Traditionally, increasing EMR / EHR software sales is equated to increasing total number of leads. The most common question I get asked is, ‘How can you help us increase leads’?
Most EHR companies know the theories of Marketing, and may have tried and/or implemented various tactics to increase the total number of leads. I’m not going to discuss how leads are increased in this article. I am just assuming that a lot of money has been spent in trying to increase leads. I am also going to assume that you’ve had reasonable success doing so.

EHR Leads have increased, you have more physicians and providers looking at your EHR software – now what?

Now you pass these leads to your sales channel and ask them to deal with them.

Wrong Move. If you give salespeople more than they can handle, or give them something that has not been adequately qualified, you are wasting all the money you spent on marketing to generate the EHR software leads. Here’s what you will soon find out. Sales does not increase in direct proportion to the money spent on marketing.

Salespeople tend to take the shortest route to sales; follow up with leads that seem hottest and qualified better. So, when they receive leads, they will focus on a few good leads that they think will convert. The rest are ignored, and follow-up when time allows, which is always too late.

Management tends to put the blame on salespeople. It is how salespeople work. Change the process, change marketing, don’t put pressure on sales people.

If salespeople get 25 leads per month on an average and suddenly now you give them 40, what happens? Of course, you feel that the salespeople have time to handle more leads, and maybe they do, but salespeople have their own internal silos of leads – hot, warm, cold. They will quickly take the 40 leads you give them and they will be classified into those silos, with warm and cold leads (according to salespeople) will be left alone.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Increase the number of leads AND
2. Nurture them – use Marketing Automation tools.

Your salespeople may not see a huge increase in total number of leads in proportion to the total leads you generate, but they will see an increase where it matters – Hot and Qualified Leads. Sales people will see a dramatic increase in the quality of leads and will feel more confident about the way they handle sales.

How to Qualify and Nurture Leads?

There are two critical components to Nurture Leads.

1. Marketing Automation Tool
2. Marketing Expertise to –
   1. Plan workflow, campaigns
   2. Configure and Setup
   3. Manage, adjust and monitor nurturing program
   4. Measure results

All Leads must be put in the ‘nurturing’ hopper. Add a telemarketing component to followup on all leads at an appropriate time in the workflow. This is an extremely critical part of improving the initial stage of the sales process and pipeline.

Lead Scoring

Marketing Automation, nurturing and a splatter of telemarketing can manage and maintain a ‘lead score’ that determines which leads are ‘sales ready’ before they are give to salespeople.

So, instead of worrying about why sales have not increase even though leads have, contact me so that I can show you how to:

• Increase Lead Quantity
• Nurture incoming Leads
• Hold sales people accountable to increase sales

I guarantee you will see a 200%-300% increase in sales in 90-180 days.