A dental marketing manager brings new patients to every office in a dental group. The work spans Google listings, websites, reviews, paid search and local events. Spend goes to the offices with open chair time, and the call center helps trace each new patient to its source.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
You'll bring new patients to eight to ten dental practices. You run each location's Google Business Profile, website pages, reviews, paid search and local campaigns, and track every new patient back to its source with the call center. Your ads follow the state dental board's advertising rules and HIPAA.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Plan new-patient campaigns for each practice based on open chair time and the services it offers.
Manage each location's Google Business Profile, website pages and online listings.
Run paid search and social ads, and manage the budget by practice.
Ask patients for reviews, and reply without confirming the reviewer is a patient or mentioning any health details.
Get written patient authorization before using any patient's photo, story or before-and-after images.
Check ads against the state dental board's advertising rules, such as how general dentists may describe specialty services.
Track new patients by source with the call center, and report cost per new patient.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Check new-patient numbers and call tracking by practice and source.
Shift ad spend toward practices with open schedule time.
Respond to new reviews and send complaints to the practice manager.
Plan community events and local partnerships with practice managers.
Update the website when dentists, hours or services change.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
New patients by practice and source: [your target].
Cost per new patient: [your target].
Ad calls booked as appointments: [your target].
Review rating and volume by practice: [your target].
Website appointment requests: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
Bachelor's degree in marketing or a related field, or equal experience.
[3+] years of local or multi-location marketing, including paid search and Google Business Profile.
Comfortable with call tracking, analytics and ad platform reports.
Writes clear, plain ad and website copy.
Understands HIPAA limits on using patient information in marketing, or can learn them quickly.
6. Preferred Experience
Dental, medical or other healthcare marketing experience.
Has marketed new or acquired locations for a growing group.
Experience with [your website platform] and [your review software].
Basic photo and video skills for practice and team content.
7. Physical Requirements
Work at a computer most of the day, with visits to practices and local events.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Central office in [city], with [remote or hybrid days].
Business hours, with some evening or weekend community events.
Regular drives to practices for photos, events and manager meetings.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new marketing manager gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
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What changes when you market a group of dental offices
The job is local marketing for eight to ten offices at once, each with its own dentists, opening hours and accepted plans. Health privacy law and state dental advertising rules sit on top of it, so some tactics that work for a restaurant or a plumber are off limits here.
Fill the chairs that are empty
An office with a new associate dentist and empty new-patient slots needs a push. An office booked weeks out doesn't. Check open time by office each week with the practice managers and the call center, and move search and social budget to the offices that can see new patients soonest. Match each ad to the plans that office takes, or the phones fill with callers it can't book.
Specialist claims are regulated
General dentists in the group may place implants or offer aligners, but state law can limit how that is advertised. Florida is one example. There, a dentist can't be held out as a specialist without finishing an approved specialty program and being eligible for, or certified by, a national specialty board the American Dental Association recognizes. Name the service in the ad. Use the word specialist only for dentists who qualify in that state. Source: Florida Statutes 466.0282: Specialties.
Patient stories need a signed authorization
A before-and-after smile photo, a video testimonial, or even a patient's name in a post from the office is protected health information, because it shows that person got care there. Before it goes in an ad, on the website or on social media, get a signed HIPAA authorization. It must say what will be used, who will use it, for what purpose, and when the permission ends. Keep the signed form with the photo or video so anyone can check it later. Source: 45 CFR 164.508: Uses and disclosures for which an authorization is required.
Vendors that touch patient data sign first
Call tracking that records patient calls, review software that gets patient phone numbers, and a texting tool for recall campaigns all handle patient information for the group. HIPAA lets the group share that information with a vendor only under a written contract that promises the vendor will protect it. This is the business associate agreement. Get it signed before the first patient list goes out. Source: 45 CFR 164.502: Uses and disclosures of protected health information.
Referral rewards can break federal law
Refer-a-friend cards, gift cards and raffles for referrals are routine in other local businesses. A dental group that bills Medicaid or another federal health care program has to be careful with them. The HHS inspector general's office says the federal anti-kickback law covers anything of value offered to get referrals, or to thank someone for them, when those programs pay for the care. It applies to every source of referrals, patients included. Have a healthcare attorney review each referral reward before launch. Source: HHS Office of Inspector General: Fraud and abuse laws.
How much dental marketing managers make
Marketing managers who work for dental offices earned a median of $102,750 a year ($49.40 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $166,790 median for marketing managers in all industries. About 130 of the 395,240 marketing managers in that survey work for dental offices.
Salaried. If there's a bonus, tie it to the marketing plan, such as cost per new patient and holding to budget. If a bonus would grow with each new patient and Medicaid pays for some of those patients' care, get the group's healthcare attorney to review it first.
Dental offices
$102,750$102,750 median Middle half $87,060–$241,460 10th–90th $78,050–$249,990
All industries
$166,790$166,790 median Middle half $123,020–$216,410 10th–90th $90,260–$293,610
$50k$100k$150k$200k$250k$300k$350k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Dental offices
$78,050
$87,060
$102,750
$241,460
$249,990
All industries
$90,260
$123,020
$166,790
$216,410
$293,610
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has run Google Business Profiles and paid search for several locations at the same time
Ties a new patient back to the ad, listing or referral that sent them, using call tracking and booking data
Writes ad and web copy a patient understands on first read, with no promises about results
Knows where patient privacy limits marketing: photos, stories, review replies and vendor contracts
Splits one budget across all the group's offices and backs the split with numbers
Works with practice managers who each want their office to come first
Teach these on the job
Your states' dental advertising rules
Which dentists, services and insurance plans each office has
How the call center records where each new patient came from
Your authorization form and where signed copies are kept
The group's brand rules for office names, logos and photos
Day to day the job runs on Google Business Profile, Google Ads and Meta ads, call tracking, the website platform and a review tool. The practice management software's referral source report is the check on all of them, and the patient texting system is often shared with the call center.
Dental marketing manager interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Fill in each goal from what that office has done over recent months, then raise it where a new dentist or longer hours add room.
New patients by practice and source
First visits completed each month, grouped by office and by the source the call center recorded. Spot-check sources against call tracking so a referral isn't logged as an ad.
Cost per new patient
All marketing spend for an office in a month, including ads, agency fees and events, divided by new patients who completed a first visit there. Compare offices that offer similar services and take similar plans.
Ad calls booked as appointments
Of the calls on tracked ad numbers, count those that became a booked visit, by office. Note the callers who couldn't book because that office doesn't take their plan, since that points to ad targeting, not the phones.
Review rating and volume by practice
Once a month, on a set date, pull every office's Google rating and new review count, and list the offices in one table so a slipping office is easy to see. Note how fast each office answers its reviews.
Website appointment requests
Booking forms and online scheduling requests from each office's pages, and how many the call center turned into visits that week.
Yes, with care. Under HIPAA, facts that tie a person to the care they got count as health information. So a reply that confirms the reviewer is a patient, or mentions their visit, treatment or bill, discloses it. Thank them, say you want to hear more, and give the practice manager's number. Then sort it out off the review site.
How much does a dental marketing manager make?
Marketing managers who work for dental offices earned a median of $102,750 a year ($49.40 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $87,060 and $241,460 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
Can a dental office give free whitening to patients who leave a review?
No. Google's rules bar offering a discount, a free service, a gift or any other reward to people who post a review. They also bar asking only the patients who seem happy, and reviews from current or former staff. What works instead is a habit: the same short text to every patient after every visit, sent by the office.
Who should approve dental ads before they run?
Set one sign-off path for every ad. The marketing manager drafts it. A dentist checks clinical claims, such as what a treatment does and who does it. Someone checks the state's advertising rules and any patient authorizations. In some states the dentists must keep control: Florida bars a non-dentist from controlling a practice's advertising decisions, so the dentist-owned practice has the final say there.
Should a dental group use one website or one per practice?
Either can work. One group site with a strong page for each office is easier to keep current. Separate sites can suit offices that kept a well-known local name after a purchase. Either way, each office needs its own Google Business Profile and its own page with its dentists, hours, address, phone number and the insurance plans it takes.
How does a dental marketing manager work with the call center?
The call center asks each new patient how they heard about the office, and the marketing manager uses that, along with call tracking, to decide where money goes. Go over missed and unbooked ad calls together each week. If calls come in but don't book, the fix may be a script or more staff at peak hours, not more ad spend.
