Investing in Client Continuing Education Pays Off in the Long Run

Sponsoring continuing education programs can have a significant impact on client retention and acquisition, customer engagement, cross selling and business growth. I advise laboratories to look at continuing education as an investment in marketing rather than as a short-term profit center.

If you're overly concerned about charging enough tuition to cover your costs, you might limit the attendance. If you try to recoup the cost of a program from tuition, you're making a profit center calculation.

However, if you look at the program as a marketing expense and measure the investment return, you may be able to charge tuition that doesn't cover your costs, but entice more dentists. With this approach, you may "lose" money on the event in the short term, but you'll be counting on the investment paying off in the future.
Here's a specific example from a laboratory I worked with on a continuing education program....