A while back a client asked me for a rule of thumb for how much to spend marketing his practice. A lot of marketers throw out numbers like 5-10%. I suppose that’s an OK rule of thumb but it really isn’t that useful.
First of all, what are you trying to achieve? If you have a lot of patients but a disorganized staff, rude receptionist or poor billing process, more patients won’t help you. Fix those problems first. It’s like they say, repair your bucket before you use it to draw water from the well.
If you need more patients, I still think it’s only an OK approximation. I’m a big fan of keeping metrics for your marketing. I track the return on investment (ROI) of each marketing system in my practice. Whatever has the highest ROI, I invest the most money into. If I spend $2,500 and earn $20,000 worth of new patient business (which can be done, by the way), I keep spending more and more on that until my ROI drops significantly.
David Zahaluk, MD is a practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book. His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed. Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.
