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Marketing costs are a big part of a doctor’s day in Los Angeles and are the biggest part of the budget of any medical practice. Too little, and you’re losing clients in a very competitive healthcare industry. Too much advertising money, and you’ll spend thousands of dollars on advertising and not get enough appointments or revenue.
You can’t find a single medical marketing agency budget for each practice. A new med spa in Beverly Hills has different needs than a primary care office in the San Fernando Valley. A plastic surgeon who performs high-value procedures can reasonably justify a higher patient acquisition cost than a practice providing lower-value services.
The right marketing budget will depend on revenue, specialty, competition, growth goals, patient value, and position. Instead of a fixed number, medical practices need to have marketing budgets that are well-defined and business goals are set.
What Percentage of Revenue Should a Medical Practice Spend on Marketing?
A common starting point would be to determine marketing expenditure in percentage of annual revenue. Most businesses allocate 5% to 10% of the sales revenue to marketing, and companies that are aggressively growing may spend 10% or more.
For medical practices, the best percentage would depend on the case. A well-established practice with great physician referrals, high patient retention, good reviews, and good Google rankings may be able to stay competitive even with a rather modest marketing budget. A new Los Angeles-based practice may need to spend much more money.
Why Los Angeles Medical Practices May Need Larger Marketing Budgets
Los Angeles has an extremely competitive healthcare market. Patients can choose from independent doctors, major healthcare systems, specialty clinics, urgent care centers, med spas, plastic surgeons, dermatologists, dentists, and other providers.
For elective treatments and procedures, competition is especially sharp. Patients searching for Botox, medical weight loss, cosmetic dermatology, plastic surgery, or dental implants may have multiple practices competing for attention.
That competition in the market has an impact on marketing. Google Ads can be expensive when more than one organization bids for the same searches. When competitors have established website operations and search rankings, well-written content, and hundreds or thousands of patient reviews, SEO is a big investment.
Your Medical Specialty Impacts Marketing
The economics of your practice will determine how much you can spend on marketing. Consider the value of acquiring one new patient.
A patient who visits once in a while for a relatively cheap service will be a different business opportunity from someone who undergoes a high-value procedure or goes back a few times a year for treatment.
Medical practitioners should think about the immediate and the lifetime value of new patients. Realizing patient value gives the practice a solid target for patient acquisition costs.
New Medical Practices Often Spend More
A new medical practice starts without the assets that established competitors require to attract patients. The practice may have few Google reviews, little brand recognition, a new website, few organic search rankings, and a small patient database.
Building those assets takes time and money.
What Is the Initial Marketing Budget for Medical SEO?
Branding, website creation, professional photography, search engine optimization, Google Business Profile optimization, content development, paid advertising, social media, reputation management, and patient communication systems all need to be budgeted for.
SEO is particularly valuable in Los Angeles because patients are typically searching for doctors and treatments in a particular location. Someone might want a dermatologist in Los Angeles, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, a med spa in West Hollywood, or a doctor offering a particular treatment near their neighborhood.
A medical SEO budget could include technical website improvements, service pages, location pages, educational articles, local SEO, Google Business Profile optimization, backlinks, and ongoing analytics.
Competition is an important factor for the investment. A doctor who wants to provide a specific service in one neighborhood may face relatively few competitors. A cosmetic practice that wants to rank widely in Los Angeles for highly profitable treatments would be in competition with dozens of established providers.
SEO can also be regarded as a long-term strategy. Results on the site can come over time, but strong organic visibility will still generate inquiries without paying for every website visitor.
How Much Should You Spend on Google Ads?
Google Ads can be a real-time source of medical practice visibility when a patient is actively looking for treatment. That makes paid search very attractive to new practices and providers that promote high-value procedures.
But clicks are not always patients.
A good advertising budget should take into account cost per click, lead-to-appointment rate, appointment show rate, patient acquisition cost, treatment conversion rate, and revenue generated.
Imagine a practice spends $5,000 and generates 100 inquiries. The cost per lead is $50. But if only 20 people set up appointments and only 15 actually show up, the economics look very different.
Medical practices should look at advertising based on completed appointments and revenue, not just traffic and leads.
Your Website Is Part of the Marketing Budget
A practice can spend thousands of dollars growing traffic but still fail to attract patients if its website does not convert visitors. Patients use a website to assess whether a provider is trustworthy and to set up appointments.
The site should clearly describe who the providers are, what conditions or treatments the practice handles, where it is located, and how you can schedule an appointment. It should also work well on mobile devices and make sure that all information is clear.
Professional photography, physician biographies, credentials, treatment information, patient reviews or testimonials where appropriate, FAQs, educational materials, and clear calls to action can all play a role in whether a visitor becomes a patient.
A good website development and conversion plan should be incorporated into the overall patient acquisition plan.
How Should You Split Your Medical Marketing Budget?
Generally, a medical practice shouldn’t concentrate its whole marketing budget on one channel.
Depending on the practice, it might be SEO and content, Google Ads and social media advertising, website development, reputation management, photography and video, email marketing, patient retention campaigns, and marketing technology.
The exact allocation should be adjusted based on performance. If Google Ads are consistently bringing in profitable patients, increasing advertising may make sense. If organic Google searches are the main driver of new appointments, then even more investment in SEO could lead to better long-term results.
Marketing dollars should be directed toward efforts that yield measurable results rather than sticking with the way the budget was initially spent.
Finding the Right Marketing Budget for Your Los Angeles Medical Practice
There is no general monthly marketing budget for every Los Angeles medical practice. A well-established referral physician may just have a tiny marketing budget, while a new med spa, plastic surgeon, dermatologist, dentist, or elective treatment provider may require a lot of investment to compete.
Based on your annual revenue, patient value, specialty, competition, current visibility, and growth goals. Decide how many more you want to get and what you can reasonably afford to pay for each of them.
A good medical marketing budget isn’t always the biggest. It is the budget that will attract the right patients at a cost that enables the practice to grow profitably.
Marketing is now directly related to appointments, treatments, and revenue, and it is much easier to determine how much your Los Angeles medical practice should spend.
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