Marketing qualified leads (MQL) are important to many businesses as they allow them to track interested website visitors. Traditionally, an MQL is someone who has intentionally engaged with your brand and left their information somewhere on your business platform. This can be done by:

• Voluntarily submitting contact information on your site.
• Opting into a program.
• Downloading materials.

As you can see, there are various ways in which MQLs tie themselves to your business. These are considered promising leads who are curious about your product or service. The problem is that they may need a slight push to decide to follow through and do business with you. This is why you track these leads and plan to pitch. Then, you can turn them into Sales Qualified Leads (SQL’s) and eventually into paid customers.

To get a solid idea of how to approach this, here is a guide to turning your Marketing Qualified Leads into further leads, specifically for those in the medical field, including doctor’s offices and medical practices. 

Use Your Buyer Personas as a Starting Point

It’s important to know your target audience. Understand your target buyer personas regarding attributes as well as their buying cycle can help convert more leads. Determining demographic qualification factors helps, too. Select factors that are well represented in your current customer base. Characteristics commonly used are:

• Industry
• Company Size
• Location
• The Buyer’s Role

In regard to a medical practice, another effective way to determine buyer personas is by interviewing your current patients. Understand their likes and dislikes based on your products and services – leading you to start your marketing with the right information for ideas. 

Create Valuable SEO Content

What is the first thing you do when you need to find information about a product or service you have in mind? You turn to Google for the answer. 

Why is this so popular? Because you know that there you’ll find an abundance of valuable content. You know that your question will be answered by a Google search – and this is exactly what you need the website from your doctor’s office to do. Future patients need to be able to find you and implementing SEO driven content steers you towards the front page of Google (or other search engines) and increases your number of qualified leads. 

Monitor Traffic Per Month

Now that you are in the process of producing frequent content to drive visitors to your site, it’s worth knowing that most web visitors aren’t inclined to buy-in the first time they come to your site. It’s important to fill your funnel so you can evaluate your website visitors and move them closer to lead conversion.

User Indicators to look at are:

• Search engine rankings.
• Increased page views.
• Decrease in bounce rates.
• Web traffic increases.
• Shares on social media.

By having this metric in front of you, you can now calculate the amount of web traffic needed to create your marketing qualified leads.

Marketing Email Clicks

Your marketing email automation system is another great way to determine your MQL’s. With this system comes a ton of behavioral data you can analyze. Using marketing email tracking statistics, you can identify the people who are engaging with your content.

Try to ignore the email opens as they’re not indicative of engagement. That said, if a person clicks on an email link, you could consider this as a logical interest of your practice.

Many medical practices turn to email marketing to enhance their number of leads. It’s one of the best tactics used, currently and historically. Yet, the success of this tactic boils down to how you draft your message within these emails. Your email needs to capture the reader’s attention, provide relevant information, spark interest, and offer an effective call-to-action. If you write a compelling subject line, this hooks your reader and encourages them to continue reading your email. This certainly determines whether your potential patient becomes a vital part of your business. 

You’ve Determined MQL’s. Now What?

The number one thing you need to do at this point is to keep your business in front of them.

It’s common for people to wait long periods before they eventually purchase something or schedule a consultation. Sometimes they need plenty of information to make that decision. Other times, it might be about their budget or insurance so they need time to save up.

The best action to take is to flaunt your brand where they can see you. Don’t overdo it – just make sure you remain in their psyche so they do not forget about you. Otherwise, they might look elsewhere when they are finally ready to make a commitment.

When it comes to your medical practice, you need to keep the information about your services known. It’s all about why new patients should choose your practice above others in your area so it’s important to stay visible. Offering free white papers and eBooks is an effective method to create contact information and incorporate SEO. According to healthcare marketing experts, this is the best way to add something of value to your potential patients. They’ll give you their respect time, loyalty, and most importantly, their business.  

Reporting Metrics

Reporting on your MQL’s is another action you need to take. These reports should include:

• Number of MQL’s: Go by a time-period (day, week, month)
• Sources: Determine which sources have the best conversion rates.
• Sales Conversion: This is where you look back and determine which sources convert the most leads to MQL’s.

From MQL’s to SQL’s

At some point, you give up on your MQL and send them to the process of SQL. In business, the main importance is sales. So, if you have a lead who hasn’t purchased anything from your brand but remains on your radar, more action needs to be taken to get them to convert.

Ultimately, it’s important to focus on how both MQLs and SQLs become revenue. To analyze your conversions, you need a strong relationship between sales and marketing. Knowing your target market and how it behaves helps you pinpoint which leads need to be nurtured and who is ready for a sales call.

With your medical office, generating high-quality leads is an essential step toward growing your practice. The more prospects fall into your sales funnel, the more leads you generate and the more paying clients you gain. That said, to attract good leads, you have to look in the right place. The more active you are in the process, the more success you gain.