Your First Week Checklist
Follow this seven-day plan to move from a brand-new account to a fully configured practice that is ready to attract and communicate with patients. Each day focuses on one area so the setup feels manageable rather than overwhelming.
Day 1: Orient Yourself and Complete Your Practice Profile
Before touching any feature, spend a few minutes getting your bearings. Read the Welcome to Dental Marketing Tool article, then take the dashboard tour to learn where everything lives.
Once you are comfortable with the layout, open Settings and go to Practice Profile. Fill in every field:
- Practice name, address, and phone number
- Business hours
- Your website URL
- Logo and profile photo
- A short description of the services you offer
This information powers your booking pages, outgoing messages, and review requests, so accurate details here save you from corrections later. See Setting Up Your Practice Profile for a field-by-field walkthrough.
Day 2: Set Up Your Phone Number and Key Integrations
Dental Marketing Tool works best when it is connected to the accounts your practice already uses. Open Settings, then Integrations, and work through these connections:
- Claim or verify your dedicated texting and calling number so patients can reach you and you can text them back. See Setting Up Your Texting and Calling Number.
- Connect your Google account to sync your Gmail inbox and Google Calendar.
- Connect your Google Business Profile so review requests land in the right place.
- Connect your Facebook Page if you plan to run ads or receive Facebook messages in your inbox.
Do not skip the phone number step. Without it, text messaging, missed-call text-back, and two-way conversations will not work.
Day 3: Import Your Patients and Organize Your Contacts
Head to the Contacts tab. If you are migrating from another system, export a CSV file from your practice management software and import it here. The platform will walk you through matching your column headers to the correct fields.
Once your patient list is in, spend a few minutes adding tags to segment your list. Common tags include Active Patient, Inactive, or service categories like Implant Inquiry. Tags make it easy to send targeted messages later without hunting through your entire list. For more detail, see Organizing Patients with Tags.
Day 4: Build Your Booking Calendar
Open the Calendars tab and create your first calendar. Give it a clear name (for example, New Patient Exam), set the appointment duration, and configure your available hours. Then copy your booking link and paste it into your website, your email signature, or your Google Business Profile so patients can schedule without calling.
While you are here, turn on automated appointment reminders. A reminder sent 48 hours before the visit and another the morning of the appointment can meaningfully cut your no-show rate. See Automated Appointment Reminders for setup instructions.
Day 5: Test Your Conversations Inbox and Turn On Missed-Call Text-Back
Send a test text message to your practice number from your personal phone and watch it appear in the Conversations tab. Reply from the inbox and confirm the response arrives on your phone. This quick test confirms your number is wired up correctly.
Next, enable missed-call text-back. When a patient calls and nobody answers, the platform automatically sends them a text within seconds to let them know you will be in touch. Most practices turn this on and forget it. It is one of the fastest wins in the platform. Find the setting under Conversations then Settings, or read Missed Call Text-Back for the full walkthrough.
Day 6: Set Up Reputation (Google Reviews)
Open the Reputation tab and connect your Google Business Profile if you have not already. Once it is connected, send review requests to a handful of patients you have seen recently. You can send requests one at a time from the Conversations inbox or set up an automation that sends a request a day or two after each appointment, so you never have to think about it again.
Day 7: Add Your Team and Review Your Setup
Go to My Staff and invite anyone who needs access: your front desk coordinator, your office manager, or a second provider. Assign each person the appropriate role so they can see what they need without accessing billing or settings they should not touch. See User Roles and Permissions for a breakdown of what each role can do.
After your team is in, walk back through Days 1 through 6 and confirm everything looks right. Check that your practice profile is complete, your integrations show as connected, your calendar booking link works, and a test message flows through conversations correctly.
What to Do Next
With the basics in place, the two most impactful next steps for most practices are setting up your Text and Chat AI Agent to handle common questions after hours, and launching your first patient reactivation campaign to bring dormant patients back into the schedule. Both are covered in detail in their respective sections of this help center.