Press releases and free publicity are possibly the two most underutilized marketing opportunities in the dental industry today. Over 90% of all the dental news I see is negative. There is a huge opening out there to promote your business and your brand in a positive way for little if any money. There are steps to take, however, to ensure your practice is being represented the way you want it to.In your local media, 80% of the news is provided by press release. Look through the stories in your area paper and see how many are written by staff writers. Everything else is provided by people just like you looking for publicity. Just think, 80% of the newspaper each day is press releases. This is a market that needs your news.Step one - Decide on your goal:Dentists see a chance for free publicity and instantly they think, “where do I sign up?” In reality, the only thing worse than no PR campaign is a bad PR Campaign. An ill-focused PR campaign can easily turn into a negative campaign and can get no response at all. Worse yet, it can confuse people about your practice and actually create negative publicity.What are you looking to accomplish with your campaign? In other words, put together a goal for the efforts. This will help you to take advantage of every opportunity to make your PR efforts a success.A few sample goals could be: * I want to attract more cosmetic cases. * I want to be seen as an expert in my field. * I want the public to know what I do for the community.These goals will help to direct your efforts when it comes to publicity. Step two - See what’s working:Take a look at what others are doing and getting press for. What is the trend? What are others doing that could lead toward your end goal?The big trend right now, for positive dental news, is charity work. Two recent headlines - one had a dentist holding a food drive; another told of a dentist’s trip to South America to provide dental care. These are two very different headlines for two different doctors with two different goals.Notice though, that even though the scope of these two stories was very different, both made it into their local papers, as well as a top-5 hit on Google News.Check your local papers and do a news search for “dentist” on Google News. This will help you see what is working and getting printed.Once you have a couple of ideas, and have seen what the media likes, move on to step three.Step three - Decide your approach:Once the information gathering is complete, take a look at your goal and compare it with the information the media prints. What is the best way to achieve your goal?If your goal is to build your expert status, running a patient appreciation event may not be the best approach. But, if you want the community to know you and how much you value your patients, a patient/community appreciation event may be just what you need. If you are looking to gain patients, speaking on a local radio program about dental caries is not the way to go.Also, don’t forget to look for opportunities to gain double publicity for one event. As an example, a practice we work with ran a “free exam for food donation” event for two days early in November. Not only did they announce the event in the release, but they also set a goal of gathering 100 lbs of food. The day after the event they sent out a release announcing they were donating the food to a local food-share program. Two major publicity items, easily produced from one event.The simplest way to gain publicity and get your release printed is by announcing the hard news in your practice (new staff, new procedures, new location). You can announce an event you are a part of or are running (art fair, patient appreciation). You can work with a charity through donation, or actual work. Or you can create informational articles for publications to print or subjects you would like to be interviewed on. Don’t be shy, the whole idea of publicity is bragging about yourself and what you already do in your practice. Also, realize that something simple and everyday to you, may be a serious event for the people in your community.Step four - Make Connections:Take a look at your local media. You may even have some in your practice already. Talk to them and find out who needs your information, and how they would like to receive it.This is not a time to work in bribes. Sending a present may get a smile and a call, but that’s about it. Find out what your media contacts want, and provide it to them in the format and by the contact method they like. Make your press release the easiest to use, and they will appreciate it.Depending on your goal, you can also use a distribution service. If you do utilize a distribution service, make sure you will get the list of contacts they made so you can do follow up calls if you wish. The good part about a distribution service is they can take your release and distribute it to many media outlets quickly and easily. This will cost a bit of money, but will save you time, and you will know that the release was sent to the right person by the right method.Beware of publications in your area that print articles from people who also advertise in the publication. Many publications will streamline the press release process if you are an advertiser, but know that you do not have to spend money to get your press release published. If every article in a publication was paid placement, you wouldn’t have a newsletter, you’d have a catalog.Step five - Distribute your release:Get it out to as many media outlets as possible. Make sure you have correct contact information on the release so the contact can call you if they need information. Also, proof read your release and make sure it is error free.Also, remember the timing of your article. You cannot put out a press release and expect it to get printed next day. This is a long process, and takes some prior planning. I would allow at least 2 weeks for any release, maybe a little longer. You can always send the same release again a week later, but give the press plenty of time to plan for your release.Once you distribute a news release, keep track of its publication and your results. Check the media daily to see if your release is getting time. As a free medium, it will take some tracking and adjustment to find exactly what gets coverage, and what doesn’t. Also, make sure you know where people heard about you when they call, so you can track the ROI for your release.At a cost of free, press releases and a publicity program is one of the best investments you will ever make. Once you get a program started, stick with it and make it a part of your practice marketing plan. Even distributing the same release more than once has been shown to garner media attention for your practice.James Erickson is the President of EMC Dental Marketing which gives Dentists a resource for turn-key dental marketing programs and dental practice marketing education including new patient attraction, and internal marketing systems. Visit www.EMCdental.com and get a free practicebuilding kit sent directly to your home or office.

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Paying too much for insurance coverage and not having enough insurance coverage may be a familiar scenario for many of us. Not many health insurance companies offer policies with coverage that will give you dental, eye, and alternative care. Americans are spending over $30 billion annually just for dental services and most of it is out of their own pocket. The prices for dental care can be very horrid, ranging between $800 to $1,100 for crowns, $140 for check-ups and cleaning and thousands of dollars for oral surgery.Most of the dental plans available are expensive - the reason being that the insurance companies know that the individuals who purchase dental coverage already have dental problems and will definitely be using the coverage. This is also known as “adverse selection”.Another option is available today with the HSA, or Health Savings Account. This is an account that you can use to accumulate tax-free dollars for medical bills that aren’t covered under your High Deductible Health Plan, or HDHP. It is required that you are enrolled in a HDHP to qualify for an HSA. These plans have high annual deductibles, but you receive low monthly premiums in exchange. Since the money in the HSA is tax-free, the account holder can funnel their dental expenses through the HSA for a tax write-off.If you decide to get a health plan with dental coverage, the deductible cannot be paid for with the HSA, but the expenses rendered from services can. Since you’ll be funding your account with pre-tax money, you can easily save $600 or more off the costs of your family’s yearly dental expenses by paying for the charges from your Health Savings Account.There are some other options for dental coverage available. With prepaid dental plans you will be charged low monthly fees, which are usually around $7/month for individuals and $16/month for families. The plans give you significant discounts on check-ups, fillings, extractions and other dental services provided by a network dentist. Some plans help with the expenses for eyeglasses and contact lenses. Since these plans aren’t insurance, it can be paid for with the HSA. When calculating what medical expenses will be reimbursed from your HSA, include dental fees and premiums from the prepaid dental plan.More About Health Savings AccountsAny health expenses that aren’t covered under you HDHP can be paid for with your HSA, such as deductibles, eyewear and dental care. As long as the bill you are trying to cover was needed for a health problem, it can be paid for. So if you decided to get a massage while at the spa - this wouldn’t be covered, but if your doctor recommended that you go to a masseuse after a painful accident; this would be covered. Having a Health Savings Account is the way health insurance should be - you get to choose what medical help you receive for your health conditions.This means if you decide to get alternative medicine instead of going to an allopathic physician (conventional doctors that use prescriptions drugs and other treatments for quick-fixes instead of delving to the root of the problem), you can do so and have the expenses paid with your Health Savings Account.What is Considered an “HSA Qualified Expense”?The definition of qualified medical expenses is only partially given in IRS Publication 502 and through different federal court rulings. There are few restrictions - as long as the expenses are for medical treatments or prevention for a health problem. For instance, yoga wouldn’t be identified as a medical expense unless your doctor recommended it as a treatment for medical reasons, such as for physical therapy after an injury, then it is qualified as a medical expense.Many may question why the government would give a tax deduction for someone using some crazy vibration machine to cure their cancer. Again, the HSA is how health insurance should be. You should get to choose what treatments would best benefit your health condition. This gives account holders that power to manage their health as they see fit. Health Savings Accounts are encouraging individuals to take personal responsibility of their health care while loosening the monopoly traditional health care has had over the past couple of decades.—By Wiley Long - President, HSA for America ( www.Health–Savings–Accounts.com ) - The nation’s leading independent health insurance firm specializing in individual and family coverage that works with Health Savings Accounts.

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A little known fact about the cosmetic dentistry industry is that it is a completely unregulated field. Any dentist can say that he or she is a cosmetic dentist regardless of additional training that goes above and beyond standard dentistry. But only one or two percent really have the artistic inclinations as well as the training and skills required to create the beautiful smiles people rightfully expect from cosmetic dentists.The American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry does have an accreditation program that is fairly rigorous. To become accredited, a cosmetic dentist needs to pass a written exam and a clinical exam that requires him or her to handle five cases of five different types of cosmetic treatment. Any Charlotte dentist who has passed this accreditation examination is a qualified Charlotte cosmetic dentist. The problem is that the AACD has no authority to require any Charlotte dentist to take this examination, and there are some excellent cosmetic dentists who choose not to go through this grueling process, as it isn’t strictly necessary. Others are in the process of becoming accredited, and have the requisite artistic talent and training but haven’t yet demonstrated it to the AACD.When choosing a cosmetic dentist to trust with something as important as your smile it’s important to understand where dentists are coming from. Most dentists take up the profession simply because they like to fix things. The vast majority of them aren’t artistic. And on top of that, the training most dentists choose to undergo in these artistic areas, particularly with color, just isn’t very good. To protect the public, cosmetic dentistry should be a regulated dental specialty. But in order for that to happen it would have to be voted on by the profession, and since the vast majority of dentists aren’t particularly bothered with the finer points of cosmetic dentistry that is not likely to happen. So you have a situation where maybe 1-2% of Charlotte Cosmetic dentists can do this work and have it look beautiful.But don’t be discouraged; finding a good Charlotte cosmetic dentist is not impossible. Just do your homework, and ask as many questions as you need to in order to find the right one for you.The first place you want to go for info is anyone you know who has had cosmetic dentistry and is pleased with the results (or rather, if you are pleased with their results). Ask about their experience and the procedures they had done. If it isn’t similar to what you need, don’t take it for granted that the same cosmetic dentist will be able to work wonders for you.When meeting with a cosmetic dentist for a consultation, ask about the dentist’s level of experience in cosmetic dentistry, general dentistry, and full mouth reconstruction. Ask to see before and after photos of patients the dentist has actually treated, and look for smiles that are as similar to yours as possible.Find out what technologies and materials the dentist is proficient in and may use to serve your dental needs. Also, inquire about the lab technician the dentist uses to build cosmetic dental products. What are his or her experience, training, and qualifications? Lastly, ask about pricing. I realize that everyone wants to save a few bucks these days, but cosmetic dentistry is not a place to cut corners. If your Charlotte cosmetic dentist offers prices that are significantly lower than local competitors, that may be a red flag. In cosmetic dentistry, you really get what you pay for. Choosing the right Charlotte cosmetic dentist can make all the difference in your smile. It can be the deciding factor between having chunky and unnatural looking block teeth, and a truly gorgeous work of art in your face that gives you something to smile about for years.Find a good Charlotte cosmetic dentist at Williams and Drake Dentistry (williamsanddrakedentistry.com/), they offer true artistry in all cosmetic dental treatments and procedures. Art Gibb is a freelance writer.

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