We’re well into 2019, which means it’s time to check in on your marketing goals. Whether you started a brand new marketing plan or improved on last year’s, checking in on your goals is an important step in the marketing cycle. This includes checking in on metrics like engagement and clicks, giving your content a refresh, as well as asking your team for their insights and adjusting from there. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s start at the beginning.
Check in on Your Strategy
Before you can adjust your strategy, you need to know what is and isn’t working. The more quantitative way to accomplish this is to review your metrics pre- and post-implementation. This includes social media, website content, and email marketing.
We recommend checking:
Engagement on social media.
Has it increased? What types of comments are you getting on your posts? What content is receiving the most likes?
Website metrics like page views and bounce times.
Which blog posts have had the most views and/or comments? Are people spending more time on your page?
Open rates, click rates, and list growth for emails.
Are people opening and finding your content valuable? Are people unsubscribing and are there new subscribers?
Compare the above with the 30 to 90-days prior to analyze what has improved and what may need some more work. Once you have the data, it’s time to meet with your team.
Check in with Your Team
Measuring your marketing success requires checking in with your team. Find out what’s working and what isn’t and if they have other feedback on the processes used. Some good questions to ask include:
- Do you feel you have enough time to complete these tasks?
- Are you asking new patients how they found the practice and recording their answer?
- Are you talking about our referral program as they schedule their next visit?
Once you begin to gauge their work, you can determine what updates need to be made.
Update Your Marketing Plan if Needed
We can all be overzealous with new projects, and marketing is no different. If an initiative hasn’t worked well because there’s little time to implement, consider updating your marketing plan until your team has a better workflow in place for the other marketing initiatives.
By taking your team’s feedback and metrics into account, you can determine what updates you need to make. It’s okay if this happens. After all, it’s difficult to tell what will and won’t work before implementing! Depending on your team’s availability to work on these projects, you may want to consider looking outside your practice.
Hire Outside Marketing Support
There comes a time when your marketing goals exceed you and your team’s capabilities. When this happens, consider hiring outside marketing support to get you over the marketing hurdle and into growing your practice.
One option is a jack-of-all-trades freelancer who can help you with your website, social media, and content creation. Freelancers typically have affordable rates, flexible work hours, and you have the freedom to work with them on a need basis. We recommend checking out Upwork when hiring your next freelancer.
Another option is to hire a marketing agency that specializes in helping dental practices succeed online. Agencies typically offer website, social media, video, and other creative services that may be beneficial to reach your marketing goals.
Your marketing strategy is an investment up front, but when done well and adjusted as needed, you can begin to grow your practice in new ways. Whether this means further utilizing the team you already have or bringing new people on, it’s not too late to meet your 2019 marketing goals.