“We spent time interviewing media buyers and marketing gurus to finally come
up with “the plan” last fall. Two themes, we thought: one for PAP failures, and
one for snoring and tired all the time.”
How long do we schedule
for an undiagnosed patient?
For a diagnosed, in network
patient? For a diagnosed,
out of network patient? Ex-
pected time to capture VOB
info, sleep studies, and the
dreaded LOMN’s.
The TV commercials start
tomorrow night on the
10 o’clock news, she said,
excitedly. I hope you are
prepared for the calls. You
betcha! We’ve been work-
ing on this for months!
Fast forward 60 days from
the day the first commercial
aired. What’s happened?
Did we get the calls? How
many? How much did we
spend on the advertising?
Did we also do radio? What
type of patients did you get?
Did they show up? Were
you able to convert them
to a dental device? What
percent? ROI? I know. You
have a thousand questions.
March, 2017: 178 calls. 45
appointments scheduled.
22 showed. 11 dental devic-
es made from media leads
alone. Yikes! I thought we
were prepared, but we
were far from it. ROI af-
ter the first month would
have been break even IF we
could have averaged $4,113
per dental device, which we
did not, of course.
We ever UNDER-PREPARED
for what happened. You
see the numbers, and I hope
that you’re saying to your-
self “We could have done
better than that!” Back
to the drawing board. I
hired a business consultant,
someone outside the realm
of dentistry and medicine,
and we started over again.
Updated job descriptions.
New hire for a New Patient
Coordinator. What worked,
what did not? Tweak.
Tweak.
April, 2017: 155 calls. 90
appointments scheduled. 60
showed. 34 dental devic-
es made from media leads
alone. Better. ROI after
month two is break even if
we just average $1059 per
dental device (we did bet-
ter!) More meetings. Now
the business coach is hold-
ing kaizen events for the
staff. Things are looking
up, and we’re getting better.
Next month I’ll dive more
into the details of what we
are doing to increase effi-
ciencies and turn the media
generated leads into dental
devices. Stay tuned!
DR. RICHARD DRAKE
Dr. Richard Drake has been
exclusively treating snoring
and apnea for 15 years. He
Co-Founded Dental Sleep
Solutions and DS3 Systems
and has a stae of the art
sleep practice in San Anto-
nio, TX.
Visit Booth #310 at
the AADSM to learn
about May’s Results.