The Signal: In January this year we published a story about the increasing number of marketers capitalizing on the dental industry. We reported on an uptick in search volume for terms such as “dental marketing” and “dental SEO” since 2016, as more and more dentists were finding that traditional patient acquisition techniques weren’t sufficient to help them grow their practices. 

The dental industry is particularly attractive for marketers because of the relatively high patient lifetime value — about $4.5k — which means that dental practices can comfortably afford a $150-$300 cost per lead (CPL).

Since Then: Safe to say that the dental industry, like many others, has been turned on its head in the 4 months since we wrote this article. I don’t know about you, but it will likely be a while before I feel comfortable letting a stranger put their hands close to my mouth again.