The Magic of Call Tracking

Acquiring a consistent stream of quality new patients is an absolute necessity–and a key ingredient–for the continued growth and success of a dental practice. My hope would be that at least half of your new patients come from referrals from within your existing patient base. There is no greater validation of your entire customer service experience than when a satisfied patient recommends a friend, business associate, or family member to your office. And, of course, we know exactly how that new patient found your practice. There is no mystery.

The rest of your new patients find you from offline or online marketing campaigns. Offline marketing refers to TV commercials, radio ads, billboards, and mailers. Online marketing refers to organic search on Google/Yahoo/Bing, paid advertising on Google (Adwords), and of course all forms of social media like Facebook or YouTube. In contrast to internal marketing initiatives that produce referrals from your existing patient base, these external marketing programs can cost significant amounts of money. The challenge as marketers is to be able to measure the effectiveness of any of these programs in order to see where you get the best bang for the buck.

I have a strong bias for online initiatives. Online search is very specific. Someone has decided to look for a dentist or a dental procedure. Your goal is to be there and show up so they can find you easily. Offline programs require you to constantly put a message out there– 24/7 – spending lots of money and hoping and praying that someone will be motivated to call because you have stimulated their interest. Very different.

Call tracking has been around for many years. A unique telephone number is attached to the marketing or advertising message. When someone calls that number, it is call forwarded to your office telephone number. You can track the volume of calls to measure the effectiveness of the program. The calls can also be recorded to analyze your staff’s ability to convert the calls to actual patient visits.

I like the concept of using call tracking for online marketing. The call tracking platform works by inserting a small piece of code into the backend of your website. The code recognizes where the call is coming from–from anywhere online. In other words, the telephone number that shows up on your website is dynamic,  and it changes to reflect the referral source. You can have as many unique telephone numbers as you wish – each assigned to a particular online marketing program – and the number on the website changes based on where the call is initiated. The recorded calls will then provide you with useful marketing intelligence:

• What search terms did they type in to reach your website?

• How did they find your site? Was it an organic search, or from another marketing campaign like    Adwords or a Facebook ad or even  a Facebook post?

• What page of your site were they on when they made the call?

Basic Google analytics can measure how many visits occur on your website. But adding call tracking greatly enhances your ability to refine this data, and measure how successful you are in converting visits into an actual telephone call. That then leads to the ultimate analysis of how many calls are converted into an actual new patient appointment.

Call tracking is relatively inexpensive. Your webmaster can add this for about $100 a month. I think you should give it a try.