Most consumers of healthcare begin their search for and comparison of healthcare providers online, typically through search. They often convert by contacting once they have finished their investigation.
Healthcare marketers are refining their channels to encourage more appointment requests in order to increase patient acquisition. To boost conversions, innovative teams are also customizing the caller experience.
The Online Phase of the Patient’s Healthcare Journey
- Google reports that 5% of all searches are on health. People all across the world use Google as a reliable source to identify providers and find out the answers to their health-related inquiries. Google is a source.
- Hospital websites receive 3 times more traffic from search than from non-search. The most common way for patients to find healthcare providers is by far online searches. A source is Google.
- Patients who made appointments for medical care performed 3 times as many searches as those who did not. Before making a decision, consumers analyze a wide range of healthcare providers as part of their research process. Google is a source.
- The most frequent users of search engines are people looking for information about physical therapists, nursing homes, and optometrists. Over 60% of users conduct searches prior to making an appointment in the majority of the major healthcare verticals. (Refer to LSA)
Online Reviews Play a Key Role in the Healthcare Purchase Process
- When evaluating healthcare services, 94% of patients use online reviews. Prospective patients might quickly learn about your practice by reading reviews. (Extract from Software Advice)
- Compared to personal recommendations, 84% of buyers trust online reviews more. For the purpose of attracting new patients, a solid review management approach is essential. According to Inc.
- Potential patients form opinions about your practice based on just 1-6 online reviews. A single negative review can turn away many potential patients. (RevLocal as a source)
- Consumers are dissatisfied with their healthcare experiences in 81% of cases. Encourage happy clients to post reviews, and make amends with unhappy clients, if necessary, to retain favorable evaluations. Prophet as a source
- In the foreseeable future, 43% of Millennials plan to change practices. Providing a first-rate experience to this group is crucial for patient retention as well as your review approach. SolutionReach is a source.
Healthcare marketers are spending more money on digital advertisements to attract new patients.
- Spending on healthcare advertising in the US rose by 11.5% in 2022. Spending on healthcare advertising is highest in the US. (Referral: eMarketer)
- A 10% increase in healthcare-related digital ad spending is anticipated in the US by 2023. According to experts, this trend will also last for the foreseeable future. (Referral: eMarketer)
- In 2021, healthcare digital ad spending for the first time surpassed healthcare TV ad spending. 46% of all healthcare advertising expenditures at the time went toward digital marketing for the industry. Zenith Media is the source.
Many healthcare consumers who conduct online research ultimately call
- The majority of doctor’s appointments—88%—are made over the phone. Because healthcare is individualized and confidential, prospective patients who do their research online prefer to call. People who are making appointments for medical care for themselves, their children, or other family members want to speak to a live person. (Provided by Sequence)
- Online scheduling accounts for 15.2.4% of doctor’s appointments. Many people find it difficult to enter in their personal medical information or the purpose for their appointment in an online form. Accenture as a source
- Consumers are more likely to call healthcare providers after conducting a search if they are looking for nursing homes, physical therapists, or chiropractors. Customers often go straight from web searches to phone conversations in many healthcare verticals. Discover more marketing data for senior care here. (Refer to LSA)
Increasing calls through marketing optimization has a significant financial potential
- This year, calls will have a $1 trillion impact on US consumer expenditure. Calls are frequently the most practical approach for clients to convert in our mobile-first era. (Source: Kelsey/BIA)
- When compared to web leads, phone calls generate 10 to 15 times more revenue. The most value conversions that healthcare marketers can generate are calls. You can calculate your overall ROI and make the necessary adjustments by tracking the calls generated by your healthcare advertisements. (Source: Kelsey/BIA)
- Calls convert 30% more quickly than online leads. The return on your investment in healthcare marketing is more rapid with calls. based on Forrester.
- The retention rate for telephone leads is 28% greater than that for online leads. Because callers are more dependable than web leads, generating calls from healthcare marketing initiatives is also more profitable in the long run. based on Forrester.
- Compared to other types of engagement, phone calls offer higher conversion rates and higher average order values (AOV), according to 45% of healthcare marketers. For healthcare providers, phone calls are frequently the most significant marketing conversions. based on Forrester
- According to 33% of healthcare providers, phone conversion rates have gone up by 25% or more during the past 12 months. Patients are not only contacting more often as a result of COVID-19, but they are also calling more intently to make an appointment for treatment. Due to COVID-19, many healthcare providers are seeing an increase in call volume as well as call value. based on Forrester.
- Inbound calls and phone conversations, according to 81% of healthcare marketers, are an important part of their company’s digital-first strategy. To understand their patients more fully and to better guide their efforts, healthcare marketers intend to use call data. based on Forrester.
- Insights from incoming calls and caller experiences may identify expensive blind spots in our organization, according to 24. 77% of healthcare marketers. Healthcare marketers can recruit more patients and improve patient experiences to keep them by using data from inbound calls. Based on Forrester.
Personalizing the caller experience is a strategy used by healthcare marketers to increase conversions.
- Eighty percent of clients claim that a business’s experiences are just as crucial as its goods and services. Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and healthcare marketers must exceed them if they want to attract new clients. Calls fall under this. (Referring to Salesforce)
- Over one bad customer service experience, 65% of consumers have broken up their relationship with a brand. Customers will leave you if you don’t offer a smooth caller experience. Digiday is a source.
- Phone conversations, according to 32% of customers, are the most annoying form of customer service. Healthcare marketers need to have information on each caller so they can respond to their needs promptly and effectively; simply answering incoming phone calls is not sufficient. (Reference: Aspect)
- Due to the enterprise-wide scaling of conversation intelligence, 41% of healthcare marketers have already offered or anticipate providing improved patient experiences. Healthcare marketers may improve ad targeting, segment email campaigns, provide individualized website experiences, and more with the help of conversation intelligence data. (Refer to Forrester)
- As a result of spreading conversation intelligence across the company, 41% of healthcare marketers have improved or anticipate improving patient acquisition and retention. You may better satisfy their demands and win their loyalty by customizing the experiences you give patients based on the information they provided during phone interactions. (Refer to Forrester)
What Can Healthcare Marketers Do to Increase Call Conversions, then?
- Facilitate calling from customers. This involves adding call extensions to Google advertising and making the action “call now” clickable on web pages.
- After a caller makes an appointment, you can follow them. You’ll gain a better understanding of how your digital marketing is resulting in calls thanks to this.
- the caller experience should be customized. An effortless, personalized experience that makes callers feel valued and known is crucial for converting them.
- Examine conversations to determine which agents or locations are best (and worst) at turning callers into patients. You can also find out how many calls each location fails to answer, whether long wait times lead to high call abandonment rates, whether the caller was a good lead, and whether they converted. Once you’ve done that, you may tweak your marketing as necessary and, if required, coach your agents.
- Get your martech tools to integrate call data. As a result, you’ll have a complete understanding of the patient experience and be able to more wisely use your resources.
- Use the right advertisements to reach past callers and lookalikes. Your callers offer a plethora of targeting information that you can use to find new consumers more successfully and retarget qualified calls based on whether or not they converted by making an appointment or purchasing something.
- Repeat after me: optimize, analyze. As soon as you begin receiving more calls, it’s crucial to scale your processes and test them frequently, while also fixing any problems that lower your ROI.
