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Is Your Marketing Working For You?

CQ Associates see the value of marketing and how it is a necessity in order for their practice to grow. Incorporating marketing initiatives into your business development strategy is just the first step towards a successful marketing strategy. In order for your marketing to be truly effective, not only do you need a solid plan in place, you also need to track its effectiveness to make sure you are getting the most return on your investment.

Start with a Plan

A marketing plan is based on a defined budget, typically a percentage that encourages growth, and includes all of the direct marketing initiatives to drive traffic. It can seem overwhelming to earmark and plan for 12 months of marketing, but it’s better to have a plan and tweak it than live with the chaos of constantly ‘shooting from the hip.’ This is why we strongly encourage reviewing your return on investment on at least a quarterly basis. This will help identify which initiative(s) have the highest return on investment and what ones need to be re-evaluated.

Track the Effectiveness

The easiest way to get started with analysis is to incorporate call tracking numbers into your marketing plan and monitor each initiative separately [e.g. direct mail, newspaper, web, etc]. For the additional minor expense [typically 1% of your overall marketing budget], it is worth it to KNOW whether the phone is ringing.

As you collect this tracking information on a weekly/monthly/quarterly basis, you will be able to determine what’s working and what needs to be adjusted within your plan. There are so many ways to slice and dice the data but the overarching goal is to make sure that your marketing dollars are generating opportunities for your practice.

Analyze the Data

The numbers don’t lie; you’ll be surprised at the misconceptions we often have about what initiatives work best. Don’t be surprised after analyzing the data if you find that your practice is getting an lightbulbaverage number of calls from marketing pieces but the appointment conversion and sales are below average. In this instance, the marketing worked, but there was a breakdown in the sales process preventing a maximum return on investment. This is a prime opportunity for training and process improvement.

In other cases, tracking has shown that what works for the majority of practices differs for others. For instance, newspaper inserts typically receive a higher response rate than full-page ads. However, in some cases this ‘norm’ is flipped and by analyzing the data, smarter marketing decisions can be made. By reviewing data, previously scheduled tactics can be adjusted for optimal response rates.

The aforementioned are just a few examples of the benefits that come out of tracking and analyzing data. Let your marketing dollars go further – track, analyze and adjust your marketing plan on at least a quarterly basis to maximize return on investment!

Are you interested in incorporating tracking tools into your marketing plan and/or reviewing results? Please contact marketing at marketing@cq-partners.com to set up a meeting and discuss your marketing needs.