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Your Website is Your New Front Door! The Importance of Engaging Empathetically with Website Visitors

I have found that most Addiction Treatment Providers are amazing at what they do. They are specifically focused on the health and wellness of people in need of help to overcome their personal demons that have consumed their lives. It is admirable how each person in the industry has dedicated themselves to this pursuit.

I have also noticed that most Treatment providers are driving a high number of visitors to their websites but do not really have the most empathetic human communication with these visitors who are in a state of outreach, anonymity, and often, a bit of embarrassment. Concerning the subject, this is not uncommon or unusual; people may be ready for help and to reach out, but not ready to share personal information without first feeling welcome and comfortable about their choice.

A call to action on your website (phone number, email, fill form, etc.) is imperative for turning these visitors into leads and potential patients. Most treatment providers implement some or all of these methods to communicate with their website visitors, but globally, only 2.4% of website visitors are converted into leads by these tools. If you attract 5000 monthly visitors to your website, that is only 120 “captured” leads from your marketing efforts and dollars. This is a hard number to digest and can often be eye opening to your marketing and sales team (hopefully, they already measure this metric).

Choosing the right methods to engage with your website visitors is akin to having your best receptionist at your physical front doors. When you have a guest, in business or personal life, you want them to feel welcome, warm, and informed about your business or yourself. The last thing you would want is to have a visitor come through your front doors and not be there to meet and greet them with your best foot forward. Oftentimes, a negative reaction is the feeling that a website visitor leaves with and they will “bounce” to the competitor next door instead. Your website visitors are essentially window shopping and if your window does not convey a sense of welcome, a friendly greeting and empathetic answers to their questions; they will leave quickly and go to the next place. You will never know they were even visiting you, and worse, you never had a chance to engage with that visitor you have spent a massive amount of time, effort, and marketing dollars to attract.

Your website is your new front door! It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It does not have days off, will not get a second chance to make that first impression, and must convey your company culture and vision in seconds to keep the attention of the people window shopping your services. It is so imperative to treat these website visitors as if they are walking into your front doors, BECAUSE THEY ARE! It is up to you to implement the best solutions for engaging with these visitors and capturing them into your lead management tools so you can properly communicate with them and cycle them through your sales process. Pick the wrong form of communication, one that leads to frustration or a lack of connectivity, and you may do more harm than good with your visitors. Choose the right way to engage with and understand the individual needs of a website visitor, and you will create clients that are loyal, aware, and connected to your organization before you even know they are interested. In turn, this will lead to a more satisfying first impression of your company that will create a lead that will move more expediently through your sales cycle.


Author: 
Robert Bills
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