Dental Website Must-Haves: Functional Forms

Almost every modern website comes with a contact form for new dental patient acquisition. There are inherent issues with utilizing this form of communication, especially since 2022.


No matter which website hosting company, email hosting company, domain registrar or IT company you employ, there’s a chance that email form submissions from your Dental Website can get lost in the cyber world. With each website and campaign we set up, we test form submission and receipt prior to launch. This doesn’t however create an eternal iron clad bond between your website and your inbox. Disruptions to email form receipt can happen for many reasons, but the following steps can minimize their instances and protect you from incurring lost communication important to your patients and your profitability.

To avoid email lead transmission disruption, follow these 6 strategies:


  1. Test all of your website forms, ad campaigns, social media chat functionality, and any tracking numbers monthly. Set a reminder one team member to do this and include it in his/ her monthly report. Yes, it can be discussed at the same time you discuss last month’s new patient numbers and financial KPIs.
  2. DO NOT mark emails from your website as SPAM, even if they are SPAM. Once you inform your inbox that your website produces SPAM, you will cease to receive important patient communication.
  3. Ensure a person is checking a secure office email inbox daily. If they’re not, remove the functionality to receive leads via email.
  4. Consider TXT (text) notifications from ad campaign lead form submissions. In addition to collecting your leads in a spreadsheet and by email, you can also provide Identity Dental Marketing with your Email to Text Recipient information. Most phone service providers allow for Email to TXT functionality.
  5. Include information on your forms that patients are welcome to call your office with immediate concerns / questions. You can also include the option to Chat in real time. Many of our clients link Facebook Chat bot to their website for instant lead communication. Great news! It’s free.
  6. Consider setting up a filter or tag on your inbound messages related to patient leads. You can mark an email as “important” and set it to “never skip the inbox”. These settings are easy to set up and effective. A simple Google search related to your email provider will likely result in step-by-step instructions.

As a practicing dentist and business owner, we understand that you’re very busy. This is why we test your site’s functionality daily to keep it secure and up to date. Please remember, we cannot monitor if your team marks an inquiry as SPAM or if your website host stops communicating with your email host. For this reason, we strongly recommend that you test your site’s functionality monthly, including the receipt of form submissions.