Does Advertising Pay? You Won’t Know Unless You Track Your Results

Many optometrists spend thousands of dollars every year on radio, newspaper and yellow page advertising with no clear idea if they are getting their money’s worth.

In fact, I find that few ODs can tell me how profitable any of their advertising is because they aren’t doing two important things:

1. Tracking their responses

2. Calculating their payback

Track Your Results There’s no way to know whether your yellow page ad is paying off if you don’t take the time to track your response rates. Most advertisers don’t do this because they don’t know how.

After all, who’s to say that a new patient came to your office because of your yellow page ad or the sign on your building? You can find out one of two ways:

1. Ask — For some reason, most new patients won’t volunteer why they chose you as an optometrist rather than your colleague down the street unless you ask them directly.

You pretty much have to give them a multiple-choice option such as: referred by a friend, yellow pages ad, sign on the building, radio spot, etc.

2. Use a tracking device — A better way to track ad response is to put what’s known as a source code in your ad. Example: “Free LASIK Screening, just ask for offer #YP09.”

When someone comes in asking for offer YP09, you know exactly which ad they read because of the source code. YP = yellow pages, 09 = 2009. That’s the way the pros do it.

Or, you can offer something like a ‘Free Report’ on presbyopia in your ad.

Just write the report yourself and print on nice paper. You’ll then know that anyone asking for that is responding to a specific ad.

Those two techniques will work in print or broadcast media.

Another tracking device is to print a coupon in the ad that people have to bring in to get the free service or discount. You see these all the time.

Experienced retailers use these little tricks because they know how important it is to measure response rates. They don’t want to spend money unless they know they are getting a return.

We’ll talk about how to calculate your break-even point in Thursday’s blog.

Best Regards,
Jerry Hayes, OD

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Disclaimer: The information and opinions contained on this site are for discussion purposes only and are NOT intended to serve as legal, accounting or investment advice. ©2009 Jerry Hayes, OD. Not to be reproduced without written permission of the author.