The Value of a New Patient

As a dentist, your most valuable assets are your patients but the overall success of your practice isn’t as simple as finding new patients. To successfully start a new dental marketing campaign, fully analyse it and execute it to perfection, it is important to know the value of each patient. In this way, we can see the current value of your patients and the value of new patients. knowing how much each patient means to your overall success will be key in making sure you keep those steady income streams coming. You have to know which of these assets are worth retaining for growth over time so take some time calculating the value of both current customers and potential leads before taking any steps towards expansion or retention strategies

The total profit delivered over time by those patients is what can break or make your dentistry business. If you can calculate the average worth of a patient, you can invest a smaller amount of this to acquire a new patient to ensure your business is profitable.  Knowing the value of a new patient will also make you more comfortable investing money to gain new revenue streams or patients.

Value of a Dental Patient

The majority of dental clinics allocate a part of their overall budget towards acquiring and locating new patients. The amount that should go towards attracting new patients will vary substantially from one dental clinic to another. It goes without saying that the money going into marketing efforts geared to attracting a new patient must not exceed that patient’s lifetime value to the practice.

This makes calculating the value of a new patient a vital component in determining the most prudent way of allocating your marketing budget. However, marketing experts, have a wide-ranging estimate when it comes to a new client’s long-term value. Some have placed the estimates at just a couple of hundred Euros, while others place it well over €8871.

A Wealthy Dentist survey revealed that out of the 68 dentistry survey respondents, only a quarter had ever tried estimating the value of a new dental patient. Generally, the estimated value of new patients was in the range of €177 to €2661, with an average of between €798 and €1064 per patient.

It must be stated that this value is an overall average, some patients are once-off and will not return, some will become regular patients and bring their family and friends. Some patients will just require to check up’s and cleaning, some will require restorative work, and others orthodontic or more complicated treatments. With this in mind, it’s important to state that this figure is just an average amount to use.
You can even go as far as to calculate the value of a particular type of patient, general, cosmetic and orthodontic, as these three areas vary greatly.

Determining Patient Lifetime Value

To build meaningful dentist-patient relationships, you need to have an estimate of their lifetime value. This way, you can structure and market your practice strategically to maximize revenue and take your business to the next level. The concept of Customer Lifetime Value (or CLV) is an estimation of the total value of a customer to a business during their entire engagement period.
Customer Lifetime Value is an indispensable marketing measurement tool for any business, and it is particularly critical for relationship-driven businesses, like dentistry. The factors to consider in estimating CLV for your particular clinic include:

• Lifelong Relationship: Total duration that an average patient spends at your dentistry.
• Average Annual Value: Revenue made annually from each patient.
• Client Referral Value: Patients referred by a client.

In calculating the lifetime value of an average patient, the following formula is useful:
Lifetime Patient Value = Lifelong Relationship x Average Annual Value + Client Referral Value
Importance of a Patient Lifetime Value Calculation.

Once you estimate a new dental patient’s lifetime value, it becomes possible to make decisions that are more informed regarding advertising and marketing. You will certainly not want to spend more on acquiring new patients than what a single patient brings to your dental practice in their lifetime.

When you have a clear idea of the current worth of each new patient, it also gives you a target figure that needs to be exceeded. For example, if you think the new customer is worth €443 and you have invested €4435 in a patient postcard campaign, then for you to consider your campaign a success, you will need to bring over 10 new patients to cover this cost. However, with proper marketing strategies, 10 new clients is not a difficult task at all.

Loyal Customers

The truth is, when someone chooses a Dentist, they will normally stick with this dentist for a large proportion of their life. Changing Dentists and looking for a new one, who is trustworthy etc. is a complicated and time-consuming process.
A family usually uses the same Dentist, so if you gain one more client, and the treatment and experience result in them being a happy client, they will talk to their friends and family and encourage them to use your Clinic. With this in mind, there is a large chance that one happy client will generate up to 5 more new patients, thus your patient base will grow exponentially afterwards.
68% say that they would be more likely to recommend a local business if it was reliable & professional. We will take later about how to utilise your current patient base to market for you.

Reluctant to Invest?

Understandably a lot of Dentists are reluctant to spend money on marketing due to bad experiences in the past,  hiring marketing professionals which did not deliver end results or made matters worse in the long run due to poor quality work.
There are other available options if you are one of these, for example at Dental Booster, we offer packages that allow you to pay the minimum with us until we show you the results as promised, no risk for your Dental Clinic.  This ensures when you are getting more enquiries, you will be in a better financial position to expand and develop your marketing plan further without paying for results that may never come.

The Second reason a Dental Clinic may be reluctant to invest in its marketing is due to the fact that its clinic is doing absolutely fine and kept busy due to referrals and foot traffic (if it is working, why change it?). The important thing I need to say to these dentists is that firstly it is fantastic that your clinic has built up a firm reputation and has a steady following, but secondly, why not add to it?

Why not plan to exponentially grow your clinic?  With a mix of loyal customers, word of mouth, foot traffic with a strong marketing plan increasing the dental clinic’s visibility to new patients, the clinic will grow exponentially, and with every new patient valued over 1000 euro, it’s a firm investment.

If you need help attracting more patients, please get in touch with us today!