If you’re working with a dental marketing firm, are you getting everything you should be getting?
I’m not here to slam any other company, but I know that there are unscrupulous actors out there. Those people give my profession a bad name. Even worse, they’re ripping off hardworking dentists who deserve better.
Marketing isn’t a “hard” science like physics or chemistry, but it has guidelines and best practices. And with the introduction of the internet and better computer technology, it’s become easier than ever to get hard data about the effectiveness of what we do.
With that in mind, here are the things to demand from your dental marketing company to ensure you’re getting everything you should for your marketing dollar.
Separate ROIs for Each Marketing Channel
These days, there’s no place for, “Well, it seems to be working.” It’s entirely possible to determine exactly where your new patients are coming from by assigning unique phone numbers to each channel. Those numbers are automatically forwarded to your practice phone(s) and the incoming numbers, and the calls themselves, are recorded and stored on a database.
An additional benefit to phone tracking is that review of your incoming calls will reveal if there are any problems with your phone answerers. Every new patient lost at the point of initial contact is money out of your pocket and into one of your competitors’.
There’s also no place these days for “fuzzy” math. With each new patient assigned to a marketing channel, and a case value for each new patient, it’s easy to determine your ROI for each channel. That allows you to double down on what’s bringing in new patients and diminish your marketing expenditures elsewhere.
Clear Explanations
Like any other field, marketing has its own jargon. And like any other field, jargon has a plain-English explanation.
In one sense, marketers are professional communicators. And if your marketing company isn’t explaining in plain language what they’re doing, why they’re doing what they’re doing, and what you can expect to gain, something’s wrong.
Feel free to challenge your marketing company on any jargon or otherwise unclear explanations. You’re paying them, after all. And if they can’t make things clear to you, think long and hard about your relationship with that company.
Lots of Contact
Dentists don’t hire marketing firms so they can be constantly pestered by account reps. They also don’t hire marketing firms to take their money without keeping them up to date on how things are going.
Think of your marketing like a rocket launch. Hopefully, the rocket will soar exactly as planned, but even when things go well there will probably need to be a few course corrections. Your marketing company should regularly keep you informed – in hard numbers – about how your dollars are bringing in new patients.
However, your marketing shouldn’t need constant adjustments. With the data to show what’s working and what’s not, keeping your marketing on course is a relatively simple process.
Dental marketing, even in the internet age, is a professional discipline. Use these point to determine whether your marketing company is taking a professional, disciplined approach to getting you more and better patients.