Pause for a moment to think about all of the calls that your medical practice receives and makes on a daily basis. Now, think about the wealth of invaluable existing and potential patient information that you might be able to compile and utilize if you were to make the very most out of each of those direct, person-to-person interactions.

The desire to tap the formerly untapped potential of each and every business call was the driving force behind the rapidly evolving field of tracking calls. By integrating the traditional phone call into the larger analytics-driven digital marketing puzzle, organizations of all kinds can do far more than take note of exactly who is calling and why. They can tie inbound calls to the unique medical marketing phone call tracking pipelines that each consumer takes while keeping automatic and accurate records of what matters most to these consumers.

Powered by specialized software, this type of platform allows medical practices to better assess the overall effectiveness of their marketing campaigns by identifying each element of that campaign that led up to each incoming call. Furthermore, phone tracking software can connect that call with any steps in the consumer journey that may come in the wake of that call.  

What Is Call Tracking Software?

The phone call is an important metric in both traditional analog-era marketing and modern conversion marketing. Conversion marketing is a highly effective marketing approach that encourages consumers to take one or more specific actions with the ultimate goal of converting a potential customer into an actual one. Because only the internet allows marketers to track these actions with any specificity, conversion marketing was absolutely impossible before the advent of the digital era.

While the purchase of a product or a service may be the prototypical conversion metric, other conversion metrics may range from filling out an online contact form to joining a customer loyalty program. In other words, different types of conversions can take place at any stage of the consumer journey or even replace the “almighty” purchase altogether.

While phone calls obviously comprise an important part of the incoming marketing pipeline, there was simply no tool to track those conversions before the rise of call tracing software in the 2000s. Briefly defined, tracking call is the practice of determining exactly how callers found a business and charting the path that they took to reach that business by phone. Businesses that use tracking can define the exact web pages and online ads that led up to the phone call and even the exact keywords consumers may have entered during their online searches.

Evidence based marketers invented this tracking technology to determine exactly what prompted each incoming call and attribute it to one or more specific marketing channels. In short, when businesses know precisely what is causing their phones to ring, they can accurately assess and optimize their marketing strategies.

Make Your Practice More Profitable

Tracking calls are an indispensable tool for any medical practice that wants to expand its patient base while keeping the one that it already has. Practices that fail to actively analyze their incoming phone calls and place them within a larger marketing pipeline are very likely to lose patients to practices that do.  

With the data garnered by tracking, you can determine which of your marketing tactics are driving your high-value incoming phone calls and which are leading to lesser-value calls or no calls at all. Here are just three specific ways that can make your medical practice more profitable by tracking calls. 

• It  Helps Evaluate the Effectivity of Your Marketing Campaign – As previously discussed, tracking calls can help you identify weaknesses in your inbound marketing pipeline and optimize your marketing messaging, ad placement, social media outreach, and direct mail operations among other key campaign elements.
• It Helps Analyze Your Lead Quality – Tracking produces analytic data about each incoming caller, helping marketers differentiate them by both initial intention and final results. Common lead quality metrics generated by tracking calls include requests for more information and actual appointments set.
• It Helps Identify Phone Training Opportunities – Tracking the call allows you to analyze and evaluate staff members as well as members of the public. By tracking the performance of your customer service reps, you can boost important conversion rates by effectively refining your telephone customer service policies.   

Understanding How Tracking Calls in Medical Practices Work

As we have seen, tracking inbound calls has the potential to positively impact your practice’s financial bottom line in a variety of ways. It has almost unlimited potential to improve patient touchpoints leading to more conversion opportunities, billable services, and satisfied patients.

But how exactly does this work? Although the processes of tracking are quite technical and complex, its basic operational model is fairly simple and easy to grasp.

When a consumer calls a phone number supplied by a call trailing platform, that platform can aggregate the unique digital data associated with that consumer and tie that consumer’s previous online activity to the phone call. All of this happens automatically and nearly instantaneously with no interruption or delay of phone service and no alteration of the phone call experience.

Equating the digital tag of a consumer’s phone call with the digital tags associated with his or her online activities, a good call tracker platform can identify every previous step in the larger consumer journey. Even better, it can link to future consumer actions, creating a full picture of the entire marketing relationship.

Start Tracking Calls Now

By leveraging the power of tracking inbound calls, a specialized digital marketing agency like Marketing Done Right can help all types of medical practices operate more successfully, generate more revenue, and serve more highly satisfied patients. From boosting local SEO rankings to reaching more potential new patients with digital ads, Marketing Done Right handles all facets of internet marketing, even those, like call tracking services, that intersect with traditional communications and media interaction.