As long as mental health treatment has existed, there have been new and surprising innovations.1 Some—like the need for digital care options during the pandemic, or predictive analysis of social media to prevent self-harm—feel like they happen suddenly. Others, like helpful digital training tools and promising medications, are rolled out slowly with time to plan and adapt new treatments organically.
When new treatment options are introduced at your behavioral health center, more often than not, you probably don’t get as much time as you want (or need!) to plan the perfect digital marketing strategy. But what if for one new innovation you could?
Right now, the new treatment we’re most looking forward to and preparing for is the legalization of psilocybin as a treatment for addiction, depression, and PTSD. While this treatment has been legalized in a few cities and states, psilocybin remains illegal in the U.S. on the federal level.2 But not for long!
If you’re planning on offering psilocybin treatments at your behavioral health center, you should be preparing your strategic digital marketing plan now. Don’t get left behind! Establish yourself as an expert now, and be ready to launch your campaign the day this treatment becomes legal.
Although every behavioral health treatment center will have unique needs, following a general roadmap for digital marketing can position your business to succeed in the psilocybin market.
Building a Successful Psilocybin Treatment Marketing Strategy
A strategic digital marketing plan doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why planning your rollout of psilocybin treatment marketing initiatives now is crucial. So if your behavioral health treatment center is considering offering psilocybin therapies, start taking these steps right away.
1. Set Your Goals
The first step of any strategic marketing plan is identifying your short- and long-term goals. Without established goals, you can’t measure progress toward success.
Your marketing goals should align with your overall strategic business or operational plan. So if your treatment center’s goals include expanding into psilocybin treatments, you’ll need to create measurable marketing goals to support that expansion.
2. Evaluate Your Past Actions
Offering a new type of treatment doesn’t mean forgetting about the past. Identify the marketing strategies that succeeded and failed in your past campaigns—those are the tactics that have helped get your program to where it is. But don’t stop there. You also need to know why a strategy succeeded or failed.
Every piece of data you collect on prior success (and failures) is helpful for informing your psilocybin treatment campaigns.
3. Research and Analyze
Gather information on all aspects of your behavioral health treatment center, your competitors, and your community. The more data, the better—even if some feels irrelevant at the start. If you’ve already completed this process, use this opportunity to update your research.
Communities are always evolving, and it’s important to make sure your understanding of your target market is current before launching any new marketing initiatives.
4. Identify Your Audience
When creating digital marketing campaigns for emerging treatments, it’s important to understand the segments of your audience who are most likely to be interested in those treatments. In the case of psilocybin treatments, specifically focus on clients experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, and addiction. Determine how your treatment center is uniquely positioned to offer psilocybin treatment to clients with this type of need.
At the same time, don’t let myopia creep in. Considering your research, analysis, and audience may reveal some surprising marketing opportunities unique to your community.
5. Determine Your Budget
This applies to all campaigns, but especially those created for a new treatment. Avoid overspending by setting a budget at the beginning of the campaign, but don’t create your own failure scenario by starving the campaign of being too inflexible to adapt.
It may sound trite to say that the best marketing budget is the one that most efficiently supports your goals while maximizing the return on every marketing dollar spent. But just because it’s trite doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The best marketing budget is the one that best supports your treatment center’s specific goals.
And when it comes to preparing digital marketing campaigns for emerging treatments like psilocybin therapy, it’s important to make sure you understand what your center’s revenue goals around those treatments will be before crafting your initial budgets. From there, a good place to start is a marketing spend of about 10% of the revenue you expect to generate from the campaign.
6. Determine your Timeline and Scope
Next, look at what platforms will reach your ideal clients most effectively and how long your campaign should run. Strategic marketing plans typically include advertising to your target audience in a variety of ways. Social media channels and highly targeted pay-per-click ads pointing to quality content is a good way to establish yourself as an expert and introduce a new treatment like psilocybin.
And it’s never too early to start your SEO keyword research! Creating a strong SEO strategy around psychedelic therapies and implementing it as soon as possible will help you get a jump start on the competition.
Since we don’t have a hard date for legalization, your timeline may be as long as several years or as short as a few weeks. Tailor your marketing plan to the goals you previously outlined and adjust it accordingly.
7. Analyze and Adjust
No marketing plan is perfect. Depending on the type of campaign, a marketing strategy might take a few days, weeks, or months to realize results. But that requires constantly assessing what’s working and what isn’t.3
After collecting and analyzing your data, adjust. Duplicate and expand the strategies that are paying off. And stop spending your budget in areas that aren’t meeting expectations. You’ll stay on track to reach your goals without wasting time and money.
A Good Website Makes a Great First Impression
If creating your behavioral health center’s strategic marketing plan feels intimidating, we’re here to help. Contact us at 888.307.7304 to schedule your strategy session.
For a list of references, please contact us.