How Do Patients Choose A Practice Now?

How do dental patients find you in the age of AI search? Getting chosen, not just found

For twenty years, dental marketing had one holy grail: rank on the first page of Google. That game hasn’t ended, but it has grown a second board. Patients now ask ChatGPT which Invisalign provider to see, ask Siri whether a seven-year-old needs an orthodontic consult, and read AI-generated answer summaries without ever clicking a blue link. The practices that show up inside those answers are playing tomorrow’s game. Most practices aren’t playing it at all.

Alex Rasmussen has been on both boards. He taught himself SEO in 2008 and built Neon Canvas — the Memphis agency he co-founded with an orthodontist — into a national dental and orthodontic marketing firm with a team of 60. On our Dentelligentsia podcast, he explained how patients actually choose now, and what earns a practice a place in the answer.

Answer the questions people actually ask

Rasmussen’s mechanism is refreshingly concrete: “People ask the internet questions — and now they ask their ChatGPT, their Grok, their Siri. If you’ve got content that answers that question, they’re interacting with your brand inside the answer.”

AI assistants assemble answers from content that already exists — and they favor pages that directly, thoroughly answer specific questions. The long-tail question a patient types at midnight (“does my kid need braces or a palate expander,” “how much does a dental implant cost without insurance”) is the inventory. A practice that publishes clear, genuine answers to dozens of those questions becomes raw material for the machines doing the answering — and the brand a patient has already met before they ever search your name. His content philosophy backs it: “Jab, jab, jab, right hook. Give away your information. Don’t be afraid to tell people your secrets — if you’re really great at what you do, by the time they copy it, you’re already on to the next thing.”

Nobody chooses on the first touch

The second thing to internalize: no single piece of marketing closes a patient. “It takes six or seven points of contact before someone’s ready to buy from you,” Rasmussen told us. “The jersey, the blog post, the drive-by, the friend’s recommendation, the front desk on the phone — that blog post didn’t convert, but it may have been the thing.”

That kills the channel-by-channel ROI obsession that makes owners cancel whatever didn’t “convert” last quarter. The touches work as a system — including the physical ones. Note that two of Rasmussen’s six touches are real estate: the drive-by and the sign. Your location works every day of the lease as a marketing asset, or it doesn’t; that’s decided at site selection.

Be the guide, not the hero

The storytelling layer under all of it: “The doctor wants to make themselves the hero — they want to be Luke Skywalker. But they’re not. The patient is Luke. The doctor is the Yoda, there to guide them.” Practices whose websites lead with the doctor’s credentials are telling the wrong story. And story isn’t just copy: “The colors of your logo tell a story. The way your office is designed tells a story. The fact that you’re a third-generation doctor — that’s a story, and you have to lean into it.” His proof it works anywhere: a Memphis practice that built a multimillion-dollar patient base by wholeheartedly serving families other practices ignored. “You don’t have to go to Austin or Phoenix. Lean into where you’re at.”

Fund it like you mean it, and consolidate

Rasmussen’s budget rules: a practice between startup and about $1.5 million should invest a minimum of 10 percent of revenue in marketing — “if you’re trying to grow and you’re not investing at least $50,000 to $70,000 — good luck” — settling toward 5 percent at maturity, with $30,000 to $50,000 for a startup’s launch. His line for owners who spent big on the buildout and starved the growth engine: “How are you going to spend $40,000 on chairs and not spend $40,000 to put butts in those chairs?”

And put the money in one place: the sister’s brother-in-law on Google Ads, the billboard buddy, the old employee’s software — scattered dollars, no accountability. One partner, focused on the biggest return. His current arbitrage pick: the local micro-influencer — “I don’t need Brad Pitt — I need the mommy blogger with 2,000 followers who are copying everything she does.”

Hear the full conversation with Alex Rasmussen of Neon Canvas on the Dentelligentsia podcast — intent-based Google Ads, branding versus conversion dollars, and his prompt tricks for getting real work out of AI.

And since the drive-by is still one of the six touches: the location that gets seen is chosen, not lucked into. Tenants and buyers only — talk to us.

For more on our interview with Alex Rasmussen, check out our article, “How Do Patients Choose A Practice Now? Story, Search, and Six Points of Contact.”

And follow Alex Rasmussen on Linked In or check out the Neon Canvas website.