Marketing through a practice purchase

When you buy a practice, the most valuable thing you buy is usually its patients and its reputation. The marketing goal in the first year is not to look new. It is to keep the patients you paid for, and to make the change feel like continuity.

Before closing: put the marketing assets in the agreement

Make sure the purchase agreement and transition plan cover the Google Business Profile, the website and domain, the phone numbers, social media accounts, email lists and any marketing vendor accounts. Find out who actually controls each one; it is common for a profile or domain to sit in a former employee’s or an agency’s account.

Announcing the change

• Send patients a letter, ideally from the selling and buying dentists together, introducing the new dentist and saying what stays the same: the team, the location, the phone number, hours and insurance.
• If the selling dentist will stay on for a while, say so; it reassures long-time patients.
• Some states have rules about notifying patients when a dentist sells or leaves a practice and about who keeps the records. Check with your state dental board or a healthcare attorney.
• Update the website’s dentist pages, bios and photos on the day the change happens.

Keeping existing patients

Patients leave after a sale when too much changes at once. Keep the team, phone number, hours and recall system stable through the first months, and introduce changes to fees, insurance or procedures gradually and with notice. Keep recall and reminders running without a gap. The patient retention guide covers recall and reactivation.

Keep the name or change it?

Keeping the name keeps recognition, search history and the profile’s identity. Changing it makes sense when the name is the seller’s own name, when the brand is weak, or when you are merging it into an existing practice. If you change it, do it deliberately: update the signage, the Google profile name, the website and the main listings together, so they match.

The existing Google profile and reviews

Transfer ownership of the existing profile rather than starting a new one. The reviews and history are part of what you paid for. If the reviews include complaints, the answer is better care and a steady flow of new, genuine reviews, with careful replies. Don’t create a new profile to escape old reviews: duplicate profiles break Google’s rules and can get the listing suspended. Also deal with the selling dentist’s individual listing if there is one. See claim and verify and individual dentist listings.