When a dental patient calls your office, how long does it take for your staff to answer the telephone? Does the patient have to navigate through a complicated telephone system to speak to a human being? How does your staff sound on the telephone? Are they friendly and helpful? When a patient visits your office, is the patient’s experience pleasant or distasteful?

Having dental patients come to you for treatment and consultation, only for them to decline care and not return, is costly and frustrating. It’s a drain on your resources, and it doesn’t benefit the patient. But the good news is that there’s a great deal you can do about it.

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.

In these challenging economic times, dental practitioners have to work smarter, not harder, to weather the storm. But the good news is that with a number of simple strategies, you can market your business and bolster the success of your practice in the face of the current downturn. According to Jeff Francis, marketing director at Practice Café, dental practitioners can follow a few essential practices that will serve you well.

In the dental marketing world, a referrals-based practice is the “gold standard” most practices hope to attain, but which only a select few will reach. Why? Because a practice that is able to grow and thrive based only on referrals takes years of hard work and dedication, and a willingness to first develop—and then maintain—a series of marketing practices that encourages other people to bring in all of your new patients for you. Sound like hard work? It is. But the rewards are well worth the effort.

Your patient database is full of opportunities for your dental specialist practice. Are you taking advantage of them?

When a new patient comes to your dental practice, you are given a precious opportunity to build a relationship of trust that can result in significant advantages for your practice: Not only can you help ensure that your new patient returns again and again for continued treatment but you can also help “train” them to bring new patients to you.

As a practicing dentist, you know who your best patients are (and if you don’t you should). Sometimes, they’re the ones who take your all your advice and end up spending considerable sums of cash to keep their smiles in top shape; and sometimes, they’re the ones who have consistently brought you referrals, returned customer survey cards, and posted glowing recommendations on your website.

Your dental marketing game plan is your four-point strategy for growing your practice over the next year. Use these guidelines to make a winning strategy for your dental practice.

To attract new patients to your dental practice, you need to reach them with a message that motivates them to make an appointment. This is a tough challenge for many dental practices.