Dr. Vince Leone shows practice owners how to build a marketing calendar for 2019. Review last year's spend and ROI, then plot campaigns on a year-at-a-glance calendar, focusing hard on the first 90 days. Mix internal promotions, Facebook ads, and seasonal events, aiming for 2-5 new patients per campaign to keep patient flow steady.
What's up everybody? Dr. Vince here, and day 4 of our 12 Days and Ways to Improve Our Practices for 2019. And we're gonna do this without messing up what's already working, without adding too much to your plate, without adding too much to your staff's plate, while continuing to focus on what you really do best, you know, what we call our superpower. Improving patient experience, growing the practice reputation within the community, and then create a bigger impact for your life, right? I mean, we only got one shot at this thing. So day 1, we went over establishing our target goals and stats to get there. Day 2, we talked about having a unifying message for your practice, right? Talking about your superpower, what's called a USP, unique selling proposition. Day 3, we talked about taking a look back and sorting through the mess of all the marketing that we did throughout the year. And by the way, just because you didn't pay for something doesn't mean it's not marketing, right? Because like handing out a business card is marketing. Having spinal care classes is marketing. Anything that can help generate, asking for referrals, anything that can help generate a new patient is marketing and should be treated as such. So today we're gonna talk about creating a marketing calendar for 2019. And the reason why yesterday we sorted through all the stuff and we found out, hey, what marketing did well? What marketing did not do well? What was our return on investment on all of it? Is because we now want to take those and then lay them out in 2019 of what worked. Obviously, the stuff that didn't work, we don't want to do again, right? What's the saying? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting a different result. Yes. I'm sure we're all guilty of that at times, but you know, hey, we got to catch ourselves. So, so what we want to do is you have your list of all the marketing efforts that you did in 2018. You have the return on investments, what you spent, what you got back, you know, how many new patients it generated. You have all that information. Now what we want to do is start laying it out on a calendar for 2019. And what I like is, you know, you go to Staples and By the way, I love going to Staples. I don't know why, but I love that store. But the point being is go to Staples, get one of those big year-at-a-glance calendars, right? And what you want to do then is start laying in, hey, so, you know, January, we're having a 21-day challenge, you know, for our internal patients to generate referrals. Goodness gracious, talk much, Vince? Anyways, You know, and then okay, then we're gonna have Facebook ads going, maybe running some inserts in the newspaper, whatever it is, and start laying it out in January, right? You know, the days that it's gonna be done, you know, so if say you're doing— you're starting the challenge on the 7th, then week, you know, the first week of January, hey, prep for the 21-day challenge, right? So you want to lay it all out there because then we're gonna be going over with our staff all the stuff that we need to do. And I would really focus on first quarter, right? If you know the stuff, like, you know, you did something in June, some type of summer event, or you did something for Halloween that worked really well, or you did something for Thanksgiving that was great, put it on the calendar. But right now, let's really hone in on the first 90 days, right? The first quarter. And so that we can get very specific about, you know, what we're going to do in terms of marketing. And then what you do, then you step back and you're like, you can see kind of holes in the calendar or no holes. It may look great or gosh, we don't have much going on in February. What's— let's do something. Or, you know, March, you know, because like February you could do something for Valentine's Day, you know, internal within the office, run some Facebook ads, you know, whatever all this stuff is. But the point being, like in March, there's not really some type of like event or, you know, holiday or anything like that. It's a great time to do a patient appreciation event. Gives you a couple months to prep for it, and it's a great way to give back and, you know, kind of start the year off right with appreciation and gratitude to your patients. So, and it can generate referrals if done right. But anyways, focus on the first 90 days, see what it looks like, and then, you know, get everything up there, and then if it looks a little sparse, then you start looking into, hey, how can we fill the holes? What can we be doing to add some marketing stuff? And, you know, I look— I think of marketing like fishing and like I'm going to hire a boat, I'm going to go out in the ocean, I want to catch a big fish. As you can see, I'm not a fisherman, I don't know much about it but I know there's some big fish out there. I do like salmon but the point being is if I'm going to take all the time to rent a boat and get someone to drive me out there and I'm going to take a whole day to do it and blah blah blah, I want to take as many poles with me so I can catch as many fish as possible. Right? So same thing with our practice. If I'm gonna pay for this building, I'm gonna, you know, have staff and all this type of stuff, I want as many poles in the water, or as many marketing campaigns and opportunities as possible so we can generate as many new patients as possible. And I never really look for a home run, you know, like whether it's Facebook or radio or newspaper or, you know, some internal promo, I never really look for a home run. I just want a single or a double. You know, I want each campaign to generate, say, 2 to 5 new patients. I don't need 1 to generate 20 because when it doesn't work, then all of a sudden, you know, we'd get this roller coaster in practice. So anyways, so that's it for today. This is day 4. Create a marketing calendar, get ahead of this, and so that we, you know, have a nice plan going into the new year so you can feel confident about it. And then it's just all about execution. This is great for your staff too because it shows them that, hey, you know, you're on the ball and, you know, you are, you have a plan, and then They then can get behind that, right? So, hope this is helpful. Hope this is, you know, you— I had a lot of fun making this video. I hope that you enjoyed watching it, and I hope that the information is valuable and something that you can utilize in your practice. And then tomorrow we'll talk about day 5 in the 12 Days and Ways of Growing Your Practice in 2019. I'm Dr. Vince. Thanks so much. Have an awesome rest of your day. Take care.
