The demand for mental health professionals is greater than ever — and there’s more competition in the industry. Tap into the digital world to create a mental health marketing strategy that stands out. Due to the sensitive nature of mental illness, a lot of people use the internet to seek mental health treatment options. You can harness insights from your website and social media to provide answers that draw prospective new patients to your practice and keep them coming back.
With digital marketing for mental health professionals, you get your site listed higher on search engine results pages and create a clearly defined space for your community. Additionally, by ensuring that your digital offering is fully up to date, you’re staying relevant in a rapidly changing world.
Use a Mental Health Marketing Strategy to Help More People
Whereas there was perhaps a culture of believing that people needed to toughen up in the past, we now realize that there’s a lot more to a healthy mind than willpower. There is still a stigma attached to mental health — although each year, we’re getting closer to being understanding and inclusive. This might cause people to try to fix their problems alone by using the internet and social media.
When you develop a mental health marketing strategy, you need to find ways of reaching those individuals and reassuring them that professional treatment is the way forward. In addition to having a great online reputation, it’s crucial that you optimize your website, create high-quality, useful content and make the most of social media channels to amplify mental health awareness and treatment options.
Digital Marketing and Mental Health Provision
According to SAMHSA, In 2017, it was estimated that 46.6 million people in the United States were suffering with some form of mental health issue. That’s equivalent to one in five people, which is a staggering statistic. However, just because there’s a big market out there, it doesn’t mean they know you exist. With more people turning to the internet for guidance than ever before, it’s crucial that you get the most out of digital marketing.
Create a Strategy Based on Data
One of the best things about digital marketing for behavioral health professionals is the real-time insights into consumer behavior.
Previously, most marketing efforts were based on data about last year’s sales. Of course, the landscape changes so rapidly that what happened last year is often entirely irrelevant to what will happen next year. When you use recent data to drive your marketing strategy, you’re no longer playing a guessing game.
Be Part of Your Local Community
Social media gives you a unique opportunity to interact with your customers and the local community. These channels are excellent spaces for you to share useful information about mental health services and get honest feedback. Sharing content for free might seem counterproductive, but we’ll explore why it’s such an effective strategy in the next section.
SEO for Mental Health Professionals
Search engine optimization is a lot more than a marketing buzzword. It’s the best way of making sure your website appears high up on the SERPs and acquires organic traffic to your site from prospective patients or loved ones of potential patients. It’s a complicated process that involves fine-tuning your website so that it meets the strict expectations of the popular search engines’ algorithms. This includes a variety of factors, such as keyword strings, locally optimized landing pages, easy navigation around the site, inbound link development, and content marketing.
Content marketing has two benefits, the first one being SEO. Including unique, well-written blog posts and downloadable resources with all the right keywords will boost your SERP ranking. The more content you create, the better you secure that spot right at the top. Plus, by giving away information, you build trust and loyalty with your audience in addition to establishing yourself a trusted authority in the mental healthcare field.
Website Design
One major aspect of SEO is web design, which not many people realize. If you have an old-style HTML website that’s clunky and hard to navigate, Google will penalize you. Likewise if the pages load slowly or aren’t optimized for mobile and tablet devices. The look and feel of your website should be updated on a regular basis to reflect the latest customer expectations.
Additionally, consumers are discerning when it comes to the quality of your website. If they think it looks outdated or messy, that’s the impression they have of your mental health practice.
Social Media Marketing for Mental Health Professionals
Although you must be careful about patient privacy, social media is an amazing way to connect with and support your community. When you share an awesomely written, helpful piece of content, people will share it with each other on social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. The more shares and likes you can get, the wider your audience becomes.
PPC (Google Ads)
SEO and social media mental health marketing are both long-term strategies. In the short term, you can bid on certain keywords and get clickable ads right at the top of Google’s results page. Although this can get expensive, you have the option of only paying if someone actually clicks the link. If you opt for this service, you’ve got your brand at the top of the SERPs for free.
Why Use a Digital Marketing Agency?
So, now that we’ve explained everything you need to do, you can just go and do it, right? Actually, we’d recommend using a digital marketing agency unless you intend to hire a full-time staff member to plan and implement the entire mental health marketing strategy. A digital marketing agency helps with the following:
- Agencies have more time than you do to focus on this aspect of your business
- Customized packages based on decades of combined experience
- Knowledge of graphic design, expandable banners, and other creative tasks
- Instead of hiring one person, get an entire team
- Capitalize on expertise in branding, paid media, social media, web design and SEO
Contact Mental Health Marketing Experts
If you’re ready to grow your mental health facility and start helping more people, call the healthcare digital marketing experts at Lead to Conversion today for a free consultation at 855-473-6582.
