1. Which KPIs should dental marketers be measuring?
The more data you collect on your marketing, the better you’re able to refine and optimize your approach. But which data matters?
Three KPIs we find especially valuable are:
- Cost per acquisition. This measures how much it costs to bring a new marketing patient through your doors.
- Phone conversion rate. This measures how often your call handlers convert a marketing lead into a scheduled appointment.
- Recare rate. This measures how often a new marketing patient comes back for follow-up appointments.
Use these as a quick and dirty way to assess the overall performance of your entire new patient journey. You’ll get an incredibly valuable perspective on what’s working and what needs to be improved.
(Essential: Track this data ONLY for your marketing patients. If you mix non-marketing patients into the dataset, you’ll render your numbers meaningless.)
2. How can I learn more about dental marketing itself?
Fortunately, this is easier than it used to be. Not only does the pile of marketing knowledge available online continue to grow, but these days, more of it is dental-specific.
Start playing around with what’s out there. Dig into B2B blogs or newsletters for tactics, and check out resources like Dental Entrepreneur magazine or Dental Rift to get a sense of what the community is talking about.
You should also try our founder’s podcast Dental Marketing Theory for weekly in-depth interviews with working dental marketers as well as our live Dental Marketing Manager Bootcamp.
We’re also big fans of the DEO team and their annual Growth Summit, which is a fantastic opportunity to learn from some of the biggest names in dental.
One last note: Don’t forget about the human element in marketing. Yeah, it’s great to understand the latest and greatest in data-driven strategy, but marketing is ultimately about human connection.
The better you know how to communicate with people — and help them solve their problems — the more effective your marketing will be.
3. How can I boost internal referrals?
Internal referrals (or patient-to-patient referrals) are a powerful way to grow your patient base. Referral patients are warm leads — they already trust you because their friend or family member who referred them trusts you.
To generate more referrals, make sure you’re worthy of trust! Focus on building real relationships with your current patients — take the time to listen to them, hear their goals and concerns, and understand where they’re coming from.
You can also incentivize referrals by doing things like offering gift cards for each patient referred. You’d be amazed at how far you can get with a $10 Starbucks card!
We’ve also heard that handwritten thank-you notes can make a real impact as well.
