Consider All the Variables When Evaluating Your Marketing ROI

October 3, 2018
Jessica Walker

Jessica Walker

When you claim an impressive-sounding healthcare marketing ROI for a marketing initiative, are you undermining your credibility by not considering all the variables in your calculation?

“With case volumes slipping and persistent competitive threats to operating margins, many healthcare marketers look to purchase multiple solutions — CRMs, digital marketing services/tools, targeting lists, among others — to gain a strategic advantage in acquiring new patients or retaining market share. While these services or technologies can be helpful, healthcare marketers need to be clear on the true returns they may expect for what they are buying,” says industry veteran and thought leader Jessica Walker.

“This sounds like it should be a straight apples-to-apples comparison, but the truth is that we use the term healthcare marketing ROI across a range of investments and strategies, and how it is calculated is frequently based on inconsistent or subjective data points.

“Healthcare is complicated and there are many variables, making it challenging to build an apples-to-apples ROI. Additionally, it would be inappropriate to claim success using one variable in isolation, as many marketing initiatives operate in tandem with others that support and enhance the outcomes (e.g., a social media campaign running concurrently with a paid search campaign).

“It is critical that healthcare marketers know how to normalize measures of success when deciding which solution will be most likely to support their ultimate goals,” says Walker.

In our new story, Walker takes us through some detailed examples of how marketers could misinterpret information and misstate their true healthcare marketing ROI by not digging deep enough. She warns of the dangers of comparing apples to bananas using the entertaining example of her two banana-loving “monkeys” (8-year-old and 5-year-old sons).

Read it now: Your Healthcare Marketing ROI: Are You Comparing Apples to Bananas?

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President

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