Why don’t dental advertising representatives actually know what produces returns on marketing investment?
Because if they knew, they would not be working as advertising reps. They would be running direct response marketing operations of their own. The reality applies across the advertising sales industry. Reps are friendly, helpful, and well-meaning. Most are also genuinely interested in being useful to clients. What they typically lack is the operational expertise to evaluate which campaigns will produce return for any specific advertiser. Their training focuses on selling the inventory their publication or platform offers, not on testing what actually works. Their compensation structure rewards moving ad space, not optimizing client outcomes. When reps make claims about what works for dental practices, the claims are usually based on what other dental practices have bought, not on measured response data those advertisers actually achieved. Trusting an ad rep for marketing strategy is asking the wrong person. The practice owner should treat the rep as a vendor providing access to inventory, not as a marketing advisor. The strategy should come from the practice’s own DRM expertise or from outside consultants specifically focused on measured marketing performance.
If the answers you are finding here resonate with you, my team and I work with a small group of clients each year. The next step is a complimentary Discovery Consultation and Practice Review with Dr. McAnally.
