How Much Should I Spend On Marketing?

One of the most common questions asked by owners of healthcare practices is "How much should I spend per month on marketing". The short answer is "It Depends". There are many variables to consider, most importantly your goals for your business and whether your business is relatively new or a mature long existing business. In addition, another question always asked is "What kind of marketing should my business do and how should I allocate my marketing dollars".

There are many different ways a practice can utilize marketing to grow their revenue. Among the most common are internal marketing/patient communication, direct mail, email marketing, TV/radio ads, newspaper/magazine ads, Yellow pages ads, online organic marketing (SEO) and online paid ads. The most important thing, no matter what kinds of marketing products you choose is to track your return on investment (ROI) to make sure you are not wasting your money.

Fifteen years ago, many practices spent most of their budget on Yellow Pages ads and direct mail marketing. In the 90s, a full-page Yellow Pages ad in the NY phone book cost over 5K/month! Now, most practices spend almost nothing on the Yellow Pages or direct mail and spend most of their budgets on online organic marketing and online paid ads such as Google pay-per click or Facebook ads.

How Much Should I Spend?

Here are a few general rules of thumb: A mature practice/business which has relatively stable income for many years and is just looking to grow slowly and/or maintain their current revenue levels should spend about 3%-5% of its gross revenue on marketing. A practice/business looking to grow quickly needs to spend more aggressively-more in the neighborhood of 5%-10% of revenue. Lastly, a business that is just starting and cannot calculate their marketing spending based on revenue, should start by spending a minimum of $750-$1000/month. Nowadays most health care businesses spend almost all of their marketing budgets online, since TV/radio/newspaper ads are very expensive and Yellow Pages ads and direct mail marketing are relics of the past.

If you are a mature ongoing practice, a good guideline is that for every 1M in annual revenue you should spend between $2500 and $4166 on marketing. If you are a practice looking to grow quickly you should spend between $4166 and $8333 per month for every 1M in revenue. If you are a startup practice you should begin by spending at least $750 and $1000 per month (unless you have a good amount of working capital) and increase your spending once you graduate your practice to a growth business from a startup.

When it comes down to it, as a practice grows, the amount spent on marketing should increase in dollar terms but decrease as a percentage of revenue. Here is a chart with a rough idea of how much a practice should spend per month:

Mature Business

Growth Business

Startup

At DoctorsInternet.com we will tailor a plan specifically for you based on your goals and work within your marketing budget-even if your budget is well below the marketing guidelines in the chart above. We will advise you on how to allocate your marketing budget whether you want only to cover only the essentials, just parts of the essentials (website & reputation) or whether you want to do more extensive advertising like Google or Facebook ads. We will always try to keep your spending as low as possible while getting the most bang for your buck. For more information, either call to speak to an expert or fill out a form for a free demo.

To read an article about acquiring new patients from the internet please visit: Acquiring New Patients From Those Searching Online - How To Help Build Your Practice.