Ways to Determine Your Digital Marketing Budget
Overview
Digital marketing has already been proven to be one of the most effective ways to raise awareness and get more patients at the front door. However, many doctors are still having doubts on whether investing in digital marketing is worth it. Most medical practices do not usually allocate a budget for digital marketing. After all, there are more pressing issues that need to be addressed rather than think of a marketing budget.
Medical practitioners should never overlook the importance of digital marketing. No matter how good your services are, people need to hear about them first. While it’s easy to spend too little on marketing, it’s also possible to spend too much.
Here are some ways to determine your digital marketing budget:
- Research about the cost of advertising.
Before crafting your budget, you need to ask this question first: How much will it cost me to acquire a new patient? Answering this simple question will guide whether advertising will be an expensive or relatively cheap option for your medical practice. This will also help you estimate how many patients you can get based on what you’re spending. You would also need to figure out what metrics you need to measure the success of your marketing efforts. This way, you’ll be able to know which marketing activities work best for you.
- Identify your marketing objectives.
Knowing your main goals for your digital marketing initiatives are also critical in planning your budget. Having your objectives will help you prioritize which strategies you should focus on the most. For example, if you want to raise awareness, you can focus on social media marketing. If you want more people to visit your website, then you can invest more in producing more high-quality content, so that you can leverage search engine optimization to boost conversion.
- Analyze your previous strategies.
If you’ve done a little digital marketing in the past, then you should be able to see what has worked and what has not. Which strategies have experienced success and why? Which marketing efforts did not work for your practice? Figuring out what worked and what didn’t are vital pieces of information that you need to know to move forward with your strategy and effectively allocate your resources.
- Evaluate your options.
Digital marketing can sometimes be complicated. It involves a mix and match of numerous tactics and strategies. And if you’re not familiar with it, digital marketing can become overwhelming. Furthermore, there are a lot of digital marketing initiatives you need to learn: search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and video marketing. When evaluating all of these options and allocating your budget, always remember your marketing goals and overall objectives.
- Look to the future.
Although it is important to figure out what has worked for you in the past doesn’t mean that you will not try new techniques that might work in the future. Current trends in digital marketing are critical. Being aware of the trends and having a "first-mover advantage" can be a huge benefit for your medical practice.
Partner with DrCatalyst
Planning a digital marketing budget can be a huge headache. However, it can have a positive impact on your medical practice if you get it right. Setting a clear objective on your desired results will help you create a plan for your budget, making it easier for you to allocate resources.
If you’re planning to use digital marketing to grow your practice, DrCatalyst can help. We provide over two dozen different medical billing services plus administrative and marketing. Give us a quick call and we’ll get you started.
