A smart mental health digital marketing strategy empowers you to reach prospective patients. Reaching them has never been more important.

In the wake of the pandemic, the public’s collective mental health has been severely challenged. Anxiety and depression reached new levels as a direct result of COVID. At the same time, drug and alcohol addiction rates have also climbed. 

There is no shortage of people who need mental health treatment. And your treatment center needs a strong mental health digital marketing strategy to steer them your way.

Simply having a website doesn’t guarantee patients will find you. A sustainable mental health digital marketing strategy involves much more than that. Let’s take a closer look at what that entails. 

Reach Your Audience With Mental Health Digital Marketing

No one in the mental health field was surprised to learn the pandemic has been detrimental to people’s mental health. As the months dragged on, quarantines and social distancing caused greater anxiety, loneliness, and panic attacks. While the effects of the pandemic have started to fade, these effects will linger into the future.

Behavioral health treatment centers have the heavy responsibility of dealing with these increased mental health issues. Working closely with a digital marketing agency for mental health to ensure people seeking help are able to find it is important.

As you reach out to your target audience, consider that your marketing messaging isn’t just for prospective patients. You must also address the concerns of family members who may be the ones searching for help on behalf of a loved one. 

An effective mental health marketing strategy must include compelling and motivating original content. When people inquire about certain subjects, you need landing pages, blog posts, and social media posts that discuss these topics.

Your ability to provide this crucial, informative content makes your center an educational resource in the eyes of viewers. Even if a prospective patient doesn’t take action right away, you’re providing a vital lifeline. Ideally, when they do decide to take steps toward getting treatment, your mental health treatment center will be the first place they think of.

How To Make Mental Health Digital Marketing Work For You

Leveraging its extensive knowledge of behavioral health marketing, Dreamscape Marketing partners with mental health treatment centers to help them more effectively reach their target audiences. This is a responsibility we take very seriously.  

At all times, we address prospective patients’ chief concerns in their moment of need. Everything we do is designed to motivate people to take the next step and pursue treatment.

Dreamscape Marketing’s comprehensive mental health digital marketing strategy includes the following:

1. Create Great Content 

Your content marketing creates the first impression many patients will have of your mental health treatment center. Prospective patients need to know that they can come to your website for reliable, useful information. It can’t just be the occasional blog post. You must regularly upload fresh content that mirrors what viewers are searching for.

2. Use Calls to Action

Your content must do more than just inform. It must also motivate viewers to take the next step. This might be a phone call to your treatment center, filling out a form, or requesting an appointment. 

Without effective calls to action, your content will never do the job it was supposed to do. Calls to action provide visitors with guidance and are crucial to your digital marketing success.

3. Consider PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Marketing

A very useful tool, especially when used in conjunction with SEO, is PPC. This is a good way to drive traffic to your website if your SEO is underperforming or just getting started. 

The downside of PPC is that it can become prohibitively expensive if not managed properly. A well-managed mental health digital marketing strategy will rein in excess or unwise PPC spending.

4. Focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Beyond PPC, a good organic search engine ranking that you really want in the long run. You own SEO results and they have staying power without needing to pay for them over and over. SEO is a crucial piece of any mental health digital marketing strategy and should be your focus.

5. Social Media Gets Results

Your social media presence can be leveraged effectively to find new patients. However, it’s easy for behavioral health centers to get social media wrong. One intention should always be to drive traffic back to your website. Done the wrong way, this won’t happen. 

If you use social media correctly, however, it can be a huge boost for your digital marketing strategy. It is a great way to connect with potential patients, share reviews, and increase awareness of your brand. 

6. Track Your Data

Results are important in any marketing campaign. Tracking and analyzing data is the only way to achieve this objective. You never want to guess whether your mental health digital marketing is successful. You want a definitive answer. Tracking the data you gather from your website and social media platforms will make it possible.

Take Your Mental Health Digital Marketing to the Next Level

Digital marketing for mental health professionals requires a deep knowledge of both behavioral health care and the intricacies of PPC, SEO, content creation, and web design. Not every digital marketer checks all of these boxes. You need to work with one that does.

Dreamscape Marketing can help. Schedule a strategy session with us by calling 888.307.7304.

 

 

For a list of references, please contact us.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in September 2021 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.