Dental and clinic
marketing.

The short answer

Clinics win new patients on trust, and Australian law limits how you can borrow it: testimonials about clinical care are banned in health advertising, and your website and social pages count as advertising. Clinic marketing that works shows the people, the place and the visit, and leaves clinical claims out. Our social media management for clinics is built that way.

Below: who it suits, what we run, the rules with sources, the T32 launch, process and cost. For the Chinese-language side, see WeChat and Xiaohongshu marketing.

Who it suits

• Dental practices: general and family dentistry, clinics about to open, and groups adding a location.
• Allied health: physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, podiatry, psychology, optometry and Chinese medicine. All are registered professions, so the same law applies.
• GP and specialist clinics: practices that want steady new-patient bookings. Only a practitioner with specialist registration can use a specialist title in advertising (AHPRA).
• Clinics serving Chinese-speaking patients: around 1.4 million people in Australia have Chinese ancestry, according to the census, and many look for a dentist or doctor on 小红书 and WeChat before they call.

Wrong fit: a clinic that mainly wants to sell cosmetic injectables on before-and-after results (get legal advice first), or one that only needs its Google profile fixed, where a one-off local SEO project costs less.

What we run for clinics

Social media

Instagram, Facebook and TikTok as the clinic's front door: the team, what a first visit looks like, hours and news, and general health education from your own practitioners. We moderate comments on your pages.

小红书 and WeChat

Run natively in Chinese. A translated caption is still advertising, so Chinese posts get the same sign-off as English ones. Store visits are a common 小红书 format for local businesses; see our guide to Xiaohongshu store-visit creators in Sydney.

Creator visits

Local creators show what it is like to book, arrive and be looked after. We shortlist by audience fit, write the brief and script, and you approve every post. More on creator and influencer marketing and in the influencer marketing cost guide.

Google Business Profile and local SEO

Categories, services, photos and posts tidied, plus location pages and citations for map results. Reviews stay in the patient's own words: we don't edit, cherry-pick or repost them. See SEO for small business.

Paid social

Ads are advertising under the National Law too, so they get the same checks. See Meta ads and paid social, or for every channel under one plan, digital marketing in Sydney.

Advertising rules for regulated health services

Clinic advertising sits under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, administered by AHPRA and the National Boards (guidelines on AHPRA's Advertising hub). These points shape every plan we write.

Testimonials are banned in health advertising

Section 133 of the National Law says a person must not advertise a regulated health service in a way that uses testimonials or purported testimonials. It applies to anyone who advertises, registered or not, and advertisers are responsible for content produced by others on their behalf (AHPRA summary of the advertising requirements). That covers your agency and any creator you pay. Maximum court penalties are $60,000 per offence for an individual and $120,000 for a body corporate (AHPRA, Advertising and the law).

Your website and social pages are advertising

AHPRA's definition covers any verbal, printed or electronic public communication that promotes a health service provider to attract patients (advertising guidelines). Testimonials on a clinic Facebook page have to come down, and where a platform won't let you delete reviews, AHPRA suggests switching the review function off (AHPRA testimonials guidance).

Which reviews you can use

A testimonial is a recommendation or positive statement about the clinical aspects of care: symptoms, diagnosis or treatment, and outcome. Comments about customer service or communication style that don't mention clinical aspects are not testimonials. On our reading, praise for the reception team or the easy booking can be used; a review saying a filling stopped the pain cannot.

Editing reviews, or publishing only the positive ones, can be misleading (AHPRA FAQ). Reviews on sites you don't control can stay where they are; resharing or engaging with a clinical one may count as using a testimonial.

Cosmetic procedures carry extra rules

AHPRA and the National Boards' guidelines for practitioners who advertise higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures took effect on 2 September 2025 (Dental Board of Australia). Dental veneers are named in the examples, alongside injectables such as botulinum toxin and dermal fillers (AHPRA cosmetic advertising guidelines). For those procedures:

• Practitioners who work with influencers, ambassadors or content creators are responsible for what those people publish, and the testimonial ban applies in full.
• No free or discounted procedures for influencers or other users in exchange for promotion.
• No advertising aimed at people under 18.
• Images must be real and unaltered, with a prominent warning that results vary.

This is a summary, not legal advice; check AHPRA's advertising hub or your indemnity insurer.

How creator content fits inside the rules

Within those rules, a creator can show:

• the clinic itself: reception, the rooms, the kids' corner, how to get there and where to park
• the booking and visit experience: how easy it was to book, the welcome, the wait
• the team, the languages they speak, and opening news

A creator does not describe clinical results, rate a treatment, post before-and-after photos or vouch for a practitioner's clinical skill. Those limits go into the brief and script, and the clinic signs off every post before it goes live.

Worked example: the T32 Dental launch

T32 is a family-friendly dental clinic that launched in Sydney in late 2022. Before opening it needed a 小红书 presence that read as clinically credible and warm, and that turned attention into bookings, with no existing patients or reviews to lean on.

• Educational video: short dental health explainers presented by the clinic's own practitioners.
• A filmed grand opening: the team with the kids and parents who came through on the day.
• Five vetted creator visits: each creator was invited to experience the clinic and document the visit, with every shoot scripted in advance and reviewed before publishing.

The clinic opened with a running account. Bookings tracked back to social from launch week, and the account became the clinic's main front door for new patients. Read the T32 case.

A launch today keeps the same shape: account live before opening, education from your own practitioners, creators on the visit experience, and review before anything publishes.

How we work with clinics

1. Free 30-minute session: patient mix, locations and the services you want to fill.
2. Rules check: website, Google profile, social pages and review widgets against AHPRA's guidance, with a fix list first.
3. Plan and briefs: a content calendar in English, Chinese or both, plus creator briefs you approve.
4. Tracking from week one: booking-system source fields, tagged links and a "how did you hear about us" question at reception.
5. Publish and report: you sign off every post; a monthly report shows bookings by channel and next steps.

What it costs

• Social media management: $1,000–$3,000/month for one channel.
• Growth: $3,000–$5,500/month across two or three channels, such as social plus local SEO.
• Established: $6,000–$9,000/month for a multi-channel program, suited to multi-location groups.
• 小红书 or WeChat: from $3,000/month for one platform, $5,000–$9,000/month for both, plus a one-off setup of $4,000–$8,000.
• Creator visits: scoped per campaign.

Month-to-month, no lock-in, 30 days notice. You keep the accounts, the content and the data.