The healthcare industry is teeming with big players, amidst which it can be challenging to acquire leads. Although almost everyone becomes a consumer of healthcare products or services during their lifetime, not all companies are able to survive. One of the main factors that differentiate a thriving and struggling business in this industry, is its ability to generate leads.
In the healthcare industry, lead generation is not an easy task to perform. Leads should be carefully selected and targeted on the basis of their geographic location, demographics, psychographics and behavioural characteristics. With lead generation being the first step towards transforming prospective traffic to purchasing customers, designing an effective strategy is an important step for a healthcare business to prosper.
Importance of Lead Generation in Healthcare
Healthcare businesses must put in the effort to attract and convert leads. In this scenario, an effective lead generation strategy helps businesses connect with their potential customers and make way for profit. Therefore, these businesses need to create a marketing persona of their audience and design their lead generation strategy accordingly.
Lead generation can help healthcare businesses in multiple ways. Some of the major benefits that these businesses can acquire are the following:
- Increase in Revenue & Profit: A well-planned strategy not only attracts the target audience to a business but also turns leads into customers. In the long run, this increases the profit margin of the healthcare business and helps consolidate its position.
- Better ROI: Lead generation is part of the marketing strategy that contributes to a positive return on investment. Some healthcare entrepreneurs might find this technique an expensive affair, but in the long term, it squares the ROI by reducing other business costs.
- Enhance Customer Acquisition: A strategy that is designed considering the demographics and needs of the target audience brings desired customers to a healthcare business.
- Improve Brand Metrics: An effective lead generation strategy improves brand metrics and allows your company to connect with your audience in ways that enhance brand awareness, brand reputation, brand perception, and more.
Implementation of Lead Generation Strategy in Healthcare
To run a successful healthcare business and generate strong leads, it is important to embrace good marketing practices to create a great, profitable customer base. Here are a few of the most popular tactics that can bring valuable leads to a healthcare business:
Written Content
In today’s digital age, online users often resort to search engines to gather information about various healthcare products and services. Therefore, the written content published by your healthcare company plays a lead role in roping in visitors and converting them into customers. A blog or website with relevant, useful and actionable content helps guide customers towards your business. In the competitive healthcare market, optimizing the content with relevant information and keywords makes it easy for marketers to connect with the target audience.
Visual Content
Another thing to focus on is effective visuals such as images and videos that either demonstrate your product/service or discuss topics that your target audience is likely to be interested in. External stimuli such as sound, motion and human faces are often more effective than written content. Visuals published by your business are likely to draw the audience in and establish a rapport with them.
Social Media Marketing
To reap more profit, healthcare business owners and marketers need to consider promoting their business through the use of social media marketing. With popular social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, businesses can post organic free content or opt for paid advertisements.
Website Design
An attractive and accessible website can effectively make visitors stay for a longer duration, which increases the chances of lead conversion. It must be neat and presentable with the necessary information at hand and easy to locate. The landing page needs to be especially gripping and lead the way to the solution the visitor is looking for.
Search Engine Optimization
Another important marketing tool that helps a healthcare business gain more relevant traffic is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. SEO helps websites rank higher in search engines and thus enhances their visibility to the target audience.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an essential lead generation tactic. Marketers thus, need to compose the email content effectively and incorporate a call-to-action (CTA) in their promotional emails. Direct emails are a more personalized form of marketing and may resonate more with the user for that reason.
Online Reviews
Online reviews are a crucial way of attracting new customers and building trust amongst visitors. This technique is also effective at improving relations with existing patients. Healthcare providers should encourage patients to share their reviews on their website and similar customer review platforms.
Marketing Automation
In today’s times, with automation in place, conducting and tracking lead generation have become much easier. Online data is one of the most effective tools to analyze the target audience’s needs, preferences and choices, based on which you can optimize your lead generating strategy. Automation is essential for healthcare businesses looking to be more efficient and consistent, increase revenue, and collect important customer data.
Success Story
Quest Diagnostics is a clinical diagnostic service provider that generates leads through their killer content marketing strategy. They designed a strategy that focuses on both their consumers and business partners. Their warm and empathetic tone, along with storytelling art makes their content marketing more humane and less clinical. Featuring the real stories of their patients along with appealing, high-quality visuals, the company connects with leads in the best possible way and helps grow revenue.
This has helped the company consistently climb the ladder of success. It is no wonder that Quest Diagnostics ranked 277 on the Barron’s 500 ranking of top-performing large companies in 2017 and ranked on the Forbes 2019 Global 2000. It was also among Fortune Magazine’s 2020 World’s Most Admired Companies, for six years in a row.
Collaborating With Lead Generation Specialists
Lead generation is a cost-effective solution that not only helps healthcare businesses bring more relevant customers but also creates a strong identity in the market. However, to utilize the best channels and make the most out of this process, having the proper knowledge and experience is important. Learning the basics of lead generation may help healthcare businesses get new leads, but properly investing in your lead generation strategy and assets will certainly help attain the best long-term results.
