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Navigating A Marketing Spin Out

Written by: Dan Goldstein

Article Overview: If you own a medical, dental or legal practice, you probably already know that marketing your practice in today's difficult economic times is like navigating a race car during a spin out. Putting the brakes on your marketing budget is not the best way to survive and thrive in a challenging economic environment. You can and should cut back on marketing that is not working. However, you should invest in f you the areas that are generating your most cost effective leads - especially Internet marketing.

Navigating A Marketing Spin Out

In race car driving, drivers are sometimes faced with a potentially disastrous situation. Their car begins to spin out of control. A rookie driver may make the mistake of slamming on his breaks and trying to turn his car back on track. This is actually the worst thing that a driver can do. A seasoned driver will instead navigate the spin. He will throw his car into neutral and steer into the turn until he regains control of his vehicle. He then has to be ready to quickly turn back in the direction that he wants to go and hit the gas to get back on track. Your firm has to do the same thing with marketing in this economic downturn.

Your practice's numbers may be hurting at the moment. Or you may just want to cut back spending as a safeguard to be ready for the worst. Whatever the case, the worst thing that your firm can do right now is to stop marketing outright. If you do this your practice will “spin out of control”, losing out on valuable cases (or patients) because your name isn’t out there. Potential clients or patients might not even consider your practice because they only see your competitors - and not you.

Put Your Car Into Neutral, Don’t Hit The Brakes
Cutting back on spending is a good idea. Frugality always has its place. Scrutinize your marketing budget to see what is generating your best return on investment. One form of advertising that is continually declining for most practices is the yellow pages. Is it working for you? If not, it has to go. Check your contractual obligations for all of your advertising and pull out on the investments that are generating the least return.

Navigate The Spin
Once you cut the underperforming media, it’s important to invest in other media that promise to be somewhat “recession-proof”, and that offer the best return on investment proportionate to the amount of money that you’ll have to put into the advertising.

The best bet here is Internet marketing. Internet marketing is one of, if not THE most cost-effective type of advertising there is. More and more people are using the Internet to find what they need, which is why this medium is so effective even now. For example, last month, on Google, there were approximately 11,100,000 searches for the term “attorneys”. Whether you are a lawyer, a doctor or a dentist, in almost any market, the investment that you’ll need to make in Internet marketing is substantially less than TV, radio and print - not to mention yellow pages. And unlike TV and radio where you’re paying for your ad to get in front of everyone, with search engine marketing, your dollars are more targeted because people who find your website have actually typed in a search related to your practice.

Another form of marketing that is extremely inexpensive, but highly effective is referral marketing. You know that your business is driven by referrals, so why not capitalize on that? Work in your community to promote awareness about legal issues. Use email customer relationship marketing to stay in touch with current and past clients. Be creative and play to your strengths. This form of marketing can give you a great return on investment.

Get Back On Track
Once your spending is under control and your marketing budget is optimized for the times, you can rest a little easier. When the economy at large, and the economics of your practice, allow it, you can then kick your marketing back up to be more aggressive. Until then, at least you know that you’re being smart, that your marketing investments are safe, and that you’re still staying in front of potential clients or patients.

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Article Tags: amount of money, best bet, brakes, contractual obligations, disastrous situation, economic downturn, frugality, investments, marketing budget, marketing internet marketing, mistake, race car, recession proof, return on investment, rookie driver, safeguard, yellow pages



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