How to Analyze Lead Sources to Prepare Your Orthodontic Marketing Budget
Start Building a Data-Driven Orthodontic Marketing Budget to Optimize Lead Generation
In a competitive landscape filled with numerous
channels, orthodontic practice marketing has evolved to become a much more
strategic process. Today, acquiring
new patients requires more time, money, and energy than previous,
more traditional strategies.
But if done well, your orthodontic marketing efforts can have a
significant payoff. Reaching potential patients can lead to increased case
acceptance rates (which should be 75%
or more), a maximized ROI, and extraordinary practice growth.
To achieve your growth goals, you need to know exactly
where your leads are—so you can't
pursue the process blindly. By leveraging
data-driven insights, you can market with precision and make the most of your
resources.
For these reasons, the channels that drive patients to your
practice play a critical role in your spending. To help you better manage the
process, here's a breakdown of
how to analyze lead sources to prepare your marketing budget.
Know Where Your Budget Stands
Before your analysis, it's
essential to establish what your ideal
marketing budget should be. Then, you can note where it fits in with the rest
of your spending. To maintain or grow your
patient base, knowing how much to allocate
for marketing is a crucial part of the process. We suggest the following formulas
to determine your marketing
spend:
Established practices: Net Production * 4%
Practices looking to grow or expand: Net Production * 6%
For example, if you're
a new practice, your main goal would be attracting new patients and establishing
a strong community presence. After your first year, suppose your total net
production is $3,000,000. Using Gaidge's calculation,
that would leave room to allocate
$180,000 for marketing spend. Then, after defining your budget, you could allocate
your resources to reach the right audience confidently.
In general, it's
helpful to look for areas where you can curb spending by 1-2% to reinvest
in your marketing strategy. To do so, you can monitor
your spending with Gaidge. In the Executive
Membership, the Overhead Expense Tracker™ allows you to view what you
spend by category. With this insight, you can see where spending in other
areas—like clinical supplies or energy costs—can be trimmed.
Once you've
calculated your marketing budget, you can lock it into the Overhead
Expense Tracker and begin organizing your lead sources.
Identify Your Lead Sources
By definition, lead
sources are the channels through which patients first discover your business. It's
helpful to think of these channels as a roadmap that leads you to
your potential customers. In your analysis, you may notice some
channels to golden opportunities,
while others may lead to a dead end.
But before you start, it's
helpful to divide your lead sources into four main categories that branch
into smaller subcategories:
1.
Community
Outreach
- Local
gyms
- Radio
- Billboards
- Magazines
- Sponsorships
2.
Patient
Experience
- Giveaways
and printing
- Contests
- Patient
events
- Office
décor
- Rewards
program
3.
Digital
Marketing
- Website
development
- Search
engine optimization (SEO), or visibility in organic search results
- Pay-per-click
(PPC) advertising
- Social
media advertising
- Marketing
software
4.
Dentist Referrals
- Gifts
- Lunches
- Events
Having a broad, categorized overview of your spending is more
organized. Tracking your lead sources also allows you to see where spending is
needed most. Likewise, it offers valuable, transparent insight into what's
proven effective and which types of lead sources need more work.
Start Your Analysis
Once you've categorized your
lead sources and created a marketing budget, you can use Gaidge's Overhead Expense
Tracker™ to monitor each activity's
spending. Then, you can note which areas needs more funding and
where to cut costs. This is where you begin the process of lead
prioritization.
Based on their performance metrics, you can redistribute your
marketing budget to focus on your most effective categories. Also, if warranted,
you can address those that are struggling.
As you review your data, you'll
begin to see "hot" and "cold" categories indicating
where you should place your focus. For instance, if your rewards program yields
a high percentage of leads, it's
important to continue funding your Patient Experience category. With steady
funding, you can maintain those leads.
For your less successful lead sources, investigating the
reasons behind their underperformance may lead to breakthroughs. Perhaps
you notice a lower conversion rate stemming
from social media marketing, even though many of your patients use social
media. In this case, you could consider spending more on your Digital Marketing
category to revise your ad creatives or targeting parameters.
Still, it's vital to keep
your prioritized (or proven) lead sources in mind as you draft your marketing
budget. Those sources are the most likely to get your leads through the sales
pipeline, start treatment, and close more deals.
Calculate Your ROI & Finalize Your Marketing Budget
Further in your analysis, it's
essential to reference your return on investment (ROI) for valuable
insights into your marketing channels. In transparent percentages, your
practice's ROI shows you which channels have been successful, and which have
fallen short.
Your ROI is your combined budget and resources, with the
following formula:
ROI = Profit / Spend * 100
By leveraging ROI insights,
you can optimize your marketing
efforts, allocate resources
wisely, and make informed decisions to drive practice growth.
Lock In Your Goals
As you analyze your lead sources, you can set and monitor
your goals with the Practice
Projections™ feature. Based on your lead source analysis, you can determine
an achievable increase in new patients for the upcoming year.
For instance, maybe you
want to increase the number of new patients by 10%. If so, you can enter
your desired increase into Practice Projections™ and measure your goal based on
performance from the previous year. This allows you to visualize important
benchmarks and see how metrics like Net Production, Net Collection, New
Patients Added, and Total Exams affect your Starts.
Additionally, you can use the editing and locking features in
Practice Projections™ to explore different scenarios and adjust your goals
accordingly. For example, if increasing case acceptance rates improves new
patient acquisition, you can lock that goal and modify
other metrics as needed.
Track your Progress
After building and budgeting your marketing strategy, you need a
way to track your practice's progress. With the Overhead Expense
Tracker™, you have access to an up-to-the-minute, accurate
breakdown of your finances. It displays a visual of your spending against your
budget with progress bars. Then, you'll
know if you're staying within
budget or if any areas need attention.
Additionally, throughout the year, you can regularly monitor
your progress towards your new patient goal using Practice Projections™.
By comparing actual performance against projections, you can note discrepancies
and make necessary adjustments early on to stay on track.
Experience a Data-Driven Approach to Lead Generation with Gaidge
Marketing is a critical component
of your business, but it shouldn't
be done blindly and without data. Understanding your lead sources and allocating
your resources wisely will maximize your ROI, improve patient acquisition, and
contribute to your overall success.
Gaidge offers a comprehensive solution to help you harness the power
of data and make informed decisions for your practice's future. With Gaidge,
you can stay organized, monitor
your progress, and adapt your strategy based on real-time insights. Its
seamless integration with your practice management software ensures accurate
tracking of crucial metrics, helping you make the best possible moves for your
business.
Don't leave your practice's growth to chance.
Experience the benefits of a data-driven approach to lead generation and
marketing budgeting. With Gaidge, you can elevate your practice to new heights,
improve the patient experience, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with
making truly informed decisions.
References
Freedman, M. (2023, February 21). How to Track and Manage Lead
Sources. Business News
Daily. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/16022-lead-sources.html
Lead Prioritization. (2023, February 28). OpenCraft. https://handbook.opencraft.com/en/latest/processes/sales/lead_prioritization/
Norton, C. (2022, December 6). 3-Step
Marketing Plan for Orthodontic Practices.
Gaidge. https://www.gaidge.com/news/foolproof-3-step-marketing-guide-for-every-orthodontic-practice
The 10 Best Growth Metrics for Orthodontic Practices. (2019, July 9). Gaidge.
https://www.gaidge.com/news/10-important-growth-metrics-for-an-orthodontic-practice