When it comes to marketing your business, how do you know what’s effective and what isn’t?
If you’re new to digital marketing, knowing if your efforts are worthwhile can be a mystery if you don’t know what marketing metrics you should be measuring. These metrics are important because they help demonstrate ROI, and proving there’s a return on your marketing strategy is important if you want to keep your marketing budget.
Therefore, let’s run through what you need to consider before measuring, as well as some of the most important healthcare digital marketing metrics to monitor so that you can prove ROI and fine tune your marketing activities.
Before You Measure: What to Consider
First and foremost, you need to have a clear picture of what you want visitors to do when they’re on your website. Create a funnel of specific actions you ideally want visitors to take.
For example, maybe you want new visitors who land on your site or read a blog post for the first time to sign up for your newsletter. A bit further down the funnel, you’ll probably want them to download a gated asset (think checklist, white paper, etc.), and finally, you’d like them to book an appointment.
Here’s a more specific example:
- You work for an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine. You write a series of blog posts on the most common sports injuries, all of which have a call to action (CTA) at the end urging people to sign up for the practice’s newsletter.
- Within the newsletter, you promote a white paper on “What to Expect Before and After Knee Surgery” that gives detailed insight into pre-op procedures, the actual surgery, and what patients can expect post-op, including recovery time. Newsletter recipients are encouraged to download this white paper.
- On your website and within your newsletter, you have a button that says “Schedule a Consultation” where people can easily make an appointment with the surgeon. Now that your audience is more informed, you hope they will finally decide to come into the office.
Now that you have a well-thought out funnel with specific actions you want prospects to take, you can measure them. This will help you avoid a common problem in the marketing world: measuring metrics but not knowing why they’re being measured. This is a waste of time and budget! Knowing exactly what to measure and why you’re measuring it will help your marketing team be more efficient and effective.
Plan in Place: Metrics to Keep an Eye On
Once you have the steps in your funnel solidified, here are the metrics you want to keep an eye on.
Lead Generation
How many new leads are you generating? It’s important to keep people in your marketing funnel, but it’s also important to keep bringing in new blood. Is your strategy successfully attracting new prospects? If so, where are they coming from? What channel is the best at bringing them to your site and getting them to convert?
Click Through Rate (CTR)
How many people are actually clicking on the things you want them to? In the example above, this would be the “Sign Up for Our Newsletter”, “Download the White Paper”, and “Schedule a Consultation” buttons. This will show you if your content is moving people enough to take action. If not, it’s time to reassess your content strategy.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
How much is all of this costing you? Cost per lead should be broken down by channel and campaign (this applies not only to your digital marketing strategy, but to all marketing efforts including direct mail, referrals, etc.). With regards to digital marketing, see what campaigns and channels (social media, email marketing, etc.) are giving you the most bang for your buck (i.e. the most leads for the least amount of money).
The Final Word
Ultimately, knowing what to measure and why you’re measuring it will give you and your team better visibility into which digital marketing activities are most effective at acquiring new prospects and converting them into actual patients.