Growth systems
for the model patients don’t yet know about.
DPC is the most ideologically-coherent model in primary care today, and one of the hardest to market, because the category itself is still being explained. The practices that grow are the ones teaching the model before they ever sell the membership. That’s the work.
What we actually understand.
DPC requires education, not conversion.
Most prospective DPC members don’t yet know the model exists. The first marketing job isn’t to persuade, it’s to explain. The practices that grow are the ones that teach the category before they ever sell the membership.
Community is acquisition.
DPC growth looks less like an ad funnel and more like a community. Local businesses, self-employed professionals, families, and referral partnerships compound. We build the digital surface that makes community-led growth possible.
Retention is membership renewal.
Month twelve is where the unit economics hinge. Retention work in DPC isn’t the usual “drip email” work, it’s patient-satisfaction feedback, member portal experience, and the kind of quarterly touchpoints that actually earn renewal.
Same methodology.
different levers.
100-300 member cap. Local search, community, and word-of-mouth do the work. Site quality is the primary surface; paid works only narrowly.
400-1,500 members across 2-5 physicians. Shared brand, location-level GBP, centralized content. MapsPRO Growth tier typically fits.
Membership sold through employer contracts. Different marketing motion entirely. B2B content, LinkedIn presence, case studies of existing employer wins.
Base DPC membership with premium concierge tier on top. Both motions run simultaneously; segmentation matters.
Four products. One operating system.
MapsPRO
Local visibility, GBP, and a review workflow tuned for DPC membership prospects.
RankPRO
Category-education content. DPC explainers, model comparisons, physician-byline trust pieces.
AdsPRO
Narrow, local, targeted. DPC rarely needs large paid; when it does, the audience construction is specific.
SitePRO
DPC architecture: membership explainer, FAQ depth, enrollment flow, member portal integration.
Answers specific to
direct primary care.
- How do you market DPC when patients don't know the category?
- Category-education content first, practice-specific content second. DPC-curious audiences have to understand the model before they can evaluate a practice. Skipping category education is why most DPC marketing underperforms.
- What's the typical membership velocity for a new DPC?
- Five to fifteen members per month in year one. Fifteen to thirty per month in years two and three. At capacity by year four or five for the typical solo or two-physician practice.
- Can you help with DPC membership pricing?
- As part of Architect. We benchmark against comparable markets and calibrate price to target panel size, churn tolerance, and service-mix economics.
- How does DPC marketing differ from concierge?
- DPC content leads with price and category (explaining the model). Concierge content leads with physician and trust (explaining the value). Same channels, different sequencing and tone.
- Do you work with Hint Health, Elation, or other DPC stacks?
- Yes. We don't integrate the EHR itself. We connect the marketing funnel (forms, tracking, email sequences) to the practice-management layer so new-member flow is continuous from click to enrollment.
- Which geographic markets see the strongest DPC growth?
- Texas, Florida, Arizona, Idaho, and North Carolina lead. Urban markets are harder because of noise and price sensitivity; suburban and small-metro DPC practices tend to scale faster on the marketing dollars we deploy.
Direct primary care
by market.
Each city has its own competitive field, submarket geography, and maturity curve. The pages below carry the honest version of the DPC playbook for that market.
Run the audit.
then decide.
Three minutes. DPC-specific levers (category education, community surface area, retention workflow) with the three specific things worth doing next.