“My web leads suck!” Many of us have dealt with a situation like this, whether as the business owner, practice manager, or in our case, the agency helping to generate the leads.
There’s nothing more frustrating than hearing this because this phrase doesn’t really tell you anything. You need to dig into the “why” to really breakthrough the ambiguity with this statement.
What this comment really means is “my web leads aren’t converting into new patients.”
In this article, I’ll address four steps you can take to address a situation where you’re having success in generating leads but not converting them.
Step 1- Identify WHY They Suck
Where in the sales funnel are these leads getting stuck? Before you dive into the stage where the leads are getting stuck you need a breakdown of all your leads, either in your CRM or at least in a Google Doc or spreadsheet.
In a perfect world, this breakdown would show every phone lead and web form submission lead with the prospect’s name, email, phone, comments, landing page they entered the website on, and the source they came from. If you do not have this configured then you need to talk to Turbo because there’s no way to truly evaluate your leads unless you have this data.
Let’s dig into the most common roadblocks:
1) Can’t reach them by phone or email? The lead doesn’t answer your calls or return emails.
2) You can reach them but they’re not qualified? Could be they’re “looky loo’s” or “window shoppers.” They also may be interested in a procedure they may not be a good fit for.
For example, they’re carrying too much fat for CoolSculpting or liposuction. We have to be careful here because, on one hand, we don’t want to “diagnose” them over the phone and effectively disqualify them, but on the other hand, we don’t want to waste the doctor’s time with a consultation if the patient isn’t qualified.
3) No-shows for consultations? You’ve gotten past step 1 and step 2 and scheduled a consultation, then…they don’t show up.
This is extremely frustrating because the doctor, or another staff member, has blocked off time to meet with the patient and by not showing they’ve wasted your time.
4) Identify any commonality with your roadblocks. Are you unable to reach all of you Google Ads leads? Are your Real Self leads scheduling consultations and not showing up? Are your Facebook/Instagram leads not qualified?
This is why knowing the source of where all your leads came from, both from web form submissions and phone calls, is so important. You may have different roadblocks depending on the source of the lead, and this necessitates a unique gameplan for each roadblock.
Step 2- Identify HOW You Can Address Bottlenecks in the Followup
1) Can’t reach them – How’s your follow up? What’s your process? Do you automatically send an email? A text? A voicemail? That’s right, with the proper technology you can automate most of the followup, even send a “ghost voicemail” without it ever ringing to the prospect’s phone. If your process is to only make one call and send one email a day after you receive the lead, then your conversion rate for prospects to new patients will suffer.
2) Not qualified – How are you framing your calls to action? Do your web forms lead with “Ask a Question” or “Request a Consultation?” This is very important and often overlooked. The way you frame your call to action and web forms will help pre-qualify a patient, with each question serving as a “micro commitment” to the consultation.
Still, you can’t weed out everyone with your form alone. You might need to adjust your copy to reflect what an ideal candidate looks like, as well as possibly even list pricing. It’s very difficult to generate leads chock-full of window shoppers when you clearly state what your pricing is on your procedure pages.
I’m not necessarily advocating for listing your prices, but it’s definitely something to consider if many of your leads ask about price and then take no action. Highlighting your financing can also help overcome “sticker shock” prospects may have.
3) No-shows for consultations? – Are you charging for them? The patient needs some “skin in the game” to be held accountable.
Charging a $100 fee for each consultation, at least on the surgical side, is important. That fee can be applied to their procedure if they book.
You could even reimburse them if they don’t book, but the greater point is the prospect needs an incentive to not miss their consultation.
*Important note: Sometimes the problem isn’t simply no-shows. Many practices charge consultation fees and then have to deal with cancellations. If a prospect calls to cancel, follow these steps…
a) Immediately call and reschedule them
b) If you’re unable to reach them, ensure the prospect remains on your “callback list” until you can reschedule them
c) Continue to place value on the consultation in all follow-up conversations
Step 3- Implement Changes in Your Processes
Once you’ve identified the bottleneck it’s time to act. Adjust your processes so you have a new gameplan to follow.
The right software can make all the difference. That might mean automating part of your followup to new leads; imrove tracking existing leads and consultations with a quality CRM; and/or an easy-to-update website (like WordPress) to adjust content or web forms.
Better yet, a digital marketing partner can help take care of all of this for you!
Step 4- Re-evaluate
You’re following the new process and gathering new data. Great! Now you just need to stick to the plan so you can gather more data to then re-evaluate. Is your lead-to-consult ratio improving? If not, time to make more adjustments.
Depending on your lead volume, this may take two weeks or two months, possibly even longer. That said, working on your lead-to-consultation conversion rate is a never-ending battle.
As long as you’re testing different mediums for leads you’ll need to work on refining and fine-tuning your process. That’s what’s necessary to run a successful and thriving aesthetic practice.
What Are Your Goals?
As an aesthetic practice, your goal is to maximize the number of new procedures you’re performing every month. In theory, there is a maximum you and your staff can handle, and the only way to raise that limit is to hire more.
It’s important to set goals each month and quarter based on the number of procedures/surgeries you’d like performed (and subsequently, the revenue received from these procedures), but you’ll inevitably run into bottlenecks that have nothing to do with lead generation.
These bottlenecks are part of the lead-to-new patient funnel. The good news is they can be overcome by first recognizing the issue, then developing a gameplan, and lastly, taking action and measuring results. That’s how marketing and sales work.
Struggling Generating or Converting Leads?
If your practice is running into issues converting leads into consultations, or even just generating leads, we can help. To schedule a free Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) assessment simply leave us your info here or give TRBO a call at 877-673-7096 x2.
