Marketing Costs For New Client Acquisition

In growing your clinic, you must invest on new client acquisition marketing. But you might wonder how much should you spend for it. In this article, I will briefly discuss factors you should consider in deciding how much to spend for CAC (Client Acquisition Cost).

Four Things to Consider on Client Acquisition Cost

1. Client’s Lifetime Value

First of all, as a clinic owner, you need to know what the lifetime value of a client to you. Then, you’ll know what portion of that you are happy and comfortable with to spend to acquire that new client. To give you a benchmark, a rule of thumb, about 5% of the lifetime value of a client is what you should aim for acquisition cost. You can go as low as 3%, or as high as 10%, but 3-5% is ideal.

So, if your lifetime value of a patient is $1000, hypothetically, you should be comfortable to spend between $30 to $100 for their acquisition. Now, it should be said that some clinics can generate new clients for 1-2% of their lifetime revenue and that is quite remarkable. It changes in the different seasons of your clinic and those types of things.

2. Cost per Marketing Channel

The next thing you need to consider is acquisition cost per marketing channel. You need to know, for example, when you spend let’s say $1000 on Facebook Ads, how many new clients does that generate you? Therefore, what is your actual acquisition cost? If you spend a $1000 on Facebook and if it generates you 10 new clients, your acquisition cost is $100.

Understanding the individual marketing channels will give you the idea which channel you should spend more in acquiring new clients. You’ll be able to manage your time and resources in each channel according to their performance and comparing them to how much you are comfortable with with you client lifetime value.

3. Factoring Agency Costs

And the third thing is you must factor in any agency costs into that channel’s spendings. So, if your agency would say that you spent $1000 on Google AdWords, for example, and it generate 50 clients, they might say that your acquisition cost is $20. However, you are also paying for that agency, so you must factor that in. Let’s say you are pay thime $1000. That means you spend $2000 in total, and your acquisition cost is $40.  And that is awesome, as long as your client’s lifetime value is pretty healthy.

4. Tracking Conversions

We’re talking about paid channels, and so there’s a non-paid or free marketing channels, partnerships and joint ventures, referrals, etc. So, you need to be able to track conversions. That’s quite a challenge in the technological age wherein it is possible and achievable.

You need to know whether someone came from a Facebook Ad, a GP referral, or from the signage at the front of your clinic. Otherwise, you might as well put a $10,000 ad in the paper and hope people show up. You’re building a clinic on wishes and luck versus art and science.

It’s also worth considering what you are willing to spend, what you’re able to spend. If you want to get an extra 50 new clients per month into your clinic, you need to be comfortable to spend up to an extra $2000, let’s say. Also, this only works if you’re able to track conversions.

Conclusion

So consider what you are willing to spend, what you’re able to spend, and what you are happiest to spend to acquire a client. Think of your client’s lifetime value, good performing marketing channels, and advertising expenditure including agency fees.

Then, can get a bit of an idea as to perhaps what you need to invest based on what you’re currently spending moving forward, because you’ll be able to use that money effectively to get a return of new clients.

Although, there are real practicalities around that, we can help out with that. We do help out with that, plus a whole bunch more, more than an agency in terms of systems, team development, client experience, retention and creating a thriving and sustainable business. Just visit our Business Academy.