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Author: Iulian Nițulescu

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How to Increase Healthcare Marketing ROI and Decreased Cost Per Patient

Healthcare marketing

How Call Tracking Drives Your ROI and Cuts Costs

As a healthcare marketing expert, you’ll likely employ a number of solutions to get your clients in front of potential patients. But how do you know which of these solutions will work the best?

This is where call tracking comes in. Tracking and analyzing calls made by prospective patients will let you know which marketing methods are the most effective. It will also help you better understand the customer experience. This will clear up any potential confusion and let you easily and accurately optimize your marketing strategy.

Why Use Call Tracking?

A study by Google and Kantar Media shows that even though a vast majority of patients use the Internet when researching healthcare options, 56% of them will use a phonecall to schedule an appointment. This makes the telephone one of the most important tools in a healthcare marketer’s arsenal.

Because of this, it is essential to know where the potential patients found your company’s phone number. This can be an important indicator of which part of your marketing campaign is driving the most conversions. Thanks to this information, you will be able to allocate your marketing resources more effectively and thus improve your return of investment.

The Benefits of Call Tracking

As we mentioned above, one of the main benefits of call tracking is the ability to accurately gauge where the calls from patients are coming from.

As a part of a comprehensive marketing strategy, you are likely to place ads for a healthcare provider on a variety of marketing platforms. Each one of these ads will have a varying degree of effectiveness and will drive conversions at a different rate.

Having the ability to determine which of these ads drive the most conversions and which are underperforming will help you better manage your marketing budget. You can go into even more detail by tracking which keywords attract the most calls and use this information to better target your audience.

One of the main reasons such a high number of patients choose to schedule appointments by phone and not online is the chance to interact with another human being. When choosing a healthcare provider, patients are likely to have many questions. It can be reassuring to have someone at the other end of the line who can answer them.

Call tracking can help improve this aspect of healthcare marketing too. Most call tracking solutions are able to automatically record and transcribe calls. These transcripts can provide further insight into the advertising channels that attract the most patients. They will also help you evaluate how well your current call handling protocol works at converting calls to sales.

Integrating Call Tracking

By now you know how useful call tracking can be for optimizing your marketing strategy. All we need to do now is find out how to integrate call tracking into our marketing and sales.

Easier Calls Lead to More Sales

Before you start using call tracking, you’ll need to make sure you are fully prepared. This means having a call tracking solution to gather and analyze call data.

First, you’ll want to make sure that the appropriate phone number or ‘call us’ button is prominently displayed in your ad. This will make it far simpler for a patient to contact your company, cutting out unnecessary research.

Second, if you are using vanity numbers, you will also need to include the full numerical form so that the patients can quickly select and call the number from a mobile device.

Dynamic Numbers Give You Better Insight

Dynamic numbers refer to the practice of having a separate phone number for each online source that can lead visitors to your website. Once the visitor makes the call, the number they used is sent to Google Analytics. This way you know exactly where each call came from.

By using dynamic numbers with a call tracking system, you can easily find out which online marketing platform is bringing in the most calls. This kind of insight can prove invaluable when deciding how to allocate your marketing budget.

You can take this a step further by using dynamic numbers to track keywords. This is fairly easy to do with targeted Google Ads, and it will let you know which particular keywords drive the most sales. The added benefit is that you can also use these keywords later as a part of your SEO strategy.

Tying It All Together

Now that you have your dynamic numbers and call tracking in place, it’s time to integrate these elements with the tools in your marketing arsenal. This way, you’ll get a comprehensive and holistic overview of the patient’s experience that you can use to drive your marketing decisions. You will also be able to better reach your audience with well-placed targeted ads, leading to even more potential patients.

Conclusion

With all the competition in the healthcare industry and the large sums spent on marketing, it’s more important than ever to get a leg up over the competition. Call tracking can give you that essential edge that will help you craft a comprehensive marketing strategy and make sure your patients have the best customer experience possible.

Photo credits: People vector created by katemangostar - www.freepik.com
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How to Improve Your Return on Investment (ROI) Using Call Tracking

return on investment (ROI)

How to Improve Your Return on Investment Using Call Tracking?

All marketers and business owners know that the most important metrics for any business is “return on investment” (ROI). They also know that calculating ROI is very difficult, especially with digital advertising. Or at least, it was until call tracking was invented. 😉

Call tracking can help you measure the return on investment of your ads as well as streamline and improve your marketing efforts. 

But before we dive deep into how call tracking does that, we need to establish what exactly is call tracking.

What is call tracking?

When you talk to a sales or a customer care person in some business and they ask you “How did you hear about us?” – that’s basically call tracking. 

Call tracking is the process of measuring the impact and effectiveness of marketing efforts (usually online) trough offline conversions (phone calls).

Today, most businesses rely on emails, chats, and social media to get inquiries from potential customers. Measuring conversions that come from these channels is easy. However, some businesses still rely on phone calls to close deals. Measuring conversions that come from phone calls is a bit difficult. I’m sure we can all agree that simply asking all potential customers “How did you hear about us?” isn’t effective – and that’s before you take into account the sheer number of phone calls some businesses get every day, as someone would have to write down all the phone numbers and the channels they came from.

That’s why call tracking is so good – it automates the entire process, and you know from which online source the call came from, down to each visitor.

How do you optimize your call channels?

To get the maximum benefits of call tracking, you need to optimize all your call channels so that they collect data properly.

First, you need to make sure your business listings are consistent – all of them should have your name, address, and phone number. You have to this consistently at all levels, starting from Google My Business, Yelp, and all the way to other websites that potential customers are able to see. Of course, you need to make sure that the phone number listed is a tracking phone number that forwards to your main phone number. A call tracking tool like INVOX can do that.

Other than your digital marketing channels, you need to make sure that your offline marketing channels are still tracked. We’re talking about TV and radio ads, billboards, newspaper ads, signage, and company vehicles all of which can bring in a significant number of leads. Identifying which of these channels has the largest impact tells you which one is the most effective and helps you maximize your ROI.

How do you calculate ROI with call tracking?

If you accurately attribute each lead back to the campaign that was responsible for generating that lead, you can precisely estimate how much revenue each campaign generates.

This will help you calculate real ROI. By having a complete view of all the leads your marketing efforts have generated – this includes online and offline efforts – you’ll be able to identify which of your channels are most profitable and which of your channels should be discontinued.

Calculating the ROI of your marketing efforts can be done even more easily if you integrate your call tracking software with your CRM platform. And if inbound phone calls are an important part of your sales journey, then it’s imperative that you do integrate your call tracking and CRM platforms.

How does calculating ROI help my marketing efforts?

Whether you are a marketing agency or you have an in-house marketing department or you even do marketing on your own, calculating the true ROI can help you determine which campaigns are successful and which are not. By tracking your calls, you can be sure that there are no missing data from potential customers that managed to bypass your website tracker and called directly.

All of this data can then be used to adjust your marketing campaigns based on the one true performance indicator – lead generation. If people aren’t picking up the phone and you’re sure they saw your Facebook ad, you need to adjust the ads to make sure people do ring your phone. Also, if you see that people are calling you because of a Google ad you did, make sure you continue with the ad, as it’s most likely going to generate even more leads and potential business.

Conclusion

A call tracking platform helps you track and manage inbound calls to your business more effectively. With insights that can’t be found anywhere else, like your caller’s behavior and demographics, you’ll be able to make smarter, data-driven decisions that will optimize your marketing campaigns. 

Each call that goes through a call tracking platform has all the information about your potential customers and the general target audience. Call tracking platforms can be integrated with other marketing, business, and analytics solutions like Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, various CRMs and ERPs which allows you to have access to the most advanced metrics that will help you control your ad bids and spend and at the same time empower your PPC decisions while improving the overall customer experience. 

About INVOX

INVOX is a call tracking software that gathers valuable behavioral and demographic phone call data that helps you make better data-driven decisions about your marketing efforts, no matter the marketing channel the calls are coming from.

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Google Ads Call Tracking – Track Calls Back to the Keyword

Google Ads phone call conversion tracking

Researches show that in 2019, calls to business from smartphones are predicted to reach nearly 162 billion, which is a 73% increase from 2015. Even without the data, we all know that phone calls are the main factor in converting for a lot of businesses. 

However, it can be challenging to measure exactly how many calls were made because of an online marketing campaign. That’s why call tracking was invented. 

Call tracking is the process of measuring offline conversions (phone calls) from online ads.

Did you know that 43% of all search-related conversions happen over the phone? That’s a huge percentage of phone calls that are uncounted for without call tracking. Most marketers say that their top priority with paid search ads is getting people to call the business.

Call tracking tools like INVOX allow marketers to measure call conversions that resulted from paid search ads.

How does Google Ads call tracking work?

Call tracking Google Ads works in a few stages:

First, a prospect searches for one of the keywords you have your campaign with. They find your ad and either click on the ad or call the number right from the search query (if you setup Google Ads Call Extensions or Call-Only Ads).

If they click on the ad, they get sent to a dedicated landing page that displays a call tracking number used for call tracking. If they just pick up the phone and call the number the process is the same. The call connects and a few data points are captured, one of which is the campaign that triggered the call. 

Next, it records the duration of the phone call to determine if the call is converting or is it just an inquiry. The conversation is also recorded. 

What are some of the benefits of call tracking?

We have already determined that call tracking is an accurate and quantifiable way to track how effective are offline conversions (phone calls). In addition to this priceless data which cannot be captured in any other way, there are a lot of other benefits of call tracking.

Here are some of them:

Measuring marketing ROI

A huge benefit of call tracking is the ability to exactly know your marketing ROI, either for all your paid campaigns or an exact one or even an exact keyword. This is useful in proving the effectiveness of paid search campaigns and it also helps in better budget allocation.

Recording phone calls

During the call tracking process, all the phone calls to the call tracking number are also recorded. They can later be revisited back later to see exactly what potential customers are looking for. The recording can also be used to improve the way customer service and sales teams are handling inbound call tracking.

Capturing the entire visitor journey

INVOX call tracking also provides you with various visitor-level metrics. With INVOX, you’ll be able to see the exact visitor journey, how many pages the visitors viewed and how long did you spend browsing each page during the entire session. This allows you to better understand the exact visitor behavior on your website and what makes them call your phone number.

Multi-channel call attribution

Another useful feature of call tracking is the multi-channel call attribution which lets you know how each of your campaigns and channels are performing. This allows you to focus on improving the best PPC campaigns and marketing channels as well as your overall marketing strategy.

Google Ads account optimization

If you have a lot of campaigns in your Google Ads account, you know how hard it can be to keep track of all your campaigns. With call tracking, you’ll be able to optimize the structure of your Google Ads account by removing all the campaigns that are not working and better focus on those campaigns that are.

Better data analysis

All the data that comes from call tracking can be used in a wide business sense. How? Well, you get to see exactly how your leads are behaving. This data can be used to improve the way your business works based on the feedback you get from leads. If your leads are looking for a specific product or service that isn’t your priority, maybe you spend more time on making sure that it becomes a bigger priority. Call tracking data can help with data. If your leads are looking for a new product, maybe there is a shift in the market and call tracking has helped you predict it. 

Conclusion

I hope that this article gave you an insight into the wonderful world of call tracking. With call tracking, you’re practically sitting on a gold mine of useful and actionable data. The possibilities you get with call tracking are almost endless. Make sure you use its power before someone else does.

Photo credits: Infographic vector created by roserodionova - www.freepik.com
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Client objections agencies face when selling call tracking (and how to overcome them)

Client Objections Agencies Face When Selling Call Tracking (And How to Overcome Them)

If you use call tracking at your marketing agency, you have probably spent hours trying to explain and convince your clients why they need to add call tracking and all the benefits of it. This is probably the hardest part of the whole call tracking process.

Without call tracking, it is very hard to prove that your online marketing works and that it is driving leads for your clients. If you are able to prove to your clients that you are driving leads for them, it will help you build trust with your clients since you are able to provide them with definitive proof in form of exact data that your marketing efforts work. Another significant benefit of the data is that you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t work in your campaigns and focus on the campaigns that work best. And who knows, maybe the clients will increase their marketing spendings when they see the additional value you’re bringing them. 

In this article, we’ll show you the 3 most common client objections marketing agencies face when trying to sell call tracking as well as how to overcome them.

Fear of changing the phone number

We all know those fun vanity numbers that were popular back in the day. Even today, most clients love their wacky vanity numbers. If you suggest your client to implement call tracking which means they must change their phone number, a lot of clients will find this scary. Why? They feel like they’re risking by changing their phone numbers.

How to overcome this? Well, it’s actually not that hard. First, you have to think like your client. Put yourself in their shoes. Why are they so attached to their phone number? Maybe they are afraid that current and potential future clients see a different phone number either on the website or in any other marketing materials and will not reach out anymore. 

After figuring out why are they attached to their phone number, explain to them that they are most likely the only ones who know and remember their phone number. This is definitely not a bad thing, but in today’s day and age, a lot of people rely on Google and various other applications that memorize for them. This means that different phone number will not discourage people from picking up the phone

A vanity or a plain number doesn’t provide your or your client with any data that is linked to any marketing effort whatsoever. To put it in other words, by keeping their old vanity number, they are running a huge risk by not understanding the performance of their marketing campaigns. Most likely, they are spending money on campaigns that are not performing well simply because they don’t have a way to measure the proper inbound leads.

That’s why knowing how the marketing agency drives conversions is so much more valuable to a business than the potential, or better yet hypothetical risk of someone not calling because of a phone number.

However, if your clients are keen on keeping their phone number, suggest to them that they port the number over to a call tracking number and use it to start tracking offline conversions. This will ensure they keep their phone number and you still get valuable data.

Strict budgets

You know this client. They have a strict budget and it seems that you can’t negotiate with them. You feel it is almost impossible to sell the benefits of call tracking to them. 

In order to convince them, you need to tell them all the benefits that call tracking offers and explain to them that with call tracking you are easily able to prove marketing ROI. Sometimes it is hard to prove the true value of marketing, especially when you can’t provide the numbers for a business that relies on phone calls for making deals.

Tell your client that if you implement call tracking to the marketing stack, they can be confident that all touchpoints and traffic is going to be captured and analyzed. This, in turn, helps both your agency and the client prove marketing ROI.

Resistance and uncertainty

If a client is hesitant about adopting call tracking, they are probably unsure how much or if it at all benefit their business. This client could also believe that other processes are more important — like keeping customer satisfaction high or doing more ads. Don’t get me wrong, they are right and those processes are important, but that should discourage you from convincing them the call tracking is needed. They are probably not saying no, but they’re also not saying yes, possibly because they feel that timing isn’t right.

To solve this, you have to present your client with the fact that for every day they spend without call tracking, they are missing out on valuable data that could be the driving factor in the success of their business. Every inbound call that isn’t tracked is a missed opportunity to improve your marketing, drive more leads and close more business. This data can never be captured again, at least until we invent the time machine. 🙂 Tell that to your client to create a sense of urgency.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the most common objections you face when trying to sell call tracking to your clients. Hopefully, our article has helped you learn how to overcome them and convince your clients that call tracking is necessary for making sure all interactions – both offline and online – that are a result of marketing are accounted for and properly analyzed to help your clients make better decisions that will drive more leads and revenue.

Photo credits: Business photo created by yanalya - www.freepik.com
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5 Reasons Why Marketing Agencies Need Call Tracking

5 Reasons Why Marketing Agencies Need Call Tracking

Call tracking is the process of connecting offline interactions, like phone calls, with online visits. The most basic form of call tracking would be when a business asks a person who called them “How did you hear about us?”. The problem with simply asking all potential customers isn’t really effective, especially if a business receives a lot of inquiries – and most businesses that rely on phone calls to close deals do. Also, simply asking potential customers can’t properly be measured which could lead to problems with the marketing agency.

Call tracking is a software platform that allows you to see phone calls like you see your website, ie. you see from which page the call was made, you can even record the phone call and go back and listen to it later – this could tell you if your marketing message is working the way you wanted it to. If you run a business that relies on phone calls for closing business – you need call tracking. If your marketing agency works with businesses that rely on phone calls for closing business – you NEED call tracking. 

In this article, we’ll cover five reasons why marketing agencies like yours need call tracking.

1) Measuring advertising effectivity 

The first and possibly the most important reason why a marketing agency needs call tracking is actually pretty simple – if you don’t track calls, there’s no way you can know how much of an impact your campaign is having on lead generation. This will prove to your client that your campaigns are effective and that you are not wasting the budget. Also, you’ll be able to tell which of your campaigns are performing better, which ones are not and optimize them accordingly.

2) Getting feedback on your campaigns

Most marketing agencies work hard to get qualified leads for their clients. Leads that pick up the phone and call the business can definitely be categorized as qualified leads. Why? Well, calling business implies a sense of urgency. That’s why your qualified leads should be a priority. Qualified leads also provide a great base for measuring the effectiveness of other channels and departments, like sales and customer care, that are intertwined with marketing. Recording and listening back to calls with qualified leads can teach both the client and you how a good (and bad) call sounds like, what do the qualified leads really need, etc. The qualitative data you get from these recordings is very valuable.

3) Making a greater impact

Let’s be honest, even though most marketing agencies work hard, there are a lot of them out there that do paid ads with little effort or care, just hoping that something good will happen. Most of the time, it doesn’t. Unfortunately, your clients probably had a similar bad experience with an agency sometime in the past.

However, if your client sees that your ads are making the phones ring, they are likely to increase the budget, which should result in an increase in your profits.

4) Better marketing campaigns

Do you know how sometimes clients complain that marketing campaigns won’t work in the real world? And that the agency is too disconnected with the customers? A great benefit of call tracking is that you get a lot of quantitative and qualitative data from real leads and customers. That data can be used to create new and adjust the current marketing message to be more in line with the customers. Call tracking also allows you to create different campaigns for all the key personas your client has and then test them out and get real feedback very soon.

5) Deeper integrations

If you use call tracking in your marketing, then you’ll want to make sure your call tracking software is fully integrated with your CRM. Capturing your phone call leads and nurture them right along with your other inbound marketing contacts will allow you to see every prospect, every action and how they relate to all your campaigns, projects, and overall goals all throughout the sales funnel and beyond.

Conclusion

Hopefully, with this article, we’ve shown you why marketing agencies need call tracking. There are a lot of benefits in introducing call tracking to your clients, especially if they rely on closing business via the phone. Even though we didn’t mention it before, call tracking will definitely be useful for all businesses, no matter their sales funnel. The data you get from call tracking can be used in all sorts of ways – everything from measuring how effective an ad campaign is, to getting real feedback from qualified leads, to creating marketing content, copy, and campaigns based on real key persons to deep integrations with your CRM systems which allows you to map out the sales journey much deeper and better than ever before. To possibilities with call tracking are almost endless.

Photo credits: Business photo created by yanalya

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