contracts, vague reports and fake reviews: the warning signs to take seriously.
5. 05Contracts and account ownershipWho should own the domain, website, Google Business Profile, ad accounts and tracking numbers, plus termination terms and business associate agreements.
6. 06Managing the agency and leaving cleanlyMonthly reports tied to new patients, quarterly reviews, being a good client, and how to leave a dental marketing agency without losing your accounts.