Top 3 Reasons Your Digital Patient Leads Are Worthless
Recently, I did some research on why so many healthcare providers are struggling to achieve full-value from their marketing efforts. What I discovered is that the majority of their digital patient leads are worthless.
Unless you have money to burn, keep reading to find out the top three reasons why.
On a Sunday at 10 p.m., I went to a hospital website, filled out a form for bariatric surgery, submitted it, got a generic email thanking me for my interest and that someone would contact me — I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Finally, five days (!) later at 4:15 p.m., I got a call from someone from the hospital while I was on the other line, so they left me a voicemail to call them back. I called back at 4:35 p.m., but it went right to voicemail. Why? Because they closed at 4:30 p.m. and they would be happy to return my call on Monday.
Well, that was pointless, no wonder why 79% of marketing leads NEVER convert.
Why? Because digital leads cool fast!
You have an hour or less to make first contact with a lead, and only 5 min or less to be likely to qualify the lead.
If I was a patient ready to change my life, the hospital was not ready for me. They missed an opportunity. And to put bluntly: They missed out on a lot of money.
Unfortunately, these missed opportunities happen a lot. Just look at these statistics:
Only 46 percent of organizations follow-up with digital leads in less than 24 hours.
It typically takes 44 hours for most digital leads to receive a phone call or email (and that’s too slow because the “hot zone” for lead conversion is five minutes or less).
And what’s more troublesome? 23 percent of organizations don’t even bother responding to digital leads.
The reality is that 78 percent of all leads go with the first organization to respond.
All this brings me to the point of this post:
Top 3 Reasons Why Your Digital Leads Are Worthless
You are not answering when patients call: With our clients, we see peak times for new leads and calls after traditional office hours. Unfortunately, many organizations do not have a plan to respond to these leads promptly (less than an hour) or accountability to make sure someone follows-up with the patient. That’s’ why our team is available when your patients need you most, and we track follow-up in minutes, not days. Our technology tracks every lead call, text and interaction to guarantee not only the timeliness, but also the quality of the interaction.
You are not following up enough: A typical sales cycle needs 9 to 13 touchpoints to be effective and convert the lead. Most organizations stop after one to two attempts. It’s common for a patient to delay or ignore their symptoms. That’s why we align our follow-up to meet the patient when and where they are. We contact the patient lead when they ask us to, no matter the time of day. We also keep attempting to reach them until we confirm they are no longer interested.
You are not nurturing or engaging with your leads: You don’t need to invest in a CRM to follow-up with patients. But you do need a plan to figure out how to engage and keep moving forward. During a long process, a lead needs one to two meaningful touchpoints every two weeks to stay warm. For some service lines there are multiple steps to convert and patients often have little follow-up outside of their appointments. Persistence and consistency are key, so that’s why our support model includes consistent touchpoints during the journey, providing education, resources and a friendly voice to see how they are feeling. A CRM alone can’t provide this level of support or care.
Don’t Have Money to Burn?
If you are not answering, following up or nurturing when a patient wants your services, why spend the marketing budget dollars? You can spend all the money you want on optimizing digital ads and hiring an ad firm to write stellar copy for your service line, but it all equals zero if you don’t have a plan.
You like many organizations, may realize you are not staffed or ready to optimize your lead-to-patient pathway with the systems, process and technology that it requires. That is where Care Sherpa can help. We start by helping you understand the effectiveness of your marketing and health of your current patient pipeline. From there, we can help you immediately improve with our highly trained sales team who provide concierge-level service to patient leads.
Curious to learn more?
We would be happy to offer you a free performance assessment so you can see how well your lead follow-up compares to other healthcare providers and best practices. Reach us at 615-733-4200 or tell us about your needs below and we will be in touch within a matter of minutes — not days.
Sources:
Response Audit, 2016
Harvard Business Review: The Short Life of Online Sales Leads
Why Companies Waste 71% Of Internet Leads- Jul 12, 2012, Ken Krogue
Lead Response Management Study http://www.leadresponsemanagement.org/lrm_study