Marketing an IOP or Intensive Outpatient Program
The single biggest marketing consideration an IOP or Intensive Outpatient Program needs to consider is location. If you are an IOP in New York City chances are you are not going to have clients from Connecticut unless they commute into New York City every day.
In our experience what seems to work the best for IOP’s is SEO. SEO is an umbrella term for the following types of services: content creation, writing (blog posts), social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Youtube, Pinterest etc.) video production, NAP listings in directories (NAP is Name, Address & Phone).
Tips To Market To An IOP
Supplement the SEO with PR (press releases) speaking engagements in high schools and colleges (get links back to your website from these speaking engagements….high quality EDU links are gold when it comes to helping rank your website organically. Once you have these speaking engagements then push them out on your social media and repurpose them on your website.
Speak to your local newspapers especially when a national figure has a run in with drugs or alcohol and let them know that you are available for comment about the situation. When you do comment comment about the condition vs. the celebrity. Rest assured that there are many other people in all of our communities with the same or similar conditions.
Focus all of your content on local geographic locations. For example if you write an article make sure that it talks about intensive outpatient treatment in Sarasota, FL for instance. Be specific on the locations surrounding your IOP. People search locally. If you want more details on best practices to do this see this link from Google on Local Search Guidelines.
Using PPC for Intensive Outpatient Rehabs is helpful however it can be expensive. Running PPC must be geo targeted within a limited radius of the zip code of your outpatient rehab. Having 2 links on a search result page is way more powerful than only one. Ideally you have multiple links on a geo targeted search on Googles search results page.
Hopefully you also have outreach people or onground marketing people connected with the local community attorneys, hospitals, interventionists, psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors. Using marketing efforts with sales efforts is most effective.
In my opinion I think IOP’s can have better outcomes for patients than some inpatient destination rehabs because they can integrate the family and friends into the recovery process. We typically can’t fly the whole family in for family day in most destination rehabs.
If trust is the single biggest factor in getting a website visitor from your website to pick up the phone and call it is important to have the trust icons on the website. For instance local chamber of commerce, BBB, NAATP and other certifying bodies. Along with trust you also want to have testimonials, preferably video testimonials. If you can’t get video testimonials from past clients then get testimonials from your staff. Video is the best way to get into someone’s living room.
It probably goes without saying that you must have a Google Map on your contact page. It also goes without saying that you must also have a Google Business page. Make sure that you encourage your clients to provide you positive reviews after they have completed their program. This is also true for Yelp and other local directory pages. Drug Rehab specific directory listings can also be helpful. For example SAMHSA directory listings are very powerful in multiple ways.
If You Need Professional Help Marketing Your IOP,
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