A one-hour monthly marketing routine for a busy practice
Practice marketing doesn't need to be a second job. A checklist a physician or practice manager can run once a month in about an hour, in the order that matters most.
Most physicians didn't go into medicine to run marketing. But some marketing is part of keeping a practice full, and when nobody owns it, things drift: an ad keeps spending on searches that aren't patients, a referring office goes quiet, the Google listing still shows a physician who left last spring.
You don't need a big program to prevent that. An hour a month, done consistently, catches most of it. Here's a routine in order of what tends to matter most.
1. Look at where new patients came from (10 minutes)
Start with the outcome. Ask the front desk, or pull from your scheduling system, how many new patients you saw last month and how they heard about you. The categories don't have to be precise:
- Referred by another clinician
- Found you on Google or in an AI answer
- Saw an ad
- Friend or family
- Returning patient, new problem
Compare it to the month before. You're looking for anything that changed a lot. That's where the rest of the hour goes.
2. Check your referrers (15 minutes)
For many specialty practices, referrals are the biggest source of new patients and the least tracked. Make a short list:
- The offices that sent you the most patients in the last 90 days
- Any office that used to refer regularly and hasn't in two months or more
- Any new office in your area that hasn't referred yet
Pick two or three to contact this month. A thank-you note to a top referrer, a call to one that went quiet, and an introduction to a new one. That's usually enough.
3. Review your ads (10 minutes)
If you run Google or Facebook ads, look at three things:
- Spend vs. budget. Is anything spending much more or less than planned?
- Calls and requests, by campaign. Which ones produced patients, and which didn't?
- Search terms (Google). Scroll the list of real searches that triggered your ads and exclude ones that aren't patients, like job seekers or students.
Pause what clearly isn't working. Leave things that are new or borderline for another month.
4. Check your Google listing and reviews (10 minutes)
Search your practice name on your phone and look at what a patient sees:
- Hours, phone, and address correct, including any upcoming holidays
- Every physician listed still works there
- New reviews replied to, without confirming anyone is a patient
- Any "suggested edits" from Google or the public reviewed
5. Ask an AI assistant about your practice (5 minutes)
Open ChatGPT, Google, or another assistant and ask the questions a patient might: "Who treats sports injuries in [your town]?" or "Is [your practice] good for knee arthritis?" Note whether you're mentioned and whether the facts are right. If something's wrong, it usually traces back to your website or a listing that disagrees with it.
6. Approve next month's posts and one article (10 minutes)
If someone drafts your social posts or blog articles, this is when you review and approve them. If nobody does, pick one question patients ask you all the time and plan to answer it on your website this month. One good article a month adds up faster than you'd think.
Write down three things to do
End the hour with a short list, no more than three items, and who will do each one. A routine like this works because it's small enough to keep doing.
How AdLivo fits
AdLivo was built to make this hour shorter. The Dashboard shows one score, the month's numbers, and a short to-do list: the referrer who went quiet, the ad to fix, the listing that's out of date, the posts waiting for approval. You approve what matters and get back to patients.