Does anyone out there track their marketing to see how effective it is or isn't? We started keeping track of every phone call to see if those phone calls were booked or not booked. We then tracked those bookings to see if they turned into treatments. We then tracked those treatments to see the average revenue from the bookings. Our goal was to perform an evaluation of problem areas. Obviously, if the phone wasn't ringing then we had an awareness problem. If we had plenty of phone calls and no bookings then we knew we would have a receptionist problem. If our bookings were high, but they weren't turning into appointments then we had a consultation problem. If our treatments were yielding low revenue then we had a whole other problem. Until we started doing this we were basically in the dark. It seems obvious that we should of always been doing this but in fact we did not. How many of you do this? It made a drastic difference in our business. If you don't do this how do you know where your problem lies and where you can improve on your efficiency. If you don't do this how do you know your cost per lead when spending new money on marketing? I keep reading about how effective direct mail is. Not for us. Maybe we're not doing it right and I would love for someone to share their formula. If you do a direct mail for $5000/month what makes it a good investment. What if you get 25 phone calls and 15 appts and 10 bookings? Assume, your average net revenue is 30 percent (which it probably isn't). How much gross revenue do you need to generate a profit from that mailer? Remember, you only booked 10 apointments. How much revenue, per patient, do you need to make it profitable. Probably more than you thought. I know it was for me.

I have sort of gone on a rant here, but I guess my main point is that if you are not tracking these things you are probably destined to keep repeating your mistakes. We were. I'm not sure if anyone is interested in starting some dialogue about these issues, but I would love to know how sophisticated we are tracking the money we spend. Does anyone have any advice on other things we can monitor and how to monitor them? What do you guys do? I think Einstein said "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". Are we as a group falling into this trap?

Dex

Jeff,

I understand your point and I think I got a little off track. We have tried them all as well, but for us direct mail has been the worst performer. My main point however, was to ascertain if anyone is actually keeping track of these marketing solutions to see which of them are better performers than others. Do you think it is important to track them? What does "used direct mail to great effect" mean to you? Does that mean it enhanced the productivity of your marketing program as a whole, or that it itself was great? If I may ask, how do you validate a good marketing concept? Thanks for the time Jeff.

Dexter,
We do track our marketing similarly to the way you do. One area that gets difficult to match up is our online inquiries and our phonecalls. Sometimes people that find our website will fill out an online inquiry form and call us. If people are just price checking around they might not leave a name when they call unless they bookan appointment. So we sometimes worry about double counting.

Currently our best sources of new clients are:
1. client referrals
2. website/online
3. television
4. print

While I would love to drop our yellow page ads (thinking of dropping it after this year) as Jeff has done, I hesitate because 15% of our inquiries site the yellow pages. I do suspect that I am driving these prospects to the yellow pages through my radio and tv ads, but sometimes it's difficult to capture that data.

I would definitely like to expand on this discussion as I'm sure we'd all like to spend less on advertising overall and maximize our ROI on every advertising dollar.

Thanks for sparking the discussion.

Dexter,

First let me say that YES! you should track the effectiveness of all of your marketing. Tracking is the single most important component of long term success in marketing. Without it you can not make corrective decisions which are always required.

Unfortunately for most, the objective of a campaign is defined generally as in more appointments. The tracked value is simply a response rate and potentially a ROI however that is calculated.

A good campaign sets more granular goals structured in a sales funnel that starts with increasing web traffic to a specific page, increasing the number of email addresses on our list, (reducing the cost of the next campaign) increased phone activity, a goal for appointments and resulting sales.

Prospective clients will check out your website before they call you. Create a page specific to the campaign that you can track. Make sure that they have an opportunity to sign up for your newsletter or coupon mailer.

Magazine ads should have landing pages and unique phone numbers, both can be tracked and you will learn within a couple of months which pubs are working for you and which are not.

I agree with Jeff. Most campaigns are not thought through.
They are independant efforts that link to each other through the logo alone. You can't write off any form of marketing until you have enough objective data to prove it is not working for you.

Marketing is like loosing weight, it takes time to see all of the results.

sorry for rambling on!

I am about a month late on this topic so I apologize.

First, yes, we track extensively. Every phone call, does it result in a consult, does the consult become a treatment, does the patient become repeat business. Because of our tracking we were big in the yellow pages with several ads, some in color, and about a $3,000 per month bill. But, according to our tracking we were getting about a third of our new business from the yellow pages so it was a great source for new business. I thought.

I created a new tracking form that required the receptionist to ask more detailed questions when the caller said they were "referred" by the yellow pages. The truth finally came out. Many callers just looked up our phone number in the phone book (the actual referral was something else) and other callers just said "yellow pages" without thinking.

I canceled all yellow pages ads except for the free listing that comes with your business phone service. The results? No noticeable decrease in business and the same percent of callers say they saw us in the yellow pages even though we have no ad there! Plus, we save $3,000 per month. If you track, did deep into those yellow page callers.

I agree with Jeff's comments above.

Direct mail works -- every time -- but only if you know how to write good direct response marketing copy. We need to know our target market well enough to write to their emotional triggers, for all buying decisions are emotional.

One must also write directly to one person -- so all who get the piece think you're hitting them personally where it hurts most. That kind of writing gets response.

Metrics are a must -- know what works and what doesn't.

How much to spend depends a lot on the lifetime value of your average client and the purpose of your marketing piece -- email or direct mail or ad.

The initial transaction is irrelevant if you know how to keep a client and contact them frequently, all the time providing outstanding service. It's the lifetime value that makes your initial sale irrelevant.

Jeff,

I agree on quality of ads but if you're referring to got hair ad with the brunette with the mustache, I created that ad and it's been used around the country. Yes it was a 'rip off" of got milk with a twist but it worked very well. In today's market for me at least the Internet has proved to be the most important of all our advertising. Super optimizing your own site every month as well as a good pay per click campaign is what brings me in 30 new patients a month even in this down economy. In fact the 4th qtr. last year was our best qtr ever and December was our best month ever. January slowed down a bit but if not for my marketing plan I'd be out of business. Now is not the time to cut back. I increased my budget by 25% last August and that's why we are doing as well as we are.

FYmedspa,

What are you doing for your pay per click?

LH

I am adding to James comment on March 02nd, James is right on about using PPC and outsourcing PPC marketing. PPC is extremely effective in getting new customers because it is highly targeted because consumers are interested in what they are searching for. With PPC you can target your local region that you cater to so your advertising budget is not wasted. PPC can get expensive if you don't know what you doing, so it's better to outsource to the expert. When measuring cost per sale, don't focus on ROI per transaction instead measure the lifetime value of your customers.

For example it might cost you $50 to get a new customer and assuming that customer spend $40 on your service. Initially it might look you are at a lost, but if that customer comes back 10 time and spend $40 each time the value of this customer is now $400 and not $40. Your are actually profiting $360 or more from this customer if he/she continue to do business with you.

Travis

It is a lot of extra work and can seem daunting to keep up with it, if you're doing it independently. It can also be hard to measure if you haven't established a min 30 day baseline or strategy.
I would totally recommend looking into boutique social media management, if you haven't yet. Going that route is the strongest and most reliable way to reach, connect, build, and increase overall organic growth, in turn increasing your ROI- while also developing brand loyalty.
Gone are the days of targeted and invasive marketing tactics, such as PPC, or paid adverts- as they've slowly been seemingly replaced with a more holistic and unique tailored approaches- and individualized KPI's are tracked and measured accordingly to ensure effectiveness, as well as maintain growth.