Monthly Archives: June 2011

One of the problems with traditional advertising whether it is in the newspaper, on the radio or even on the web is that very few businesses really know how well these media perform. It is hard to know whether a particular ad in a newspaper actually gave you two new patients, four, or if it brought in any at all. You can put enticements in the ads that ask people to mention something when they come into the office or bring in a “coupon code”, but most don’t and most office staff doesn’t want to appear pushy when asking for details about such things.

This becomes very frustrating for most dentists and in the long run it can be very expensive. If you don’t know which ad works and from which medium, how do you know if your advertising dollars are doing their job? Furthermore, if you do stumble upon an ad that really pulls in patients you might inadvertently cancel it because you didn’t know its effectiveness. Not knowing your advertising effectiveness will always mean you are wasting money on poorly performing ads and you’ll never have a chance to improve things.

Imagine that a marketing campaign with a good sales copy drew 100 clicks and 10 calls to your office

Armed with that knowledge you now would have a “control” ad that could be slightly rewritten and tested. If during the second campaign your ad pulled 12 calls into your office you’d know you were headed in the right direction. If it only pulled 8 calls into your office you’d want to go back to the original ad and try again. Of course the goal is to constantly upgrade the conversion rate (calls to your office) and through scientific testing and rewriting always strive for a better ROI.

With web campaigns you can usually view the number of page views, but calls to your office are what really count

This is where the real money is. With print or radio advertising you rarely have a way to judge the effectiveness of your advertising dollars as a new patient call could come as the result of newspaper ads, radio ads, word of mouth, direct mail or anything else you might be doing at the time.

Several years ago SmartBox Web Marketing launched Zetetics™. This is a tracking system that assigns a phone number to ads in different media you might run. The software then tracks calls on a number supplied through Zetetics™ so that you will know exactly what ad is converting at what rate. It can be used with any advertising and even your website.

Zetetics™ is perfect for dentists when clicks on a website or views in a newspaper tell them little without corresponding calls to their office. Dentists love it because it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt whether any ad is working or not working, and it can eliminate wasteful spending on advertising. It can conversely improve their ROI as they strive to better their marketing. They also like the ability it has to monitor calls for quality assurance purposes as each call to a Zetetics™ phone number is recorded as an MP3. Dentists can listen to staff/patient interactions and reasons for a patient call at their leisure.

We are pleased to announce that Zetetics™ phone tracking will no longer be an option but a built in feature of every web project we do. You will know exactly how your web campaign, site optimization and the work we do for you is improving your business.