We know about Dental Economics, The Dental Advisor, Dentist Today and many of the other big dental publications for the dental industry. But are any of these publications available online? I’m not asking if the publication has a website or not. I’m asking if they offer information for free over the Internet, to allow dentists who do not subscribe to their magazines/publications to view their content online!

If any Dental Publications are out there and are reading this post I urge you to get with the times and offer your content for free on your website. You really do need to. Here are some reasons why:

• Will increase your overall content readership
• Increase branding, marketability, and credibility on the Internet
• Increase advertising ($) opportunities
• Increase writer to reader interaction through blogging
• Satisfy all Internet readers in the dental community who would rather read online than an actual physical publication

A perfect example of this is ESPN.com. If you are at all a sports fan like me than you know exactly what i’m talking about. ESPN has not only it’s TV channels, but also a very popular and widely subscribed magazine called ESPN the Magazine. But that does not stop them from offering up-to-minute news on all sports professional and collegiate. Doing this through ESPN.com has increased their readership to their actual magazine.

So as a summary, the first publication in the dental industry that decides to allow it’s content to be free on it’s website will gain a substantial advantage over it’s peers. But offering free content online, you increase your readership due to the search engines. Your content becomes “searchable” online for all to find. Also, for monetary purposes you can place ads of other companies who are willing to pay you for those ads not only in your publication, but also now on your website. Giving you two streams of advertising income for your company. And finally, by having blogs on your publication website you increase writer to reader communication helping the reader feel more connected to your writings and your publication.

In case you are reading this and you are a part of a dental publication contact us today and we can help you in setting up such a website.

When starting (or rebuilding) a dental practice there are many start-up costs involved. One of these costs is the purchase of your dental practice management software. The prices for these pieces of software are generally pretty steep. This is partially due to the level of complexity of the program, and rest due to the greed of the companies charging for it. But what if you could have your practice management software for free? Does that sound to good to be true?

Welcome to the world of Open Source. You can click here to get the Wikipedia definition of open source. That’s exactly what Open Dental is - an open source or free Dental Practice Management Software. What does this mean to you? For a much more affordable price, a programmer or IT specialist (who knows what they are doing) can set your practice up with Open Dental for free. The only cost is for whatever it takes to pay that individual for setting it up for you.

By taking a quick glance at the User Manual for Open Dental you can see that it contains many of the same features that Dentrix, Eagle Soft, and Softdent have. You can see the comparisons Open Dental has against the big dogs here.

The Potential!

The potential Open Dental has is much greater than any commercial piece of practice management system. The reason is because generally with an open source project, many highly intelligent software programmers from around the world contribute to the software building additional features and plugins. This gives Open Dental the advantage over any other commercial software they are competing with because they will naturally just grow much faster.

Remember, Open Dental is free and it works. And you will find it to be beneficial for your dental practice. Why not try setting it up? It’s free so it doesn’t really hurt to give it a try. Patientdocs.com is an expert in installing and configuring Open Dental Software for the dental office. It actually comes as an option in our entire Web Services For Dentists package. So contact us today if you would like us to help you setup Open Dental in your practice.

In the open source web-based world there are what’s called CMS or Content Mangement Systems. They are very self explanatory. Basically a website that is content manageable by those with little to relatively no HTML experience. You can on a basic level, manage the content of your own website without being a “programmer”. That is of course the end goal. These open source content management systems (CMS) are already compiled together, which means that they just need to be setup on your webserver. In more basic terms, CMS enable you to build a website for your dental practice fast and for a lot less money.

The top open source Content Management Systems on the market today are:

1. Joomla
2. Drupal
3. Wordpress

There are many others which can get the job done for you. These are just the most popular. But an intriguing feature about these systems is they are highly configurable and customizable. They allow dentists to have a high-end custom website for a fraction of the cost of doing it otherwise. If your web company does not know about CMS, or about any of the 3 systems before mentioned - then you probably should go to someone else for your dental web services. That’s a sure sign of someone who does not know what’s going on. As a dental practice, you need a web company to help keep you up-to-date with the latest technologies that will benefit your internet marketing capabilities.

The top 3 CMS systems  of Joomla, Drupal, and Wordpress come highly recommended by me. I have been using them since their existence and have seen them grow. They are great for the dental practice. All 3 systems follow typical web standards:

• Clean URL’s
• Not many code errors
• simple to use site navigation
• good organized file structre and so on…

CMS (content management systems) are help greatly with search engine optimization. Here are a few benefits:

• Tons of content
• organized navigation structure
• SEO Friendly URL’s and much more…

Patientdocs.com is an expert in providing these content management systems for dentists. Our development team has many years of experience in working with various CMS systems to help provide a custom, robust website at an affordable price for the dental office.

Marketing your dental practice using online local classifieds can be a very productive way of spending your marketing time and energy. Usually these routes are free of charge so you don’t worry about throwing more money at advertising. Typically the average Internet user who looks up classifieds is looking for some sort of discount. So it’s a perfect opportunity for you to advertise free teeth whitening, free consultations etc. Online local classifieds are and have been a great tool for local marketing for many years now. Generally speaking, dental practices have not yet adopted this concept. Which gives you, the reader of this article much advantage over your competition by doing so. Every state or area has it’s own local online classifieds website that is popular. For example, here in Utah it’s KSL.com which is the website for one of the local news stations.

It will be up to you or a professional who is helping you to find out what that website is that is currently getting all of the traffic for your area. You can contact me if you need more information regarding what that website may be in your area by leaving a comment to this article.

There is one thing you can almost guarantee with online local classifieds. Almost all of the searchers are local people! That means that they are all people within “striking” distance of your dental office. You can also see what your competition is up to. If you don’t see them advertising on the local classifieds, you know that you have tapped a resource that they have not thought of yet. Which gives you a wonderful advantage. If they are already advertising on this spot, you can see what they are up to and what offers they are offering. Remember, online classified ads are also crawled by the search engines giving you twice the opportunity for your ad to be seen.

There are some important tips that I wanted to give you concerning the writing of your dental online local classified ad. They are as follows:

• Write an eye catching title to your ad - Make sure to write a title that you feel will best attract your local customer. For example… “Free Teeth Whitening at Fairfield Family Dental”
• Include A Link To Your Practice Website - Instead of having to deliver all important information pertaining to your practice in one little ad, just link to your website (which should include all helpful information for the potential patient)
• Clearly State Your Offer - Be clear and simple in stating your offer. Whether it be free teeth whitening, free consultations or whatever. Make sure you clearly state what the offer is and that you can actually deliver it.
• Post A Testimonial - Give your potential patient the opportunity to see what others are saying about your practice and about your work. You will be surprised how effective this tactic is.
• Image of Practice Logo - Post with your ad if you can an image of your practice logo. This has a branding effect on the viewers and portrays to them your value above all other related ads.
• Phone Number & Address of Practice - this is critical to your success with your online classified ad. Make it simple and easy for people to contact you and to find your practice.

Good luck with your classified ads. If you need any further advice or help you can ask us. Patientdocs.com MedeRank services help Dentists with their online classified ads as well as with many other aspects of dental internet marketing.

Social Networking is a huge phenomenon that has taken itself widespread throughout the Internet. It seems as though almost everyone has either a Myspace or Facebook account, and uses it regularly. Specific industries are taking advantage of this concept as well. You can find industry specific social networks all over the internet. But why are we not hearing more about this in our very own Dental Industry?  We should not be left behind. Dentists need to be able to advertise themselves as well as their practice. Each dentist has marketability individually, even without a dental practice. There is no better way to market an Individual online than through social networking.

Dentists should not be left behind in this momentum that is taking place with Internet marketing. If you are a dentist, go to Facebook.com, Linkedin.com and any other social network of your choice and create an account. Upload photos, share your profile etc. Advertise yourself as  a “Doctor” and you will find your online reputation grow. Your practice website traffic will increase and thus, generating more new patients to your office. If you don’t know where to get started, leave a comment to this article with your questions and I personally will help you get started.

Al Lipper who is a Dental Success Consultant gave some interesting insight into dental marketing on the dental discussion forum recently. He talks about how persistent interaction with the patient help retention and in the acquiring of new patients. He give some very interesting information that is very helpful to all practices. The following is an excerpt from his article:

Interaction #1 – The Medical Questionnaire
By surveying patients, Dr. Wise learned that most patients prefer to complete their paperwork at home. Many perceive the form as “too time consuming” to complete during the visit. To improve patient satisfaction, Dr. Wise has office personnel complete patient’s medical questionnaires by phone.

Interaction #2 – The Patient Orientation Package
Dr. Wise mails an orientation package to welcome new patients. The kit features useful dental information accompanied by a copy of their completed medical questionnaire. The completed form gives the new patient a chance to add or amend any information. The patient orientation kit instills patient trust that Dr. Wise’s office is professional and devoted to quality dental care. Since the practice started mailing new patient packets, the number of appointment cancellations has been reduced substantially.

Interaction #3 – The Personal Appointment Reminder
When Dr. Wise’s office leaves the appointment reminder message, it demonstrates a commitment to reliable dental care.

Interaction #4 – Distinctive, Branded Giveaways
To distinguish his practice from other dental offices, Dr. Wise equips new patients with a gift box opposed to a gift bag. By using a different encasement for the dental supplies, Dr. Wise’s giveaways brand and set his practice apart from the competition.
Interaction #5 – The Appreciation Communiqué
As a follow-up to the patient’s appointment, Dr. Wise uses the appreciation letter as a form of market research. The letter requests that the new patient provide feedback on their experience so they can receive even better service in the future. The thank you note again exemplifies Dr. Wise’s devotion to customer excellence and supports the exceptional patient experience.

Interaction #6 - The Referral Reward
At Dr. Wise’s office, referring patients receive a $5 Gift card from Starbuck’s Coffee. However patients who provide on-going regular referrals or those who refer large cases get specials gifts - anything from a nice pen or travel alarm clock to a new iPod. You might think this is excessive, but gifts like this are more than paid for by a single additional referral. What’s more is that each time the patient uses one of these gifts, they are reminded of what a great dentist he is. Rewarding existing clients for making patient referrals conveys an appreciation for patient loyalty and inspires future referrals. Not to mention, maintaining patient allegiance is as important as cultivating new customers.

At the end of the day, Dr. Wise wows and dazzles new patients with attentive customer service. It’s not because he doles out nifty gift boxes and gift certificates. It’s the exceptional patient experience. Aside from extraction, cosmetic procedure or other dental services, it’s the cumulative patient contact or interaction that provides the patient experience.

Perpetual persistence is the tool and strategy multi-millionaires apply. Ask any uniquely successful individual the secret to their success, and they will purport perpetual persistence among their keys to success. At least, it’s what Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates claim. Whether it’s the persistence of knocking on doors for new business or perpetually following a proven market strategy, this strategy provides dependable, consistent results.

Perpetual persistence is a marketing methodology that not only cultivates new patient relationships; it ensures the retention of new patients. How will you implement it in you practice?

I wanted to make my own comment regarding what Mr. Lipper has stated here. I believe that all 6 of the above interactions can be done via the Internet! That is what is so wonderful about the web. Granted it’s still good to interact with people in person. But all 6 of these interactions can and will add up to be quite costly for you in terms of overhead. But if you can utilize the web to help you in these interactions, you will save time and money and make more money reaping the benefits of such practices.

There is a huge problem with dental website templates. And that is that they are templates! Nothing is worse than having a pre-made template for a website. It’s cheap looking. Very Cheap looking. If you own or work for a dental practice, it is critical for you to have a website the practice. But it is not critical to have a template for a website. You are better off not having a website at all at that point.

What kind of message are you trying to send to your patients and potential patients? That you are cheap? That you are non-professional? I have a solution for you instead. Make sure that your practice website is totally custom in the way it looks and “feels”. Make sure that your website closely resembles your actual physical practice and the dentists who work there. Doing so will benefit your practice in the long run. It may cost you a little more money than a cheap template website. But it will pay off and you will be happy you paid the extra fees for a company to build you a custom website.

Remember this one last key point. As clever as companies try be, they cannot trick the potential customer. Internet users are becoming more and more savvy and they do know a template website when they see one! If you are caught having a template website it will ruin your reputation with that potential patient. That’s a risk you should not be willing to take.

Recently on The Wealthy Dentist Blog, Melinda Spitek spoke about the importance of marketing for the dental practice especially during the “slow” times. She covered several good points including the “essentials of practice marketing” which were stated as following:

• Ask for a referral, in person, with every appointment
• Reward patients who refer you a new patient
• Quarterly practice communication—newsletter or letter to your patients
• Professionally created “welcome packet”
• Printed stationery and thank you cards
• Consider newspaper, magazine, radio advertising
• Direct-mail prospecting service.

This is great information provided by Melinda and I hope that all Dentist Practices understand this information. The only problem is that it fails to include one of the most vital essentials of marketing. And that’s Internet Marketing! How could she so easily forget? When we are talking about “slow times” nothing is better than a website for your practice. Especially because it’s more cost effective than print and radio ads. Melinda Spitek, don’t forget next time!

For all of you out there who have a website for your dental practice here is a quick tip. Be sure to place your website address (URL) on all of your marketing materials. Business cards, brochures, letterheads, magazine ads, yellow pages etc. What this allows you to do is reference people to your website where all of the information about your practice exists. That way on your marketing materials you don’t have to feel pressured to put all of your content and pictures and pay for bigger printing jobs or ad space.

Have you ever seen an ad in the magazine or on the freeway that just says the website address of the company that is advertising? The first time I saw that was on a freeway for a marketing agency in Salt Lake City, Utah. It really caught my interest I must say. I ended up going to the website because it was a URL that was easy to remember. The website was awesome! Well designed and well structured with easy to use navigation to find any information I may have been looking for.

The point is that you don’t need to spend extra dollars for bigger ad space in your yellow page ads or any other form of marketing. All you need to do is simply reference people to your dental website. That then puts the pressure on your website to be professional and show your viewer everything you want them to see.

Advertising costs too high?

Are your paper forms overwhelming?

Patients missing appointments?

Need more patients?

Visit us online at: www.patientdocs.com and we will show you how to gain a stronger local presence for less money, save your patients and your staff time with online forms, send your patients appointment reminders via email, and much, much, more!!!

You want to be able to visually appeal to your potential patients and show off your professionalism and clinical excellence. You may achieve this by providing them with a website they can utilize. Patientdocs.com offers a custom web design which may include online
forms, appointment request tools, patient education tools, and many other features!

Call us today at 866.PAT.FORM (728-3676)

Online dental patient registration forms make life easier for office managers when patients can fill them out from home, before they come in for their scheduled appointments! Part of an office manager’s responsibility is to ensure that the forms are filled out correctly, and that all information is legible in order to be recorded properly. Not to mention ensuring that the patient (or new patient) brings in all the required documents pertaining to the visit. When the forms are filled out at the patient’s home, online in digital format, all of those potential issues are addressed. This frees up the office manager to focus on other concerns that can occur in the office on a daily basis.

It’s TIME to put the WEB to WORK for YOUR PRACTICE!!!!

Avoid unnecessary cancellations! Send your patients appointment reminders via email! Patientdocs.com designs a web based tool that automatically sends emails to your patients. Auto reminders create more patient visits and loyalty.

So what are you waiting for?!! Operators are standing by to assist your website needs! Call us today at 866.PAT.FORM (728-3676).