Find an expert
Message Jordan

Columbus, OH · Dental practice · Local campaign

A carousel for nervous patients

Jordan Ellis made social posts and ran Meta ads for Brightwater Family Dental, a dental practice in Columbus, OH (Jan 12 – Feb 8, 2026): 31 first-visit bookings from adults who’d stayed away.

Client
Brightwater Family DentalDental practice
Where
Columbus, OHClintonville, Worthington, Northland, and Old North Columbus
When
Jan 12 – Feb 8, 2026
Services
Social posts, Meta ads

Results

Jan 12 – Feb 8, 2026

  • 14,800People reached by the ads and posts
  • 486Clicks through to online booking
  • 31First-visit bookings, new and returning patients
  • $262Meta ad spend, $8.45 per booking
  • 176Saves and shares of the carousel
  • 24First visits kept by the end of February

The brief

Every January Brightwater gets calls from adults who haven’t seen a dentist in years and want to go now that their dental benefits have reset. Most never book. They ask about price, go quiet and hang up, and nobody calls them back. The dentist wanted something calm and honest for those people, ending in a first visit. The limits: never “painless” or “pain-free”, no sedation offer (they don’t provide it), no close-ups of teeth or tools, and the dentist approves every word.

Goal
Turn nervous neighbors into first visits.
Who and where
Adults within five miles of the practice who haven’t seen a dentist in years and quietly dread going.

What the client gave me

The front desk’s notes on what nervous callers ask (the top question by far: will it hurt?), the dentist’s own answer on a sticky note, photos of treatment room 2, the one with a window, and the basket of headphones and blankets they keep for anyone who asks.

Treatment room 2 before opening, taken by the office manager. It’s the room nervous patients ask for.
Treatment room 2 before opening, taken by the office manager. It’s the room nervous patients ask for.
The headphones and blankets at the front desk. Patients only got them if they knew to ask.
The headphones and blankets at the front desk. Patients only got them if they knew to ask.

What I made

Name the fear first, explain the visit step by step, answer the most-asked question in the dentist’s own words, then offer an easy Saturday slot.

  1. Nervous about the dentist?
    Nervous about the dentist?The practice wanted to open with its comfort extras. I opened with the feeling and put the headphones and blanket in the photo, so the extras show without a list.Caption Slide 1 names the worry most new patients won’t say out loud, and tells them they’re not the only one.
  2. Your first visit, step by step
    Your first visit, step by stepCut their 11-step new-patient checklist to four steps a nervous person can picture, and moved the price to step four, where people actually ask about it.Caption Slide 2 takes the mystery out of the first appointment: a chat, a gentle cleaning, X-rays only if needed, and a clear plan and price.
  3. You asked: “Will a cleaning hurt?”
    You asked: “Will a cleaning hurt?”The dentist’s answer from the sticky note, nearly word for word. I cut one line that promised no pain and kept the part about the patient setting the pace.Caption Slide 3 answers the most common question in the practice’s own words and puts the patient in charge of the pace.
  4. Saturday appointments are here
    Saturday appointments are hereOne next step: Saturday. Nervous adults had told the front desk they didn’t want to take time off work to face it.Caption Slide 4 gives one easy next step: a Saturday visit, booked online in under a minute.

How it went out

Where it ran

  • Brightwater’s Instagram and Facebook page
  • Google Business Profile
  • A text to patients overdue for a visit
  • Nextdoor
  1. Jan 12The carousel on Instagram and Facebook, slide 1 as the cover
  2. Jan 13Meta ads start with the full carousel, $10 a day
  3. Jan 15Slide 3, the cleaning question, as a Google post and on Nextdoor
  4. Jan 20A text to 214 patients who hadn’t been in for two years or more, linking the carousel
  5. Jan 26Slide 2 added as its own ad, after slide 1 stalled on clicks
  6. Feb 8Ads end
Best ad: Your first visit, step by step

Meta ads

Audience
Adults 25 to 64 within 5 miles of the practice: Clintonville, Worthington and the north side (43202, 43214, 43085)
Budget
$270 planned, $262 spent
Dates
Jan 13 – Feb 8

The full carousel was cheap to show and slow to click: most people stopped at slide 1. On Jan 26 I ran slide 2 on its own, and it brought 13 of the 19 bookings that came through ads, at $0.58 a click against $1.12. Slide 2 is the one that answers what actually happens.

What happened

The text to overdue patients was the cheapest part of the campaign: 12 of the 31 bookings came from it in three days, from people who had meant to come back and needed a nudge that didn’t scold them. The carousel was saved and shared 176 times, mostly by people tagging a friend or a partner. Nextdoor went wrong. The cleaning post turned into a long thread about one person’s bad visit to another practice years ago, and I took it down rather than have the practice argue in public. Of the 31 bookings, 24 came in by the end of February. All 7 no-shows were first-timers who had booked more than two weeks out.

What I’d do next

Run it again in the first week of January, when benefits reset, and start with slide 2 as the ad. Send the overdue-patient text before any ads. Have the front desk call every first-timer the day before, since that’s where the no-shows were. And keep posts about fear off Nextdoor.

More work by Jordan

Tell Jordan about your business

Share where you are and what you’d like more of. Jordan usually replies within a day.

Availability updated Oct 12, 2026.

Message Jordan