title: Marketing the dental practice: eight steps toward success.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The authors provide a suggested framework for completing a comprehensive evaluation of practice processes and routines. Their approach focuses on improving the professional image of dentists and the methods they use to market themselves.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A practice can benefit by implementing a program to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the practice and how these strengths and weaknesses affect patients' experiences. A word-of-mouth marketing campaign relies on the cultivation of opinion leaders, but opinion leaders cannot be cultivated until they have been identified. Dental practice marketing campaigns cannot be based on assumptions; they must be based on facts. Practice Implications. Improving relationships with patients will lead to increased patient retention, reduced marketing costs and greater personal satisfaction. By focusing on strengths, clinicians will improve patients' experiences in the dental office.
authors.affiliation: Pace University, White Plains, NY, USA. pmcguigan2@earthlink.net
authors.forename: Patrick J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: McGuigan
authors.forename: Alan B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Eisner
mesh_terms: D019058:Community Networks; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D003657:Decision Making; D003812:Dentist-Patient Relations; D003815:Dentists; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008330:Management Audit; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009042:Motivation; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D011215:Practice Management, Dental / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017064:Process Assessment, Health Care; D011641:Public Relations; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013997:Time Factors; D035502:Trust