While it’s my job as digital marketing specialist to evaluate client and prospect websites every day, it’s also inevitable for this behavior to become ingrained in my everyday consumer life as well. I’ve reviewed thousands of sites and can’t help but notice when a health & wellness website is doing things well – or totally missing the mark. So, what’s the difference between a successful website and a dud?

What I’ve found is that many websites, especially in the health & wellness industry, are getting plenty of website visitors, but are missing out on a huge opportunity to convert those visitors into leads.

I’ve also found that many health & wellness businesses underestimate the power of a lead because they “just want patients”. However, lead generation is at the core of nearly all successful inbound marketing strategies.

Implementing a lead generation strategy matters to your business because it gives you a chance to stay connected and build a relationship with individuals who expressed an interest in your services (or at a minimum, your content). These relationships can eventually translate into loyal, lifelong patients.

That connection and ongoing engagement is an opportunity to further educate and nurture these prospects on the problems they’re experiencing and the solutions available to them, i.e. YOUR solutions.

Due to the nature of this approach (and the opportunity to automate many of these steps) you typically need to spend much less money catering to and converting these leads into patients than you do with any other traditional outbound marketing like print, radio or digital advertising.

So what can you do to generate more leads on your website?

The answer is simple: website pop-up forms.

Yikes – website pop up forms? But aren’t those forms annoying? They can certainly still be annoying if used egregiously and aggressively, but when done right, these babies can be an incredibly powerful tool for capturing the attention of your visitor and encouraging them to take the next step.

I’ve found this to be true time and time again with our clients.

For example, at the end of last year, my team and I activated a pop-up form for a client and generated 60 new leads in less than three months. That’s right. One single pop-up form resulted in 60 brand new leads. How easy is that?

But, as I often remind our clients, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use website pop-up forms.

Put yourself in the shoes of your patients and think about what YOU would want to experience with a website. What are they really looking for? What help do they think they want or need? What feelings are you trying to evoke as they navigate your website?

I want you to keep those thoughts front and center as you create your website pop-up form strategy. Here are two critical questions to answer when implementing a pop-up form on your site.

When should you show your pop-up form?

The timing and placement of your pop-up is critical in creating a positive user experience, and in increasing your chances of converting visitors into leads. Your pop-up form will either have the intended result (many new leads) or drive away potential patients. 

Trigger on scroll or time lapsed

Don’t make your pop-up show the SECOND someone hits your web page. No one appreciates feeling bombarded. It’s like being proposed to on the first date. It’s just too soon. 

Think about this experience as an internet user and consumer yourself. What do you do when you experience a pop-up before you’ve had a chance to look around? I know what I do – “UGH, get this thing out of my way!” and I promptly ‘x’ out of it before I even look at what it is.

There’s a chance that I may have actually wanted what it was offering, but because of the timing I instantly shut it down.

Instead, activate your pop-up form after the viewer has scrolled for a bit or a certain amount of time has elapsed. Give the visitor some time to engage with your content, peruse your pages and scroll through the text. Once they’ve demonstrated that they’re actually enjoying what they’re reading, there’s a much higher chance they’ll engage with a pop-up form.

Or, trigger on exit

I’ve seen this strategy work again and again. If you’re driving qualified traffic to your site, there’s a good chance they really do want to engage with you. You just need to give them the chance to do so.

If they didn’t already encounter something to convert them during their visit, an exit pop-up form is a great chance to give it one more try before they leave. In this case, use a message like ‘don’t leave empty handed’ or ‘before you go, here’s a free download’. This provides them with a final opportunity to engage with you or “get free stuff” after they’ve spent time getting to know you through your site.

Think of it like receiving a free sample after browsing through a store; you probably leave with positive feelings about your experience, a great takeaway and a much higher chance of returning. You want your visitors and patients to feel the same way so they grow their virtual relationship with you through your website.

What should you include in your pop-up form?

What you decide to be the ‘ask’ of your pop-up form will significantly impact whether or not someone actually takes action. There are a couple of ways to approach this.

The proven ‘popular’ option

If you’ve already created an eBook, guide, video or other asset that has proven to get you great feedback or a ton of traction in other campaigns, use that as your pop-up offer.

The top of the funnel option

Most likely the visitors on your website who are about to leave, or have yet to engage with you further, are more likely to convert on a top of the funnel offer versus a more ‘sales oriented’ request.

What I mean by a top of the funnel option is providing an offer that addresses those visitors who are in the ‘informational search intent’ stage: they’re looking for answers to questions, researching options and really just gathering their information. In these cases, for example, you should make your pop-up form an action like ‘learn more by subscribing to our blog’ or ‘download our free healthy morning routine checklist’.

The next ‘best step’ option

This approach is the most effective, but is typically a more advanced approach I recommend implementing once you begin to grow your website optimization initiatives.

In this case, you would be creating different pop-ups for different pages of your website. The pop-up content would be extremely relevant to the content the visitor was just reading and be the most logical next step for them.

For example, if you have a blog post about ‘How to Reduce Fine Lines on Your Face’, a great pop-up form for that page could be a push to download your ’10 Steps to Reducing Fine Lines & Wrinkles in 30 Days’ eBook.

If you’re going for the gold with this approach, don’t let it overwhelm you. Take small steps, like implementing one pop-up form throughout the site and you’ll start to see a bigger impact down the road as your pop-ups become more targeted.

How to get started with pop-up forms

Once you know when to show your pop-up and what you want to offer, it’s time to start thinking about how to actually execute your pop-up strategy.

HubSpot is one of our go-to tools for pop-up forms (among many other marketing capabilities). HubSpot is an intuitive and well-designed platform that makes the entire creation, implementation and website integration process for pop-ups a breeze. The best part? Their HubSpot Free platform gives you everything you need to get started.

So whether you’re using HubSpot or another platform to get going, be sure to think through these foundational elements first to set the stage for success with your pop-up form strategy.

Are you looking for more ways to improve your search ranking without spending any additional money?

Download our FREE Wellness Website Checklist for steps to help you make powerful (and simple) changes to your current website.

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