It was great meeting a new group of cosmetic surgeons last weekend in Tulsa. The presentation I made on marketing went over pretty well, so I thought I would share the subject here, too. It is about using metrics in your marketing.
If you know good benchmarks and how to interpret them, metrics are the key to success. If you don’t measure and you don’t pay attention to your metrics, you are taking a huge risk with your cashflow and with the future of your business.
My presentation was called “It’s a Numbers Game.” In it, I identified six key numbers business owners should know. They are: 45, 3, 2, 50, 1 and 0. Here is why these numbers are important.
45 - As in 45 seconds. This is the length of a quality incoming call. Anything less is a low-value exchange of information or no exchange at all. The tool required to measure incoming calls is a tracking phone number. Tracking numbers let your record all details of your incoming calls form unique placements (web site, print ad, etc.)
3 - As in 3 page views. On a cosmetic surgery or dentistry web site, this is the minimum average number of page views you want people to see. An average of 3 tells us that longer visits are occurring among interested users. Why? Because of your bounce rate. We will get to that.
2 - As in 2 minutes. This is the minimum average length of time users should be spending on your web site. An average of less than two minutes usually correllates with a low number of page views and a high bounce rate, which means... sorry... time for a web site redesign. People are not liking what they find if they are leaving so quickly.
50 - As in 50% Bounce Rate. A bounce is when someone comes to your web site, sees the first page and leaves. 50% is the maximum bounce rate you should see. The lower it is the better but statistics show that 50% is very common. That is why we want to state it as a maximum acceptable bounce rate. You should be doing better.
1 - As in 1 First Impression. That’s all you get. So if the first impression someone sees is your web site, make sure it is a good one and make sure it accounts for the hardware they are using. Standard web sites are not made for mobile devices and if you make someone fight through your standard web site on a mobile device, you are not making much of a first impression. And, if your Flash and video cannot be seen on mobile devices, you are probably making a bad first impression. If you care about every first impression, you should have a mobile web site backing you up on this one.
0 - As in 0 Growth. If you do not measure your marketing results, this is what you are likely to get. The only way to really be successful in marketing is by understanding the productivity of all the elements of your marketing plan. With the advice I give in this blog, you at least have some benchmarks and tools identified.
If you need help with any of the above or want to start measuring your marketing, add a mobile site or begin using tracking numbers, please email me at donald@dogstarmedia.com. I look forward to helping you.
