Every
marketing dollar invested should go towards delivering a specific result - be
it more new patients, more referrals, or more of a specific treatment.
Always be
sure that you have selected the right media mix for marketing. You will also
want to consider whether you have the right approach for delivering your
specific message. Will this media and marketing strategy connect your offering to
your best target audience?
In Phase 2,
it’s all about tracking response and conversion rate.
First,
“tracking response” means tracking website traffic. With each marketing
initiative and tactic, a specific examination of “unique visitors” and “pages
visited” is needed. There should be a connection between these two activities and
what your marketing message was.
Second, you
also need to track response by way of telephone calls delivered to your office.
Your office team needs to be able to handle these calls with two purposes in
mind. First and foremost, they need to be able to convert as many new patients as
possible while also tracking some key information in the process.
With every
new prospect call to your practice, your team should be able to decipher these
three big questions:
1. How did
you hear about our practice?
2. What was
it about the ad that sparked your interest?
3. When can
we book an appointment for you to come in? And if not, why not?
By
answering these three questions, you will be able to understand why someone
will choose your practice, and track some key marketing information.
The
following simple spreadsheet can be used in your practice to help you begin
gathering this information and managing your customers.
MARKETING
RESPONSE ACTIVITY TRACKER
MONTH OF: ________________
Date
|
Caller
Name
|
Lead
Source
|
What
Sparked
|
Converted
Y/N
|
Call
Result / Comments
|
Initial
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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|
|
Set
Targets
You invest
in good marketing to grow your practice. Now that you have a good sense of what
the numbers are, let’s set some targets to grow every one of these number
lines.
While every
practice is different and every practice manager has different designs on how
ambitious they want to be, it is necessary to set targets for growth that are
right for your practice-5%? 15%? Or 50%? Having target numbers in place makes
it easier to communicate your growth objectives with
your team.
Make sure
these numbers are real and achievable. Setting numbers that are next to
impossible to deliver will only serve as a morale killer. Grow your numbers
steadily by regularly hitting targets.
Business is
a numbers game. You must think of good marketing as a means of growing your
practice. The sooner you get control of your numbers, and set some realistic
targets for growth, the better it will be for driving your business forward.
Bottom
Line: This article outlines a two phase marketing plan that provides dentists
with numbers useful for increasing revenue in a dental practice.
Author: Dan Pisek, Practice Marketing Coach