I am often asked this question, but people who cannot tell me exactly what they wanted their advertizing to do.
Brand awareness? Business awareness? Professional Improvement? Value message penetration? Phone calls to the office? Tests performed?
But that is a question for another day.
Example:
You want your advertizing to generate calls to the office that lead to new patient appointments. (This is common.)
The answer: Take the number of calls that result in new patient appointments and divide it into your advertizing dollars.
This requires two things:
- That you track the number of calls that lead to appointments.
- That you track your advertizing expenditures usefully.
Most offices don't track either usefully.
Business owners don't know how many calls actually resulted in appointments over time. Do you know how many calls resulted in new patient appointments in the second quarter of last year?
Business owners also often don't collect advertizing dollars in one easy to locate place. I was just reviewing one clients advertizing dollars and some were in advertizing, but the yellow pages (significant for them) were on the cash flow statement under phone, some were in general and administrative (postage) and others here and there.
Fortunately it isn't hard to track either.
Know how to get the report from your scheduling system for new patient appointments.
Collect your advertizing dollars on one place in your bookkeeping system.
Then when you want the number it can easily appear.
This is a basic managerial accounting function, as opposed to financial accounting as performed by your bookkeeper and CPA.
Rick
