Drug Rehab Marketing Best Practices – Is Your Rehab a Corvette or a Pinto?
Some of the drug rehab marketing best practices require more than just marketing. First and foremost, your addiction treatment center has to have excellent quality clinical care. Excellent quality clinical care starts with your staff. Did your top medical doctor get their degree from a reputable university? It is not always the case but the better universities tend to graduate very capable physicians. It is extremely helpful if your doctor is published in the trade publications like NIH and they don’t need a degree from Harvard to do so. While being published in a website like the NIH or NEJM is a nice to have it, is not necessarily a must-have.
Creating Trust and Authority in Your Website
Why is it important for a drug rehab to be published in addiction treatment journals? Because it creates trust and authority with the users and website visitors. Even if your clinicians do not have all the mumbo jumbo letters after their names it is still extremely helpful if they write articles and blog posts on your drug rehab websites. It is also just as important or even more important for the rehab to publish videos of their own staff educating the public about addiction treatment. Videos create trust. Videos create authority. Video search results get clicked on 50% more than text links. Create videos.
Create a Drug Rehab with a Full Continuum of Care
Provide all the services if you possibly can:
- Interventions
- Detox
- 30 Day inpatient, 60 Day Inpatient, 90 Day Inpatient
- Intensive outpatient or IOP, Partial Hospitalization Program or PHP
- Sober Living
- Aftercare
- Family Care
- etc
Two of the reasons to do this is because you should get better long term addiction treatment outcomes. Second, it costs a lot of money to generate qualified inquiries you want to be able to monetize them.
Drug Rehab Admissions Budgeting Best Practices
Spread out your admissions intakes to several marketing sources. In a perfect world you might want to think about 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3.
INVESTMENT Organic SEO = Content Creation, Blogging, Videos, Website, Social Media, PR, Online Groups
EXPENSE Sales = On Ground Marketers, Sales People, Outreach, Interventionists, Hospitals, Therapists, etc.
EXPENSE Paid = Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Banner Ads, Outdoor, TV, Radio, Buy Calls
When Sales and Organic SEO aren’t filling all of your beds or seats in the IOP then it is time to supplement with Paid Advertising. Depending on one form of advertising can be problematic for any business especially in the drug rehab space because the industry can be seasonal.
If your business is generating a significant amount of calls with Organic SEO then you have a business asset. If you sell your business you have a lead source that will make your business a lot more attractive than a business buying calls or spending big money on PPC. We know that Organic SEO is the single most cost effective way to generate admissions.
Tracking Drug Rehab Admissions Best Practices
In order to realize your highest ROI it is important to track which admissions sources are generating your most admits. It is important to measure the “first touch” of when the prospect came across your business or did they get contacted by a sales person or did they hit your Google My Business Page? Understanding the original prospect touchpoints is extremely helpful. We want to be able to fish in the ponds with more fish.
The secret to tracking your ROI on ad sources is in your call tracking data. While the call tracking data is useful for tracking, date, time and ad source the drug rehab has to help the marketing team close the loop and record the good calls and the admissions. To take it one step further and generate meaningful ROI reports it is key to add values to each sale. i.e. Detox = $5,000.
Invest in Your Drug Rehab Website
Investing in your drug rehab website is probably the single smartest thing you can do. Your website is the one “employee” who never takes a day off and works 24/7 for you. You never have to pay them benefits and they are always cheerful and happy. Your website is your single channel that you have 100% control of. Your drug rehab website is you, it is YOUR brand. Make it great. As the old adage goes, “how you do anything is how you do everything.” Your website is the tip of the iceberg and a window to the rest of your business.
Too many times rehabs don’t spend the time or energy in their brand and their websites. It is really telling to a potential prospect how you are running your business if you have poor design, poor branding, thin content, lack of trust icons and testimonials. You have to reassure the prospect that your drug rehab is the best possible place for the addict or the family’s loved one.
Invest in Your Employees
Without experienced, knowledgeable and hardworking employees it can be a struggle to make a healthcare business thrive. We feel that if you are out to build a world class drug rehab then make sure you hire experts who can write and speak in front of the camera. Why? Because people do business with people they know, like and trust. It is that simple.
If you have an experienced doctor or therapist who can express their knowledge about i.e. “relapse prevention” we want them to post blog articles on their subjects of expertise. Better yet why not do a video series asking their opinion and experiences on “relapse prevention?” This type of content published on a consistent basis will only add to the value of your website and your business. It develops trust with your website visitors. Trust generates more phone calls.
Send your staff to learning events and help them get additional certifications. There are a ton of educational resources in the drug rehab industry.
Consult With A Rehab Marketing Specialist
Rehab and addiction marketing is a field that is constantly in flux, and the day-to-day changes can be difficult for even the most astute drug rehab executives. For a successful long-term marketing plan you will need the advice and expertise of a Rehab Marketing Specialist to guide you through it all.
Speak With Rehab Marketing Specialist Jim Peake Today To Get Started On A Comprehensive Marketing Strategy and Plan For Your Facility, Program, Or Treatment Center:
