You’ve got your dental marketing plan in place, and everything appears to be going smoothly. There’s informative, SEO-friendly content on your website, it’s being shared on social media, and you’re sending out email newsletters to specific segments of your customer base. But, do you know if all of that effort is actually working? How many people are opening those newsletters? Is your site appearing as high up in search results as you’d like? Without establishing key performance indicators — or KPIs — you may not realize just how your campaign is performing and what can be done to improve it if necessary.
What are KPIs?
Key performance indicators are a critical tool in digital marketing for dentists. They are measurable goals that your practice can use to determine the best course of action when developing and launching a marketing plan. To be effective, KPIs should be defined, quantifiable, applicable to your business, crucial to achieving your goals, and communicated throughout your marketing department. It’s worth noting that KPIs that attempt to measure things over which your efforts will have no impact, such as the number of people who need cavities filled each year, or goals that might make you feel good but have no real impact on your business, should not be considered. However, there are dozens of KPIs that could meet all of these requirements and still not be the right fit for you. Working with a dental marketing agency can help you determine which KPIs are best for your practice, but here are a few to consider.
Sales Growth
If the purpose of your dental marketing campaign is to increase sales, then it’s imperative to measure the changes in your sales before and after the campaign was launched. You can do this by simply comparing overall sales at two specific points in time, or you can further segment this to target specific areas of sales, such as the number of new patients receiving braces, to further determine areas for growth.
Cost Per Lead
If your dental marketing campaign is effective, it’s important to ensure that you can still afford it. Determining how much money your dental practice is spending on each new lead or patient acquired can help you properly budget for the continuation of your marketing efforts. For example, if your practice paid to place an ad on Facebook and only gained a handful of leads as a result, it may not be worth it to continue using this type of marketing. Conversely, an expensive ad that brings your practice significantly more leads may provide enough value to merit repeating.
Unique Website Visitors
Driving website traffic through SEO is a popular and effective marketing technique. About 81% of consumers do their own research before they make a purchase, and many also do the same before selecting a medical provider. Your site is a critical source of information for these researchers, and it’s therefore important to drive more traffic to your site as part of your marketing strategy.
Leads or Sales Per Channel
If your practice is targeting a specific demographic or looking to grow your patient list through a particular channel, it’s important to measure the number of people who are finding your website or becoming a patient through each marketing channel you’ve developed. Similar to the cost per lead KPI, this indicator can show which marketing channels are worth continuing to use or which ones needs further adjustments. Setting a number of new patients your practice would like to sign on within a specific time frame can therefore be a useful metric for developing future marketing campaigns.
Patient Retention
Acquiring new patients often costs more than keeping a current patient happy. As a result, it’s in your best interest to measure how many patients return to your practice year after year after making their initial visit. A high rate of customer retention shows that your practice provides more value and benefit to your patients compared to your competitors and provides you with a solid financial base on which to stand while your firm expands.
Growing Through KPIs
While a dental marketing campaign may drive new patients through your doors and more visitors to your website, understanding which strategies are working best and which are not worth the effort and money can be the difference between growing a little and expanding dramatically. KPIs can help your practice determine how many more clients are needed in order to meet your revenue goals for the year or what type of advertising will be most effective in driving website traffic.
By focusing your dental marketing efforts only on the forms of advertising that have been proven to be the best at helping you reach your goals, your dental practice will save time and money that would have otherwise been spent pursuing ineffective tactics. As a result, your patient list can grow more quickly thanks to your focused efforts.
Working with a Dental Marketing Agency
A professional dental marketing agency understands what it takes to create a marketing plan that actually meets your practice’s needs. The agency can discuss those needs and set measurable, specific goals in the form of KPIs, then adjust those KPIs as necessary over the course of your marketing campaign based on its performance and the feasibility of attaining the KPIs set. 321 Web Marketing is an experienced digital marketing agency that can create customized marketing plans designed to help your dental practice grow. Speak with a digital marketing professional to get more information or to schedule a free digital marketing consultation.