Mid Funnel Marketing: it’s the most neglected part of the process

Mid Funnel Marketing is the part of the sales process that everybody ignores.  Everybody tries to feed the top of the funnel, searching for prospects wherever they can, with wild “shotgun” advertising.  It’s the Wild West, trying to “lasso” anybody “with a pulse” who could be talked into buying from you.  The top of the funnel is where the money is spent, and that’s exciting.  In fact, businesses spend 94-96% of their marketing budget just trying to attract potential customers, and load them into the funnel.  That doesn’t leave much for the rest of the process.

The Bottom of the Funnel is where all the fun is: that’s where the money is made.  A few of the prospects who got shoveled into the top of the funnel are still there, and they’re ready to buy.  That’s when the cash register rings.

Mid Funnel Marketing is where the work is done.

Once a prospect shows any interest in your business, it’s time to show them how you can help them.  They’ve visited your website and they might be interested.  But shoppers are better prepared than ever, and will do their research online.  Once they have they’ll want more.  Many will pick up the phone and call you.

You need to be ready.  This is the crucial point of the sale where you can win.  Customers want answers that they didn’t get from your website.  Every time your phone rings, it’s a potential sale.  Are you ready?

You can be.  This isn’t “your first rodeo.”  You know your products and services, and you know what your customers need.  So be prepared with

• inside sales reps (or CSR’s) who know what to expect, and have the answers
• a strong knowledge of your products
• specific information that they can point callers to on your website, and
• testimonials from satisfied customer
• marketing messages on hold

Marketing Messages on hold

What are they?  They’re the informative messages that your callers can listen to when they wait for “the next available customer service representative” (while they wait in the “queue”), or while on hold when waiting for your salesperson.

Marketing Messages on hold are custom written and recorded to provide the key information that your prospects want when they’re in the middle of the sales funnel.  They have a specific job to do, and will make your CSR’s job easier.  Well written messages prompt the right questions, and start the right conversations that lead to sales.

Affordable marketing tool

Your business spends almost 96% of your marketing budget trying to attract prospects.  But what do you do to move them through the middle of the marketing funnel?

Find out more

Find out more about the affordable marketing messages that help your prospects become customers.  Click here for more information.

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Medical Practice Marketing in New Jersey Usually Misses the Point

Medical practice marketing in New Jersey is pretty predictable: “Acquire new patients” by building a better website, invest in SEO, and get noticed with Google Ads.  That can mean a large investment.  A basic website template can easily cost $2000 with $100 in monthly fees.  SEO usually runs you a minimum of $300/month, and your Pay Per Click bill increases with every click.

Yet research reveals that online conversion rates are about 2.51% for medical practices, so is your investment going to pay off?

There’s more to marketing than uncovering “one time” patients.

Medical Practice Marketing in New Jersey fails: here’s why

Most marketing consultants focus on their ability to bring new patients into your practice.  With claims of 10…25…50+ new patients a month, success is just a small investment away, right?

Not so fast.  Focusing your success on simply attracting new patients isn’t a long term plan for success.  Forrester Research shows that acquiring a new customer or patient is five times costlier than retaining an existing one.  The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70 percent, whereas the probability of selling to a new customer is 5 to 20%.

Where does your current success come from?

The answer is simple:  Did you know that 55 to 70 percent of your appointments are with long term loyal patients, in spite of your investment in attracting new patients in New Jersey?

These patients demonstrate their loyalty (and value) to your practice every day.  They already “know, like, and trust” you, and they’re most open to your suggestions about added ways you can help them.

Increasing practice revenue

Some of the best strategies for increasing your medical practice’s revenue don’t have anything to do with attracting new patients.  Simple ideas include:

• Make your practice more welcoming with training for your front desk
• Offer patient-friendly experience: a clean, well-lit waiting room, free Wi-Fi, and good reading materials
• Don’t play the local news on a waiting-room TV. You can’t control the content. https://informermessages.com/waiting-room-tv/
• Compete on your strong points: quality and personal service beat low prices
• Participate in community events
• Expand your medical services
• Partner with local causes and groups
• Add “cash” services that may not be insurance covered products or services

Let your loyal patients know about these and other new ideas at every opportunity.

One tool that puts wasted opportunities to use is Informer Messages on hold.  Informer messages give patients who call your practice information every time they have to wait on hold (According to AT&T research, 69% of your calls are asked to “please hold.”)  Why not tell your patients about new ways that you can help them, added specialties, and profitable expanded offerings.  Inform them about community activity and office amenities that will make their visit more pleasant.

Click here to find out how Informer Messages work

Your practice’s success depends on a lot more that attracting new patients. It depends on your loyal patients who will be with you for the long term.

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Patient Acquisition for Urgent Cares often misses the point

Patient Acquisition for Urgent Care practices is a “top priority” for clinics across the U.S.  But attracting new patients in a competitive market can quickly become an “arms race” trying to outspend the competition, and it can also miss the point.

Patient Acquisition is only the first step

There are over 10,000 Urgent Care Centers in the US.  Industry-dominating players like CVS Minute Clinics already control over 55% of the retail health industry and is converting over 1000 of their locations into urgent-care providers.  Urgent Care facilities face explosive competitive factors for new patients.  Most Urgent Cares rely on a steady flow of new patients for their survival, but it may be time to look back to lessons from a more traditional model.

With increased competition, the cost to acquire new patient continues to rise, with an average “cost per click” for Google Ads of over $5, and a patient acquisition cost of $18 to $27 in many areas across the US.

The Urgent Care Association (UCA) Industry News regularly presents Industry Perspectives focused on Patient Acquisition Rate, with a combination of new and traditional marketing expenditures to attract patients.  But acquiring patients is just the first (expensive) step. The long term payback of your investment comes from patient retention.

It costs less to retain a patient

Industry statistics show that new patient acquisition is 6 to 7 times more expensive than patient retention.  Retaining a patient immediately translates bottom-line profitability.

There are many tried and true ways to retain patients

• Improve the office experience
• Minimize wait times
• Communicate with patients on an ongoing basis
• Build relationships
• Help patients in additional ways

The overall patient experience, from check-in, to waiting time, to communicating (both during the visit and afterwards) is directly related to patient satisfaction and their interest in continuing the relationship.  Once that is achieved, try something new, like…

Helping patient in additional ways.

The top reasons for patients to visit an Urgent Care are:

1. Bites and Stings
2. Ear Infections
3. Tests
4. Urinary Tract Infections
5. Sore Throat

But you do far more than that.  Today there’s COVID-19 Testing, Flu Shots, School and Immigration Physicals, Stitches, and ongoing family care, all at a convenient time and place.

How to promote your additional services

Every day your phone rings.  Prospective patients call with questions about location, hours, insurance, test results and more.  According to AT&T research, up to 69% of those phone calls are placed on hold.  Your callers are probably stuck listening to  the default “music on hold” that came with your phone system.

Why not use that time to educate callers?

Informer Messages on hold replace music on hold with information about your Urgent Care: building your professional reputation, educating callers about your “additional” services, and reinforcing the value of these services.

Did you know that most of your patients know about less than half of the services your provide?

Patient Retention depends on

• Patients knowing how you can help them
• A quality patient experience and reason to return

If they don’t know, they don’t have a reason to come back.  Inform them.  With Informer Messages on hold.

Click here to find out how they work for other Urgent Cares, and can work for you.

For answers to your questions, call to speak with an Urgent Care Marketing Pro: call (800) 862-8896 today.  Or email us by clicking here.

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Reopening more successfully in Connecticut: crucial step to take

Reopening more successfully.  Have you been worried about how to reopen your business in Connecticut?  You can do it.
How?

Customers throughout Connecticut have been eager to get back to “normal,” but after staying at home for so long, they’re hesitant.  They’re not sure of the risks, or if the businesses they once loved are safe.

Reopening more successfully includes educating your customers

You can reassure your customers.

In the past few weeks we’ve created Informer messages on hold that

• give callers information about the steps that businesses are taking to safeguard customers’ health
• reassure customers that their safety is the first priority
• remind customers about all the best reasons to visit

Lots of different businesses face the same challenge: customers aren’t sure if it’s safe.

The CDC and other agencies have published extensive guidelines for businesses that should safeguard customers’ health.  The effort and expense that you’re undertaking are a part of doing business in “the new normal.”

Do customers know what you’re doing?

Cleaning, sanitizing, social distancing, wearing PPE, your business is working hard to protect your customers.  But if they don’t know, they can’t appreciate it.  So tell them.

Informer Messages on hold deliver your message to everyone who calls.  Informer professional greetings make your phone greeting a marketing tool, efficiently answering phone calls while including key information.  Every phone call is answered exactly as planned, with the same high quality.

What steps are you taking?

Your customers in Greenwich, Stamford and Norwalk want to come back.  They’ve been loyal for years, so relieve their fears.  Show the that you’re following CDC protocols to provide the very best in safety.  That’s helpful to them, and helps you stand apart from the competition.

Don’t overlook the opportunity

You can reassure your customers, and attract new consumers when you keep them informed about the steps that you’re taking to safeguard their health.  Let us show you how others in your industry as well as other industries have succeeded in informing there telephone callers, with Informer Messages on hold.  Call us today: In Fairfield County call (203) 655-3920.  In Hartford, New Haven, and throughout Connecticut/The US call (800) 862-8896

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Hold Messaging can make your business sound more professional

Hold messaging gives you an opportunity that you’ve been looking for. When do you get the chance to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time?   That’s why hold messaging is so successful, for companies from Fortune 500’s to small private companies.  It works for companies like yours in New York or Connecticut that realize that callers get placed on hold.

#Holdhappens.  But you can transform hold time into a valuable an interesting experience, for your business, and for your caller.  Here’s how.

Hold Messaging is an opportunity

Consumers call you every day.  And every call is a call for help.  Do you have what they need?  Can you solve their problem?  How soon can you deliver?

Today’s marketing starts online: it’s how we all collect information.  If you’re not online, your potential customers aren’t going to find you.  We all do our basic Google research. But when it’s time to spend money, we want more.  We don’t settle for pretty website pages.

Your customers do the same thing.  How often does your phone ring every day?  Busy offices like your receive phone calls throughout the day.

• Some businesses use an “automated attendant” to answer them. Calls are put in “queue” (line) to be answered by “the next available representative.”  That time is usually spent listening to music (and it’s never your favorite).
• Others answer calls personally. That’s great.  But many callers are still asked to wait on hold. According to AT&T research, up to 69% of them.

What do your callers hear on hold?

When your callers have to wait on hold, even for a short while, they can get bored, or frustrated, or just hang up.  What do your callers hear on hold?  Music on hold?  Silence?

Why not give callers something they want?

Think about your callers: what do they ask when they call you?  Why not start to answer their questions, while at the same time showing them how you have the answers they need, and that you’re their best choice? You can do it, with custom written messages on hold.  On hold messages can be your newest marketing tool giving

• new prospects the best reasons to work with you and not your competition
• existing customers ideas about more of the ways that you can help them, including your most profitable products and services.

Find out how we help others in your industry:

                 

Find how how easy it can be to give your callers…your current and future customers more information by clicking here.

Call or email us for information about the marketing messages that will help you sound more professional.  In Connecticut call (203) 655-3920.  In New York call (212) 355-6980.  Nationwide you can reach us at (800) 862-8896.

 

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Reopening a business after COVID-19? What to tell customers

Reopening a business after COVID-19 is your opportunity to get back to work, welcome customers, and start making up for lost time.  You’re investing a lot in this reopening, so here’s a tip can help you make it successful.

We’ve all been closed, or partially shut down since March.  That’s strained your financial resources to the limit.  If you’re lucky enough to have the capital to reopen your doors, you may only have one shot at getting it right.  Do it wrong and your business may not survive.

Reopening a business after COVID must be well thought out.

You can find hundreds of tips for disinfecting, protecting, and social distancing that are necessary to both get back to business, but keep consumers safe.  The CDC has a long list of guidelines and the US Chamber of Commerce has a complete “Reopening Guide”

Customers won’t come back

But no matter how good a job you do, and how safe you keep your customers, they won’t come back without a good reason.  Why?

• 3 months of social distancing has broken old habits, so you have to win over your customers again.
• Even your most loyal customers are hesitant, and unsure about their safety.

Just this weekend we talked with friends.  They were having pizza for dinner, and we talked about several of our town’s pizzerias.  Sure, they used to have a favorite that they’d order from every weekend, but now they were “shopping.”  Their loyalty had disappeared.

Dominos, the world’s largest pizza chain, isn’t taking chances.  They’re advertising heavily.  They’re introducing new products.  They’ve got lots of “deals.”

They’re giving long time customers and new “shoppers” reasons to order.

What about hesitant consumers?

We’ve all worked hard to self-isolate, and stay safe during the pandemic.  We’re starting to relax, but we’re still hesitant.  Consumers want to know what steps you’re taking to ensure their safety.  Some simple steps that businesses are taking are:

• Phone and online ordering
• Touchless payment
• Curbside takeaway
• Touchless delivery
• Sanitizing
• Enforcing social distancing
• Enforcing face masks
• Changing traffic flow in retail stores
• Safe habits signage

These changes are simple but each is an investment of time and money that will add up.

Do your customers know how much you’re doing?

You can do everything perfectly, and consumers will still be hesitant.  So what can you do?  Simple: tell them.  Tell them in every way you can, and every time you’re in contact.  Dominos announced that your pizza is “contactless” from the moment it goes into the oven, but you can’t mount a national advertising campaign.

What you can do:

• Signage that reinforces safety
• Send Post Cards with a special offer and educating consumers about the steps you’re taking
• Email blasts to your “opt in” list
• Talk about everything you’re doing on social media. Include photos where possible
• Messages on hold that reinforce your efforts to safeguard consumers health

All those efforts may be wasted if your customers don’t know how you’re protecting them.  So tell them, and make your #reopening a success.

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Security System Marketing: how to beat the big guys

Security System Marketing is an uphill battle competing against industry giants like specialists ADT, Brinks, and Johnson Controls, and “smart home” supplier Vivint.  But if your Security company is going to compete, it’s time to come up with a marketing plan that takes advantage of what makes you different.

Security System Marketing isn’t just lots of advertising

We’ve all seen the alarm system ads on TV.  Again and again.  Every alarm company’s message is so similar that most consumers can tell them apart.  And that can work to your advantage.  Unlike Apple (ranked #4 in Consumer Loyalty) or McDonalds (ranked #7), most of us don’t see much difference between Walmart or Target, between Costco or Kroger or Walmart.

So as ADT spends $100 million in national advertising, they convince more consumers that they need a security system.  But only about 5% of homeowners choose the market leader.  The other 95% are yours for the taking.

How to compete against big business

The big guys have advantages, but so do you.  As a matter of fact, the bigger they are, the bigger their problems are!

1. You’re nimble.  You can “turn on a dime” and innovate any time you want.
2. You know your customers, and they know you.
3. You know your employees, so you have the chance to provide the best service
4. You can target your marketing

Here’s what we mean.

1. How long does it take to make a decision at a Fortune 500 Company?  With all those layers of bureaucracy, different departments and warring factions, mega companies have a well-earned reputation for moving like elephants.  You have the absolute advantage: no multi-levels of decision making.  When you see an opportunity you can take it.
   Try new things: many won’t work, but some will.  Try a donation to a silent auction.  Try sponsoring a kids team.  Try joining a homeowner’s association.
2. You know your customers and they know you.  Your kids go to school and play sports with them.  You go to church with them.  They’re your next door neighbors.  And gaining a few of them as customers makes a big difference at a small business.  A few customers are nothing to the Big Guys.|
   So use that advantage: get to know people.  Talk with them about their homes, and about your neighborhood.  Keep your company’s sign showing in front of your house.  Join local organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and BNI.  Tell family and friends about your website.
3. Big companies need lots of employees.  They can’t be as choosy as you can.  You’ve got to work side by side with them every day.  Make sure that everyone in your company knows that they’re in marketing.  Train your techs to make the most of each visit: that’s a marketing opportunity: for customer loyalty, and for recommendations to neighbors.
4. Target your marketing for each stage of the sales funnel: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.  When a Fortune 500 tries something new it takes weeks or months of approvals, and thousands (or more) dollars.  You can target your street, your PTO, your pool club, or Main Street.  Guerrilla Marketing techniques were invented for the small guy.
   So use this advantage: first make sure of your image: you may be small but sound more professional, from the first moment a customer or prospect calls you, to how you treat them on the phone.  Make sure your business card is professionally designed and printed.  Leave professional marketing materials (including brochures, pens, magnets, etc.) at every sales or service call.  Try Nextdoor.com.  Become a security expert, and a source of information for you town.  Get a “car wrap” promoting your company and drive it…to the supermarket, to drop your kids at school, to the supermarket…everywhere.

More Ideas that help Alarm Companies Grow

These are just a few Security System Marketing ideas.  For more, read the book “Guerrilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson (this classic has been updated many times, so look for the one that will help you best).

You will have to compete with some basic marketing tools, but don’t worry.  You can show your customer that you’re just a professional with a simple but professional website.  Then use all your small company advantages to get Google Reviews showing your local fan base!

 

ADT is a Trademark of ADT Inc., and is not affiiated with The Informer in any way

 

 

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