Addiction treatment is very important work. With so many people struggling with substance abuse, treatment centers play a vital role in rehabilitating men and women. They specialize in teaching people coping skills to living a long, happy and healthy life. Addiction treatment marketing is an important service that requires a specific form of knowledge and expertise. Addiction treatment and recovery is its own culture and understanding the struggles that addiction and families of addicts go through will prove very valuable in your marketing efforts. This is why we have presented you with this addiction treatment marketing guide.
Stodzy has worked with dozens of treatment centers across the country to build effective marketing campaigns that convert into leads and admissions. We know the ins and outs of all sides of marketing. We plan to use our expertise to help grow your treatment census. Also, assist you in helping people find the treatment they need, and improving the addiction treatment industry as a whole.
Let’s get started on the treatment marketing guide!
Digital Marketing for Addiction Treatment Centers
The best and most long term beneficial addiction treatment marketing method is through the internet. There are many forms of digital marketing within the addiction treatment space and we will run through the pros and cons of each one of them in this guide.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website so that it ranks better in Google search results. SEO for drug rehabs includes a number of different steps. These are the steps that every rehab center should follow for a successful marketing campaign.
First, keyword research is most important. There are hundreds if not thousands of possible keywords to want to rank at the top of the search engines. So, we have to know which keywords are worth fighting for and compare that to the potential return on getting clicks from those searches.
At Stodzy, we almost always (with a few exceptions) take a geo located search campaign. Meaning we try to rank for searches that are local in your area. Let’s imagine your treatment facility is in Park City Utah, then we will work hard to make sure your website appears at the top search results for “drug rehab in Park City Utah.”
SEO has huge rewards because once Google sees your website and brand and an authority, they tend to keep you there. So once you have earned Google’s respect, you will be able to maintain that search result and bring in admissions from your own business website, and you will be able in from it for years to come.
Content Marketing
In many ways, content marketing can be considers a sub set of SEO. In order to rank a webpage for a certain keyword, you need to actually write the words (or content) on that page. Seems pretty cut and dry, right?
Well content marketing can also be considered a marketing tactic within itself, because content comes in many forms. To keep it simple, we like to think of content coming in 4 different forms.
- Written word – A blog article or an essay or a guide or a website. This guide that you’re reading right now is considered written content.
- Videos – A YouTube video or a TV commercial. Video could even go so far as a short Snapchat video or an Instagram post.
- Audio – Podcasts are become more and more popular and there are even social media apps such an anchor that level audio content.
- Image – Pictures, memes, infographs or any still image that can tell a story, spread your logo and increase the reach of your brand.
Creating valuable content is a great way to grow an audience. This is a great tactic in marketing your addiction treatment center, but we also find content marketing very valuable in keeping your alumni informed.
One of the great things about the treatment industry is watching your work transform the lives of people who have gone through your program. For this reason, creating content and resources to help past clients remain sober is another valuable form of content that you can produce.
Social Media Marketing
Social media has pros and cons in our industry. The pro’s are worthwhile which is why we added it to this treatment marketing guide.
The kind of content that resonates on social media usually has a lot of entertainment value. This could include list posts, or news story or pictures of cats. When using social media to marketing your treatment center, there are some important lessons we have learned that we want you to keep in mind.
First, social media is great for building community. The recovery community is very passionate and very tightknit. If you are able to build a Facebook page and grow an engaged community around great content, you will see your traffic numbers and your engagement rate increase dramatically.
However, we have found that this type of traffic doesn’t always convert well into admissions. People go to social media for entertainment. The intent behind the traffic that social media brings is not always in line with getting treatment.
But sometimes it is, and we definitely see positive results behind our social media marketing efforts.
With that said, it is important to remember that social media is an advertising platform at its heart. With a well tailored, well targeted ad campaign, we can justify allocating some budget towards Facebook advertising.
The best digital marketing campaigns work when all of these marketing channels work symbiotically with each other. Social media boosts your content. The content spreads and grows your brand which can increase your SEO results.
Ultimately, digital marketing is the best long term strategy because once your brand has been established, that is when you are in the best position to cut ties with third party sources that may not always be reliable. Being in control of your own marketing and your own brand is always the best case scenario for our clients. Just imagine if your entire facility could be filled from the leads you bring in from your own website. That’s the holy grail of addiction treatment marketing.
Business Development for Treatment Centers
To adequately market a treatment center, you need to do more than web marketing and lead generation. In today’s climate, getting out there and networking with other businesses is still an extremely important element to growing your census.
We firmly believe in grass roots marketing and we love to help our treatment center clients put themselves in a position to succeed. Business development could mean a lot of things and there is more than one way to proceed. Let’s take a look at some of the common ways to form relationships that will help your facility stay full.
Working With Other Treatment Centers
Many times, there are factors that will pre determine whether someone can attend a certain facility or not. Most commonly, this could be an insurance issue.
The fact of the matter is that insurance plays a big roll in the treatment industry. Maybe a potential client has an insurance policy that you can’t manage. That is unfortunate, but it happens every day. The best next step would be to refer that patient to a well respected facility that does take that particular insurance. This way you know that the client is at least getting the help that he or she needs.
This is a win win because in addition to doing your job, you’ve also built a relationship with another facility. Now, next time this facility comes across a client that they can’t accept, you may be in a position to accept that client. This will lead to a referral back to you and again, everyone wins. The clients get treatment, you maintain your business model and everyone is working together.
When we work together is when we can build the best treatment industry possible.
Contacting Other Businesses
Addiction is a very prevalent health issue in our country. There are lots of industries, companies and organizations that a ripe with addiction problems. Most often, these organizations are willing to work with facilities in order to get help to their employees or co workers.
Some examples of these organizations may be…
- Unions
- Lawyers
- Other medical facilities
- Employee Assistance Programs
- Care coordinators and HR departments of other businesses
These are just a few examples of organizations that could benefit from knowing about your services. The point is that you need to get out there and let your services be known. Many organizations deal with internal addiction problems and extending yourself to them through education and outreach is a mutually beneficial relationship.
Aftercare and Alumni Services
In many ways this is the most element of service you can provide. It is also the most advantageous for your treatment center and its well being. Building an aftercare program is not only the right thing to do, but it is also a great marketing aspect within itself. Normally you will not find this in a treatment marketing guide, but we have witnessed the major benefits with our clients.
Our turnkey, alumni email program has worked wonders in helping facilities stay connected to past clients as well as remaining visible to family members and friends in the unfortunate case that a former client has relapsed or another person is in need to treatment.
By providing great treatment, you will positively affect the lives of many people who may otherwise be struggling. In addition, your alumni will act as your best branding and marketing tool there is.
Think about it, everyone knows people know struggle with addiction. What better of an advocate could there be other than someone who has already gone through your treatment process and came out the other end with positive results? In most cases, this person will talk about the experience he or she had in your treatment facility and will most likely refer a friend, family member or colleague to your facility if they had a positive experience.
Great marketing comes from the inside out. Being able to stand behind your services and your treatment program will do wonders for the health of your business. All other efforts will not mean anything if your reputation and your word of mouth brand suffer because you do not do a good job and you do not help people with their addiction problems in the way they deserve to be helped.
In Conclusion
Addiction treatment is a labor of love which is why we are glad to share this marketing guide with you.
It is not easy to work day in and day out and do heart breaking work in hopes of helping people break through their addiction problems. Many people get into the treatment industry with great intentions but when doing so, don’t realize what is required from a marketing standpoint.
Yes, treatment is a very unique industry. There needs to be extra measures taken to ensure that treatment marketing is done with ethics and morals in mind. We need to maintain the ideals and standards that will keep the treatment industry healthy and valuable.
There are many great techniques and strategies that are well within the scope of morality. This will also bring in new clients to your facility. This is a win for the clients and a win for you and your company.
Let’s get to work!
