The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that almost 20 million Americans battle a substance abuse disorder.
There’s no doubt that people across the country are in need of addiction treatment services but how can you get them to consider your treatment facility?
For many industries, marketing is about generating buzz and turning customers into brand ambassadors. But rehab marketing requires a more nuanced approach.
It’s an approach that we have used to help our clients in the rehab space successfully reach more patients. And today, we’re sharing it with you.
In this piece, we’ll detail six tactful drug rehab marketing strategies that are both respectful and effective.
1. Build a community with social media
Research indicates that 72% of the American public uses some form of social media and many visit platforms on a daily basis. Having a presence on social media affords your center more opportunities to connect with people in a place they are frequently visiting.
Social media allows for a two-way dialogue like the one that takes place in this authentic exchange from Awakening Recovery Center’s Facebook account.
You don’t have to amass hundreds of thousands of followers to have a successful social media profile. Instead, focus on building meaningful connections with those that do interact with your profiles.
Those who see Melissa’s comment get a glimpse into the impact the center has made on her life and might be prompted to seek guidance for themselves or for a loved one in hopes of getting a similar result.
In addition to connecting with others, drug rehab facilities can use social profiles to spread useful information. According to Pew Research data, 46% of Americans know someone who is addicted to drugs or has been in the past.
Nonprofit drug rehab organization Narconon utilizes Twitter to dispel misinformation and provide insights on dealing with addicted family members and friends.
Not only is the organization providing value through social media, but it is also leveraging its authority to position itself as an expert in the drug rehab sector.
Of course, you can’t simply cross your fingers and hope someone will stumble onto your facility’s profile. One straightforward way to increase your visibility is to utilize hashtags.
Hashtags for visibility
Finding the right hashtags requires a little digging. The goal is to find hashtags popular enough that people are actually searching for but not so popular that your post will be buried almost immediately.
For instance, #addiction has over 5 million posts. That is way too much competition and not enough specificity to target certain individuals. On the opposite side, #addictiontreatmentnearme only has 3 posts which signal that virtually no one is searching for that hashtag.
The #drugrehab hashtag is a great middle ground.
Haynes Clinic only has a few hundred followers. But the clinic’s post appeared at the top of the page after a search for #drugrehab. If Haynes Clinic decided not to bother with hashtags, we wouldn’t have found its page at all.
There are many more rehab marketing ideas to cover. Read on for new ideas about promoting your center!
2. Use SEO to make it easy for people to find you
When someone searches online for addiction treatment centers, a list of results appears on the search engine results page (SERP). The closer your business is to the top of the search results, the more people click through to your website.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of continually improving your website’s rankings on the SERP. If you’re not actively working on SEO, you don’t stand a chance of ranking in the top results.
A quick Google Trends search of the term “addiction treatment” displays a steady, high search volume over the past year.
People are searching for the services your facility offers. But are they finding you in the results?
If you’re in need of an SEO boost, incorporate the following tactics into your strategy:
Say treatment facility A doesn’t create any content and simply lists its services, testimonials, and other standard information on its website. Treatment facility B writes blog posts addressing relevant topics like “how to overcome opioid addiction” and “identifying the signs of drug dependence”. This makes facility B much more likely to be featured in search results where more people can find it.
Use Google Analytics to discover patterns in performance. A free tool that can serve as your home base for SEO improvements is Google Analytics. You can monitor organic traffic on Google Analytics to see which pages perform well and which pages are in need of improvement. The tool offers an option to set notifications for traffic spikes and decreases so you can identify areas of improvement and discover what sparks success in page performance.
Develop a keyword research strategy. We discussed the importance of creating content but deciding what topics to tackle is another story. Each post you create should target a relevant keyword. It’s helpful to target long-tail keywords at the start because they are typically less competitive, meaning your posts will have a better chance of ranking for them.
There are many ways to unearth the ideal keywords to target. For instance, you can utilize Google Trends and scroll down to the ‘related queries’ box to find longtail keywords that people are searching for. Another free keyword research strategy is to utilize Google Suggest and type in the start of a query to see the complete searches that appear.
3. Help the right people find your center with a blog
We briefly touched on the important role content creation plays in attracting people to your website. The targeted approach it offers may be why 72% of online marketers describe content marketing as their most effective SEO tactic.
When it comes to developing a content plan, you don’t have to start from scratch. Let’s take some lessons from other blogs in the drug rehab sector to grasp what good content looks like.
Annapolis based treatment center MATClinics has a patient-focused blog that addresses common questions. This post targets the keyword “pain pill addiction” and goes into detail about options for treatment.
Another useful strategy is to target local searchers in blog posts. Your facility has a certain physical location so you may as well reach out to people nearby. Ashwood Recovery takes this route in the article entitled “5 Most Common Mental Health Disorders in Boise, Idaho”.
After investing time and effort into producing quality content, make sure that it is visible in a clear and digestible format. For many, reading on the internet entails skimming an article and getting the main points. Add large headings, clear images, and ample spacing in order to break up blocks of text.
Nail your blog layout with these 7 tips on stellar blog formatting.
4. Increase exposure with addiction treatment directory listings
The next item on the list of rehab marketing ideas is a lesser-known but beneficial tactic. Getting your facility listed in treatment directories has a multitude of positive effects.
First, it widens the net of potential patients you can reach. When it comes to selecting a place for treatment, there are a lot of choices on the market. For many people, a well-organized directory offers a way to sort through options. In fact, one addiction treatment directory gets over 50,000 visits per day.
Listings also bring SEO benefits. Search engines scan the internet for mentions of your brand in order to verify your business. More brand mentions and links to your website (with consistent information across sources) bolsters your trustworthiness as far as search engines are concerned.
Take this listing for MATClinics, a Suboxone treatment center in Maryland, for example.
The information about the clinic in this listing matches that of the website and search engines view MATClinics as a trustworthy site. It also earns MATClinics a backlink, which brings us to the final benefit.
When a website links to your website, you earn a backlink. This is almost like a referral from another website and it signals to search engines that your page is worth mentioning. As an increasing number of websites mention your site, your authority grows. This leads to, yup you guessed it, higher rankings in search results.
There are more ways to earn backlinks and boost your site. Learn about 4 of them in our short yet informative guide to earning backlinks.
5. Use Google My Business to connect with people nearby
Every time someone searches for a location in their area or adds the term “near me” to a search, the results that appear are a product of local SEO.
Local SEO is a branch of search engine optimization that helps businesses gain visibility in search results. There are two ways to appear in search results with local SEO. One is through the SERPs and the other is through Google Maps.
Setting up a Google My Business (GMB) profile is crucial in order to jumpstart local SEO success. It’s here that you will input relevant information about your rehab center including hours of operation, available services, address, and more.
To see local SEO at work, look at what happens when we search “drug treatment centers Houston” in Google Maps.
There are a lot of differences between the facilities from pricing to services and more. But all these centers have a common trait in common—their Google My Business profiles are complete and up-to-date.
There are also photos and reviews in many of the profiles, adding to the complete picture of the center.
The box from Google Maps also appears at the top of the search engine results page for the same keyword.
As you can see, even outside of maps, local SEO plays a large role in these location specific search results. Thanks to their top tier GMB profiles and dedication to local SEO, these treatment centers get prime Google real estate.
Want an outstanding GMB profile? Check off these 15 items on the list of Google My Business optimization strategies.
Don’t be held back by limited local reach. Strengthen your rehab marketing plan by setting up a Google My Business profile today.
Breathe new life into your marketing plan
If you found these rehab marketing ideas helpful, there’s more where that came from. Consider partnering with digital marketing experts to take your SEO to the next level. At Markitors, we understand what it takes to increase the ranking of your treatment facility in search engines through keyword strategies, local SEO, digital PR, and more.
Skip the guesswork and get a team by your side. Contact us today to learn what Markitors can do for you.
