Obviously, mental health services were in high demand before the pandemic. Today, lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing are all contributing to the challenge of mental health in the United States. Thus, you should develop a behavioral health marketing strategy that will make it easier for you to reach people in need.
Most mental health practitioners rely too heavily on word-of-mouth and referrals. This is not a systematic marketing approach. Something better is needed. If you don’t implement a behavioral health marketing strategy, you may not be found by prospective patients.
Marketing Strategies for Behavioral Health
Digital marketing isn’t just one thing. It involves many concepts coming together. In addition to website design, pay-per-click (PPC), and behavioral health marketing search engine optimization (SEO).They are all important. However, none of them guarantees success. Let’s explore each of these digital marketing components more closely:
- Website Design for Mental Health Practices
Today, it is essential to have a mobile-friendly, fast-loading mental health treatment center website. When creating a user-friendly, cutting-edge site that people will want to visit, it is crucial to hire a digital marketing agency with experience in mental health.
The process of web design and development isn’t static and one-time. The internet is constantly evolving due to changing tastes and technological advancements. Even if your website design looked great a few years ago, it probably isn’t relevant now. When a website design is outdated, it’s impossible to outrank competitors.
- Content Marketing
Patients typically find a behavioral health website while they are doing their research. Google is used to search for certain topics, and then links are followed that discuss the topics of concern, which hopefully leads them to your website. You can only achieve this by having optimized, compelling content on your website.
Content marketing for behavioral health does not consist of a blog on the occasional basis. Your website is updated with fresh content regularly as part of a thoughtful strategy.
You’ll upload content that prospective patients are seeking based on diligent keyword research. No more guessing what the content of your behavioral health website should be. The research will determine what your editorial calendar will cover.
- PPC
PPC is a valuable first step toward attracting prospective patients – especially if your organic traffic is still developing.
Despite Google’s lack of transparency regarding the relationship between paid and organic searches, Dreamscape Marketing’s years of data show that PPC can be a catalyst for strong digital growth across all traffic channels.The benefits of running a PPC campaign as part of your behavioral health marketing strategy are the following:
- Increased traffic to your website and Google My Business (GMB) page
- Increased visibility online
- Rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs)
- Display sponsored ads
- Generate immediate leads for your mental health treatment center
- Market the services you offer aggressively
- SEO
Your website depends on search engines pointing to it. You are invisible to the world if your website is not visible to search engines.Thus, it is important to prioritize your SEO efforts in order to rank highly. While PPC can positively impact your results, organic search is always the best option. This is fundamental to your behavioral health marketing strategy.
SEO involves writing optimized content. Google and other search engines don’t just rank landing pages and blogs based on great content. This is where search engine optimization comes in. Optimizing and tagging your content will enable Google’s algorithm to find and categorize your content.
The importance of local SEO has risen dramatically over the last few years. The popularity of “near me” searches has never been greater. This means you need to make sure your GMB listing is complete and accurate. Although this is true, many behavioral health centers have either an incomplete GMB listing or one with errors (old physical address, outdated phone number, etc.).