There is no doubt that healthcare is spending big on digital advertising. According to Zenith’s research, there is going to be a 3.6% growth in healthcare advertising this year alone, bringing it totally to US$36bn. Hospital and solo practitioners across the globe are focusing on healthcare lead generation using different means.
Patient lead generation can be challenging at times. You don’t know where to start and how to build your path to extend your service to patients. To get success in this market segment you can’t only be a doctor but also know how to properly run your digital marketing campaigns for a hospital.
To get you started we are going to give you a small picture of how you can set up multiple marketing funnels to increase your patient’s inflow. Just a quick note some options might not be available in your country or you might have an alternative to things which will be mentioned in the article.
Medical Leads Generation For Doctors
The more the number of funnels you have, the greater the chances are for healthcare lead generation. Some of the Funnels are mentioned below which you quickly adopt to start generating medical leads.
Below is the example of how your medical leads generation would look like after using all the funnels mentioned above.
Website and AI chatbot
The primary focus for medical practice for generating leads online is through its website. It serves as one hub of information about your medical service. It serves multiple functions like
All the above-mentioned reasons should be enough to stress the importance of having a website for your medical practice or hospital. Your website will be your brand-building tool where you be posting testimonials of patients and posting new updates.
It will help new visitors for trusting the facility and making an informed choice. According to studies patients check online reviews before selecting their medical practitioners which is not surprising given that we live in a digital age.
One more important function to have on your website for healthcare lead generation is the ability for people to book appointments online. More than 40% would prefer to book an appointment through a website rather than calling the hospital front desk.
Websites are also a great way to capture the email address of your visitors by using popup. You can later send regular updates or blog articles, new offers or health checkup camps information to your audience and expect some conversion. It is a great way to keep your audience engaged in the long term.
Chatbots in healthcare lead generation
Chatbot technology in healthcare is improving the conversion rate. These self-learning chatbots are a great way to answer some of the beginner’s questions people have before consulting a doctor.
Not just that, but they can also help in making an appointment with patients. There are many chatbots in healthcare that you can install on the website which helps patients solving confusion and concerns through interactive communication.
Above mentioned are the things which you can use to generate and nurture the medical leads just through the website.
GMB Page (Google My Business)
GMB comes into picture when you have a physical location for your business. Your hospital or practice is at a physical location and this can be used to generate medical leads that are local in nature. Through GMB you can appear on Google Search and on Google Map.
You can make sure that whenever there is a local search by anyone looking for medical service in your area, your business listing can come up.
You can pick up your mobile device and search for a cardiac hospital and see what results Google Maps will show you. Some of the other features which can be used to generate medical leads are follow –
You can go through this guide to learn how to set up GMB for your Practice
Healthcare lead generation through Organic and Paid Media
This section is divided into 3 subsections.
Google and Facebook Ads For Lead generation
You probably have seen or clicked on a number of adds in your lifetime. Maybe you might even buy things from them. The sole purpose of paid advertising is to reach your audience without losing any time. You can set up Google and Facebook campaigns, set up multiple landing pages and start collection leads in your mailbox.
The main difference between a paid campaign on Google and Facebook ads vs organic (SEO of your website) is the “TIME TAKEN”. Where paid campaigns can deliver results fast and quick (Within hours) SEO will take time and effort.
We highly recommend that if you are going with Paid ads then please start working on your SEO plan at the same time as that will deliver higher results then paid. Also, you should hire a Paid advertising expert before jumping into Paid promotion as it is very easy to lose money without going in without proper planning.
SEO of a medical website
First thing first, medical leads from SEO will take time before yielding any results. SEO (Search engine optimization) is a process where you post articles and optimize them using keywords. There are multiple strategies that you can follow for SEO
The sole purpose of doing SEO is to generate meaningful traffic on your website. This traffic then will be converted into leads. You can also capture their email address using popups on the website. The long term strategies on SEO deliver great results and will be cheaper then Paid advertising.
CRO (Conversion rate optimization) tools also play an important role in SEO for maximum medical leads conversion. These CRO tools can identify areas that need improvement and help you achieve more conversion.
I WILL NOT BE COVERING SEO IN DETAIL HERE BUT IF YOU NEED THEN LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS SECTION AND I WILL POST A DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR SEO OF MEDICAL WEBSITES.
Social Media
Let nobody tell you any different that you can’t generate leads through social media. If you follow a social media calendar and focus on your audience’s needs then you will be able to generate some quality healthcare leads you to need to identify days and celebrate those days with images, videos, infographics, and testimonials.
The impact of social media for medical leads generation is presented by business2community
Focus on the following points to generate quality leads from social media
If you only need to stand different and catch your audience’s attention through social media and rest will take care of its own.
Facebook & GMB Comments
People often ignore comments made on their social media posts and the GMB page. They leave their phone numbers and other contact information in the comments section. You should develop a strategy to regularly check comments on your Facebook ads and review left on the GMB page.
They sure can make a difference in the long term and build a relation between you and your practice.
Practo and JustDial
These are local listing services where you can register your practice and start generating leads in return. Please note that each country has different services of local listing so please work with the most popular one in your country or area.
There are multiple benefits that you can reap from these listing. Some of them are listed below-
You can make a listing on as many as websites possible so that your funnel increases.
Let’s be honest we know people like to perform their research before they hit the doctor’s door. According to the study, Video content marketing is up and rising fast. Doctors and practitioners should not miss this opportunity on branding and creating subscribers base.
If you plan and push regular content on Youtube for a period of time, then you will be able to create and extracts leads from there too. Some of the video’s type you can start creating are following –
It will not only help create branding your hospital but an extra funnel to get medical leads.
Lead Nurturing
For nurturing any leads that come, you need to follow a set of rules. Here is the diagram explaining. Remember your whole goal is to get that lead to your front desk office.
As soon as you get your patient’s phone number or email address, you are supposed to send them a message or email. The message can contain links from your website about the condition they want to get treated or link to a page where they can see the information about the doctor.
Keeping in mind, that you need to send these links on the platform i.e text message / Im Message and Emails. Moreover, you can also send them a Book an appointment button link which they can use to get appointments directly. Always remember you need to send these things as soon as possible so that leads don’t lose their interest.
For this automation, you can use different CRM. These are some example of Dentist CRM or Optometry CRM
Here is the PDF guide for a complete guide for downloading