Marketing can either have the best return on investment of any expense, or the worst, and sometimes you don’t know which it is. It can really feel like you’re gambling for patients. Here’s a few tips on how to keep track of your marketing budget and make marketing less of a gamble.
Do you know which avenues give you the best return on investment? Is it Facebook, billboards, YouTube, Instagram, TV ads, or something else? Wherever the patients are coming from is where your budget should be focused, and you should drop the others. I recommend focusing on two mediums, for example, Facebook and Instagram. Having more than two may be necessary for your position, but it’s a good benchmark.
Pumping more money into a marketing campaign won’t necessarily make it a better campaign. Before increasing the budget, see if you can adjust it in other ways. Maybe you can tweak the audience, change the image, or something similar. When you talk to your marketing person, ask them about altering the ad, audience, or location of the ad before giving the campaign more money. Increasing the budget should be a last resort tactic to reach more people.
The money you give to paid ads changes two things: reach and length of the ad. The more money you give to a campaign, the longer it will run, and the more people will be reached. Money is not the only way to change these two elements though, so think about other changes you can make before increasing the budget. If you focus on where your patients are coming from and ask your marketing person about other methods of reaching that audience, you could save a lot on your marketing budget. And remember my golden rule for your marketing dollars: If you aren’t going to measure it, don’t spend it.