Healthcare marketers, it's time for some tough love: if 90% of your budget is going to Google Ads, you're not doing demand generation. You're just paying a premium to compete in a shrinking pool of high-intent searches. In this episode, Allison Horn, Vice President of Marketing at Imagen Dental Partners, pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to build a marketing engine that drives lifetime patient value across 120 unique dental practices. The bottom line? Marketing's job isn't just filling the top of the funnel. It's understanding your market, meeting patients where they are, proving ROI on retention and lifetime value, and even launching direct mail campaigns. If you're tired of the "do more with less" mandate while watching your Google CPCs climb, this episode is your roadmap to building a smarter, more sustainable marketing strategy.
💡 Episode Summary
Healthcare marketers, it's time for some tough love: if 90% of your budget is going to Google Ads, you're not doing demand generation. You're just paying a premium to compete in a shrinking pool of high-intent searches. In this episode, Allison Horn, Vice President of Marketing at Imagen Dental Partners, pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to build a marketing engine that drives lifetime patient value across 120 unique dental practices. The bottom line? Marketing's job isn't just filling the top of the funnel. It's understanding your market, meeting patients where they are, proving ROI on retention and lifetime value, and even launching direct mail campaigns. If you're tired of the "do more with less" mandate while watching your Google CPCs climb, this episode is your roadmap to building a smarter, more sustainable marketing strategy.
👉 Check out the actionable guide based on this episode
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⏱️ Episode Timestamps
*(02:39) - Why intent capture isn't demand generation
*(06:16) - Managing 120 unique brands: pattern recognition across rural vs. urban markets
*(08:48) - How one practice jumped from 51% to 80% patient show rates in one year
*(22:11) - What actually works: direct mail and community engagement
*(32:57) - Better patients, not just more patients
*(43:41) - The future of healthcare marketing
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💬 Quote
“ The end goal is booked appointments. That is how we're measuring things through several of our partner platforms that we can actually see that, and various ad groups. Right now, it's new patient growth, but we are exploring additional stuff with additional service lines and channel mixes and how we actually can get higher revenue service lines to convert. How are we actually able to capture the patients that are researching stuff? Implants, let's just say, that they maybe know that they need an implant or they need a smile makeover. It's something that is more cosmetic and has been kind of weighing on their hearts. How do we actually create that need to want to explore. How much does it cost? How do I get a consult? What does this entail? What's my recovery going to look like? Is it same day or is it something I have to go three to four weeks? Understanding services and understanding our patients and the audience that we're targeting is critical at this point in how we're going to change our digital strategies is more targeted.” – Allison Horn
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🔗 Links
Connect with Allison Horn on LinkedIn
Connect with Ray Mina on LinkedIn
Learn more about Caspian Studios
[00:00:00] Allison Horn: The end goal is booked appointments, right? That is how we're measuring things through several of our partner platforms that we can actually see that, and various ad groups. Right now it's new patient growth, but we are exploring additional stuff with additional service lines and channel mixes and how we actually can get higher revenue service lines to convert.
[00:00:32] Allison Horn: So how are we actually able to capture the patients that are researching stuff. Implants, let's just say, that they maybe know that they need an implant or they need a smile makeover. It's something that you know is more cosmetic and has been kind of weighing on their hearts. How do we actually create that need to like wanna explore. How much does it cost?
[00:00:54] Allison Horn: How do I get a consult? What does this entail? What's my recovery gonna look like? Is it same day or is it something I have to go three to four weeks? So understanding services and understanding our patients and the audience that we're targeting is critical at this point in how we're gonna change our digital strategies is more targeted.
[00:01:16] Ray Mina: I'm really excited about this conversation today. It it, it's really a conversation about the trap that we kind of fall into when we think of Google Ads as a demand strategy. It's not, it's an intent capture strategy. And by having your entire marketing campaign invested in that intent strategy, you miss this opportunity to go generate demand with targeted customers and consumers in your market, or new entrants into your market. And so I'm joined by Allison Horn today, who's Vice President of Marketing at Imagen Dental. Thanks for being here, Allison. I'm, I'm really excited to dig into this with you.
[00:01:53] Allison Horn: Yeah, thanks for having me. Super excited.
[00:01:55] Ray Mina: So for, for all the listeners, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read a LinkedIn comment that you wrote because the conversation we're gonna have today is kind of sparked by a post I made on LinkedIn about this topic of the problem of thinking of Google Ads as demand gen when it's really not, and you wrote back and I'm like, yes, there's my soulmate In this conversation where you wrote me.
[00:02:19] Ray Mina: If all you do is feed Google last click signals, you're only competing in the same shrinking pool of high intent searches and paying a premium for them. Pairing accurate outcome data like booked appointments, completed treatment, membership, et cetera, with top of funnel demand creation is where the real efficiency shows up.
[00:02:39] Ray Mina: So I guess my first question, I, I couldn't, I couldn't agree after like 15 years. Not in consumer marketing, but B2B SaaS marketing, it, it's the same thing, like demand gen is the same thing. It's just a different pool. I couldn't agree with you more on this statement, and so my first question to you is like, when did you figure this out?
[00:02:58] Ray Mina: When did you first figure this out? Because so many people are still spending 85, 90% of their budget in Google Ads.
[00:03:07] Allison Horn: Yeah, I, I think, you know, it's been a better part of over a decade that I've been doing digital marketing and, you know, you can do all different tactics and see what's working, but I think that really where I, especially as consumers, right, is what is our end game? Is to get that booked appointment and get them in the door and take care of them. Right? And so, you know, Google is one part of a, a marketing strategy and there is not one thing that fits well for every single entity, even if it's in the same industry, right?
[00:03:43] Allison Horn: You could have somebody that's in a rural market in a, versus an urban market, and it's very, very different. And so I think it's been a lot of trial and error in seeing what works in different geographic regions and speaking to different types of audiences and consumers that have really kind of led me to that.
[00:04:02] Allison Horn: I guess that comment right is yeah, your, your post triggered something clearly in me and, you know, voicing my own opinion I think is, you know, it's just, I'm a little, a small fish in a, a big pond of several healthcare marketers, but, uh, I think we all can leverage on different expertise on one another and see where it goes.
[00:04:22] Ray Mina: Yeah, I love that too. Like, I think I, I think of my career of like. Done a lot of early stage startups and then you start to get this like pattern recognition and, and you've had that history in, in healthcare, but then you also have that history in the fact that Imagen Dental is like multi-location. So you kind of have to build the playbook for each location based on that market and the consumers and what's gonna work there.
[00:04:44] Ray Mina: So that, that probably reinforces the learnings and, and helps you see like different patterns more quickly.
[00:04:50] Allison Horn: Yeah, of course. I mean, we have nearly 120 practices. We're not quite six years old yet. And every single practice, unique brand, unique website, unique, you know, different type of audiences and patients that they pull from.
[00:05:04] Allison Horn: And so there are certainly patterns. I mean, everybody needs to go to the dentist, right? Like that isn't given. But hopefully most people have healthy teeth. They might need some services, but we're speaking to generally the similar type of audience in what the services that they need. But in very different ways.
[00:05:25] Allison Horn: And so while we create scalable solutions, scalable marketing strategies, we do have to adapt to patients and practices that are unique in how we speak to them and how we bring them into our brand awareness and how we bring them into the engagement side of our, our business.
[00:05:45] Ray Mina: I think one thing that might be helpful to create context for the listeners, you know, for the rest of this conversation, I, I've spent the last year talking to a lot of healthcare marketing teams, CEOs, people with hands on keyboard, and there's an overwhelming pressure point of like being asked to do more with less.
[00:06:04] Ray Mina: Or, if nothing, if, if you have the ability to get more budget, it's like really being scrutinized under a microscope. Is this working like it? Can you prove this is actually driving outcome? Maybe to give the listeners context, like what, what would, what would describe where your team is at right now? Like what, what is the current like context and what are the goals that you've gotta like accomplish this year?
[00:06:25] Allison Horn: So a small but mighty team. So do more with less is pretty common. Small but mighty. We have a lot of great partners that we work with externally, which help us enable our jobs to be more effective. I've been in healthcare for 27 years and 19 of those have been in healthcare marketing. So this is not anything new.
[00:06:44] Allison Horn: You, you know, I have champagne taste on a beer budget, and that is comes, it comes to, from a marketing standpoint, with our budgets, right? We have to be mindful of where we spend it and invest the dollars that are going to yield a return on ad spend at a threshold that we, you know, deem desirable.
[00:07:06] Allison Horn: Where we're at is, you know, five years ago, I will tell you, I was listening to phone calls and leads and dispositioning them, and if I never had to listen to another phone call just to see what happened, it would've been too soon, right? It, it was, it was pretty painful. But that was the, the kind of the beauty of building something from scratch with Imagen.
[00:07:28] Allison Horn: So I've been there for five years and so very early on and first marketing team member and actually building what we have today. And so we have now brought in technology that actually does that AI listening to, um, our phone calls and tells us whether or not that patient was a new patient, an existing patient, did they book.
[00:07:49] Allison Horn: Did they not book? Informs our channels is how we're actually marketing, right? Are we getting better paying patients from our Google Ads? Are we getting 'em better from meta or, you know. A number of different channels, direct mail, radio, whatever you wanna, yeah. Whatever you wanna track. We've been able to be more informed on the data that's behind our campaigns and how we're actually, uh, converting those people into patients.
[00:08:19] Allison Horn: Right. It's not just paying per click right anymore. Who knows what happens to them after that, you know, falls off the website and why they didn't choose to book an appointment. Now we actually can see where did they drop off and make some assumptions, right? Attribution is the hardest thing in healthcare marketing.
[00:08:38] Allison Horn: I'm sure you know that. So we have to get creative of telling a story that's as directionally correct as possible.
[00:08:48] Ray Mina: If you were to put a finer, like, I don't want, I'm gonna make an assumption even though I don't want to, and then I want you to tell me right or wrong. 'cause everyone's goal is a little bit different.
[00:08:56] Ray Mina: Like revenue is the goal, like you're trying to mm-hmm. Grow a business. Is, is the appointment like getting someone to show up for the appointment, is that the primary goal of the marketing team or is it something more like nuanced than that?
[00:09:11] Allison Horn: Yeah, so I think there's a bunch of layers. End game is, you know, booties in the seat type of thing, right?
[00:09:18] Allison Horn: Patience in the operatory.
[00:09:19] Ray Mina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:20] Allison Horn: So, yes, that's the end game. I think that, you know, if you, you take it layers back and build back into, okay, well we wanna, at least mine is phone call and booked appointments. Right? And obviously that's like a starting point somebody can go to. Go to our website and see information.
[00:09:37] Allison Horn: Fantastic. Maybe they're not ready to make a decision, that's okay too, but who actually did an action called or booked an appointment online? And then really we then have other marketing plays that helps us make sure they show up for their appointment. So I will say, I just looked at the data right before this, but in one year from just new patients, we were able to see that.
[00:10:03] Allison Horn: We had 51% of new patients show up in this group of practices we were looking at, and now it's over 80% of a show rate. Right. And so that like a 30% shift in show rates in one year by focusing on being very diligent about how we communicate patients, how we welcome them into the practice, and what actually gets them to show up.
[00:10:27] Allison Horn: They're not just booking an appointment, right? So it's not just marketing, it goes into operations and it goes into engagement and conversation and validating insurance and being more mindful of are we pulling the right patients in to actually show up? So I feel like that was a big shift for us to be able to say like, okay, we are making a difference in actually getting new patients to show up from our campaigns.
[00:10:52] Ray Mina: I love that. That actually is like the next part I wanted to talk about because I, I did start at the top about Google is not a demand strategy, but like, yeah, let's be clear. Like I, I've built a bunch of these strategies and B2B SaaS that rely on bottom of funnel tactics, like paid search, and you should 100% be shoring up the bottom of the funnel.
[00:11:10] Ray Mina: Like you should 100% be invested. To make sure you can capture the intent. 'cause sometimes the demand you create doesn't get captured through those channels. It, it's getting captured by, you know, a Google search ad for some reason, a branded search query. But you have to shore, like truly shoring up the bottom of the funnel is exactly what you said.
[00:11:29] Ray Mina: If you're spending a bunch of money to acquire consumers, patients, and you have a 50% drop off rate between the book de like that is not a short up bottom of funnel. Correct. So when you think about, like, let me back up for a second. So for, for Google Ads, 'cause you are invested there, what is the goal of Google Ads for you?
[00:11:51] Ray Mina: Like, what, what is, how does that fit into your strategy?
[00:11:55] Allison Horn: Yeah, so it's, I mean, it's a big part of our strategy, Google, Yahoo, Bing type of thing. And then Meta is certainly in there, but obviously there are restrictions and guidelines for healthcare organizations. So it is, digital marketing is 90% of what we're doing for our practices that need acquisition campaigns.
[00:12:14] Allison Horn: So the end goal is booked appointments. Right? That is. How we're measuring things through several of our partner platforms that we can actually see that and various ad groups. Right now it's new patient growth, but we are exploring additional stuff with additional service lines and channel mixes and how we actually can get higher revenue service lines to convert higher dollar cases, essentially.
[00:12:41] Ray Mina: Yeah.
[00:12:42] Allison Horn: So how are we actually able to capture the patients that are researching stuff? Implants, let's just say, that they maybe know that they need an implant or they need a smile makeover. It's something that you know, is more cosmetic and has been on kind of weighing on their hearts. How do we actually create that, that need to like wanna explore how much does it cost?
[00:13:04] Allison Horn: How do I get a consult? What does this entail? Is what's my recovery gonna look like? Is it same day or is it something I have to go three to four weeks? So understanding services and understanding our patients and the audience that we're targeting is. Critical at this point in how we're gonna change our, our digital strategies is more targeted.
[00:13:26] Ray Mina: For me, when I think about a paid search strategy, like it's intent capture, but it is not targeted. Like I, I wanna win the, I wanna win these patients that are going to be my most valuable patients. And that can be hard to do in intent channels. And I'm just curious, like, how have you found that? How have you found effective ways to do that?
[00:13:45] Ray Mina: Leveraging, leveraging a Google strategy? Does it require additional things after that first like conversion or first point of interest?
[00:13:54] Allison Horn: Yeah, so there's a couple things that we look at. We look at new patients primarily. When we first started our, our campaigns, we were so focused on our new patients that if we were getting existing patients engaging with our campaign, it was like fail, right?
[00:14:11] Allison Horn: We were like, what? We don't want our existing patients. We have those, right? Like, how do you actually target patients? That are brand new, that don't know who you are. Right? Yeah. And so the targeting you, you speak of on, on Google, historically we've thought that that was, if we're capturing existing patients, it's a bad thing.
[00:14:29] Allison Horn: We've kind of changed that thought process differently is no, it's an opportunity for patient retention, right? Why should those patients feel the need to go online and Google either the branded search, right, for that practice, or they were searching for a dentist? Were they trying to find somebody to do, or did they just forget who they saw and were searching it right.
[00:14:53] Allison Horn: We've kind of flipped that on how it actually has increased patient retention and what the value of those patients have been driving to us. So not only are we looking at new patients, we're also looking at retained patients. So our practices that enter in a new patient acquisition campaign that is paid Google, Yahoo, Bing, Meta.
[00:15:15] Allison Horn: We are looking primarily to grow new patients, but we also look at the existing patients that convert with that and how we actually can improve that. So we're doing internal strategies to retain patients. On average, across all of our partner practices, we're at 86% retention of existing patients, so that's on par.
[00:15:39] Allison Horn: Our target is 85%. Some practices are a little bit higher, some practices are a little bit lower, but we have separate strategies that we help focus on that. So from a a targeting perspective, we look at existing versus new patients, and then also the services that are, they are coming in and how do they find us and make some assumptions there.
[00:16:01] Allison Horn: Obviously as we move into further relationships with fresh paint and audiences and that kinda stuff, we're really excited to see how this evolution changes our campaign strategy for 2026.
[00:16:12] Ray Mina: The second part of that, I'm going back to that LinkedIn post that we, we kind of started this, this, this interview off with, and you mentioned that the second part of this was pairing those bottom of funnel outcomes, which we've been talking about.
[00:16:27] Ray Mina: With top of funnel, true demand creation, demand generation. And maybe maybe to further set context for our audience, 'cause I think, I think you said it earlier, is like, you know, you have the champagne taste on a beer budget, which means that you don't have millions and millions of dollars to pour at the top of the funnel.
[00:16:48] Ray Mina: I'm assuming that's not the context you're working in. What does that, what does that breakdown look like? You know, if you have a hundred percent of advertising spend to, to put into digital channels, what percentage of that mix are you putting into demand generation versus bottom of funnel, like intent capture and Google?
[00:17:07] Allison Horn: Yeah, I would say the majority of our budget is on the bottom funnel. We have smaller practices. You know, in my prior life, you know, when I had a lot more dollars for a very large orthopedic practice, we had more brand awareness. That was like our, our goal, they were gonna find us because we were supplementing with the sales side of it.
[00:17:29] Allison Horn: So physician relations and actually going and getting referrals from primary care doctors and getting them to refer to our practices. This is different, right? We need to be able to go straight to consumers. People are Googling how they find a dentist or they're finding reviews, right? It is not a specialist based, I need a referral from my insurance company.
[00:17:54] Allison Horn: I am cash paying. I have a PPO Insurance is what we take. And so that's the type of patients that we're looking for. And so that brand awareness, it, it's a. Multi approach of it is advertising, but also that engagement at the practice. So how are you engaging within your community?
[00:18:14] Ray Mina: Hmm.
[00:18:15] Allison Horn: Are you sponsoring local community outreach?
[00:18:18] Allison Horn: Are you running your own social media? Showing people what's in the four walls of your own practice and showing the, the culture and the happiness in your practice? People wanna see that I can post a bunch of educational content on oral hygiene tips and how to brush your teeth and what's the right toothbrush.
[00:18:37] Allison Horn: That's not what gets engagement. What gets engagement is real people seeing real people take care of patients and who's in their community and who are they gonna see at church or the grocery store. Right. That is super important. So I think brand awareness is something that we focus on, more on a community aspect.
[00:18:58] Allison Horn: There are certainly aspects on the digital side, but as you said, we don't, our practices don't have endless amounts of budget to be able to drive brand awareness dollars. So we do focus on the bottom funnel and then occasionally if there are opportunities that seem appropriate, we will test them to see if it does drive awareness.
[00:19:16] Allison Horn: But really we're focused on what is community based and getting involved.
[00:19:22] Ray Mina: Do you help, do you help your individual brands? Do you help operationalize that for them? Is it left up to the individual brands? Like how, how does that work in concert between your small but mighty marketing team and, and 120 locations?
[00:19:36] Allison Horn: We will provide guidance for practices. So they certainly will reach out and say, do you guys think this is a good investment? And so I will evaluate that. If they're sponsoring their local high school, you know, basketball team or putting a banner up, go for it. You know, it's 150 bucks, you know, go do it. Where we step in is helping out. One, helping make decisions and support them wherever they need, but also if they're running an event.
[00:20:01] Allison Horn: So we have a practice in South Carolina. Mm-hmm. Super rural practice. I think the, the town is of like 70,000 people and they do quarterly events now. They did, did these events before they partnered with us. It's actually our very first partner practice ever, but we have made them stronger. Right. We've given them better tools, better ways of scheduling.
[00:20:22] Allison Horn: Better graphics, creating awareness in their community that they do smile consults, clear aligner consults. They also do Botox in their office. So they offer, like, you know, October was their Botox, right? So they do a little Bootox and so we create just some like more fluff around that to create it, like more structured.
[00:20:43] Allison Horn: And then we take what's working in a practice that drives significant revenue to that practice. In a couple hours that would normally take them a couple days to generate and we replicate it and we make, you know, training modules and lessons and give them other practices tools on how to kickstart it.
[00:21:04] Allison Horn: We interview our office manager, we interview our doctor that's doing it and why this works and what are they doing? They have to own that. For it to be successful, there's only so much I can do from Scottsdale, Arizona to Greenwood, South Carolina, right? And that's something that we really value in our partners, is actually creating things that we can do to support them.
[00:21:28] Allison Horn: With them or independent of them. So they may just say, Hey, go do it. But there are certain things in their community that we will absolutely provide graphic design and conversion data and phone numbers and all that stuff for tracking. But at the end of the day, they are the team members that are local in their community.
[00:21:47] Allison Horn: They don't wanna hear from Allison and Scottsdale. They wanna hear from the team members who live in Greenwood. Who go to church with them who play on the kid sport team. Right. So we certainly provide the support, but, and guidance. But ultimately the execution is they are boots on the ground.
[00:22:04] Ray Mina: I love that. Yeah. That's like the brand, the brand is the trust within that particular practice. Yeah. I I, I totally love that. The, the, the part you mentioned about like when you find something that works, I love that. Like look for the signal, Hey, that worked really well. Can we package that and try to repeat that in other markets?
[00:22:22] Ray Mina: What, what, what has worked? Like, what are, what are some examples of things that have been really effective?
[00:22:27] Allison Horn: Yeah, so, uh, depending on the geographic, geographic region, so there's certainly, like, I'll give you some like examples of some big campaigns. So rural Minnesota, we found an opportunity to. Launch direct mail, which some marketers would be like, what in the world? She's doing direct mail?
[00:22:45] Ray Mina: I don't think so. I think this is one of the, I think this is one of the biggest, I feel it's coming back. It's like everyone's talking about it. No, I don't think it's, I don't think it's weird at all.
[00:22:54] Allison Horn: Some of them, and they're like billboards and all that stuff, so. Direct mail was wildly successful for one of our practices who, you know, like, uh, those three towns over in rural Minnesota and there was another dentist, but they didn't have a hygienist, and so their patients couldn't go anywhere.
[00:23:12] Allison Horn: And so I was like, this is my favorite kind of marketing. It's disruptive marketing. And so this is, I did a lot of this in my prior company where I would disrupt the marketing path that it was going. Right. So my favorite thing to do is just like jump right in front and be like, hello, we're over here.
[00:23:31] Allison Horn: Come see us. And so it worked really well. They had a 38% a year over year production growth and the best new patient numbers they ever had. And 106 new percent new patient growth. And it was like, oh, in one year. We started it in February and when we measured it, and the doctor, one of my favorite doctors, he is like.
[00:23:53] Allison Horn: I can't believe that this works. It worked so well in one spot that we were like, okay, let's go south. Let's go west. Right? And we were just like little, like little strategies that worked really well. And then I had to stop it, not because it wasn't working, but because they were so booked out that they couldn't get patients in for like three to four months.
[00:24:15] Allison Horn: I was like, you're killing me. Could you just build another operatory? And he is like, I. He did buy the building next door, and so that's our plans, but we stopped it for a year and they still grew year over year. We did it for two years. Stopped it for a year, and now they're like, okay, we're ready again.
[00:24:33] Allison Horn: Right. To start it up again. And so that is one channel. So direct mail, we talked about the event planning. That's worked really well. It's replicating event-based things. Obviously the digital marketing because we have, we're at an advantage of how many practices that we have and how much digital marketing we're running for House of Brands.
[00:24:54] Allison Horn: Every practice is unique with their brand, unique with their target audience, and unique with their own websites. It closes a lot of work and like challenges, right, that you run into. You're not just launching one big website. And I'm gonna target this area. They're all many campaigns. So that is something that we've been able to leverage based on geographic reach, like is it an urban or rural market?
[00:25:19] Allison Horn: What type of demographics? And looking at the patients or residents that live in the area and be very targeted, what's the likelihood that this community is gonna go to a dentist in the next 12 months and what their index score is. If it's lower than a hundred, chances are we're probably gonna really struggle from this type of digital campaign.
[00:25:38] Allison Horn: But if it's, you know, the index is above a hundred, you know, let's just say it's 120. 20% of residents are more likely to go to a visit a dentist in the next 12 months. Those are important stats for us that we pay attention to and make informed decisions rather than. Slapping the spaghetti on the wall and seeing if it sticks.
[00:25:59] Allison Horn: We, internal campaigns are super important, right? How do you ge keep top of mind to your existing patient base? How do you run promotions and specials and you know, it's clear align day or it's a, you know, a discount. And we were able to really drive some competitive stuff internally. Obviously there's, like I said, there's earlier, there's healthcare restrictions on what you can and can't do, and.
[00:26:26] Allison Horn: Retargeting is, is a challenge, but how do you actually re, you know, you can't target something that goes to your website and go back to to Facebook and the violation. And so we have to get super creative of digitally how much we can do, and always looking for partners to make that even easier for us to do those types of things and expand our digital marketing tactics that may be otherwise restricted in healthcare.
[00:26:51] Ray Mina: It's so different in healthcare when, when compared to other markets. I love, you know, we, you literally just like hit the ball out of the park on describing what demand gen is like that campaign, the direct mail campaign where you basically went to a market of people who didn't have intent for your practice and you filled that office.
[00:27:10] Ray Mina: You know, it's the healthcare problem of capacity as well, which we don't have in other markets. You, there was a question I had, and you, you answered part of which, like, how does, how did this campaign show up in the results? The obvious answer in that context is, I can't market anymore because I've created so much demand that you can't, like you can't scale capacity to meet it.
[00:27:33] Ray Mina: That's an obvious one. What are the other ways that are less obvious where it shows up? How do you know that, you know it, let's say you didn't reach capacity, but how do you know that these campaigns, like what's, if not causation, correlation, like what, what does it look like? Does do, does Google Ad, like cost per conversion go down?
[00:27:55] Ray Mina: Do you see like repeatable increases in patient volume? Like what are some of the things that you know, it's working? You can go to leadership and say, Hey, this is not ambiguous, this is actually driving outcome.
[00:28:06] Allison Horn: Yeah, gosh, I got, I got a ton of examples for you. So we have a practice in Ohio.
[00:28:12] Allison Horn: So they are a large practice. They have a prosthodontist and you know, he called me, I don't know, maybe like a month ago. He is like, you know, we wanna talk about the campaign. I'm like, uh-oh, what am, what am I walking into? Uh-oh. I'm like, your new patient numbers look decent, but uh-oh. And his thing is like, you know, we had a target of, you know, X number of new patients.
[00:28:35] Allison Horn: We haven't quite hit that. Right? It's like 10 patients off. He is like, but I'm gonna tell you, he is like, I feel like the patients, and lemme give you a little context. They had a Google campaign prior to partnership. They did a lot of radio. They did like printing on the back of like the Kroger receipts because they're next to a grocery store.
[00:28:54] Allison Horn: So they kind of were all over, they had a decent amount of spend on marketing, but we kind of pulled everything together, reset and tracked stuff. They didn't do a lot of tracking very well. And so when he, he, when he called me, he said, you know, although we're not hitting it. The top target that we're looking for.
[00:29:13] Allison Horn: I feel like the patients we're getting are better. And I was like, tell me more. And he said, I just feel like they're already informed in what they're looking for. So let's just say they want dentures or they want implants or full arch. The conversion and case acceptance having three. So they're getting better case acceptance, which is yielding higher production.
[00:29:38] Allison Horn: They've had their best production numbers ever in the past, I would say three to four months. And so month over month, they're continuing to have top performing production months because the patients that they're getting are better and higher average value of new patients. Right.
[00:30:00] Allison Horn: So that's like another metric that we look at is like what is the average value of a new patient? Now we look at ours a little bit different. I'm not talking about the first visit. I mean, how many times does a patient come in? They're coming in for a cleaning and they're like, ah, I'd be getting all new veneers. Right. No, there's a very specific, targeted, uh, subset of patients that are making those decisions.
[00:30:17] Allison Horn: What we're looking at is, are we seeing your average value of a patient, a new patient over the course of 12 months? Sometimes it takes people a little bit longer. Maybe they do have needs to come in and that the case is a little bit higher. So we look at 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months. So what I look at from a performance is over the course of a new patient in the first 12 months of their life at our practice, what is their average value?
[00:30:45] Allison Horn: And are we increasing those? So we look at that by practice that are on campaigns. So. I'll segue into another practice that we have in San Diego, similar, again, not hitting his desire. Now, all of these doctors have a desire of a goal, a new patient goal. They think that number is what they need to hit and what they wanna hit.
[00:31:10] Allison Horn: But sometimes it's, there's a difference between what they want and what we see as value and what we're seeing as driving. And sometimes it comes to the data and understanding and trying to meet in common grounds of like, this is what we're delivering. We believe it's successful. Your return on ad spend is great, but there's still that desire.
[00:31:28] Allison Horn: So we try and we try and match it as the best as we can, but his new patient values. Now I don't take credit for it because I bring the patient to the door. Ultimately, it's up to them to diagnose and get that patient that needs those services to accept and get treated with those services. So we saw the average value of a new patient go up there, but also the frequency.
[00:31:53] Allison Horn: So when we looked at all new patients and then took a subset of Google patients. We saw that the patients that came from Google were actually visiting like 1.5 more times than like a standard new patient that maybe felt found us organically or a family or friend. So not only was the average value of a new patient, $400 more compared to referred by a family or friend, but their frequency and how many times they came in within that 12 months was more.
[00:32:27] Allison Horn: So those are other like underlying metrics that you could look at revenue, you could look at growth and what the, you know, ROAS is. But we wanna look at, well compare Google to referred family or friend. Are we getting more or patient on that channel and are they coming back more frequently and keeping up with their care or getting more services and drilling into that? So, those are a couple additional metrics that we look at.
[00:32:57] Ray Mina: When you, just because I'm not the terminology I'm not as clear on Yeah, I think I understand, but can you explain case acceptance and production?
[00:33:05] Allison Horn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So production is, I came in and I got a cleaning. It costs X dollars that goes towards production. If I got a crown that goes to production, right? So it's revenue essentially.
[00:33:19] Ray Mina: Yep.
[00:33:20] Allison Horn: Your case acceptance is, I went in to see a dentist and I was told I need three fillings and two crowns. Am I gonna get that or did I accept those diagnosis? So you told me and I'm like, okay, it's, I'm just make it up.
[00:33:38] Allison Horn: Let's call it even. It's gonna cost me $3,000 to get those services done. Do I have $3,000 to get those services done? And if I do. Am I accepting the treatment that you are telling me that I need, and am I getting it completed? So case acceptance is, you know, are, are you at 70% of all diagnosed treatment that you're telling patients that they need?
[00:34:03] Allison Horn: Are they accepting? Are you at 30%? Right? How many patients are accepting the treatment that you're telling them that they need versus them completing it? It's a little bit different than like medical, right? If I go into an orthopedic doctor and they tell me, ah, you broke your foot. You need surgery. Who's gonna say no to that?
[00:34:26] Ray Mina: Yeah.
[00:34:26] Allison Horn: Yeah. Chances are they're not, right. Yeah, so a little bit different. Teeth are just something that I just feel like some people are like, man, not a priority. Why don't you just take it out, take my tooth out, or just extract it, or, I don't have the money to do that. It's funny how much consumers prioritize other things like a new handbag versus their teeth, right.
[00:34:51] Ray Mina: Yeah.
[00:34:52] Allison Horn: So it's case acceptance is, are you willing to say, I believe this doctor is telling me this is what I need. I'm going to do it, and I completed it.
[00:35:02] Ray Mina: I love, you know, so much of what we think about is like booked appointments, but the funnel is so much more complex. Booked appointments to, you know, Sally showed up. To, did Sally accept the, you know, the case? Did it go to production? Yeah. Oh yeah. Were you able to get that patient back again for the next higher value service? Like Yeah, it's, it's, that's the start of it.
[00:35:24] Allison Horn: Your booked appointment is like, that is the start. And your retention is like your end game.
[00:35:29] Ray Mina: Yeah. But Allison, your only job is to fill the top of the funnel and just like, get appointments. That's it. Yeah. That, that's the
[00:35:34] Allison Horn: Yeah. I'll retain those patients too. And all the in between. Yeah. And you just have to get 'em and keep 'em. Yeah. Yeah. And then everything in between we have nothing to do with.
[00:35:41] Ray Mina: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's like the, that's, these are some of the misnomers in marketing of what marketing is for. And another misnomer, which I think that you've spent a lot of time talking about, which for me, in B2B SaaS, I'm putting my product marketing hat on because I think it's the most important part of the job, which is knowing the consumer, knowing where to meet them, like what are all the habits, what are their demographics?
[00:36:07] Ray Mina: And you've got that, that complexity 120 times because you're dealing with rural Minnesota versus other, other markets. Why is this often overlooked in healthcare? Because I, I feel like I don't, some organizations spend a lot of time and money here to really understand their market and others. It feels like the job is more just like, get me, just get me appointments with anyone.
[00:36:31] Ray Mina: I'll just throw money at it. Why is it overlooked so much? It seems so, it seems so important to like what you described to me.
[00:36:37] Allison Horn: Yeah, I, I am a firm believer that it's critical to a successful campaign. If you don't understand where your existing patients are coming from, how are you going to predict where they, you want them to coming from?
[00:36:50] Allison Horn: Right. I could go target an audience or a, a geographic area and a zip code that you're already getting a large population. But should we, are they high Medicaid population, are they not making, prioritizing their oral health, all those things. I think the biggest challenge from a healthcare perspective is sometimes that data's not easily accessible.
[00:37:12] Allison Horn: So you think about 120 dental practices on different practice management systems, right? We have a whole data team that extract that data into, into a central repository or a data warehouse, but they're not always apples to apples, right? So every single person is collecting data in a different way. You know, you can get first name, last name, address, and some basic information, age, that kind of stuff.
[00:37:39] Allison Horn: But it's, you know, the old adage of it's garbage in, garbage out type of thing. So I think that's one of the biggest challenges is access to data. And then also. What do you do with that data? Right? It's something that I could talk to a, a data person. They're like, great, here's your information. I was like, Can you make some, like charts with it or like throw a little marketing on it. Right. But it's, to me, I, I'm at the point that, and this is just my personality, give me the raw data. Just give it to me and I will make sense of all of it. Not everybody has that same desire or. Love for data that I do. And so I think that there's certain individuals that I think feed off of data and making better decisions.
[00:38:25] Allison Horn: And I, I will tell you in my career, I've come across it, they're like, you don't need to know historical information about patients. Just go, just go get new patients, like you said. And I'm like, oh, okay. I disagree with that. But if you're a C-Suite member, sure, that's fine. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go down that, that path.
[00:38:43] Allison Horn: But, it always comes back and will say it's a defining moment on whether or not your, your campaigns are successful. Is understanding what you currently have today and could that inform better decisions and better information to have better performing campaigns for future?
[00:39:03] Ray Mina: Yeah, I mean, the math doesn't math in a world where you have to do less with more if you're not gonna be hyper, hyper targeted towards the outcomes.
[00:39:10] Ray Mina: Like it's just a hundred percent, it's just not gonna, it's not, it's not sustainable. It's not gonna continue to live. What I talked to so many people who, like for you, you are still heavily invested in your digital spend in Google, but you've found creative ways to invest in brand and awareness and, and you have clearly demonstrated how they can have impacts to the outcome.
[00:39:33] Ray Mina: And no matter, like money or not, it's like getting buy-in, getting buy-in from leadership, getting buy-in from those practices to lift a finger and actually like lean into it. I think people struggle there, like how, what? What's been your formula? How are you getting these, how are you getting the leaders internally, and how are you getting the practice leaders on board?
[00:39:55] Allison Horn: Me.
[00:39:57] Ray Mina: I figured that part.
[00:40:00] Allison Horn: I like, can I just replicate Allison? I, I, I would say that like, for somebody listening, I think the biggest thing, and I just had this conversation the other day, is your relationships with anybody is foundation to whether or not you're successful at what you need to do.
[00:40:16] Allison Horn: So, and not in like an inorganic way. All of my relationships that I have built have been built on trust and building, building the trust, right? Like you can't just walk in and be like, you should trust me, I'm a marketing expert. No. Right. Like it's teaching them and showing them and guiding them, explaining the why.
[00:40:37] Allison Horn: I think a lot of people miss the opportunity to explain the why of why we're communicating, why we're making this decision, why we think you should go this way, and if there's still lack of excitement about something, let's give it a try. Right? Let's, what's the harm in trying it for a couple months? Can I have a commitment of, you know, four months from you?
[00:40:58] Allison Horn: I've asked doctors, we have one doctor, and if he sees this, he'll know who I'm talking about. But we have one doctor that I said to him, because he literally wants no update for me. Like if I need to do something, he's like, just go do it. I was like, yeah, but I feel like I need to just like get a sign off and hey, I am like, why do you just let me do what I want?
[00:41:18] Allison Horn: And he's like, because I trust you. And when he told me that, I was like, huh. That's what it is, right? It's that you have built relationships, not with the intent to get them to trust. You have built relationships for them to understand who you are as a person, personally, professionally, or on the same team, and ultimately, if you build those relationships that are organic and authentic.
[00:41:46] Allison Horn: Who doesn't trust their friend, right? Yeah. Like I'm gonna call Ray and say, Hey, I need your opinion about something. I'm gonna trust what you say. I picked up the phone, I called you because I trust you. Right? And so I think that if you have a really hard time connecting with somebody and not focus on building relationships, I think that probably comes back from my sales background, is that those relationships are paramount to.
[00:42:10] Allison Horn: Getting what you need to be honest. Right. I'll give you one example. When I used to run physician relations, I started as a physician liaison. I didn't tell people how to do the job. I knew how to do the job because I built the program and I used to train my team members that when they'd walk in and they'd talk to a referral coordinator, you would ask them about who they are, about their life.
[00:42:33] Allison Horn: And I was like, Betty was going to her granddaughter's ballet performance. So when I went back into that office, you better believe that the notes that I had in every conversation and what I documented in our CRM system was that Betty was going to her granddaughter's ballet. And what was the first thing that I asked Betty about?
[00:42:57] Allison Horn: How was your granddaughter's ballet? And she was like, Allison remembers. That is not because I knew much else about Betty. It was just that I found a thing that I could hook onto that I built those relationships in getting what I needed outta somebody for them to trust me and buy into it. Not a hundred percent, but for the most part, that is what has worked in my 19 years of healthcare marketing.
[00:43:22] Ray Mina: One more question for you. Just the crystal ball, like a little bit of future thinking question. So. You know, like you're, you're still heavily invested in Google. It, it works so well today because the attribution is so strong and like you've called out, like when you get the right intent, it's a lot of value that it delivers.
[00:43:41] Ray Mina: It's like the, probably the greatest marketing tool ever created in the, in the history of mankind, right? But there's a lot of change happening. Which is like Google is getting more and more competitive just because the machine learning, everybody's getting better at it. You don't have to be that good at it anymore because Google's trying to make it easier.
[00:44:00] Ray Mina: And then the rise of LLMs and Google's whole strategy of trying to keep you in their world, like not allow you to click out, stay here. We wanna keep you a captive customer that's creating this world of, you know, zero click behavior. Where, you know, some of the data I've seen is 60% of queries end without a click.
[00:44:21] Ray Mina: So the attribution starts to fall off. What, like, at the end of the decade, you know, fast forward super intelligence is here. Like the whole world has changed. Like what, what does marketing look like then? Like how, how do you have to adjust your strategy to meet that moment?
[00:44:38] Allison Horn: Yeah, I mean, I feel like we're doing it already a little bit. Like you said, especially with like Google, LSA, right. The goal is not to click. You're paying for the lead, right? Yeah. The goal is to not click to a website. I should say the goal is to click and book an appointment or call. But you're getting them to the right place, and so we've seen a huge shift in LSA.
[00:44:59] Allison Horn: Reporting is a little bit more tricky because it is, is newer in the healthcare space and, you know, all the, the reasons to get signed up are a little bit more cumbersome. But I do think that you're gonna have more of the book online and self appointment and stuff like that where people are probably doing their research in the LLMs, but like then connecting to book things on their own a little bit more direct rather than going to a website.
[00:45:26] Allison Horn: Yeah, so I think that's probably gonna shift a little bit. You're seeing like other scheduling, I won't name like specific entities, but other scheduling systems that are multi, you know, disciplinary from a healthcare perspective, being like a point of booking systems to increase that kind of come back.
[00:45:46] Allison Horn: It started when online booking was key, and so now they're kind of making a little bit of a comeback and saying, Hey, they, we use this app, they don't ever have to go to a website. If you're listed here, you can just book online. Yeah, so I think that certainly the LLMs are gonna be, I think a huge, we're already seeing a huge shift right now and pulling in reputation and the learnings about the website and authority of that individual practice.
[00:46:14] Allison Horn: I think where it becomes more sophisticated is when they start integrating the book online and calling. I mean, I think calls are probably gonna go away for the majority. Most people are probably going to self appoint. You know, I, I joke that I'm a busy working mom. By the time I remember to do something, my kids are asleep.
[00:46:32] Allison Horn: My husband's snoring next to me and I'm like, oh, shoot, I forgot to do, pay that bill online. I forgot to book an appointment for the dentist. And guess what? If there's not a book online, or if there's not a pay my bill online that it just pulls my credit card. Chances are I'm going somewhere else. So those things of what's happening today is only going to get amplified in a more sophisticated and easier way to connect people to do an action rather than research, because the research is already being done for them and recommending people.
[00:47:06] Ray Mina: Yeah. I love that. Great, great. Yeah, it was just like removing the friction. And I, by the way, I'm, yeah, I, I'm five weeks into having the intent of booking an updated eye exam. See? And I still haven't done it 'cause I have to the, the two providers here, I have to call.
[00:47:20] Allison Horn: Yeah.
[00:47:20] Ray Mina: And then it's like eight o'clock.
[00:47:21] Ray Mina: I'm like, darn it, I've started,
[00:47:23] Allison Horn: I need to put it on my calendar for 9:00 AM.
[00:47:26] Ray Mina: It's in my, it's in my notebook and I still, I'm five weeks in, so someone's losing.
[00:47:30] Allison Horn: I feel like I'll get to that later. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:47:32] Ray Mina: Well, this has been an awesome conversation, Allison. Sorry we're gonna miss you at Miami House call, but hopefully we'll see you at the next one for sure.
[00:47:39] Allison Horn: I will for sure be at the next one. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
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