As we continue to improve and expand on MyMedLeads features and services, we thought it would be a good idea to go over some of the current features you may not know about. Whether you’re new to MyMedLeads or you’re a seasoned user, it’s worth taking a look at the list below to ensure you are using your MyMedLeads account to its full potential.

1. Create call tracking phone numbers for each advertising source – do you want to track the effectiveness of a print ad, a landing page on your website or a radio/billboard ad? Simply click on Call Tracking and add a new number.
2. Send out patient forms with the click of a button – Store the most common email that you send out and add the patient forms to them. When a new patient is scheduled, simply clicking on Send Email and selecting your template will send out the forms via email.
3. Train new employees on phone management skills – Getting a new employee is always a time consuming task because of the time it takes to train them. If you turn on call tracking, MyMedLeads will record incoming calls. Find the top 10 calls and have them listen to examples of how they should sound and how they should answer.
4. Track your ROI on your marketing – Run ROI reports from an iPad or a desktop. Turn on ROI tracking and we can compare your expenses against your revenue. This will help you make smarter marketing decisions.
5. Automate your marketing – Did you know that you can create an email campaign for each major procedure or service you offer?  When an inquiry comes in, our system can automatically send a series of time released emails in English or Spanish to help market your practice to potential patients.
6. Followup with old leads – MyMedLeads makes it easy to view leads from previous weeks or months that have not become patients. We ensure that 100% of your leads are being followed up with.
7. Manage your online reputation – MyMedLeads captures patient reviews but did you know that we can also syndicate those reviews to review sites on the web?
8. Track Google Adwords –  Wether you manage your pay per click yourself or third party companies such as ReachLocal, Yodel etc.. manage them for you, we can track phone calls and form submissions.
9. Send text message reminders and maps to your patients – If you are using our Schedule Consult feature, a series of reminders are automatically sent to your patients. This feature helps drastically reduce no shows.
10. Track your progress – Our reports let you see the effectiveness of your advertising as well as your conversion rates, but it is important that you use the Schedule Consult button to ensure that your data is accurate. Feel free to contact us if you need assistance.

MyMedLeads is a tool used by hundreds of medical practices to  increase revenue from new patients while reducing advertising expenses:

1. Capture 100% of inquiries – Our tool tracks 100% of inquiries and helps your staff convert them into paying customers. Track form submissions, calls and referrals
2. Track ROI – Track the return on investment for any advertising source and eliminate expenses
3. Track Landing Pages – Track specific pages on your site to see if they delivery paying patients and not just leads
4. Reduce the response time on inquiries to your website – we put a stop watch to each lead that arrives from your website to ensure that leads are called promptly
5. Improve the efficacy of your front desk – MyMedLeads turns your employees into sales superstars to increase conversion rates
6. Increase revenue & profit for your practice – Less advertising expenses + more patients each month = more profit
7. Nurture leads until they are ready – not all inquiries turn into patients on day 1. That is why we offer automated email campaigns for each service or procedure you offer.
8. Market in English or Spanish – With a click of a checkbox, turn a nurturing email campaign to Spanish
9. Eliminate “No Shows” – We send maps to your office to each patient before a consult as well as reminders by email and text
10. Fill last minute cancellations – Send text message alerts to patients to fill open spots
11. Constant Followup – a lead must be called up to 4 to 5 times before giving up on it. Our tool ensures that this happens.
12. Activity Reports – Track your staffs daily performance and conversion rates from any online device
13. Outbound call tracking and recording – Our patent pending system can track the number of times a lead gets called and even record inbound and outbound calls
14. Listen to Calls – listen to how your staff sounds and use recordings to train others
15. Track your pay per click – Track which incoming leads are pay per click to ensure it is working for you financially
16. Track offline leads – we can issue tracking phone numbers (which you will own) that will forward to your office. That way you can track how patients are finding you.
17. 48 hour set up – We can have your practice running in 48 hours. We also provide a set of training videos on how to use our easy product
18. Manage leads from anywhere – Our web based tool allows you to manage leads from anywhere
19. Iphone and Ipad compatible – view activity reports while on vacation
20. Have peace of mind – Finally, have control that you deserve over your medical practice

Ready to register? Click here.

During times of economic downturn, most businesses are forced to re-examine each aspect of their business to determine where to make budget cuts to ensure their company remains profitable. Many times, when businesses begin searching for ways to reduce their spending during these difficult times, marketing and advertising budgets are often the first to land on the chopping block.

On paper, making cuts to marketing budgets during a dragging economy may appear to be the most rational and justifiable decision. Unfortunately though, for many businesses it can actually be a step in the wrong direction and can in fact do more harm than good. In reality, it is more often than not in a company’s best interest to increase their marketing efforts during such economic times. When leads are sparse and competition is tight, effective marketing can be the decisive factor on whether you eclipse or get edged by the competition.

The Challenge

Facing the aforementioned dilemma was a local, Austin-based Medical Spa. As consumers were coming to grips with a new, sobered economy, they too were forced to perform their own personal financial assessments to distinguish the necessities from the luxuries. Albeit, treatments like Botox injections have come to be viewed as a necessary investment to many individuals, at the end of the day, the field of medical aesthetics by and large falls into the “luxury healthcare sector”. This makes the cosmetic surgery industry a more vulnerable target when it comes to consumer spending cuts.

For this reason, the respective MedSpa (like many of their competitors) found themselves frequently meeting with managerial staff to revisit their spending budget. At these gatherings, as one might assume, at the top of the list for budget cuts were a number of the practice’s advertising expenditures. Included in this inventory was an advertising agency that the MedSpa had been using for about a year known as ReachLocal. With each fiscal meeting, ReachLocal managed to avoid getting the axe, while other marketing and lead generation services fell to the wayside.

Once the obvious budget cuts had been made upfront, when further financial adjustments were necessary, it was no longer as clear-cut which advertising expenditures were providing the least profit. With the system the MedSpa was currently using, tracking and assigning lead sources was fuzzy and ambiguous at best. Unable to effectively qualify and track ROI from leads being sent via ReachLocal, the doctor was on the verge of severing ties with the advertising service.

Solution

However, before eliminating any of their marketing services based on presumption alone, the practice decided to implement MyMedLeads.com into their lead management strategy. MyMedLeads.com is a tool that helps office staff more effectively manage, nurture and convert incoming leads. The system aims to streamline marketing efforts by using relationship-based strategies like nurturing and tailored email campaigns to directly market to leads. Additionally, the web-based software tracks every lead all the way from source to conversion, gathering important data like how many times the lead was called by staff members, how many emails they were sent as well as providing recordings of phone calls to help staff members refine and improve upon follow-up protocols.

Results

After integrating MyMedLeads into their lead-management program, the Austin MedSpa was able to successfully track and measure what leads were being sent from which sources. After the first quarter of 2011, the data revealed that ReachLocal had sent a total of 336 leads to the practice, resulting in $31,651.00 of revenue, with only $6,000 being spent on ReachLocal services. Therefore, the resulting ROI for ReachLocal for the 1st quarter came out to an impressive 427.5%. With these bulletproof numbers regarding revenue and measurable ROI, the practice was now better equipped to make well-informed decisions about future marketing investments. The data not only revealed how many leads each marketing vehicle was sending but the quality of these leads in terms of conversion rates. In the end, these figures were able to eliminate any lingering doubt surrounding the ROI for ReachLocal and prevented the doctor from making a potentially costly mistake by eliminating one of their practice’s biggest referrers.

Every time the phone rings in your office, the person on the other end of the line is a potential prospect in need of your services. The majority of prospects that come from referrals will schedule a consultation. However, as communication technologies evolve and the number of marketing channels continues to expand, an increasing number of callers are finding you online or through some form of offline advertising.

Studies show that for every 14 people that call your office, only 1 actually schedules a consultation. So, what happens to the other 13? The biggest problem lies in your practice management software, which was developed to manage patients, not “leads” or “prospects”. Your staff members primarily use this tool to only record the names and contact info of those who schedule. MyMedLeads offers an effective solution to this issue by automatically capturing the other 13 and implementing compelling marketing strategies to convert them into paying patients.

MyMedLeads is designed to streamline and effectively enhance relationships between your practice and potential patients. This customized software offers a variety of tools that help your staff manage incoming leads, drastically increase your patient conversion rate and measure your ROI.

The system works as follows:

• First, we assign unique tracking phone numbers to each of your separate advertising vehicles.

• When a call is made to your office, our system uses caller ID to collect the individual’s name and phone number, which is automatically entered into our web-based tool. A recording of the call is also saved for your staff’s convenience.

• Upon speaking with the prospect and obtaining their email address along with information about what procedure they are interested in, staff members can easily enter this data into the system.

• With this personalized information, MyMedLeads handles the marketing for you. Our system will automatically send these undecided prospects a series of procedure-specific emails, carefully crafted to extend dialogue and invite interaction with your practice.

The end result will be dramatically improved lead conversion rates and increased revenue for your practice. Want to learn more? Visit our main website to learn more about MyMedLeads or call (877) 701-6337.

We invite you to view our 2-minute demo that will show you how you can increase your profitability without spending more on advertising.

The Importance of Nurturing Interested Leads

In our last post, we discussed the differences between a lead and a prospect, and how your practice can benefit from distinguishing between the two.. Today, we’re going to focus on the next step – Lead Nurturing.

We’ve already learned that a lead is generally a person who hasn’t yet given your practice permission to interact with them. (i.e. purchased mailing lists). While a prospect is someone who has implicitly or explicitly expressed interest in your practice or services. A lead becomes a prospect when for example, they fill out the form on your website or call your office for more information. Many people are hesitant to fill out online forms with their contact information, because they don’t want to receive any calls or emails from the practice or company. This is actually a helpful thing for your purposes, because more often than not, this indicates that this visitor isn’t a good potential patient. There is nothing worse than spending excess time and money pursuing leads that have a very low likelihood of converting to a paying patient. It is much better to have fewer, higher-quality leads than scores of low-quality leads that end up being nothing more than a waste of time.

So you’ve got interested visitors on your website. They’ve filled out your form and given you permission to engage with them… So now what?

Studies have shown that 95% of your leads are unlikely to result in any revenue in the short term and should instead be the focus of marketing rather than sales, who will instead need to be focusing on the other 5% that represent immediate opportunity. More of your marketing efforts should be spent on lead nurturing as opposed to generating new leads. Lead nurturing is all about having consistent and meaningful contact with these viable prospects regardless of their timing to buy. Your lead nurturing program is a relationship-building tool, which helps positions you as a trusted authority in your industry or field of practice. Ultimately, your objective is to build solid relationships with these potential patients by providing them with useful, relevant information.

One of the most effective methods for nurturing prospects is email marketing. Many practices, if they even utilize email-marketing campaigns at all, do so by sending out a newsletter or e-blast to their entire database at once. While newsletters have their place in your marketing plan, they are not sufficient for effectively nurturing leads. In fact, if you use the term “blast” at all when talking about your email campaign program, stop. Nobody wants to be blasted with anything, well, unless it’s money.

Think about how you feel when companies send you blast emails and mailers featuring non-personalized content that is completely irrelevant to you. These types of emails will send your prospects searching for the Unsubscribe link in no time. You want to avoid being that company at all costs. Fortunately for you and your practice, you have the data and tools to do so.

Your website form not only serves the purpose of obtaining potential patient’s contact information, but also functions to gather clues about these prospects that will help determine how you market to them individually. For instance, a 45-year-old man who indicates he is interested in receiving more information about Liposuction probably won’t be interested in the same content that a 25-year-old woman interested in breast augmentation is. You’ve already got the data, now it’s time to act on it. Use the info you are already collecting from potential patients and use it to convert them into paying patients faster and easier.

If done right, creating highly relevant and targeted email campaigns based on your prospect’s unique needs and interests will significantly increase your patient response and conversion rates. So how do you create effectively, targeted email campaigns? Check back for our next post where we will discuss best practices for generating successful email campaigns that convert your prospects to patients.

MyMedLeads is a lead management system that sends out automated emails campaigns to prospects that have not scheduled consultations. It also creates followup lists for your staff so that you are staying in contact with 100% of your leads thus increasing your conversion rate. For more information, visit our website.

How Your Practice Can Better Target Potential Patients

We understand that for many plastic surgeons, doctors and those new to the sales and marketing landscape, the terminology and marketing jargon can be a bit confusing and overwhelming at first. Today we’re going to discuss a point of confusion for many – Prospect vs. Lead. Many people use terms like marketing, prospecting and lead generation interchangeably, which is fine most of the time, when they’re discussing the big picture. However, as we move further along in the sales cycle and begin the process of refining a large volume of leads to identify those most likely to convert to a paying patient, differentiating between the two becomes much more crucial. At this point, uncertainty about the distinction between these two terms can have a dramatic impact on your ability to connect with new patients and subsequent capacity to generate the revenue necessary to facilitate continuous, steady growth of your business.

Practices that have mastered the fine art of lead generation and prospect nurturing continue to thrive and prosper, even during challenging economic times. Even if you’re still a novice to the whole sales and marketing game, you’ve likely heard of the sales cycle. The sales cycle refers to the flow a potential prospect (or in this case patient) takes from first contact to the moment when that prospect finally converts to an actual paying patient. There is much debate over how long the sales cycle should be, but the truth is, there is no one size fits all answer to this question. There are a number of different variables that can shape the sales cycle for an individual practice. Depending on your personal medical field, market and patient base, your sales cycle can last a day, months or even years in some cases. As a general rule of thumb however, most practices should aim to create a sales cycle that is as efficient as possible. Moving prospects through the sales cycle quickly and effectively means more patients are being delivered to you and thus more revenue. Basically, terms like lead and prospect help you to identify how far along consumers or patients are in this progression, and in turn what specific action you should take to move that individual closer to a paying patient.

So let’s start off by answering the question, what is a lead exactly? You’ve likely heard a myriad of meanings tacked onto this single term, and over the years the exact meaning has become so convoluted that even sales professionals themselves have trouble defining it. However, in its most intrinsic form, leads can be defined as follows.

A lead is typically an individual who has not yet given you permission to engage with them yet.

A prospect on the other hand, is a lead whose potential has been evaluated or “qualified” and deemed to be worth pursuing. Prospects are often referred to as ‘qualified’ or ‘interested leads’ as well.

The purpose of these two separate terms is to help you more effectively cultivate your leads in a targeted manner, as opposed to just blindly throwing money at marketing to see what sticks. Practices that do not bother to take the time to qualify their leads inevitably waste valuable time and money. Your medical practice may be generating tons of leads, but if your conversion rate is still low, then it is highly likely that your business is wasting too much time chasing unqualified leads. Many times, leads are nothing more than a name, email or address from someone who may have visited your site and filled out your online form. With these individuals, you often don’t have any indication as to their level of interest in your medical services. You don’t even know if the lead is actually a real person or simply bogus information given by an unqualified lead to keep from being put on your mailing list.

Prospects on the other hand are people who have shown genuine and tangible interest in your services. For a plastic surgeon, this could entail an individual who heard one of your radio ads and called your office to request more information about liposuction. Or someone who visited your website, filled out your form and requested specific information about breast augmentation. In this case, leads can then be more easily broken down into targeted audiences. With these segmented lists, your practice can now more carefully target these prospects with advertising tailored specifically to their wants and needs. Possessing a simple understanding of who you are targeting gives your practice a competitive advantage. With this unique information, you can create advertising messages that both educate the patient further on the procedure but also appeal and speak to the emotional motives of that person at the same time.

This process of engaging and interacting with a potential patient once you have identified their needs is referred to as a Nurturing Campaign or Drip campaign. This usually consists of a series of emails sent out to prospects over time, designed to educate, engage and offer incentive for the prospect to convert to a paying patient. These email campaigns also function to keep your practice’s name in front of the prospect as they continue through their research period. Be sure and check back later this week for our next blog post where we will be discussing best practices for nurturing leads and connecting with potential patients.