How to Maximize Your Practice's Impact at Community Events | GMS

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Show Notes

Imagine turning casual event interactions into lifelong patient relationships.

In this episode of the Ground Marketing Series, we dive into a complete, actionable framework for dentists eager to expand their practices. I unpack the art of pre-event planning, setting intentional goals, and constructing an irresistible activation kit. Drawing on wisdom from marketing legend Seth Godin, we learn that storytelling lies at the heart of effective marketing. We'll cover the essential roles within an event team— the magnet, the messenger, and the connector—each playing a crucial part in generating and nurturing potential patients.

We'll discuss hands-on tips for booth presentation and interaction strategy. Learn how captivating signage and engaging team activities can drive your booth traffic through the roof! This episode brings to light the importance of crafting messages that avoid clichés and resonate with potential patients. Discover key metrics to gauge your event’s success and develop an adaptable, scalable marketing system that ensures no opportunity slips through the cracks.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

  • Strategic steps for effective pre-event planning for dental practices.
  • The pivotal roles each team member plays in a successful marketing event.
  • Techniques for creating engaging, memorable booth experiences.
  • Essential do's and don'ts to maximize your event's impact.
  • The art of immediate lead follow-up and team evaluation post-event.
  • Insights into metrics and tools for tracking and optimizing marketing efforts.

Get ready to transform community events into powerful marketing victories—tune in now!

Learn More About the Ground Marketing Course Here:

Website: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/

Sponsors:

CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack

CallRail: Call tracking + AI that turns calls into campaigns that convert, quality patients, and cost savings. Click our link to start a free trial today! callrail.com/dentalmarketer

Oryx: All-In-One Cloud-Based Dental Software Created by Dentists for Dentists. Patient engagement, clinical, and practice management software that helps your dental practice grow without compromise. Click or copy and paste the link here for a special offer! thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/oryx

Other Mentions and Links:

People:

Seth Godin

Groups:

Chamber of Commerce

Rotary Club

Tools:

Eventbrite

Google Forms

Jotform

Mailchimp

ActiveCampaign

Google Sheets

Airtable

CareStack

CallRail

Oryx

Businesses/Brands:

Invisalign

For more helpful tips, strategies, ideas, and marketing advice, join my weekly newsletter here.

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: leveraging community events for maximum impact. This is gonna be the step by step guide to making an unforgettable impression. At local events and converting it into real growth. Now, community events aren't just about handing out freebies. They're a powerful system for relationship building, trust marketing, and establishing your practice as the go-to in the neighborhood.

Seth Godin said, marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but the stories you tell. But here's the kicker. To win at these events, you need more than a table and smiles. You need smart systems, a team with purpose and follow up that drives revenue. I cannot tell you how many times I've gone to events where I'm either just an attendee or I'm a vendor.

it's almost like a pet peeve of mine where I see so many things going wrong. It feels like, oh man, this, employee who's hereis the wrong employee. You're doing the wrong things. You're just not feeling it. And you can see the mistakes.

You can see almost the opportunities lost in every single minute almost,not just every single interaction, every single minute that they're there. So this episode. Definitely it's gonna be a, game changer for you because you're gonna realize a lot of things that maybe you've been doing wrong or a lot of things that you could be doing better.

Now this is real data why this works. 43% of patients only visit the dentist once a year. 27% go twice a year. Events help turn rare visitors into loyal patients, okay? They see you, they talk to you, they engage with you, they interact with you. They're more likely to go with you. 59% of dental practices rely on front desk staff for marketing.

Your team needs training to represent you well at community events, so it's not just like, Hey, let's all go out. The whole team has to go out. They need to be trained. 77% of patients prefer online booking, but only of practices offer it. So your event setup should promote real time scheduling.

Don't let it get lost in the weeds where maybe you are booking people on the spot, maybe you have a specific software right, and you're booking them on the spot, on the iPad, and then you book them. And then you notice when you get back to the office, it's triple booked double book, and it's not cohesive.

Don't lose people like that because I cannot tell you how bad it will be if you have to call that lead back and say, Hey, you know, the time you booked doesn't work. Can I put you in another time? First you gotta get them on the phone, try and find them, try and reach them, right? But you most likely will.

And then from that point on, gotta convince them to, to change. So no email marketing, ROI is 44000%, It's huge. Capturing emails at events is high value. If you can capture phone numbers or even text them even better, right? So here's a step-by-step guide, step one. This is crucial pre-event planning.

This is the foundation phase, so choose the right events 90 days in advance if possible. Easy breezy. How to do this. You look for events where your ideal patients already gather. You look at PTA meetings you hear word of mouth where they're going, they're doing.

Farmer's markets, events in the Chamber of Commerce calendar and the rotary, club calendar, school health fairs. You just ask for events, right? A lot of apartment complexes have events, community center, senior homes. You can even use platforms like Eventbrite Facebook parent groups, Facebook groups in your community.

And like I said, chamber of Commerce right now, here's a pro tip. If any of these events, you decide, Hey, I really want to go to them, try to attend first as a guest. Observe the crowd flow, the booth engagement and the vibe before you commit. And then you can go. A lot of the times in the ground marketing course, I teach you how to do this and how to actually get fantastic referrals and partnerships, but new patients without ever participating in an event.

Meaning like without ever being a vendor, you're just there. But if you're like, oh my gosh, the booth engagement is fantastic, we gotta be here, we gotta support. Yeah, definitely continue to pursue that. Right now you wanna set clear measurable goals. So example targets. These are examples, right? I want to collect 75 emails or 75 contact information.

I wanna book 15 appointments on the spot. On site, and I wanna generate 200 plus impressions in the community. That means 200 plus people know about us, we've handed out. Something specific to them, they know about us. And then now you wanna work backward from your goals. Reverse engineer. If your team can engage 20 people per hour, plan your booth design game, call to action accordingly.

Okay? You wanna design it that way? It doesn't just happen that way. For example, let's just say it's a huge event and only one person's available and they're going, they're setting up, they're doing it all. They're at the booth, they're talking. right?

You're not gonna get everything that you want. You're not gonna get 200 email contacts or contact information or 200 leads because it's just one person. So you gotta, adjust accordingly. Now, you wanna design portable activation kit. The whole system for this, the actual layout, pictures and everything is in the ground marketing course.

Like I'm gonna tell you right now, you don't need flash. You need systems that trigger interaction and capture data. That's it. I've never been too over the top or over fancy with it. I've seen a ton of boots like that, and that's great. That's fantastic. But in this episode, you're gonna hear what's most important and what you need to invest more in on than being off lash right now.

What you're gonna want in this portable activation kit is branded tablecloth and banners. With your logo, maybe a game if you like, right? Like a spin to win or a Plinko board. IPads with intake forms, It can have Google forms or jot forms or a signup sheet. I still do the signup sheet, but it's up to you, You can have the iPads with linked to your practice management software. I know Cares Stack and orx do it fantastically. Great booking portals on there. Then obviously lead magnets, right? Pre kids, dental, emergency guides, or all the freebies you want to give out that are in there, hygiene kits, information flyers, things like that.

So that's step one. Okay? The pre-event planning Phase A, you're gonna choose the right events 90 days in advance, if possible, or just in advance, right? You don't wanna go on the calendar and say, oh, snap, there's an event tomorrow, let's make it happen. No. Take time to plan ahead. B, set clear and measurable goals crucial.

Have to have measurable goals. Never once did I go out and say, let's just see how many people we sign up. No, in the moment, you're gonna be like, oh, you know what? This is not that good, or whatever. You're gonna get in your head and you're gonna just sign up. Five people. You gotta have clear, measurable goals and say, okay, you know what?

From here we're gonna do 75, and that means you're gonna put in the work to get those 70 fives while you're there. Right? Be set. Clear measurable goals. See design a portable activation kit, like I told you, cable tablecloth, banners, maybe a chair if you like. spin the wheel, whatever freebies you wanna give out, and something to sign up people on.

Okay, step two is the booth strategy. So make it magnetic. This step is all about stopping people in their tracks. Creating a magnetizing presence and turning curiosity into conversations. Most booths are background noise. Yours should be the events gravitational center. So what you wanna have is a solve a local pain point with words that actually work.

I'm gonna give you three examples of what not to say anywhere in the booth. Hey, we're accepting new patients. No. That's so long ago. Don't ever use that again. Two, come get a free toothbrush. Nope, throw that out. Three. General and cosmetic dentistry. Throw that out. These are vague, they're overused, and they don't spark emotional or practical urgency.

You want to craft micro messages that solve actual local problems. For example, could be a pediatric practice. You can say. Somewhere in the booth, right? Struggling to get your kids to the dentist without a meltdown. Ask about our no tears visits. Why this works. It uses parents' pain point tantrums, and stress.

It includes emotional relief. So no tears. And it's specific. It's not generic. Here's a cosmetic example. Want to boost your confidence before your next big event. Ask about our mini smile makeovers. Same pain points that attacks the next one. Busy parent example, no time for dental appointments. Ask how we get families in and out under an hour.

Boom, ate and insurance neighborhood example. Confused about your insurance. We simplify it and yes, we take yours. Boom. This one right here, members have used, I got this one from members. Fantastic. I'm gonna say it again, confused about your insurance question mark. We simplify it and yes, we take yours and the exclamation point that one does fantastic.

And you can have like a sandwich board in front of your booth and have that on there, right? These examples, these sayings. Now pro tip, print your core message in large text or on your banner, right? And have every team member memorize and repeat it naturally. So have these banners with these messages on there as well.

But like, what I like to do is to have a sandwich board, right? Just in case it changes up. I don't have to get a new banner for every little thing. Now that was a right. A, is solve a local pain point with words that actually work. B. Grab attention within three seconds. Why? Well, The average event goer decides in under three seconds whether or not to approach your booth.

So you must stack the deck in your favor with visuals. Motion, sound and simplicity. Use a high visibility game, right? Why? ' cause movement plus potential reward equals attention. Examples are spin the wheel, right? Each wedge is a prize. Maybe free whitening, something specific

In one of our live ground marketing workshops that we had this past month in March, 2025. We dove deep on incentives. So if you're a member of the ground marketing course, definitely go check that out. But that is gonna be an episode for later on. In the ground marketing series.

Now you can discuss the incentives with your team. See what you want to give best Plinko board, right? It's nostalgic, it's fun and easy to brand with dental punts. you can do a mini basketball hoop or ring toss. These are especially effective for family events and kid heavy areas. Now the signage above the game should read the incentive.

The incentive only, Not all these instructions, not the name of your practice and everything you do. No, just win free whitening, spin and win. Everyone gets something. Play for a free gift, right? That's it. That's all it should say. Important point here is to display what prizes are available.

are drawn to visible rewards. Keep them attractive, but within budget. Whitening, goody bags, water bottles, gift cards, whatever you decide as an incentive, have that out on display. Have standing team members outside of the booth avoid the mistake of sitting behind the table. Always. Instead, place the magnet.

A few steps in front of your booth. Now I know what you're thinking. What is the magnet? We're gonna discuss that a little bit further down. On the roles of who they are. But the magnet is someone, it's a person you wanna put them out and about, right? Train them to use eye contact, hand gestures toward the game prizes, and an enthusiastic opener.

Something like this. Hey there. Hey, grab whatever you want. It's all free. The one that works the best, the one that I always use hands down, never fails is, Hey, grab whatever you want. It's all free, and that's it. I just stay quiet after that, and then they come and then boom.

The further out a person stands without blocking walkways, the more psychological welcome they create. That's a pro tip. You can use t-shirts with a hook as well. These are walking, talking billboards. Don't just put your logo, use a question or statement that invites curiosity. Here are examples that you can use to put on your t-shirts.

Ask me how we make kids love the dentist. Ask me about free whitening Fridays. I can get you out of pain fast. Your smile deserves this. Those are examples, right? Or like I said, you can do the Medicaid example one. And yes, we do take yours, right kind of a thing with insurance. So assign different shirt slogans to different roles.

There's gonna be three specific roles, and we'll discuss that in a little laterin this episode. Now the three second layering formula to ensure people engage with your booth within three seconds. This is it. There's a visual element, and then I'm gonna discuss the purpose. So the visual element, bold banner, purpose.

Communicates core offer or pain point. Visual element. Motion game purpose creates eye catching interaction. Visual element, a friendly greeter. Purpose builds trust, initiates engagement, visual element, branded t-shirts. Purpose reinforces message and makes team approachable. Visual element giveaways displayed purpose creates curiosity and visual incentive.

Now, the common mistakes to avoid is too much text on signage. Keep it short. Five to seven words max per message. That's including the sandwich board. Passive team members who wait for people to approach. Oh my goodness. This is, I had a. Dime for every time I saw this, this is a humongous mistake.

Passive team members who wait for people to approach do not be that person. Do not have anybody like that on the events. Okay? Third, boring swag. Ditch the basic stuff sometimes unless it's branded and bundle it with a compelling offer, right? But remember, whenever it's at a booth, you want it all.

Decompartmentalize. You don't want everything in a baggie. Convenience is not the name of the game When you're at an event, the name of the game is for them to come and chat and sign up, That's what you want them to do. You don't want them to just grab a little baggie and go and say thank you and buy.

You want them to be there and shop around, talk, and then finally over cluttered tables with no clear flow. So you don't want it to be over cluttered. You want to have a system in your table. In the ground marketing course, I show you exactly how to do that with just a regular hygiene kit.

I don't do anything over the top or too flashy. Now, there's been many, many great examples of this, but I'm gonna give you an example of a member of ours. It was at a local PTA carnival. It was a pediatric dental office, and they use a spin to win, no cavity club prize wheel. T-shirts said, no meltdowns, no tears.

Just smiles. And a team member who shouted, You wanna win something your kids will actually love? That's all they said. Hey, win something your kids are actually gonna love. Come on in. Come on in. They collected 112 contact information, so point of contacts, 112, booked 27 appointments immediately, and had a 74% show rate over the next two weeks.

All from one. Afternoon. That's just one afternoon. That's amazing. So that's what you wanna do when it comes to be right. Grab attention within three seconds. Now here's the key C rolls and flow. This is the, that you're gonna have for the events. It's your triple threat event team. So instead of calling everyone helpers, give them roles with clear purpose.

The first role is The magnet. Where are they gonna be? Right outside of the booth. Right next to the booth. They're just not really standing right behind the booth the whole time. They could once in a while, but they're outside of the booth and their role. Is just to say hi to everyone in the most bubbly way.

Attract and invite foot traffic, right? Their script. Get ready for this. If you can write this down, it's, Hey, grab whatever you want. It's all free. And that's it. That is their script. the work that they're gonna have to do honestly is hold themselves back from saying too much. Because that can kill the curiosity of the event goer.

All you wanna say is, Hey, and then wave your hand, right? Like If you can see, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see me wave my hand. Hey, grab whatever you want. It's all free. And then point to everything that's free at the booth that's it. Have them draw closer to be like well, what's all for you?

What is all you're not gonna answer? That they're gonna answer that themselves with their eyes and when they go to the booth. So that's it. That is the script. Hey, Grab whatever you want. Come on over here. It's all free. Don't, oh, and the toothbrush is free. And then the floss is, no, don't do any of that.

Just say it's all free. And then have them come over. That's it. And you get the next person. The next person. Right Now the next role, the next person. Your team is the messenger. They are inside the booth. Okay. I like to say that instead of behind, but they're inside the booth. Their role is to have these conversations, answer questions.

If somebody's in there, like opening their mouth and saying, why do I have sensitivity here? Can you see? And then they're engaging, their role is signing people up. Also, the magnet could be signing people up too. Just in case it gets too busy. That's why I say they're outside of the booth sometimes.

But if they see that the booth is popping and it's packed, now the magnet has to go behind the booth and sign people up while the other person is talking to everyone else, right? They're engaging with the person. So the magnet kind of has two roles. They have to have their eyes on that booth.

Now the messenger, their role is to educate, answer questions and point visitors to sign up. Hey, yeah. what we're doing this month is we're signing up everyone, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? This month we decided to partner up with this business, and what everybody's doing is they're giving us their name and number, and I personally will give you a call.

What's your name? And then you continue to sign them up. That's the messenger's role. They're behind the booth. Honestly, everybody in your team should probably never be sitting down, even, even in a lull, right? they're standing, they're engaging, they're doing things.

So that's the messenger. Remember now you have the magnet. They're outside of the booth. The messenger is inside of the booth, and now you have the third team member. The connector, okay. Their role, they are walking around the event to the vendors, to the other vendors. Their role is to build relationship with the vendors, the organizers, the schools, the small business owners, every other booth there.

And the people who are in charge of the event. Their role is to get their business information to sign people up on the spot. 'cause remember those people the, at the booth, the vendors at that booth, they're most likely not walking around. You have someone walking around, you have someone signing them up.

You have someone collecting their business information, building rapport so that tomorrow you can go to their place of business and get the rest of the employees to sign up, maybe do a lunch and learn, maybe have some type of collaboration or program that you can do just for them. That's your role. Okay.

The connector's role is to go out to the vendors and sign up the vendors. 'cause most likely they're not your patients, so they can come on it. And then you're collecting their business information so you can go to their place of business and execute more strategies, ground marketing strategies, and build great partnerships with those businesses.

So there's three, right? The magnet just outside of the booth. The messenger, they're inside of the booth and the connector, they're walking around. Creating partnerships with the other vendors and the organizers. Got it. Awesome. So then step three is you're gonna offer a design from freebie to the front door.

So your goal is not just to give things away, it's to trigger interest, build reciprocity, and create momentum that gets people to book, show up and become long-term patients. This step turns the booth from a passive branding tool into an active patient convergence system. So a, you want to create a compelling ethical incentive.

Forget free cleanings, right? It's overdone, undervalued, and invite slow commitment window shoppers. Instead, craft layer tiered offers that feel exclusive and valuable requires something in return. And reinforce the long-term value of your practice. Now, I'm gonna give you an example. This is for adults.

The offer could say, Hey free first Invisalign session and take home whitening kits, Or you can say Free smile consultation. Plus take home whitening kits. Then you can put on the bottom. It includes examine x-rays, custom smile assessment and a whitening kit must attend appointment rate and then continue why it works.

Whining is seen as a cosmetic bonus, not a fix. It also positions your practice as cosmetic forward and modern, and it's easy to tie in with Invisalign or SMILE design conversations for kids. Your offer can say, join our no cavity club. The entry into your monthly, quarterly raffle prizes, could be like toys, ice cream, gift cards, electric toothbrushes, right?

So that's part of the no cavity club. You always get prizes and then you also get free dental prize bags, right? Branded floss stickers and cool kids swag, all that other stuff. So your enter to win in a raffle all the time if you're part of the No cavity club, to win a huge prize. And then you're also, get, you know, like hygiene kits.

But. Rebrand it, call it something different. That way it feels more exclusive and it works because parents love recognition programs for kids. It adds community and reward structure and it gets families emotionally invested, inre care and return visits. A pro tip for this is display a poster at your booth with last month's winner and a real kid photos with permission of course, that always works when you actually have proof, right? Hey, this is the last month's winner. Especially if it's a community event. People will, Hey, I know that kid goes to, he's my best friend, right? Or all these things, they'll feel more inclined or families. You can offer a smile makeover giveaway.

One entry per household. One winner gets a full consult with digital smile design and bonus prizes for all entries, right? Small gift bags. Et cetera. Right? And it works because it's aspirational. People love the idea of a transformation. You collected dozens or hundreds of leads and create cross selling into whitening, ortho, and cosmetic options whenever you do a raffle.

Real quick, I wanna mention something. Don't ever have just one winner. Everyone should win something, right? So always plan that you want people to come in. Not just give you a bunch of names and numbers and say, oh man, they all wanted to win, but they didn't make everybody a winner. Now with, visuals, the offer type and the suggested sign copy, this is how it should stay on your booth, right?

So let's just say you're offering whitening. You should say, Hey, free whitening with your first visit. Ask us how. The no cavity club kids can win big. Join the No cavity Club today, right? Smile makeover. Want a new smile? Enter our makeover giveaway. Make these signs bold, easy to scan in under eight words, right?

Don't make it too wordy. You can add scarcity and urgency. Even the best. Offer false flat without psychological triggers, scarcity and urgency. Create fomo, which drives people to act now instead of later. So you can have a whiteboard or a flip chart at the booth nine Invisalign spots remaining.

13 whitening kits left today. You can even have a countdown timer on an iPad screen and say, next free whitening session giveaway is in five minutes. Right? People will, wait at your booth until they can be the first one to do it. If you do catch them waiting to be the first one to do it, make them feel like a VIP and say, Hey, you know what?

You ain't even gotta wait. I got you in right now. Are you gonna be available Monday? I'll even put you on the schedule immediately. Boom. You'll make them feel special, important, and they're gonna show up no matter what. And you can also have a physical prize board, right? Cross out slots as people win or book, right?

Oh, we only have 12, 10, 11, 13. And verbally, you can yell out, you know, we only have 10 whitening kids left, so grab one while they last. The smile makeover drawing closes in two hours and turn out to be included. We only block five Invisalign day specials each month. You want one right.

And it works because it makes them feel exclusive. Not everyone gets this. You're one of the few. It's simple. It's super easy. It takes 30 seconds to sign up and scarcity, only a few left. Once they're gone, they're gone. And you got one. This trifecta bypasses analysis paralysis and motivates decision making on the spot, even from skeptical attendees.

So that's gonna be fantastic to utilize. Now, here's the key. Mainly one thing post event follow up. This is where the ROI is made. This is one of the final steps, you wanna segment and nurture leads within 48 hours. So sort your context right from hot. Those are the ones that are booked or very interested to warm.

They were curious or maybe they weren't committed and then cold. They just entered a raffle. Now tools you can use is,a lot of our members use Cares Stack or orx or their practice management software right, to see the appointment follow up. You can definitely use that. I know Cares Stack and Orx

sponsor the podcast. So if you ever needed a couple months for free to utilize them, definitely go in the show notes below. It's not gonna be in the first link in the show notes below, but scroll a little bit down you can click on their deals that they have for you if you are interested in.

Cloud practice management software, an all in one cloud practice management software that a lot of our members utilize that they can just put on their iPad and then they can schedule on the spot. So it's pretty fantastic. You can also use MailChimp or, an email system, like Active Campaign or anything like that.

You want to use these tools to know, okay these, are booked appointments. Cool. Awesome. And then these were other people that just entered for a raffle and they're cold. Or maybe they're warm and you wanna retarget. So post event recap, right? Maybe you're saying We met 150 plus amazing families this weekend.

If we missed you, our event special is still Available. Click below to book. You want to do that? Send it out to your actual cold leads and maybe even send it out to some of the patients you haven't seen in a while that you know, they're in their community because this will make them curious.

See what it is, what are they doing? Oh man. What was the special that was happening at the event? Oh, cool. They're participating at the community. So now you're not just targeting, the people who were at the event. You're also targeting people who you haven't seen in a while. So definitely do that, and then you can use the same photos and text or emails so they recognize your team and so forth.

Now, for hot leads, call within 48 to 72 hours. I mean, As quick as possible. Offer a warm, friendly touchpoint and a clear call to book if they haven't booked yet. So that means if they signed up, they put their name, number, and you said, I will personally give you a call to get you on the schedule this week.

now's the time to call them. Be warm, friendly, and then get to the point. Just give them options. Don't say when are you available? No. Give them options one to two that they can schedule. Now, step five. Here's the big major part you wanna measure and optimize. This is gonna to be everything for you.

This is the difference between a random act of marketing and a repeatable system that builds wealth. Community events are only profitable if you can measure exactly what you gain from them. Identify what's working and scale it and eliminate what's not, and save time, energy, and money. track these metrics.

Every time without exception, you need to quantify both the top of funnel, that means leads and engagement, and the bottom of funnel appointments and production. Here's what to track. Okay? Leads collected. So total number of new contacts. Who gave you permission to follow up? That means emails, phones, or booked

Both Total and source. So if they were booked at the event, track it. If they were warm, they gave you the info, track it. If they were only raffles, track it. Like I said, you can use Cares Stack or Orx their forms that you can use directly on iPads or if you want, you can sync Google Forms to your CRM, right?

But tag the event source. So these leads are trackable in future campaigns as well. So that's number one. Leads collected, track it, two appointments booked. Number of appointments scheduled on the day and within the following seven days. So breakdown by onsite bookings, maybe let's just say it was 20 post event bookings via email or text message.

And then you wanna track the show rates. Why this matters. This is your true conversion rate. Don't just measure interest. Measure action. Like I tell you before, your practice management software, they may let you segment by source and measure, show rate versus no shows and then revenue generated.

Now this is within 60 days total treatment, accepted and paid from patients who came from the event. You don't want to wait six months to evaluate ROI look at hygiene visits, emergency treatment, accepted whitening, or ortho starts, and follow up family bookings. Set up event lead as a referral source in your practice management software, and then run a report after 60 days with that filter.

Right now, cost per lead, the formula is total event costs, plus number of quality leads. So example is, let's just say the booth fee was $400. Materials is $300, the total 700, but leads collected was 105. Cost per leads are $6 and 67 cents.

Why this matters? It helps you compare this event's efficiency against others. Other things as marketing such as ads, mailers, et cetera. Sometimes you don't have to, majority of the time, I wanna say at least like 80 something percent, you don't have to pay for a boothymaterials, you're gonna get them anyways to hygiene kit in the ground marketing course.

I show you exactly how to do all of this just with hygiene kits. Your cost is super low. What I just said right now, the example the booth V $400 materials 300, that's a lot higher. That's a lot higher than I've, ever really done. But we're taking it there because I want you to see the potential.

five is return on investment, right? So the formula for the ROI is revenue minus cost. Divided by cost. So the example is revenue generated is $4,000. The cost was $700, like the example we said. So 4,000 minus 700 divided by 700 equals 4.7. So 470% was the ROI. Now this matters because you'll know exactly which events to repeat, which to drop, and which to scale with confidence.

Not every event is gonna be a banger. Some events are gonna be like, okay, you know what? We did get a good amount. It's good to, for us to continue that, you know, every quarter and some events are gonna say, oh my gosh, we have to do more. We have to invest more. And that, that we've gotten an incredible amount.

Let's back them up. Let's see if we can create our own event with them. And then some events are absolutely fantastic, but they only host 'em once a year, right? Like employee benefits fairs or school events and things like that. But at least you know it's fantastic.

The ROI is great and you're locked in for years and years to come. Tool options, right? You can collect these leads with an iPad, Google Forms or Cares Stack, right? Appointment tracking, like I said, you can use. Your practice management software, if you're looking for a new one, like I said, cares Stack and nor sponsors our podcast.

So definitely check them out. You get an exclusive discount, and you can check 'em out for free too. Revenue by Source. You want to collect reports right on your practice management software, the metric ROI tracking. You wanna use custom Google Sheets or Airtable or just a way to collect the ROI and then dashboards.

You wanna have insights so you can do that with. Your practice management software. I know if you have Cares Stack, I think it's smartview. And then orx is Orx Insights. But you can utilize whatever practice management software you want to utilize,something that will help fantastically with the leads collected appointments booked, the revenue generated.

An easy way to track this you can use a software called CallRail. their new sponsor for the podcast. And they're fantastic at what they do. So for example, they have call tracking conversation intelligence. So they transcribe all your calls. And something I think is cool is they convert assist, so they convert leads with AI powered next steps.

Coaching and follow up messages. So they'll literally highlight, okay, they were looking for this is a trend we see that all the leads want in the community. Or maybe my tone wasn't the best or what I said, I fumbled here a little bit too much. And that's what caused them to be disengaged in the conversation on the phone or whatever.

Right? But primarily they track. lot of great things. So I would definitely use them when you can, not only to figure out how many leads are coming in, where they're coming in from, if they booked appointments, but at the same time see the conversation, see the trends and so forth. And then on top of that, you know, you can track everything else.

So if you want, you can check them out for 14 days for free. So what I would do is on your next event that you have coming up, enroll for the 14 days for free. Then after that in your debriefing meeting, okay, let's look at the hot leads, look at all the data generated from Call rail and see where you guys are.

if there's any cracks leaking, where you can glue them when it comes to answering the phones converting them, getting them in the practice and so forth. And how many leads came in. I mean, Call role makes it super easy. But definitely I'm gonna put a link in the show notes below if you wanna.

Check them out. They help with everything like that, with ROI, tracking, appointment, tracking leads, collection, even improving your front office skills and phones, right? So, Yeah, I do that. Check out CallRail or if you want, you can use Google Sheets or whatever practice management software, system you have, and try to, you know, maneuver it that way.

and the key is to debrief after every event. So within 24 to 48 hours of the event, gather your team for a 15 to 30 minute huddle.

This is where all the magic happens. This locks in wins, identifies flops and builds your repeatable event engine. Ask these seven questions. What worked extremely well? Not what worked. What worked extremely well? Scripts, offers, games. What got the most attention? Did the magnet, the messenger, the connector shine?

Who shined the most? what worked extremely well? Question number two is what flopped or fell flat? Was there a prize that wasn't exciting enough? Did anyone get confused about the offers? Three. Did people understand our messaging immediately or did we need to explain things over and over?

Four? Was there any downtime? Track the busy times or slow times, right? For future booth placements, sometimes it's a popping event. Where you decided to set up is not popping. It's not that good. It's in a dead spot of the event. So that's something to keep in mind. Was there any downtime? Five. What questions came up repeatedly from attendees?

This reveals content gaps you can fix with signage or handouts. Six. Did any tech or process slow us down? iPad glitches. QR codes didn't load. You know, you wanna fix that immediately. And then seven, how did each team member feel in their role? That's probably one of the most important because they're gonna be your main ones, right?

For this whole thing to be successful. So they have to feel super comfortable. And then you wanna build a post event template and you can use a format. Now we do have this format in the ground marketing course. It's for all our members. So if you're remember and you're listening, definitely go check out that format.

Download the post event template so you can use it, utilize it all the time. And go from there. If you're not part of the ground marketing course, definitely enroll. I'd love to see you in there. You can go in the show notes below. It's the first link in the show notes below, and you can check out everything that's inside of the course and we continue to add to it all the time.

But you wanna continue to do this, track it. Do a post event huddle, repeatable growth engine. That's what this is gonna be. Once you do this three to four times, you'll have a playbook of top performing offers. You'll have a refined booth strategy and a trained team that knows how to execute without micromanagement, and most importantly, you'll have a predictable new patient system.

Awesome. So if you have. Any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me on this. But the best way to reach out to me, especially with ground marketing, is being a member of the Ground Marketing course. You can go in the show notes below, click on the first link in the show notes below to check out more, and roll into the course and see everything we have to offer you.

And thank you so much for tuning in. I'm excited to see you in the course. And for the next episode. It's ground marketing at schools. What you need to know, we're gonna discuss how to approach schools and offer value to teachers and parents. Alright, thank you so much for tuning in.

We'll talk to you in the next episode.