The Importance of Determining Marketing Return-On-Investment (ROI)

By Michelle Matura Hentzell

As budget dollars become scarcer, determining an ROI on marketing investments becomes more important than ever. ROI does not only tell you the cost of the campaign but it tells you the effectiveness.
You may ask, “How do you determine campaign effectiveness?” First, you want to start with establishing your goal and then think about what types of measures would help you get to your goal. Here are a few examples:

• Number of leads
• Revenue generated
• Number of web hits or visitors
• Sales Volume

There are many ways to determine ROI but the most common are expressed in terms of a dollar amount or as a ratio. The formulas are simple.

The dollar amount formula shows how the campaign increased profit.
(Cost savings and earnings) – (Dollars invested) = ROI

The ratio formula shows, in dollars, how much you got back for every dollar invested.
(Cost savings and earnings) / (Dollars invested) = ROI

It is important to measure every marketing initiative to determine its success or possibly its failure. But, if the campaign is not a success, then you can re-evaluate and not run the same type of campaign again.

You Have One Chance to Make a First Impression!

Introduce your new physician to build patient referrals and increase your bottom line.
By: Michelle Hentzell and Jennifer Taggart

You finally have the perfect candidate joining your busy practice. Now, how do you maximize your latest addition to renew interest in your practice and increase patient referrals and walk-ins? The work begins before your new addition arrives. You will need to determine the best way to introduce your new physician to your colleagues, patients and the community. Here are a few tips to help you along:

• If you have a website, add the photo and personal and business profile of your new physician. Be sure and also add your new physician to all of your marketing materials.
• Schedule a social event so that your referring physicians and colleagues can meet your newest addition.
• Schedule an open house at your office and invite your patients and prospective patients.
• Perhaps add office hours at a new location where the new physician can help build your patient base.
• Schedule one-on-one introductions to referring physicians. You can do this by doing office visits and/or scheduling lunches or dinners.
• Run a newspaper add in a local paper announcing that your new doctor has joined the practice.
• Send a letter announcing the addition of your new doctor to other physicians and your patients.
• Create a poster board to place in your reception area with a photo and biographical sketch about your new physician. Be sure to include both a personal and business profile.
• Schedule speaking engagements for your new physician with local business groups and civic organizations.
• Send out a press release about your new physician to local and trade publications.

Promoting a new physician takes a lot of work, but if done right can renew interest in your practice and increase your bottom line.

4 P's Start with the C -- Developing Your Marketing Mindset

By Jennifer Thompson

If you have ever taken a Marketing 101 class, then you’ve probably been exposed to the concept of the four ‘Ps’: Product, Price, Promotion and Placement. As marketers, we use the four ‘Ps’ to differentiate ourselves from our competition. They are also part of what is often referred to as the marketing mix. The four ‘Ps’ provide us with the framework for developing our most basic marketing messages.

However, if you’re like most great marketers, it’s not a formal marketing education that got you to where you are—it’s the marketing mindset. Sure, every great marketer needs a plan but every great plan needs a marketer. In a highly competitive industry like yours, you need a plan and you’re plan better set you apart from the competition.

As powerful as the four ‘Ps’ are to developing your marketing mix, if you intend to implement a strategic plan for ultimately putting more money in your pocket, then you’d better get started with one very important ‘C’—the customer! Defining who your customer is and how you are going to get more of them is the key to putting together and executing a successful marketing strategy. Start by defining who your customer is? Take a look at your current customer base and determine which ones are most profitable to your business?

Understanding what your customer looks like and needs from you is the first step to building a customer acquisition strategy. The most important part of the customer acquisition strategy is YOU. That’s right—YOU! Developing the marketing mindset comes from within. Passion is not something that can be taught in a classroom or by reading a book. Harnessing your passion for helping others (or whatever drives your business) is the first step in unleashing your marketing mindset.

Unleashing your marketing mindset should be part of an overall strategy. Too many businesses attempt to market their business using a series of tactics rather than by crafting and implementing an overall strategy designed to deliver results. Don’t waste your money mailing direct mail, special product offerings or spend your hard-earned dollars on untargeted advertising unless it is part of your overall strategy. You will spend countless hours and dollars preparing for advertising campaigns that will ultimately give you a less than one percent return. There is no reason to spin your wheels unless you know where you are going.

Use the four ‘Ps’ to help jump start your marketing mindset. In this business, understand that it is not about quantity, it’s about quality. The first step to developing your marketing mindset and putting yourself on the road to increased sales is to focus on building long lasting customer relationships that act more like partnerships than simply a pond for you to fish out leads.

Planning
Much like a politician determining how many votes are necessary to win an election, the first step to developing your marketing plan is to outline a customer acquisition strategy that works for you. Having a plan and sticking to it is essential to achieving one’s goals.

First, determine your monthly financial goal? What is the daily number of accounts you need in order to achieve this goal? Assuming an average transaction, how many customers do you need each month to reach your goals? Now that you have identified how many customers you need, how do you plan to attract your customers? Will you need to start over each month finding new leads or are you building customer relationships that will continue to send you business time after time?

Even if it is only $100, it is essential for you to have a marketing budget. Knowing how many transaction you might need in order to achieve your sales goals is the first step, but determining how much it will cost to actually win that customer is step two. Establish a marketing budget based on your actual costs associated with attracting a new customer. Once you have established a budget, survey your existing customers to see how you have been doing? Use your existing customers to get feedback on the process and your quality of service. Your existing customers possess a wealth of useful knowledge and can be critical for refining your sales process and developing clear and concise marketing messages.

Your customers should be treated as partners. Partners help build one another’s business. Look at the business you are currently doing. Which business brings you the most revenue? Of your partners, which ones are sending you the best business and taking up the least amount of your time? Profile your perfect customer and your perfect lead. These are the relationships that you should be striving to attract and retain. Put your time and money into what makes sense, starting with building powerful customer relationships.

It is critical to have a plan in place if you want to be successful. Understanding what the perfect customer looks like, how many of them you need and how much money you need to spend to reach them is the most important part of the planning process. You wouldn’t go to battle without a battle plan. Don’t build your business without first investing in a marketing plan.

Positioning
In the game of football, field position is everything. In the sales cycle, positioning is your tool for getting noticed. For the sake of example, let us assume you are in the mortgage business. Ever wonder why real estate agents seem to be on the defensive the first time you meet them?

Should they decide to send business your way, it is their personal income that is on the line. They should be defensive. Your service is an extension of their service. Real estate agents are the front line to the customer and it is their reputation and personal income that is at stake in working with somebody with whom they barely know.

Health care business related professionals, like other business professionals, want to work with people they know and trust. Find a niche that makes you stand out from the competition. Use this niche to position yourself as an expert, especially in the mind of your customer. Once you become an expert in your particular niche, customers will flock to do business with you. Developing your marketing mindset will lead you towards becoming your best.

Packaging
Perception is reality and the reality is that you will be judged by the power and professionalism of your marketing materials including your advertising, business cards, direct mail pieces, headshot, letterhead, folders, website and even your telephone message. If it is just you and your competition sitting side by side at a table saying nothing, what will set you apart from your competition? It’s the power of your marketing materials. They convey who you are, the service you provide and the seriousness by which you take your business. Your customers need to feel completely comfortable doing business with you.

Your marketing materials are often all you’ve got in making a first impression. Proper packaging helps promote your brand identity. Developing a strong brand identity sets you apart from your competition. Investing in the right packaging will help you get an edge. Imagine having sent your marketing materials to a top producing real estate agent in your area. Good marketing materials get you in the door. Great marketing materials sell your service when you’re not even in the room.

Promotion
Once you’ve outlined your plan, identified your niche position and packaged your marketing materials, you are ready to get started promoting yourself and your services. Much like the most successful advertising campaigns, consistency is everything. Now that you know what you’re going to say, you need to find who it is you are going to say it. During the planning stage of the four ‘Ps’ you defined your perfect customer. Now, you must determine how to get in front of that customer and use every means possible for promoting yourself.

Have you ever lost sleep over not reaching your financial goals? Do you ever wonder why it is that January can be a great month for you while your March sales seem to hit rock bottom? Developing a consistent marketing message and marketing it consistently is the key to consistent sales. If you are inconsistent each month, you will get inconsistent results. Know what you are going to say, and then say it—over and over again.

Remember how we talked about the business professional who sent out teaser postcards and spends money on untargeted advertising and then complains because they aren’t seeing results? Now that you have worked through the four ‘Ps’ and determined your overall marketing strategy, you are ready to implement your marketing campaign through a series of marketing tactics like direct mail postcards, targeted advertising campaigns, networking events, etc.

Developing your marketing mindset is more than simply placing advertisements and getting in front of potential customers, it’s about harnessing your passion for helping others and building relationships that will lead to consistent sales and revenue. Remember, it is important to work through the four ‘Ps’ of planning, positioning, packaging and promotion in creating your overall marketing strategy. However, developing your marketing mindset starts with one very important ‘C’—the customer.

Making the Most of Partnership Marketing

By Jennifer Taggart & Johnny Duncan

Luring and capturing customers is no longer a skill, but an art. It takes innovation and creative awareness of the current business climate in order to not only become a success, but sometimes just to stay afloat. Business owners today are using multiple means of marketing to grow and drive their businesses, and the smart players will seek, find, and take advantage of all marketing opportunities that will ensure victory.

Partnership Marketing is one of those opportunities that should be incorporated into a business marketing plan. Partnership Marketing is a business strategy which aims to build stronger relationships with customers and make marketing propositions more appealing. In a nutshell, products, services and marketing strategies are enhanced by providing targeted, added-value benefits to customers, sourced and negotiated with third parties or partners.

Partnership Marketing is about successfully delivering commercial alliances between two or more brands to establish a joint return that would be greater than if the brands merely operated alone. The partnerships help create synergy through identifying and negotiating complementary brands and by collaborating marketing activities where everyone wins.

Another way to look at Partnership Marketing is as a collaborative marketing activity between brands, comprising an exchange of two or more companies' values or assets in order to acquire or retain customers.

Partnership Marketing, or collaborative marketing, increases brand perception, enhances retention and customer loyalty, and creates cost-effective opportunities for business growth and expansion of distribution channels. In addition, Partnership Marketing allows you to learn from your partners other marketing and business strategies.

Finding a partner or partners to align your products and services with is not as difficult as you may think. You can find potential partners in your customer list, within your current or potential suppliers, or with companies currently providing service for your customers.

The supply is vast, but you must use caution in selecting partners. Identifying the right partners is essential for making Partnership Marketing work for you. This involves a five-stage process that includes:
1.) Identify the opportunities, complementary brand partnerships, and strategic alliances
2.) Negotiate with the right partner(s) a proposition that is beneficial for all involved
3.) Determine and develop customer-driven communication strategies and targeted creative joint messaging
4.) Implement and deliver the integrated message to the costumer; and finally, 5.) Evaluate your campaigns, the partnership relationship, and return on investment.

Another key factor to consider is how well you know your potential marketing partner. Do you have similar business philosophies and values? What resources can you offer each other? And, what are the goals of the partnership?

Partnerships are not necessarily limited to just two companies. Partnering with more than two offers more exposure for your business creating more brand awareness for all involved. Taking advantage of the size and experience of other businesses helps speed up the maturity factor of all of the businesses within the partnership. It is like playing golf with players with various degrees of talent. You learn from others how to drive farther and they learn from you how to sink a 20-foot putt.

Moreover, Partnership Marketing is about forming alliances that may last a very long time. If a partner gets positive media coverage, chances are great that the publicity will serve well for all of the partners. Since the partners are not necessarily providing the same products and services, the fear of giving away business is simply not there. Partners are free to offer assistance to one another and provide support by way of advertising, referrals, and sometimes, even selling.

Partnership Marketing is about adding value, strengthening relationships, and building brand loyalty with customers for one another.

2009...A Year of Going Back to the Basics

Marketing Your Practice
By Michelle Hentzell and Jennifer Thompson, Insight Marketing Group

As you enter this New Year, you may be looking for ways to sustain your practice and help it grow…inexpensively. Go back to the basics and leverage the relationships you currently have as well as build new relationships to grow your practice. Here are some strategies to do this:

Networking with Referring Physicians
You can probably think of a few physicians that are referring to you. But, are they sending you most of their referrals? Are there other physicians that you would like to get their referrals? By nurturing relationships with your top 5% of referral partners, how much impact could you have on the bottom line? What if you made 2009 the year to establish relationships with your bottom 5% of referral partners?

Here are three things you could start doing today to increase referrals:

1. Make a point to thank your peers for their referral business. Do you have a system in place for saying thank you? It isn’t enough to simply have software to track referrals and revenue, you need to use every referral as an opportunity to build a better relationship and increase revenue.

2. Take notice to when your peers are recognized in the community or implement a new service or even hire new staff…. Tell them that you noticed what they are doing and congratulate them. Remember, relationships increase revenue.

3. Ask for their business.

The Power of Your Patient’s Recommendation
Word-of-Mouth marketing is very powerful – both negative and positive. If a patient has a really good experience during his/her visit, they will likely tell their referring physician as well as other friends when they are in need of a physician in your specialty.

Here are three ideas for cultivating relationships with your patients:

1. Make them feel like they are the only patient you have. Try to not have distractions during the visit with your patient and they will feel like they have your undivided attention.

2. Make sure that your patient has a complete understanding of what you want them to do. Patients will become frustrated if they get home and did not completely understand your instruction.

3. Let your patient have the last word. Ask them if they have any questions before you end the visit. This will help you ascertain their level of understanding as well as make the patient feel like they are getting all of the information they need.

Educating New Services and Procedures
Be seen as the expert for particular procedures or demonstrate how you are a leader in the specialty. Here are a few ways to do this:
· Press releases – Write a short article in press release format on new procedures or changes in medical treatment and send to newspapers, magazines, journals, etc.
· Newsletters – See if you can put articles in newsletters for neighborhood associations, hospital newsletters, etc.
· Educational seminars – Have a seminar to promote a screening or on a particular health issue. Potential patients will attend and you can even take it a step further. By scheduling free consultations or some other promotion, you have the opportunity to communicate with that patient a second time so they may choose you to be their physician.

When you started your practice, you probably employed these strategies. So, get back to the basics, and you will reap the results.

Partnering With The Media For Effective Public Relations

By Sara Bridget Au

In crafting a targeted and effective public relations campaign, you need to be able to reconcile your goals as a practice and those of the reporters covering your story. It can become a bit of a dance, moving in circles around everyone’s main goal. If you know how the media works, you can more easily enter into a partnership with them, and that’s the key to good PR.

Your bottom line reason for doing PR is that you want to attract more patients or clients and thus make more money. But, here’s the catch, journalists don’t exist to help you make more money and they take great offense to anyone who believes they do. Journalists (well, good journalists at any rate) want to tell compelling stories, share important information and bring new ideas to the forefront.

Here are some important things to help you become a partner to the news media:

You Need To Be Local
The news media today is very much a cannibalistic society. Local news copies the national news. Television copies the newspapers. Radio takes a little from both. If you are targeting the local media you need to above all be local. Don’t ask them to travel too far for your story, offer to come to them or plan your event so it’s not too far of a drive.

One great way to get coverage is to position yourself as a local expert or example of a national story. For instance, take the recent news that foreclosure filings again rose in the third quarter. CNN’s report highlights California, Florida and Ohio as dominating the statistics. You know the local news outlets are going to do this story, but they have to localize it, tell us what these national numbers mean in Central Florida. They have to find people in the Orlando area who can discuss this issue firsthand.

Be Specific To Your Best Target
Target a specific reporter who’s covered your kind of story before. If you don’t know who to target, flip through the newspaper or watch a week of newscasts and get an idea of who does what. You can also call the general newsroom number and ask for the assignment desk or assignment editor – these are the folks who manage the reporters and the content of their coverage.

Ask for their email address, and then send them a good, well-written synopsis of the story you want to tell. Writing a good press release isn’t hard, but that’s a topic for whole other column. Follow-up in a couple of days via phone – make sure they received your information and then ask if there is anything else you can provide that will help them determine if your story is something they want to cover.

Don’t Expect Commitment
In all your dealings with journalists, you should not count on a commitment from them for coverage. When news is breaking, all bets are off. The best you can hope for is that after the latest catastrophe or scandal, they consider returning to the coverage plan.

If you do get bumped for breaking news, or if the reporter you target says thanks but no thanks (and probably not in those words), ask if you can stay in touch from time to time about issues related to your story pitch. Then follow-up again in a week or two with a friendly email that includes a nugget of information they may find interesting. This can be a localized angle on a national story within the medical field, a suggestion for a source on another issue (this is where networking pays off!) or simply a compliment on one of their recent reports. Do not become a stalker, but relevant information is always welcomed and in this way you can slowly build up a relationship so that your next pitch ends up being a home run!

Sara Bridget Au is the editor of Insight Business Update and has worked for CNN, ABC, and other national, as well as local, news outlets. You can contact her at sara@insightmg.com or (407) 230-1116.