I want to talk about warm leads vs. cold leads.
Warm patients vs. Cold patients.
Essentially, patients who are ALREADY interested in your services vs. those that do NOT KNOW about your services.
Why is this important for your practices marketing strategy? Because it should help you in prioritizing what kind of ads are more efficacious vs. those that are not.
You can obtain new patients 2 ways when it comes to advertising:
- Obtaining patients who are “warm” to your services. Basically, patients who are actively interested in your services.
- Obtaining patients who are “cold” to your services. They have no idea what it is that you do. You have to convince them that they need or could benefit from your services.
You obtain patients who are “warm” by making your practice EASILY found. Remember, patients are actively looking for these niche services. Men want testosterone replacement therapy. Women want BHRT pellets. Overweight people want to lose weight and have heard of semaglutide. Someone with a hangover wants an IV bag.
PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU! These are warm patients. These are hot leads. Therefore, make it as EASY as possible to find you. How is this done? Google My Business Listings, having an easily understandable website, improving your websites SEO, writing regular blog posts on your site, utilizing Google Search Ads, having great roadside signage, having regular hours with someone available to answer the phone, and being present in your community.
If you don’t have 80% of the above optimized, then you are actively making it more DIFFICULT for WARM LEADS to find you. Fix this. It should be your priority in terms of your practices marketing strategy.
Obtaining patients who are “cold” to your services can be difficult. Essentially, you are “cold calling” the world in hopes that you will find some customers. These patients do not know you exist. They do not know the services you provide are actually a “thing.” All they know is that they have a certain problem in their life that is affecting the quality of their life and they could use some help.
You get in front of the eyes of these patients by sending out advertisements to your target market. These can be social media ads, Google ads, print ads, billboards, radio ads, and so forth. Basically, you are sending a message out to the world and hope you find someone interested. It is like casting a fishing line into a pond and hoping you get some bites and eventually reel in a few keepers.
The trick with “cold calling” the world is identifying the PROBLEM in your patient’s life, stating that problem in your ad, and delivering a SOLUTION to that problem through the SERVICE you offer. This is CRITICALLY important folks. An ad that just says “Hormone Replacement Therapy” doesn’t mean anything to someone who doesn’t know what it is, what problems it can fix, and what the benefits are.
So, if you are not describing the above in your cold ads that you are broadcasting out to the world, then you need to fix this as it will make your advertising efforts more effective. It will help turn cold leads into warm leads!
Ensure you understand the difference between potential warm patients and cold patients and how they fit into your practices marketing strategy. In my opinion, your focus should be on obtaining as many warm leads as you can because those people are already interested in your services and are willing to pay for them. You do this by making yourself EASILY found. Converting a cold lead can be difficult, but converting a warm lead is a PIECE OF CAKE!
