Have you thought of a way that you can safely, ethically and securely maintain your workload and client visits in spite of a looming recession? There are some interesting facts we can tell you about SMS (text message) marketing to your clients.
About 12 months ago we thought that things may start to slow down, so we assisted the team at Profitdiagnostix software to develop a world first in SMS/Text message marketing that accurately monitors if it is paying for itself, thereby giving customers the opportunity to stop doing it if it is not working. We frequently see huge spends on marketing in businesses but absolutely no direct measurements as to whether they are converting to profit and no assurances on the confidentiality of the data.
As part of our usual accounting bias, we believe that a successful reactivation comprises an invoice (not the click of a link, a website visit or a telephone call) – marketing has to convert to PROFIT to be justifiable. And we worked out a way in which we could do exactly this – for example, if the annual client spend in a clinic is $1,000 and their profitability is 20%, then on average a returning customer will yield $200 PROFIT to the practice in the next year. So if the practice spends $200 on a re-activation campaign and they re-activate just one client, they have broken even (we like the break even point in marketing to be covered in one year). Too often we have seen marketers focus on the $1,000 top line to justify a campaign, but the reality is that in most practices less than 20% of this is profit, and profit is what counts.
Once we were able to monitor invoices of returning customers, we discovered that this very targeted marketing gives very different results in different practices even if the messages sent are exactly the same and the patients in the list are similar. For example, a boutique (high price) practice with exceptionally good record keeping and reminder systems is less likely to have a high re-activation rate. This is because the customers that leave are just not interested in that level of service, they are a poor fit to the practice. So they have left not because they have forgotten about their pets medical needs, but rather because they are not a good fit – no amount of text messaging will bring them back, nor should the practice want them back if they are not a good fit.
On the other extreme, some very busy practices that have had administrative challenges such as changes of software systems, staff changes or shortages and have possibly dropped the ball on their recalls and reminders – these practices had very high response rates, very high re-activations, but also some confronting feedback with some of the replies to the messages. The feedback is actually useful albeit confronting.
The other consideration is your client attrition rate (what percentage of clients leave the practice each year). If client attrition is above 30% (which Profitdiagnostix can measure for you) then the text messaging will yield better results. The other rule is that even if you are below 30% attrition, but your attrition has increased by more than 5% in a year, you should consider re-activation campaigns – once again Profitdiagnostix can monitor this for you.
APL Accountants have spend a lot of time with the team at Profitdiagnostix building intelligent logic to create text messaging lists for veterinary practices and now is the right time to have your business assessed in light of a looming slowdown.
Contact: support@profitdiagnostix.com
They will be able to assess your client attrition and whether or not you need to be looking at a reactivation strategy over the next year.
