marketing funnel for doctors
The little known secret of funnel marketing to grow your practice
The little known secret of funnel marketing to grow your practice
Kris Borgraeve
November 10, 2021
Let’s start with the basics of sales funnels for doctors
Healthcare marketing funnel basics
- Try it free for one week!
- Do you want to try our new caramelised onion dip, Sir?
- Here’s your voucher for a free dessert on your birthday!
Sounds familiar? They are funnels in action. Here’s the simple summary if this were a marketing class: You make it easy for the prospect to take that simple first step. As soon as they say yes to the option they ‘enter’ your funnel. You now have their partial attention and sympathy and they are one step closer to the buying decision. By setting up the trial account, tasting the cracker-with-caramelised-onion in the shop, or pocketing the voucher and making a booking, you are in the funnel, whether you like it or not!
Funnels are a creation of the marketing industry, to overcome the horrible feeling that salespeople used to get, knocking on doors, offering the latest vacuum cleaner and feeling drained after having experienced refusal after refusal, one more brutal than the other.
Let’s now look at what a funnel can do for this very particular business that is your private health practice. Funnel marketing for doctors applies traditional marketing knowledge to the world of leading specialists or surgeons.
What type of growth do you want?
Getting more patients with a sales funnel
Yes, you can grow your patient numbers, or grow your work volume in a very specific area within the specialty area of your practice. Doing more of a specific subspecialty increases your status and that in itself is a valid reason to start applying funnel marketing. And yes, a funnel is a perfectly legit marketing technique that you can make fully compliant, ethically sound and extremely effective as long as you keep following the rules that apply in your jurisdiction.
Why? Because at its core, the funnel is exactly what the patient needs. Excuse me? I need an obstetrician because I’m pregnant. I need a surgeon because I have an ACL injury. As a patient, I was not looking for a funnel or any other utensil. Hear me out.
With any health concern, what we want is reliable expertise and how we choose our expert is based on trust, credibility and rapport. So what the patient is after, is validation, and it can come from a simple, easy experience: a taste of what it would be like if this person were to become your obstetrician, your orthopaedic or bariatric surgeon, or your fertility specialist.
Can you now see that – if we were able to apply this funnel logic to the private practice – it would bring the patient closer to that big decision? Because what we are doing is delivering an experience. An experience of being heard, a glimpse of connection and rapport. But how on earth are we going to do this? Let’s take an even closer look at funnel marketing for doctors.
What your funnel could look like
Examples of marketing funnel for doctors
I can hear you say: ‘Hold on Kris, you keep going on about this idea of funnel marketing for doctors and I still don’t understand how that could possibly become part of my marketing strategy!’
In essence, the funnel is a conversation and it can be built in a variety of ways:
- An invitation to take a simple test: Check a few boxes, give me some basic information, and I will give you some additional educational information. We keep this safe and we steer away from making it sound like general medical advice.
- An offer to send more detailed information: We ask the patient to provide their email or phone number and they get additional information. The email allows you to get in touch with them and send more information or ask them a question. The phone number makes it easy for your bubbly and charming receptionist to call this prospective patient and ask more questions. The relationship between your practice and this patient – who is about to choose a specialist – has started.
- An offer to get access to a unique video: You have your authority and personality and you are in a great position to offer a one-way video consultation. An educational video. A presentation. A webinar. You can call it whatever you want, you are in a position to offer a valuable video that has you talking. It clarifies something essential for your prospective patient and all they have to do to watch it is provide their name and email address and maybe answer one or two additional questions.
In weight loss surgery, the funnel explores body weight, BMI, and potentially what the patient has done so far to try and lose weight. In cosmetic surgery, the funnel dialogue explores specific self-esteem questions related to the surgery that is being considered. In obstetrics, the funnel questions probe for information about the patient’s preferences and values. Remember that this is not about asking people to fill out a complete new patient form and share their entire medical history. You want the patient to feel heard and acknowledged by a couple of questions, not overwhelmed.
Using video to convert visitors into patient leads
Video marketing funnel for doctors
Video is a failproof format to convert more. Research confirms that most people act quicker if video communication is involved, compared to the same message in copy they have to read. That is why we implement a video funnel for customers who want to increase their conversions. The video becomes an interactive tool and when the patient provides contact details, additional video content becomes available.
This powerful funnel tool converts a passive visitor into an active communication partner. You are now officially in a conversation. Let’s take a look at an example of a video funnel in action. And yes, it is perfectly safe to enter your details to try out the entire experience because what this funnel does is sign you up for our unique private practice newsletter.
Constant growth. Guaranteed results.
Medical sales funnel for growth
It takes knowledge of your patient’s journey to build an effective funnel. The conversation needs to be tailored to your specialty and it requires a balanced approach and a subtle level of engagement with the patient.
The outcomes are spectacular, to say the least. Some of these funnels generate multiple hot leads per day, increasing patient numbers in the most effective way. How is this possible? Because our customer not only has a customised funnel embedded in a highly visible website (check our articles on being visible and on SEO ranking factors to find out more), there is a unique and semi-automated system behind it.
The funnel triggers automated emails with a personal video message from the surgeon for example. That video creates rapport and a willingness to enter a few details. The funnel then triggers an email to the reception team, and someone will call the patient the same day to ask a few questions, to show compassion and to send out a welcoming vibe.
That is why these funnels are semi-automated lead-generation machines. They create constant growth while you – as the lead specialist – can focus on seeing patients.
Why not build your own success funnel?
High-converting sales funnel
- Tags: Marketing for doctors
