Marketing Strategy & Tracking: Using Your Data to Maximize Results
by Brandon Freeman
Even the best dental practices lose patients over time. Patient attrition is natural -- no matter how much patients love their dentist and dental team, people inevitably move, have life changes, insurance changes or other reasons why they leave an office. You can conservatively assume that you may lose between 10% and 20% of patients each year.
For that reason, marketing is critical and new patients are the lifeblood of a thriving dental practice. Marketing has changed significantly over the past five years and it is important to understand not only what channels are available to you, but, for your unique practice, what is most effective.
The key to figuring that out is knowing who you are targeting and how to measure the results of your marketing campaigns.
For my offices, I was very surprised to learn what channel was most effective -- it wasn't what I would have guessed but critical for me to understand. Let's talk about how to implement and track an effective marketing program:
Understand Your Patient Base
A dental office can be successful in almost any geography, with any demographic - you just have to understand your population. My offices have very different demographics in terms of age, income and utilization of insurance. That has impacted the way I try to communicate to potential patients. For example, with younger patient populations, social media can be most effective. With other populations, direct mail or even radio can resonate more.
It's easy to run a patient analysis in your dental software to understand your patient base with some of these data points. It will help you to figure out your active patient demographics and even the towns in which they reside. Another factor is that often, the patient base that is most attracted to the office reflects the demographics of the dentist. In a lot of cases, you see practices where the age of the bulk of the population is very similar to that of the dentist. Knowing this can only help you to direct your marketing efforts.
Developing a Marketing Plan
The first step in establishing a marketing plan is to set a budget. Even when new patient flow is strong and the practice is busy, practices can't be complacent with their marketing. It is important to build engagement with current patients, develop brand recognition with the community and stimulate new patient leads. If you have 1,000 active patients, you want around 25 new patient visits each month to replace the patients that have left. Generally, it is a good rule of thumb to set a budget at around 5-10% of total overhead expense.
The next step is to determine how you are going to reach patients. There are many ways to conduct effective outreach, but here are a few of the best:
- Website - your website should have mobile capabilities, be Search Engine Optimized and be informative with a definitive call to action
- Social Media - Facebook has become an ever-present part of life for a huge portion of the population. Using a Facebook page in conjunction with YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and other sites can help you stay connected with your patient base, develop a following and quickly communicate your thoughts, personality, events and ideas. You can also run advertisements on Facebook to specifically target key demographics.
- Offline Marketing - the keys to offline marketing are direct mail, radio and television. Direct mail gives you the best opportunity to target specific demographics but radio and television can effectively relate your personality and brand to a large population.
- Online Marketing - beyond social media, there are opportunities to market online using search engines, local online media and groups of websites. This approach typically offers a lot of flexibility to use text, pictures and video and is very easy to track. The keys are to have a specific call to action and facilitate channels for patients to contact you directly or learn about your practice on your website.
- Community Involvement - establishing a presence in your town is a rewarding way to build a patient following and support your community. This can be done through sponsorship, volunteering or simply connecting with individuals or other businesses in your town.
- Internal Marketing - The best way to get new patients is through your existing patients. Referrals from current patients are inexpensive and very effective. In some states, you can even provide an incentive or thank you for referrals. But you have to be careful because in some states, such as Massachusetts, you cannot. Asking for referrals and reviews on Google and Facebook is a great way to stimulate new patient activity and costs the practice nothing but a verbal thank you to patients.
Typically, a multi-pronged approach is most effective and gives you the opportunity to reach a wide swath of new patients. Marketing channels vary significantly in terms of cost, effectiveness and purpose and should be understood before you invest in a new program.
Measurement and Tracking
As you plan your strategy, part of the consideration should be how you are going to track your results - what you are spending and what the return is on your investment. Most channels have mechanisms for tracking. Anything online should be trackable and you can even set up clever tracking for direct mail with dedicated phone numbers and unique landing page URLs for your website.
However, what I have found to be most effective is tracking right from your front desk, using your dental software. Every new patient that makes an appointment should be asked how they heard about your office and then entered into Eaglesoft, Dentrix or most any other dental software program. Creating "new patient referral" categories for your newsletter, patient referrals, your website or even your sign in front of the office should be as easy as clicking on a drop-down menu. And once you have the data in your system, it becomes extremely valuable.
Analysis
The big question is, what should you be looking at and what does it mean? The most important reports to follow are monthly detailed referral reports from your dental software and marketing cost reports from your accounting software (Quickbooks, etc.).
By tracking new patient calls at the front desk and using your referral reports, you should be able to determine from which referral source your new patients came and how much they spent in the office over time. From your accounting software, you will know how much you spent on a given campaign. By marrying the data, you will be able to determine which marketing channels are generating the best financial return -- and it's not just the number of patients that's important, it's also the patients and channels that are the most profitable for the office.
My recommendation is to have a clear plan and strategy in mind but to be open to experimentation. Give a new marketing campaign or channel at least 3-4 months so that you can let it ramp up and then really determine its effectiveness. Be careful when signing marketing contracts that you are able to terminate with no more than 30-days notice so that you are not locked into a media channel that is not benefiting your office.
Honing Your Strategy
Marketing is an art as much as it is a science. I have had many surprises with my results. While various channels are very effective in my offices, there are some that are much more effective than I anticipated that I am glad I tried. For example, we have been very successful with direct mail marketing. It may not work for everyone, but it works well for us. And you have to figure out what works for you.
At our offices, we use a multi-pronged approach and carefully monitor our results to maximize our return on investment. Often, campaigns work for a while and then start to lose effectiveness. Sometimes they just need to be refreshed with new messaging or a new offer. But if a campaign isn't working, don't be afraid to cancel it and try something new.
Marketing constantly evolves, and practices must stay on top of the latest ways to reach patients and stimulate growth. For more information or advice and consultation on your programs, visit BostonDentalConsultants.com or email me at BrandonFreeman@BostonDentalConsultants.com.
Brandon Freeman is a dental consultant with a passion for business operations, communication and facilitating high-quality patient care. In managing dental offices for nearly a decade, he understands the challenges that dentists face as they try to run a business while focusing on patient care. He is the founder of Boston Dental Consultants, a consultancy that helps practices to maximize productivity, build business foundations and improve patient satisfaction.
With an MBA in healthcare management from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Mr. Freeman has focused his career on applying business concepts to improve health and dental care. Outside of his passion for the dental business, he loves spending time on the soccer field with his wife and three daughters.