Kudos to the valiant do-it-yourself “dentist marketers” out there. You’re a brave bunch.
Misguided, but brave. Now, before you bristle, let’s take this out of dentistry and into another area.
You could probably re-wire a desk lamp. It’s a pretty straightforward process. However, that’s a far cry from replacing all the wiring and the breaker box in your house. For that, you need at least a journeyman electrician, someone who’s learned and trained to do that kind of work.
Similarly, you can do your own marketing… but probably not all the varied aspects of it. Are you doing your own search engine optimization? SEO is a very technical “biggie” these days that’s constantly evolving. Few dentists have the interest or the bandwidth to handle it.
That’s just one example. If you’re outsourcing your SEO, why not the rest?
You don’t earn a single dollar by doing your own marketing. The only way you make money is to see patients and solve their dental problems. That’s what you went to school for, right?
Let’s Get Real
No matter how talented an amateur marketer you might be, you’re not going to generate the kind of returns that a dedicated, comprehensive, dental marketing provider can achieve.
In fact, you’re probably losing money and/or time away from the practice. If you have the time to direct your marketing during working hours, you’re likely not getting enough new patients. If you’re handling it after hours, that’s time away from family, from friends, or just from life.
Here’s a snippet from Colin’s new book.
Instead of thinking about marketing as an expense, let’s look at it as an investment.
Take your hourly rate and multiply that by the number of hours each month that you devote exclusively to any and all aspects of your marketing. For the sake of argument, let’s say that your rate is $600 an hour. That’s probably low, but I picked it to make a point.
Now, let’s say that you average three hours a week seeing to your marketing. Again, that’s likely a low estimate.
Simple math tells us that if you’re taking care of your marketing during office hours, you’re losing $1,800 a week, or about $7,740 a month. You’re losing that much because you’re not seeing patients and therefore are making no money.
If you handle your marketing after hours, you’re still losing. You’re losing time that you could be out of the practice and enjoying the company of family and friends. Or playing golf, or tennis, or putting model sailboats together. Or just resting and recovering from your labors.
Either way you look at it, you pay a price for being hands-on with your marketing.
$7,740 a month is a sizable marketing investment. With the assistance of the right dedicated dental marketing firm, you should be able to turn that $7,740 into $50,000, $75,000, or even more!
A Wealth Of Knowledge
What this post covers is a fraction of what you’ll learn when you order Colin’s new book. It’s yours for just $4.95 to cover the cost of boxing and shipping. Invest less than the cost of your morning latte to learn how you can focus on actually doing the dentistry, have more time away from the practice, and earn more than you do now!