Some people forget but influence has always been a part of a successful lead generation strategy. Even down to its core concepts, your leads come to you as responses to your marketing images. Their decisions and interests are being influenced by your lead generation campaign.
However, wielding that influence also comes with a great responsibility.
Influence In Lead Generation And Influence In Healthcare – Are They The Same?
As a demonstration of influence in action, Dave Chase wrote an article on Forbes on the many distasteful things doctors and clinicians convince people to do for the sake of health. In the end he sums it as to why:
“The key reason doctors, nurses and pharmacists are able to persuade is their trust and credibility. Not only are clinicians trusted, most remember their classmates who went into medical careers as some of the smartest people they grew up with. Clinicians are some of the smartest, most trusted, authoritative people, in any community.”
Trust and credibility are not only important in healthcare. They are important in lead generation as well. Furthermore, establishing that trust is in fact a goal that every lead generation campaign must achieve ahead of the business they are marketing for. If there is still too little trust among your health leads, your salespeople will spend too much time trying to close them.
On the other hand, your lead generation campaign depends on those same businesses, those same salespeople, to help them establish that trust. The entire sales process is in fact a cycle, much like how the digestive system is part of an even greater cycle (e.g. the food chain).
Related Content: Lead Generation – The B2B Digestive System
- Phase 1: Product/Service creation – Of course, you cannot have a lead generation campaign without a product to market it with. On the other hand, some people depend too much on what they create and underestimate the importance of the lead generation process.
- Phase 2: Prospect attraction – With proper marketing, your medical lead generation campaign will turn your product/service into a powerful means of influence. You are establishing your credibility from the start of the process to even after the sale has been closed.
- Phase 3: Feedback – Feedback is another important element in lead generation but this is also where the process goes back to Phase 1. Every ounce of information you get from serving and engaging prospects can and must be used to improve your business (be it via expansion or new creation).
It is with influence that you attract prospects but at the same time you bind yourself to their expectations. That is why your lead generation process is not just for getting opportunities but essentially hold you accountable for what you do with those opportunities.
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Should you abuse your influence in just one phase of that cycle, you will corrupt the rest of it as well (e.g. B2B appointment setting). And since lead generation both affects and is affected by that influence, it is one of the most vulnerable areas. You must learn to exercise this great power responsibly!
