Tracking Your Marketing Results (part 2 of 2) Where are you spending your marketing dollars to promote your practice? And how do you know which ones are effective? Marketing comes in many forms. Your elective surgery practice may be actively advertising your services through: Local billboards Bus advertising Special events Traditional or internet radio Pay-per-click ads Local magazine or newspaper ads Corporate sponsorships Special events And more With so many options available today, how do you know which one is right for your practice? Unfortunately there is no single answer to this question – the right medium will vary from market-to-market and practice-to-practice. The only way to find out is by trying out different mediums and tracking your success. Tracking your efforts on a weekly and monthly basis is the only way to know for sure if you are spending your money wisely. By continually monitoring the results, you will know your cost-per-lead and cost-per-surgery. Your practice will have to determine what an acceptable number would be for each of these, but here are some baseline metrics to follow: Target cost-per-lead should be $100 (marketing cost only) Target cost-per-surgery should be $700 for procedures such as bi-lateral LASIK, standard surgery for plastic surgery (marketing and conversion cost) Keeping up with stats and reporting can be a bit overwhelming, but it is absolutely essential to grow your practice. Some practices will hire an in-house marketing person rather than expecting their busy front desk staff to handle this process. A designated marketing person or team, whether in-house or outsourced, can focus on the details of generating quality leads that will ultimately translate into paying patients. Hiring an in-house marketing professional is beneficial in that the person will be truly entrenched in your everyday activities. The downside is that one person rarely has the full range of expertise to effectively master all aspects of the broad “marketing” umbrella, especially in today’s constantly-changing arena. An external marketing firm will have an entire team of professionals who are experts in their area such as media buying, graphic design and copywriting. When you hire a firm that is devoted to elective surgery marketing, you will have the added benefit of their in-depth knowledge of your field. Some firms provide analysis of your internal processes to help increase your lead-to-consult and consult-to-surgery ratios; some even align their fee structures to reflect the increases in your bottom line. It’s a win-win for both sides. Practice Analysis is one service that Fast Track Marketing can provide for your practice. To learn more, contact Brandi Musgrave at 303-447-9192 orbrandi@fast-trackmarketing.com.