The Importance of Nurturing Interested Leads
In our last post, we discussed the differences between a lead and a prospect, and how your practice can benefit from distinguishing between the two.. Today, we’re going to focus on the next step – Lead Nurturing.
We’ve already learned that a lead is generally a person who hasn’t yet given your practice permission to interact with them. (i.e. purchased mailing lists). While a prospect is someone who has implicitly or explicitly expressed interest in your practice or services. A lead becomes a prospect when for example, they fill out the form on your website or call your office for more information. Many people are hesitant to fill out online forms with their contact information, because they don’t want to receive any calls or emails from the practice or company. This is actually a helpful thing for your purposes, because more often than not, this indicates that this visitor isn’t a good potential patient. There is nothing worse than spending excess time and money pursuing leads that have a very low likelihood of converting to a paying patient. It is much better to have fewer, higher-quality leads than scores of low-quality leads that end up being nothing more than a waste of time.
So you’ve got interested visitors on your website. They’ve filled out your form and given you permission to engage with them… So now what?
Studies have shown that 95% of your leads are unlikely to result in any revenue in the short term and should instead be the focus of marketing rather than sales, who will instead need to be focusing on the other 5% that represent immediate opportunity. More of your marketing efforts should be spent on lead nurturing as opposed to generating new leads. Lead nurturing is all about having consistent and meaningful contact with these viable prospects regardless of their timing to buy. Your lead nurturing program is a relationship-building tool, which helps positions you as a trusted authority in your industry or field of practice. Ultimately, your objective is to build solid relationships with these potential patients by providing them with useful, relevant information.
One of the most effective methods for nurturing prospects is email marketing. Many practices, if they even utilize email-marketing campaigns at all, do so by sending out a newsletter or e-blast to their entire database at once. While newsletters have their place in your marketing plan, they are not sufficient for effectively nurturing leads. In fact, if you use the term “blast” at all when talking about your email campaign program, stop. Nobody wants to be blasted with anything, well, unless it’s money.
Think about how you feel when companies send you blast emails and mailers featuring non-personalized content that is completely irrelevant to you. These types of emails will send your prospects searching for the Unsubscribe link in no time. You want to avoid being that company at all costs. Fortunately for you and your practice, you have the data and tools to do so.
Your website form not only serves the purpose of obtaining potential patient’s contact information, but also functions to gather clues about these prospects that will help determine how you market to them individually. For instance, a 45-year-old man who indicates he is interested in receiving more information about Liposuction probably won’t be interested in the same content that a 25-year-old woman interested in breast augmentation is. You’ve already got the data, now it’s time to act on it. Use the info you are already collecting from potential patients and use it to convert them into paying patients faster and easier.
If done right, creating highly relevant and targeted email campaigns based on your prospect’s unique needs and interests will significantly increase your patient response and conversion rates. So how do you create effectively, targeted email campaigns? Check back for our next post where we will discuss best practices for generating successful email campaigns that convert your prospects to patients.
MyMedLeads is a lead management system that sends out automated emails campaigns to prospects that have not scheduled consultations. It also creates followup lists for your staff so that you are staying in contact with 100% of your leads thus increasing your conversion rate. For more information, visit our website.