28 Jun
Medical marketing can often be considered as a set of strategies thrown haphazardly at a medical business and expect for it to start converting patients immediately. In reality, that is not the case. Medical marketing or marketing, in general, requires a carefully structured system that calculates and analyzes the potential of strategies and then the estimated conversion rates.
Creating such a system is medical marketing, in a nutshell. Lead generation or conversion requires a calculated plan to be successful. To create one, there is a system of protocols that must be administered to enable the medical marketing strategy to start working and begin generating leads.
This plan, funnel or system demonstrates the stages that a potential patient must go through to become a converted patient for a medical business. As a doctor and an owner of a medical business that thrives online, it is crucial for you to understand the funnel to create your marketing strategies, respectively.
What Is a Medical Marketing Funnel?
A medical marketing funnel refers to the stages that your potential patients go through to convert into your patient. This marketing funnel is often distributed in 4 stages, each representing the different marketing-conversion stage.
A marketing funnel won’t just assist you with understanding the central stages that convert leads, but it will also help you in earning more online income, increased patient traffic, better ROI, and overall, a better perspective of your medical business in terms of integral marketing.
How Does A Medical Marketing Funnel Work?
Many marketing experts regard a marketing funnel as subjective. However, generally, it is divided into 4 stages. Each stage assists with defining marketing strategies and how they will convert patients. The four stages go as:
Awareness — Stage One
This stage deals with the marketing strategies that center around getting the word about your medical business out there. Your potential patients can’t become your patients if they don’t even know about your medical services. During this stage, it is essential to have the marketing strategies set up that deal with acquainting your content or medical services with your leads. The marketing strategies for this stage are:
- Creating a strong landing page for your medical site.
- Sharing content and doing SMM to let the online traffic know about your medical services.
- Displaying medical infographics and first-rate visual content.
- Using paid ads to reach more patient traffic.
This stage’s objective is to get patients intrigued enough to dabble in your medical services and content. Once this is executed successfully, the next stages take care of lead conversion.
Engagement — Stage Two
After you have successfully integrated stage one for your medical business with your intended patient group and have gotten them to begin looking into your medical services, you need to draw them in and convert those interested individuals into solid patient leads.
Engagement mainly deals with strategies that work to show patients why your medical business is worth choosing from the many others online. You will need to develop trust with your patient crowd by offering some benefits that will carry them further down the marketing funnel.
This is considered a very crucial stage in marketing since almost 50% of patients will fall off the funnel if your marketing strategies in this stage aren’t strong enough. The marketing strategies in this stage mainly are:
- Displaying patient testimonials and reviews on your medical site.
- Show your social platform presence.
- Have interactive CTAs and features on your medical site.
- Offer a leeway of open communication.
- Sending newsletters via email marketing.
In the end, this stage holds the patients long enough for your lead conversion strategies to become active on them.
Conversion — Stage Three
Conversion is every medical marketer’s favorite word, and for good reason too since this is how your medical business survives. This is where all your marketing strategies pay off. This stage is the most tricky since it is very likely that your patients may choose to not pick your medical services at all. This is why SEO experts very carefully consider the strategies for this stage, which are:
- Use SEO optimization everywhere.
- Apply strong and relevant call-to-actions (CTAs).
- Use CRM methods.
- Offer discounts or special offers for first-time patients.
- Keep up a chain of communication.
Once you have integrated the above marketing strategies for this stage, you can count on patients to begin converting in no time. But your marketing funnel is not completed yet.
Advocacy — Stage Four
This stage is where many businesses may draw out thinking it is useless and a waste of money. However, stage four, advocacy is one of the most important parts of marketing since it deals with post-marketing. You have converted a patient successfully and they have used your medical services. But what are the chances that the patient may not choose to come back, again? The chances are very likely.
A medical marketing funnel deals with long-term marketing. With this stage, you will ensure that all your strategies will continue to pay off in the long run and you won’t have to start from scratch again. Some post-marketing tactics for this stage are:
- Follow-up calls or texts.
- Monthly if not weekly email notifications.
- Sending offers and deals.
- Reaching patients on social media to ask about their experience.
This is your medical marketing funnel, designed to keep converting patients for you as you continue to offer exceptional medical services.
What Are Some Key Benefits Of A Medical Marketing Funnel?
Creating a medical marketing funnel doesn’t just have singular benefits. It will act as a backbone for all your marketing endeavors. While creating and implementing each stage of your marketing channel, it’s essential to understand how each stage benefits you, in the long term. The essential benefits of a medical marketing funnel are:
- Increased potential of all lead generation strategies.
- Gives valuable insight into each marketing stage and how it affects the lead generation of your medical business.
- Customizable and permeable which saves time.
- Creates a fortified value around your medical business.
- Strengthen all other marketing aspects
- Less chance of human error, since the funnel is AI-based.
While it may be impossible to see the benefits immediately, they certainly pay off in the long term.
Understanding Medical Marketing Funnels Is Crucial For Doctors
A medical marketing funnel is a necessary piece of the business expenditure and an essential requirement to create a medical spa marketing plan, at all. Creating a marketing funnel will have all your future and present marketing strategies covered in the long run.
