Are your patient leads not always of high quality?
This is a common problem in the healthcare industry.
Only 27% of leads are ready to use your business.
Whether your healthcare business has a sales team or not, patient leads that you receive are not always of high quality.
The problem with this is that you could be wasting time contacting patients that are not ready to use your hospital or your services. According to HubSpot that is a massive 73% of leads that are not ready.
I don’t know about you but I think that is a massive wasted opportunity.
This can be time consuming for you as the business owner, or your sales team, as you want to talk to people who are genuinely interested.
What are qualified patient leads?
When a potential patient visits your website, 95% of the time they are not ready to buy. A qualified lead is a lead who knows your business and they have visited your website more than once.
What makes them qualified is that they may have downloaded a whitepaper, ebook or read many of your great patient reviews on Facebook or your website.
They have shown an interest in your company and have read many of your blog posts. Your business is the one that has helped them research as to whether your services help them with their problems.
To them you are a thought leader so when they do reach out to you, they already know a lot about you and are 60% of the way ready to use you.
This is a qualified lead and when you or your sales team reach out to them they are much more ready to engage with you than someone who has just filled out your contact us form.
These are the patient leads that you will turn into patients at a much higher rate and are important in your healthcare marketing strategy.
Why are patient leads not all qualified?
When your potential patients visit your website, they are not yet ready to buy as they fit into three different stages.
Awareness: The patient knows that there is problem that needs fixed but doesn’t know what or who will solve it. So they research online to find the answers to their questions using search engines and social media websites.
Consideration: The patient has now determined from their research that they need a solution like yours. However they have not established who is best to help them.
Evaluation: Patients seeks out solutions like yours to find the best hospital or company to help them.
Qualified patient leads are at the evaluation stage as these leads are the ones that are ready to buy from you. If a patient lead is contacted at the awareness stage then they will be turned off by your sales speak as they are not ready to buy.
They want to discover the solution for themselves.
How to create qualified patient leads
To create qualified patient leads you first need to address the needs and wants of your prospecting patient at each of the three stages above.
To attract your patients at the awareness stage you need to understand the questions they ask when seeking answers to their problems.
You need to answer these questions on your blog.
Don’t have a blog?
Don’t worry, they are very easy to set up. It is here on your blog that you will attract the right kind of patients at the awareness stage. You then must nurture them to become a patient by being helpful and providing them with the information they need.
Once they have moved onto the consideration stage you then need to continue to nurture them until they move into the evaluation stage and become a qualified patient lead.
For more information on how do this effectively read our “Healthcare patient generation guide”.
Key take aways
You’ll spend less time chasing leads and more time nurturing them into qualified leads. You can do this by addressing their questions and pain points at each stage which will help them to make their buying decision.
Although you may have a sales process your patient won’t always follow it. They’ll jump in and out of different stages but if you are offering them the right content that is meaningful to them, and at the right time, then you will turn more prospecting patients into real patients.
This will show them that you are an authority in your industry as you are the one that understands their problems and how to solve them. This will mean your healthcare marketing will be much more succcessful.
Now it’s your turn
Do you think there is enough helpful information out there to help your patients? I would love to know in the comments below.
Source: 27% of leads are not ready.