The Deeper Data That Can Improve Your Dental Marketing ROI

What’s your default response when rethinking your dental marketing strategy? Perhaps you’re drawn to creative content (many are).

But what about the deeper data that could improve your dental marketing ROI?

Let’s face it: A lot of time, energy and dollars are invested in finding that magic pill.

• Google AdWords.
• Social media.
• Direct mailers.
• Content marketing.

Each have their value. Yet you could improve their results by tapping an often-untapped area of your marketing-think.

The dynamic duo of online marketing and data analytics

To clarify, data analytics has strong alignment with online marketing strategies. Traditional outbound marketing (ads, billboards, direct mail, media promotions, etc.) might have an appeal, but digital marketing strategies give you a somewhat deeper audience persona.

Online marketing fundamentally revolves around the digital environment.

• Your dental practice website.
• Your social media presence.
• Your content-centric SEO strategies (e.g., searchable blog content, video/audio content, e-newsletters).
• Your online reviews.
• Your online ads.

These and other related strategies position you not only with your target audience, they also provide you access to related data you can use to understand

• Patient preferences.
• Patient interests.
• Patient lifestyles.
• Patient likes and dislikes.

With data analytics, your dental marketing has the potential to become less random and more focused on valuable discoveries about your potential and current patients.

The deeper data that can improve your dental marketing ROI

We‘ve said numerous times that “what’s measured can be improved.” The truth of that statement magnifies the value of exploring a few essential dental marketing metrics.

Lead/opportunity cost per patient

This data focuses on the amount of marketing-spend you’re investing to compel someone to contact your dental practice. Their contact could be

• An inquiry about a particular service you offer.
• A request for more information about your practice.
• A follow-up on a referral related to their current dental issue.

The data can be obtained from a website visit (e.g., online contact form), or it could be an actual conversation with your front office team, an email/text communication, a direct message on social media or a live chat portal on your website.

Acquisition cost per patient

When you shift your focus to those patients who schedule and occupy a chair for treatment, you see how this investment goes beyond the initial contact.

Data that tracks a patient’s treatment journey from initial contact to scheduling to an actual appointment encounter can help you determine what marketing efforts are working.

Monitor your marketing to determine what led to each person to becoming a patient of record.

Follow-up and recare metrics

Acquiring a new patient is a win. The greater value is them establishing an ongoing, loyal relationship with your dental practice for:

• Routine examination and hygiene appointments.
• Follow-up consistency on extended treatment.

Again, mine as much insight as you can from your marketing data to measure the patient journey — what acquired them AND why they return (again and again).

Phone call conversions

New patient call volume is an important metric to measure. The more relevant data related to those calls is how many are converted to an appointment.

• Monitor the type and quality of questions asked by new patient inquiries.
• Train team members on phone awareness (e.g., how to ask questions, obtain useful information).
• Know monthly conversion rates (e.g., calls to scheduling ratio).

Lifetime patient value

A true test of your dental marketing ROI is long-term patient retention. High retention rates can often be traced to how intuitive your marketing is, based on the previously covered metrics.

You can improve your marketing intuition through a more intentional relationship with your data. Benefits include

• Marketing segmentation based on patient demographics and key patient preferences.
• More informed marketing based on clues mined from data sources (e.g., preferred communication channels, social media presence, surveys, reviews and referrals).

There’s more to patient data than patients’ health information. Your dental marketing taps into not only their oral health journey but also the physical and emotional factors that compel them to seek treatment.

In essence, data leaves a trail. The key is how you follow it for acquiring, maintaining and retaining patients for life.

Dental marketing requires intentional action. A portion of that action is locating and using informative data to help drive your strategies.

Use the following resources to discover opportunities within your data:

How to Improve Dental Patient Retention for Long-Term Relationships

Data-Centric Strategies to Pivot Your Dental Marketing

Leverage your data to improve your dental marketing ROI

The Jarvis Analytics platform helps ensure that you’re tracking useful patient data and the important metrics as well as staying on-track with your goals as your dental practice or DSO grows and expands.

Experience Jarvis in action. Request a demo today!