Marketing mental health services in the midst of a global pandemic is challenging. The need for mental health services is rising. The marketing plan for mental health professionals must adjust to this situation.
Multiple studies have shown us that the pandemic has been every bit as destructive to mental health as we could have imagined. Well over half of Americans have reported feeling some degree of anxiety, depression, stress or thoughts of suicide. That’s an enormous increase over pre-pandemic levels.
The need for mental health treatment is clearly on the rise. To meet demand, marketing mental health services takes on an increasing importance. Let’s take a closer look at ways to do this.
Marketing Strategies For Mental Health Services
Marketing mental health services requires a smart strategy using the following action steps:
Understand Your Target Audience
This is always step number one before any serious digital marketing strategy can be deployed. Yet, some mental health centers nearly skip over it. Why? Because they assume the answer is self-evident.
In fact, you have more than one target audience. There’s the prospective patient, obviously. However, there’s also the patient’s family. Families may actually be interested in different information than a patient would be. As a result, this requires a percentage of landing pages and blogs tailored very much to their concerns instead of the patient’s.
Prioritize Website Design
Your website design is a key part of marketing for mental health services. A poor website design can easily lead to a negative viewer experience. Remember that a visit to your website is the first impression many people have of your mental health treatment center. Furthermore, your website design is the first impression viewers have of your website. If a website is displeasing to look at or difficult to navigate, viewers won’t be happy.
It’s always hard to recover from a negative first impression. Make sure your website design is up to date, pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate.
Is your website design more than five years old? If so, it’s already out of date. Marketing mental health services means starting off with an excellent website design.
Beef Up Your Website Content
Remember that your mental health treatment website is never “finished.” It’s a work in progress at all times. That means you need to constantly add fresh new content about mental health treatment to it.
Your content reaches concerned prospective patients or their families. The objective should be that your website serves as an educational resource for viewers. They should see it as a place to find reliable, timely information that they’re seeking.
Marketing mental health services means keeping prospective patients well informed. Remember that if your website content doesn’t provide the right information, viewers will go looking for another website that does.
Use PPC Marketing Wisely (Not Wastefully)
With pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, it’s easy to throw around money to get immediate results. If you’re a start-up or if your SEO isn’t working, this is a good move.
PPC, however, can be expensive, without necessarily producing the results you were looking for. For this reason, it’s important to partner with a digital marketing company that understands how to leverage PPC to your greatest advantage.
PPC isn’t always the answer to all of your marketing concerns—at least not by itself. Too often, healthcare facilities spend on PPC and neglect their organic ranking strategy.
Dreamscape Marketing advises its healthcare clients to always view their PPC strategy as part of a bigger, more comprehensive marketing plan.
Build Ranking Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You could have the finest mental health treatment center website on earth and it could potentially be seldom visited. This is quite possible if your website isn’t properly optimized to satisfy the requirements of search engines like Google.
Properly optimized landing pages and blogs allow Google’s algorithm to better understand your content. By adhering to Google guidelines, it’s far more likely that your pages will show up at the top of search results.
Optimization of your content centers around smart keyword research. It’s your correct use of keywords that helps Google connect your pages and blogs with viewers looking for them.
Dreamscape Marketing recommends a content marketing strategy that revolves around organic search engine optimization where you become a net producer of content. When marketing mental health services, remember that your content has a long-term shelf life and genuine equity value.
Marketing Mental Health Services Begins With The Right Partner
Marketing for mental health services requires a comprehensive strategy. No one aspect can serve as a standalone that accomplishes all of your goals. It’s the components working together that serve to achieve results.
Dreamscape Marketing, a long-time player in behavioral healthcare marketing, has the knowledge and experience to help you with marketing mental health services. Call us today at 888.307.7304 and let’s discuss how we can take your marketing plan to the next level.