Integral or Fizzle: Is Your Website Just Another Gadget In Your Office?

Your office purchases more equipment and services every year. Some of these end up becoming an integral part of the practice, while others languish in a corner taking up space (physically or metaphorically), serving only as a reminder of a portion of your budget that fizzled. Which category would you say that your website falls into? If you’re like the vast majority of practices, you purchased a website because you saw some potential in the web, or you just figured that you were supposed to have one, but it never amounted to much of anything. As 2008 looms just over the horizon, now is the perfect time to take action to turn your fizzling website into an integral, contributing part of your practice.

Promoting Your Website

When you initially purchased your website, the person or company who built it for you probably didn’t have your overall business goals in mind. The design company was focused exclusively on the construction of the website and when it was completed, they turned the keys over to you and moved on to the next customer. After that, not much happened with the site unless you promoted it.

If you’ve invested in LASIK to any extent (i.e. purchased a laser, trained in the procedure, hired staff, etc.), it’s highly likely that you are marketing that part of your practice to some extent because you want to see that investment come to fruition in the form of patients walking in the door. The marketing makes that happen more so than the overhead that enables LASIK to be performed in the practice. So it is with a website: building the site itself is only the first step in implementing a web marketing strategy. Anyone who has spent money on radio or television advertising will tell you that while creating the commercial wasn’t cheap, the real expense of the advertising came in buying the media time. The same holds true for a website. You have to promote your site and budget for the additional expense beyond the initial investment.

There are a number of methods of promoting a website. You can of course promote it through traditional marketing by adding your domain name to the tag lines of your television, radio and print ads, but many practices don’t have the marketing budget to spend on those mediums.

Search engine marketing has become the most logical method for promoting a website, largely because the search engines are native to the web. Unlike interruption advertising (ex. TV and radio), search engine marketing targets people who are actively interested in your marketing. The two most popular types of search engine marketing are organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. Both require a planned budget and careful consideration so that your web marketing dollars are spent wisely.

Regardless of which type of search engine marketing you pursue, it is important to establish a goal-based budget that takes into consideration the level of competition as well as the opportunity or demand for your services online in your area. Based on my company’s experience, depending on your goals for exposure (and consequently your return on investment: Minimal, Moderate, or Excellent and anywhere in between), your budget for web marketing will tend to fall into these brackets:

Small Markets (ex. Boise, Cedar Rapids, Macon)
Minimal:              $300 - $400/month
Moderate:          $500 - $700/month
Excellent:            $800 - $900/month

Medium Markets (ex, Raleigh, Cincinnati, Portland)
Minimal:              $600 - $800/month
Moderate:          $1,000 - $1,300/month
Excellent:            $1,500 - $2,100/month

Large Markets (ex. New York, Chicago, Dallas)
Minimal:              $1,100 - $1,300/month
Moderate:          $1,500 - $2,100/month
Excellent:            $2,500 - $3,000+/mo

Practices whose websites achieve excellent exposure on the search engines stand to see the best return on investment because websites on the first page of the search engines see more traffic. People don’t typically care to click to the fourth, third, or even the second page of search engine results.

Your Website Must Be Built To Convert

Getting people to your website is a challenge, but making their visit worthwhile will ultimately determine whether or not these visitors turn into emails or phone calls. People who visit your website are also visiting your competitors’ websites, so you have to make sure that your site is taking full advantage of every second that visitors spend on your site.

Arguably the most crucial part of the user experience is your content. People using the Internet to look for an ophthalmic practices have a question in their minds. It may be “How much does LASIK cost?” or, “What is ReSTOR?” You have to anticipate what kinds of questions people are asking as they pertain to your procedures and then be absolutely positive that you answer those questions, or at least give people enough information as an incentive to come in for a consultation. If your content is too brief or hard to navigate, people will leave your site and find another practice’s site that is more informative and easier to use.

It’s also important to prompt visitors to take action on your website. Don’t make the mistake of forcing users to fend for themselves. When people visit your house, you don’t typically leave them to their own devices to find a drink or food. You have to be a good host on your website too. That starts with user-friendly navigation buttons that clearly establish how to get to the different pages of your site. Don’t use “mystery meat navigation” like “Vision Solutions” when “Procedures” or “LASIK Info” would be more straightforward.

Beyond navigation, even more important is to create targeted calls-to-action. A call-to-action is like a traffic sign on your website that tells people about the most important features of your site. So, assuming that your most desired action for your visitors is to have them send you an email, you might create a call to action that says, “Free LASIK Consultation – Email Us Today!” and make sure that it is obviously clickable. Lastly, make it easy for people to find your phone number. Most often, people expect to see it in the upper right-hand corner of your site.

Your Website Needs Good Follow-Through

Let’s assume that you made all of the above changes. It would all be for nothing if you don’t have systems in place in your office to handle the leads that your website would generate. After cultivating these precious leads, it’s critical that you take the proper steps to convert them into patients. The first step in doing this is to understand that you’re actually selling LASIK and your other services, and that you’re selling to people who are being sold to by other practices as well. These prospective patients have almost certainly emailed other practices as well. I use the word “emailed” because you will always receive more emails than phone calls as a result of web marketing. The way that you follow-up on these emails will differ somewhat from how you follow-up with people who call you or walk in the door as a result of some other marketing medium.

When you get an email from the website, if you have a phone number for the prospective patient, always call first. It’s tempting to just hit ‘Reply’, but understand that the goal of emailing them would be to get them on the phone anyway, so don’t delay the process. Call first. Hopefully they’ll answer, but if they don’t, after leaving a voicemail, that’s when you reply to the email. Many doctors and administrators make the mistake of sending this reply:

Call our office to schedule a consultation. 555-555-5555

Jim

After spending potentially thousands of dollars to get this email from a potential LASIK patient, it’s ridiculous to send such a curt reply. Instead, you should send something more like:

Hello Jill,

Thank you for your email. You asked about how much LASIK costs. Our costs range from $X,000 - $Y,500, the cost depending on several factors. You may find in doing your shopping that we’re more expensive than some of the other area providers. This is because our practice isn’t focused on doing just as many LASIK surgeries as we can. We put more care and attention into your treatment and use only the highest quality technology. Ultimately, we can’t even be sure that you’re a candidate for LASIK surgery until we see you, but we can also give you a firm, all-inclusive quote once we understand your situation and your vision correction goals. Please call me at 555-555-5555 to schedule your FREE consultation. In the meantime, here are some links to more helpful information about our practice and about LASIK surgery:

http://www._______.com/aboutus.html
http://www._______.com/lasik.html
http://www._______.com/technology.html

Thanks again for your email. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jim Smith
Patient Coordinator for
Dr. Will Williamson
555-555-5555

That kind of email response shows personality and caring. In contrast, your competitors are likely sending out that brief, ineffective email response. You have the opportunity to differentiate your practice here at this critical time when the patient is selecting a provider. That’s why it is important to include links back to your website. When they click on them, they will be more likely to remember who you are and why they emailed you.

Timeliness is absolutely vital to successfully converting web-generated leads into patients. Call them as soon as you get the email and email them back immediately regardless of the outcome of the phone call.

By implementing these changes in how you approach web marketing, going beyond just tossing a website up and seeing what happens, you will find that the web is one of the most cost-effective means of generating new patients. Instead of just costing you money, your website will finally start earning its keep.