At the end of 2021, I reached out to this functional wellness clinic after being referred by one of my clients.
Initial Contact
After speaking with the owner, he mentioned they needed a website for a clinic offering Hormone Replacement, Peptides, IV Therapy, and a wide array of services they’d be adding soon.
After our initial 15-minute meeting I sent him and his partner a questionnaire to get a better idea of their needs.
From the way they answered the questionnaire, I realized they were figuring things out and would need a lot of support in developing a digital marketing campaign.
The Plan
After researching their market, I found two key obstacles we would have to overcome:
- High competition
- High skepticism about the treatments
I also identified a steep learning curve for my client and me. My client would need to learn digital marketing terminology, like CAC, and LTV. Among many other technical things like how to get this data from their CRM.
On my end, I needed to learn as much as possible about each service with the limited information the client provided. I knew I would have to figure out client touchpoints, content pillars, the offer, competition, etc.
So the plan included the basics to get started:
- Website
- Basic SEO
- Google Ads
The year 2022
I was confident I could get them leads. And I did. This is despite Google disallowing ads (which I was able to appeal).
We got 724 leads. That’s about $52/lead. Not bad given the many hiccups with Google Ads and the vanilla offers we used (in hindsight 😉).
Customer Acquisition – The biggest constraint in 2022
When it came to converting those leads into patients, we’ll it was a big f*&^ing mess.
When my client told me they had a sales team in place, I should have dug deeper.
Turns out the “sales team” is whoever happened to be at the front desk.
I would hear the call recordings and it became clear that the “sales team” did not know how to sell at best, at worst it was causing us to lose sales.
I tried making scripts and training the staff, to no avail. They just simply had too many things going, and getting better at sales was not one of them.
Long story short, I told my client we needed to build a dedicated sales team.
My client held off in hopes the current team would pick up, but by November 2022 it was clear they would not.
So in mid-November, I started building a dedicated sales team.
Lifetime Value and Churn – The biggest constraints in 2023
While Customer Acquisition has significantly improved, there is still plenty of room for improvement.
However, a bigger constraint has become apparent: Lifetime Value and Churn.
We calculated our marketing budget based on an assumption of what the Lifetime Value of a Patient would be.
We expected patients to come to the clinic every month to follow up with their treatment. However, after seeing that some patients were not coming back, it became clear we had a problem that would affect the Lifetime Value of a Patient.
In order to continue to afford our acquisition efforts, we are focusing on improving the Lifetime Value and lowering churn by making sure we nurture our patients and follow up regularly with them not only to make sure their treatments are having a positive impact on their wellness but also to get feedback about their experience so far.
The feedback provides us with two benefits:
- Lowers churn by improving patient experience and satisfaction
- Increases Lifetime value not only by lowering churn but also by increasing opportunities for upsells