Measuring outbound marketing
The whys and hows of healthcare marketing analytics
The business of healthcare is ruled by numbers – revenue, reimbursement, patient volumes – why should marketing be any different? This newsletter covers the importance of building measurement into an outbound healthcare marketing plan and what to measure to determine ROI.
Why measure?
Great healthcare marketing begins and ends with measurement. It is an essential step to determine success, failure, and what can be done differently next time. Without it, hospitals and physician practices blindly deplete their budgets with no way of tracking if any dollar spent brought them any closer to reaching their goals. Here’s why it’s important to measure marketing results:
- Evaluate and refine tactics to determine what’s working, what isn’t working, and how to improve results.
- Prioritize marketing efforts based on performance, to make strategic cuts that will reduce the budget while still making the biggest impact possible.
- Determine which tactics should be given more attention or funding next year.
- Take a proactive approach to marketing efforts to make adjustments during the campaign and turn results around.
With analytics, it’s easy to justify campaign costs, reinforce media decisions, and keep board members, physicians and staff aligned to the campaign goals. It also allows for tweaks and changes throughout a campaign to maximize media dollars and keeps the budget organized. While analytics may take time and resources to establish, they can end up saving healthcare organizations money through sound strategy.