How could you increase your patient numbers by 12% to 36%?

Up to 90% of people will visit your website before contacting you!

Hubspot Marketing 2014

98% of those people won’t contact you the first time they visit your website!

eConsultancy 2014

People will visit on average 3 websites before making a decision!

Research from ConversionXL 2014

How can you capture your website visitors the first time and is it worth it?

Let’s look at the financials:

What would a 1% to 3% increase in patients per month mean to your practice?

That’s a 12% – 36% difference to your practice’s revenue at the end on the year!

So where do most medical practice websites go wrong?

Firstly – Your website must portray your practice in the best light by highlighting your strengths and services. This sounds easy, but few medical practices do it well.

Most practices either do not differentiate themselves from the competition down the road and/or do not push their strengths well.

So what space do most practices sit in?

Most practices say they give great service and/or competitive prices! But when I ask them to elaborate, most practices soon realise they are no different from the practice down the road.

And if you’re no different from the practice down the road, why should potential patients choose you and keep coming back?

Trying to differentiate on service and price is extremely difficult unless you can deliver. Given the medical industry trends of:

• Increasing cost to deliver healthcare
• Rise in patients shopping around for their healthcare
• Increasing patient demands

View medical industry research and trends in 2015.

Needless to say it’s extremely difficult to operate in this space given rising costs and other contributing market forces.

So how do you portray your practice in the best light?

At your next meeting put 15-20 minutes aside to map out website improvements. Have the team discuss:

• What are your practice strengths? (Remember – Price and service does not differentiate you)
• What are your individual doctor strengths?
• What medical areas do you specialise in?
• Do you use the latest techniques?
• How do you keep up with medical innovations?
• How long have you been in business?
• How many people visit your practice per year?
• What medical associations do you belong to?
• What do you do in your spare time?
• What charities do you support?
• What team/s do you support?
• What awards have you won?

Include logos of the institutions you studied at and organisations you belong to. These items build trust in the eyes of your potential patients and help to make the patient doctor connection. Pick out the best to highlight on your website.

So, how could you increase your patient numbers by 12% to 36%?

What’s the next step to highlighting your practice’s strengths?

To find out what could best set you apart from your competition is to marry your strengths with the needs of your patients.

What do your patients value the most?

This will be different for every practice. Find out what the top 5 patient responses are and see where your practice sits in relation to these items. If you don’t know what your patients value the most, ask them – Run a survey for a few weeks. Incorporate these messages strategically into your website.

Some practices I have helped develop a unique offering such as:

We see 98% of our patients on time….

or

If you have an urgent need to see a doctor, we’ll fit you in immediately!

Some practices ensure their waiting room is an extremely pleasant place to be!
(Comfortable seats, well lit, kids area, water fountain etc.)

Secondly – Your website does not effectively capture its current traffic!

90% of practices only provide general information on their website.

Jupiter Research 2014

So, you spend a your marketing dollar sending people to your website for more information…..and you don’t have a facility to capture them.

I see this a lot – It’s a waste of your advertising dollars.

Practices will have magazine and newspaper ads, online banner ads, Google advertising pay-per-click (PPC) ads and landing pages and pour money and time into search engine optimisation and at the end of the day their website is not designed to capture their website traffic.

Yes, you will convert some of them but converting 1%-3% more per month is the 12% to 36% difference at the end of the year that will make a big difference to your practice.

Most practices have the opportunity to capture upwards of 5% more patients per month if this next step is done correctly:

That’s a 60% increase in patient revenue per year!

So how do you capture potential patients who visit your website?

Bottom line is you need to offer something that’s different and very valuable to your target patients. This will vary depending on what your practice specialises in. A great start is putting together a frequently asked questions document about your services.

For example if you are a plastic surgeon you could put together a white paper that outlines everything a patient needs to know about your plastic surgery procedures.

You could pack it with great information including:

• Step by guide of the process
• Useful statistics
• Frequently asked questions
• Ballpark costs
• Some previous procedure before and after shots
• Potential risks and mitigations
• Highlight your expertise throughout the white paper

Sign them up!

In order to receive this valuable information they have to sign up to your email database to be automatically sent the white paper? I hear you say:

“Asking a patient to register their details may put them off….”

Yes, some people may be put off. That’s life.

But if you do it well and ensure your white paper is valuable then a large number of people will sign up to receive it. These patients are the ones that are serious about your services.

Great practices have 7 sales funnels that keep patients flowing into their business

Your website is the first of the sales funnels that you need get right. I see practices so often spending money on a number of different advertising mediums, pushing potential patients to their website and not having a facility on their website to capture their details.

Here’s a great example (I do this through a workshop with most of my clients – An example is in the link below the numbered bullet points):

This is a proven formula I use to capture a potential prospects details who visits my website:

You must be valuable to your target audience – My target audience is practice managers, practice owners and business development managers. Through my research I know to develop a white paper that has:

1. Headline that will really capture their attention… It’s about solving their problems
2. Sub-headline that really connects with them to compel them to read on
3. Outline who the white paper is for…
4. List how they could benefit from your white paper – List the benefits in bullet points
5. Make sure you highlight the value your white paper provides – Include: 
   1. Facts
   2. Recommendations
   3. Checklists to help them know what they should be looking for
6. Include the topics covered from the contents page and have an easy to sign up feature that will automatically email out the white paper they can download.

See a real live example of this at work – Visit 10 features your website must have to improve income and patient care.

Your white paper should be the focal point of your website.

All your website traffic must be driven to this page and it must be so to compelling that they would be silly not to sign up to receive it!

What benefits does your practice receive from this process:

Now you have a sign up feature on your website that:

No.1 – Captures their details so you can follow them up

No.2 – Your white paper will build trust in their eyes and set you up as the expert in your field

It should leave no doubt in the patients mind that you are the go-to medical practice for your services.

No.3 – You can measure the take up rate and see how successful it is

No.4 – You can tweak it to improve and look to increase your conversion rate

No.5 – Once you have the successful formula you can tailor it to a number of different procedures you offer

No.6 – It’s an automated process, so it saves you time in your marketing efforts

No.7 – It’s flexible so you can send a number of personalised follow up emails that compel patients to contact you.

This is the first of the 7 sales funnels that drive patients into your practice.

The second should be your email marketing campaigns. This will not be covered in this blog post. Let me know if you would like me to cover it in the future.

We’ve now covered the two most important parts of your website…

These two parts:

1. Highlighting your practice strengths and finding out what patients value

2. Capturing the potential patients that visit your website

If your website does not have these two features, you’re wasting your marketing dollars. Let me know if you would like to know more about your sales funnels and how you can set them up to keep a steady stream of patients flowing into your business.

This is an international blog and I am happy to field questions from all over the world and offer my services and expertise in this area.

I hope you enjoyed this post – “How could you increase your patient numbers by 12% to 36%?”