At Marketing for Dental Specialists, we offer hundreds of tips to grow your practice. To make the most of your marketing plan, ask yourself these three questions before you get started:

Maintaining a consistent flow of patients to your dental practice is critical to its success. But in this economy, other dentists and physicians that were once steady sources of dental referrals may have retired, closed their doors or defected. Others may be treating cases themselves that they once would have referred to dental specialists. Competition for referrals is more intense, so maintaining that once-steady flow of referred patients may be more challenging than ever.

When the new year began, you may have made a list of resolutions or goals to expand the number of patients you treat in your dental specialty practice. A few months later, where do you stand with your marketing efforts? If you have not taken steps to meet them— or worse, have forgotten about them—take some time this week to refine your goals and ensure that they are met. It’s not too late to make 2011 a successful year for your dental specialty practice.

Direct mail is a commonly used marketing tactic for many dental specialists. According to WPI Communications’ Dental Marketing Barometer Survey, 24% of specialists used direct mail in 2009. Direct mail is particularly common among periodontists, with 42% reporting they used this popular dental marketing method last year.

The downside to direct mail has always been its non-personal shotgun approach. Direct mail is typically based on volume. This means it takes a lot of postage and a lot of persistence to get a patient through your office doors. Traditional response rates for direct mail vary, but .05%–2% across industries is a good benchmark.

Many times, marketing efforts are focused solely on attracting new patients to a dental practice, often at the expense of nurturing existing patients. In fact, those existing patients are perhaps your most valuable asset: Unlike potential patients, who must be carefully wooed and courted, existing patients already trust you and value your service.

For any dental practice to flourish, you must develop a steady flow of new patients. But how can you effectively recruit new patients while concentrating on the clinical aspects of your practice? Today’s successful practitioners know the value of using consistent and well thought-out marketing strategies—not only to ensure proper promotion of their business but also to allow them to concentrate on the clinical demands of their practice.

You probably know that referral newsletters are targeted, cost-effective ways to stay top of mind with general dentists and other influential health care professionals. Many dental specialists use newsletters to consistently reach influential referral sources.

It is no secret that the economic conditions today present significant challenges to businesses of all types and sizes. And dental specialists are not immune from the effects. Attracting new patients to your dental practice has become more difficult than ever before and you may have been forced to tighten your belt when it comes to marketing your practice. Being thrifty in this economy can make sense, but one vital aspect of promoting your practice should not be overlooked: your dental web site.

Even the most successful dental practice will soon go broke without quality patients who pay, stay and refer to their practice. But how do you maintain high-quality patients while you concentrate on the clinical side of your business? Here are some quick tips to consider:

When was the last time your dental patients heard from you? If you do not reach out to your existing patients on a regular basis you can miss the boat for referrals and risk loosing dental patients to your competition. Engaging with your patients only during office visits is not enough. Here are a few effective ways to stay close throughout the year: