How to Boost Sales and Find the Best Healthcare Leads

Are you struggling to generate enough qualified leads for your healthcare company? If the answer is 'yes', don't worry: over 60% of B2B industry professionals say that finding high-quality sales leads is their single biggest challenge.

And it's particularly tough in the healthcare sector. In an industry packed with competition, shaped by rapidly evolving technologies, and constrained by strict regulation, healthcare lead generation services often struggle to stand out and bring their healthcare solution to high quality medical leads.

If your business is in a similar situation, it could be time to give your lead generation efforts a makeover. That's not to say you're doing anything wrong - it could just be a case of revamping your strategies or delving into new avenues of lead generation.

Today, we're going to explore some of those avenues. Drawing on out extensive experience in healthcare lead generation, we're going to lay out some of the best strategies we've use to consistently generate leads within the healthcare industry.

By taking these lead generation strategies on board, you'll be able to reach more healthcare leads, streamline your sales process, and start driving revenue growth. Let's get stuck in.

Understanding sales in the healthcare industry

You've done the market research, developed your product or service, worked on your branding, and have now joined the many healthcare providers in the marketplace - all that's left is to find potential customers to sell to.

These potential customers (or 'prospects') are known as 'leads'. But not all leads are the same. There are:

• B2B leads: 'Business-to-business' leads
• B2C leads: 'Business-to-customer' leads
• Cold leads: Prospects who haven't expressed any interest in your company
• Warm leads: Prospects who have expressed an interest
• Qualified leads: A lead who fits your 'Ideal Customer Profile' and has shown an intent to buy

In healthcare, leads are likely to be:

• Medical directors
• Healthcare CEOs
• Healthcare CFOs
• Healthcare COOs
• Healthcare CMOs
• Practice managers
• Health information managers
• Supply chain managers

…the list goes on.

The importance of high quality medical sales leads

As useful as that list is, it doesn't mean you should DM everyone with those job titles on LinkedIn. Lead quality is an important metric, especially in a complex, regulated industry like healthcare. In fact, around a third of salespeople say that lead quality is the most important metric.

So what are 'high quality' medical leads?

In essence, high quality leads are leads who:

• Have expressed interest in your solutions
• Fit your ICP
• Have pain points specifically targeted by your solutions
• Are looking to buy

Healthcare organizations should prioritize top quality leads because it reduces the sales cycle, reduces the amount of time an money wasted on dead-end leads, improves customer services, and actually increases sales.

The best strategies for healthcare lead generation

Now we've determined what makes a great lead, let's explore some of the best lead generation strategies you can implement to generate leads that actually convert into paying customers.

You'll notice that some of these strategies are traditional methods, some are newer, some are inbound, some are outbound, some are in-person, and so on; it's important to note that the most successful lead generation strategies incorporate many methods rather than focussing solely on one.

Networking and referrals

In an industry packed with competition and highly complex vetting processes, networking at trade shows presents a fantastic opportunity to showcase your product or service and to add the 'personal touch' missing from other outreach methods.

Neventum offers a great list of U.S.-based healthcare trade shows in 2024. Healthcare companies looking to improve their lead generation efforts may look to trade shows like these to make connections.

Referrals also play a massive role in medical lead generation. In fact, modern consumers favor referrals as a number one buying catalyst: 84% say they actually begin their buying journey with a referral of some kind. And for sales reps in the healthcare sector, that should be welcomed as good news; salespeople in the know - who exploit referrals to find more qualified leads - earn up to five times more than those who don't.

Content marketing

The truth is: inbound marketing is more important than it's ever been. Sales teams all over the world and in every industry are slowly transitioning to an inbound-centred approach, and it's a good idea for healthcare sales professionals to get on top of it.

One of the key aspects of inbound sales is content marketing. This involves attracting medical leads to your business through high quality content (rather than reaching out to them through cold calling and email campaigns). In this context, 'content' could include:

• Blog posts
• Social media content
• White papers
• eBooks
• Podcasts
• Instructional videos

In a complicated industry like healthcare, it's essential to demonstrate an in depth knowledge and thought leadership within your field.

Almost 60% of businesses engaged in content marketing see an increase in sales and revenue growth.

Social media

Here's the bottom line: there are nearly 8 million healthcare professionals on LinkedIn in the U.S. alone. That easily makes LinkedIn the go-to platform for healthcare lead generation in 2024.

Not only is LinkedIn already filled with high value prospects, but its unique set of sales tools and features make targeted strategies a breeze. Take, for instance, LinkedIn's Sales Navigator tool, which lets users reach decision makers with the help of over 35 search filters and data insights.

Aside from Sales Navigator, though, LinkedIn is a great place to connect with potential clients and distribute your content. By joining relevant groups, posting thought leadership articles, partaking in conversations, and much more, you can build trust and join the ranks of the best-regarded healthcare services on LinkedIn.

Email marketing

Okay, so we've been talking about 'the new age' of medical lead generation, but that doesn't mean we can't keep a spot in our hearts for some old classics, does it?

And don't worry, we're not just going to tell you to use email campaigns. You already know that. What we are going to tell you, however, is to give your email marketing a makeover.

As a B2B lead generation and sales development agency, we see too many medical services implementing ineffective email campaigns. Great sales emails have:

• An irresistible subject line
• An engaging opening line
• Plenty of white space
• A killer call to action
• Serious personalization
• An attractive design

Frankly, we're all used to seeing boring sales emails that fail to engage us. And what do we do with them? We throw them in the trash. Your prospects do the same.

And the fact is: email open rate in the healthcare industry are pretty high compared to other industries, so if you want to stand out, you need to go all-out.

Use a data driven approach

Data is the best friend of healthcare lead generation. And modern CRMs and AI-powered software are making collecting that data easier than ever before.

Programs like Salesforce and HubSpot (although there are plenty more) are great not only for organizing leads and managing your sales pipeline with ease, but also for identifying the best medical leads you should be targeting. They collate data from multiple sources and automatically create lists based on your ICP criteria. Really, it's so easy, there's no excuse not to be using these systems to their full advantage.

Such data accessibility has actually been proven to shorten sales cycles by up to 14% and 74% of businesses agree that CRM enhances their customer data. And as we know, better data equals better leads.

Boost your healthcare lead generation efforts with a world-class agency

Of course, there's a lot that goes into top-drawer lead generation. Today's medical sales leads are discerning, careful, and clued-in, and your healthcare solutions need to stand out among a crowd of high-level competitors.

So it's not just a case of taking on as many lead generation avenues as possible, but if finding the perfect balance for your business needs. Do you need a stronger social media presence? A better CRM system? Do you need to market your content more effectively, or even start attending trade shows in your area? The best businesses incorporate elements of both inbound and outbound lead generation tactics to achieve their revenue goals.

And don't forget: there are a ton of great lead generation companies waiting to help out. Agencies like Leadium provide industry-leading lead generation services across a range of engagement channels to find you the qualified medical leads you need. They leverage their tech know-how and industry experience to transform your lead generation process into a lead-capturing machine.

Check out our homepage or reach out for a consultation today!