4 minute read
How to Build an Effective Practice Marketing Strategy
from UDA Action
Investing in a strong dental marketing program has become more important than ever to achieve your goals and establish a strong future for your practice. “The top priority for a majority of our clients is to attest, acquire and retain new patients,” says Sean White, CEO of Whiteboard Marketing. “However, strategic marketing efforts also are important for improving and building your brand, connecting and developing relationships with patients, and establishing yourself as an expert in the industry. A practice marketing strategy creates a roadmap and action items that help you accomplish what is most important to you and your practice.
Setting goals and determining the top priorities for your practice will help you develop an actionable plan as you start to shape your marketing strategy. “When we take a client through strategic marketing planning, we always ask three key questions,” says Kristi Simone, CMO of Whiteboard Marketing. “Where do you want to go? Where are you now? And how will you get there? These three questions help uncover rich and fulfilling insights as you consider a marketing approach for your practice.”
When developing your practice marketing strategy, the most essential elements to consider are your goals, your budget, the marketing tactics that best fit your practice and how you will track success.
Step 1: Establish Your Goals
First, where do you want to go? Consider what your ultimate goal is for your practice’s marketing plan. “What are the goals you’d like to achieve in terms of patient acquisition and retention, and the services you’d like to promote and generate revenue from in the future? Knowing crucial demographics about your current patients will help you be more strategic where you allocate your time and energy for marketing efforts,” says Simone.
Next, where are you now? Take time to audit your marketing practice efforts and consider what is and isn’t working. “There are special auditing resources and tools that exist to help critically evaluate your marketing tactics and point in the right directions,” says White.
Step 2: Determine Your Budget
“How much you spend is truly up to your practice,” says White. “It’s rare to not see some form of a return on investments in a well-thought, intentional data-driven marketing plan. The industry standard for dental marketing expenditures is generally 3%-6% percent of your revenue. Expenses across the board generally include search engine optimization (SEO), dynamic call and form tracking, social media management, Facebook boosting, online review, and reputation management, local SEO and business listings management and email marketing. Larger spends come with the introduction of pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement, website chat and blog writing.”
It’s important to consider what this spend looks like for your practice. If you’re a new practice or are still determining what you want to accomplish with your strategy, starting on the lower end of the budget spectrum may be best.
Once you have established your goals and budget, determine how you will get there. “Depending on the budget you’ll willing to set for marketing, we always recommend that our clients use multiple methods to ensure they are creating targeted campaigns to receive the highest return on investment possible,” says White. “SEO, social media and Google PPC advertising, social media content strategy, online patient reviews and reputation management, Google My Business and business listing management, website design and update, and dynamic call and form tracking are all marketing tactics used to create a comprehensive marketing strategy that drives results.”
“In today’s world of immediacy, you’ll also want to include immediate conversion opportunities for patients,” says Simone. “Website chat, online scheduling, patient forms on your website and online bill pay are all excellent ways to help website visitors convert into new patients without having to wait.”
Step 4: Track Your Success
“Each marketing tactic that you incorporate into your marketing program has a specialized platform to measure performance and effectiveness,” says White. “For example, our SEO team uses Google Analytics to track how many people have visited your site each month, where they are looking on your site, what pages have the highest traffic and more. Our digital marketing specialists use social media insights to understand what content people are liking, sharing and commenting on across your social channels.”
Tracking your marketing and your spending is fundamental to the ultimate success of your efforts. Keep an eye on what tactics work for you, and what doesn’t. If one is working better than another, you may want to consider allocating part of your budget toward that instead.
It’s important to set goals, determine your budget, select the marketing tactics that best fit your practice, and track your success in order to create a comprehensive marketing program that yields results. Ultimately, building an effective practice marketing strategy will help you attract new patients, keep current patients coming back and continue to reach your practice goals.
