In all forms of marketing, the return on investment, or ROI, is one of the more important figures to know. Practices that aren’t aware of their ROI are more likely to waste time and money on marketing that just doesn’t work. Even worse, while your marketing is missing left and right, your competitors’ may be picking up the slack and taking potential patients and sales leads right from under your nose.

Accuracy, in this case, is about knowing who is going to be the easiest to engage and retain. Tightening up your ROI should be an important part of any marketing strategy, and here are three tips to help you to get started:

• Know your demographics. If nothing else, you need to know exactly who is coming to your practice, who is responding to your marketing, and how it is effecting your business. If your current patient demographics are long time visitors, but small in number, then you already know that what you’re currently doing works for them. That may not help you to pull in new numbers, and you may even be missing out on an entirely different demographic of patients while offering many of the services that they could be looking for. Figure out your demographics as early as you can, and you will see far less waste on your marketing.
• Learn from your neighbors. Unless you’re working in Antarctica, there’s probably other dental practices nearby. You should be paying attention to what they’re doing, if only because they’re often effected by the same circumstances that you are. When there’s a trend in cosmetic dentistry, they will react. When there are shifts in local demographics, they will sometimes, but not always, adapt. They may also offer services that patients are looking for, but you lack. You may, likewise, have services that competitors do not. Play to your strengths, and learn to shore up your weaknesses accordingly.
• Be honest, but proud. You shouldn’t overextend yourself in your marketing. If you’re primarily a general dentist, or a family dentist, then you most likely shouldn’t market yourself as a cosmetic dentist, even if you offer cosmetic services. You should market yourself as a dentist with cosmetic procedures, certainly, but focus on what you do best, instead of attempting to lure in patients with promises of something else. As for what you actually do best, never miss an opportunity to let your patients know exactly what that is, and how it’s reflected in your procedures and technology. If you are the best cosmetic dentist, you should explain why, and you should do so in terms they can easily digest.