I will make it simple for you and show you what works in our office. This will be a basic table. Keep in mind that we track each day and run totals for the entire month. Each type of advertisement is tracked. We ask all callers. “How did you hear about our office?” Each column represents a referral source or an advertisement you are running. Numbers are for illustration purposes only. They represent potential patients, who have scheduled an appointment.
*Subtotal Cost per lead equals Cost of Advertisement divided by number of leads. This tells you what it costs you per lead only. What about the patient showing up? What did that cost you? Well if they don’t show then that’s your chair time. What is your chair time worth? That is another topic for another day.
**Total Cost Per Patient of Record equals Cost of Advertisement divided by Leads that showed.
The next questions are:
1. What do I do with this data?
2. How long should I track data?
3. What is the production from these patients?
We track ads for ninety days. Keeping running totals as to what is effective. After the ninety days I sit down and trim the ads that are directly diminishing my bottom line. I keep the ads that are cost effective and generating new patients for the practice. We also look at the amount of additional revenue that was brought in from these patients. We also need to look at the patients that are responding to our ads, are they the type of patients we want to service.
One last thought because tracking advertising dollars opens up many areas in practice development. One key factor is the maturity of the practice and how established is the practice. A brand new practice can’t rely on friends and relatives of patients to grow the practice. Because it is brand new, the practitioner and support staff has to really do grass roots marketing. I hope this helps and brings up questions and comments. I touched on other areas that I will explore in the future.
Dr. Louis Kaufman
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