Rehab clinics are invaluable to our society. They are centers of healing for people who have realized that they desperately need help.
However, rehab marketing can be tricky. You need to come across as an open and caring option for people who are seeking help. Cichy marketing strategies will not get you very far when it comes to something as personal and sensitive as rehabilitation.
Because rehab marketing can amount to walking a tightrope, there are a number of common marketing pitfalls that you should avoid.
1. Don’t Sell the Product, Sell Yourself
This may go against most of your better marketing instincts. You’re usually taught to try and sell the consumer on what you are selling. Convince them that your product is for them by going over all of its specific functions and how those functions can improve their lives in some way.
When you’re marketing a rehab center, you don’t want to highlight the specific amenities of your facility. You don’t want to come off as a leasing agency, so you shouldn’t market it as such.
Instead, you should highlight who you are as a company and the overall vibe of your center. When someone is looking for a rehab facility, they’re looking for a place where they can go to get better. Somewhere they can heal.
Rehab marketing should revolve around this idea. How your center will help the patient get from their current circumstances to the place they want to be. These patients don’t want to read about
These patients don’t want to read about your state-of-the-art workout facility or Olympic-size pool. At least not on the front page.
They want to know how and why you will help them get better.
2. Rehab Marketing Just To Patients
Many times, the patient with the issue that needs to be treated will be resistant to the idea of going to a rehab center, no matter how nice it may seem.
A patient’s loved ones, their family members, friends or partners, tend to be the ones who do most of the crucial bits of convincing that gets someone to check into rehab.
These are the people who do most of the work in actually getting your typical patient through the doors of any rehab center. So they should also be the people you focus on the most.
You want to convince them that your rehab center is the one to go to. If you allocate all your time and money trying to appeal to a patient that will be resistant to the very concept of rehabilitation, you will be wasting valuable resources.
Cater to friends and family by showing them what you can do for their loved one. Use testimonials of both previous patients and their loved ones about how your rehab center helped them get to a healthier place.
3. Don’t Disregard Your Digital Presence
A common mistake people make in marketing is assuming their target demographic is not a group that will be found on social media.
This is a myth. Reality is social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, are used by all age groups and demographics. If you leave out social media in your marketing strategy, you will be abandoning a huge chunk of your target audience.
If you’re not familiar with digital and social media marketing, maintaining a consistent presence online can feel tiresome, and not always rewarding.
But it should remain a vital aspect of your rehab marketing. Make time for yourself each week to schedule posts on Facebook and Twitter. Be active on these platforms.
Answer Questions
When you’re marketing rehabilitation, people are going to be asking questions. More and more these people are turning to social media over traditional methods like calling over the phone to have these questions answered.
Make sure you are manning these accounts so you will be able to give people the information they’re looking for in a timely manner. A quick response can go a long way in establishing a relationship with a potential client.
A bonus to keeping up on your social media is that it will help boost the SEO of your overall website and digital presence. An increase in your site’s SEO will help attract more eyes to the benefits of your clinics.
4. Ignoring Reviews
Social media is not the only thing you should make sure continually check. If you’re running a rehab business, people are likely going to voice their opinions about how they felt you did.
Rehab is a sensitive subject and even the best care can prompt someone to leave a disparaging review if they felt like the care they received wasn’t what they bargained for.
However, ignoring these reviews is not the answer. Even if they are mostly overwhelmed by the number of good reviews you receive, people on the fence about going with your clinic will pay close attention to what people with bad experiences had to say.
Respond Accordingly
You should tread carefully when responding to these negative reviews but you should still always respond. Try probing why the person felt the way they did if they didn’t get into specifics in their review. Don’t argue with them, hear them out.
Always apologize to the reviewer, even if you might not have been in the wrong. Take the opportunity as a learning experience. Sometimes their complaints are legitimate and things that you need to look into rectifying.
Keep in mind that people who had a bad experience at your clinic are more likely to take the time to leave a review than people who had a good experience.
This is why it’s also important to go out of your way and thank those who took the time to say something nice about you.
5. Not Investing In SEO
As mentioned before, your clinic website’s SEO can be an invaluable resource to gaining new clients.
Even if you have a perfect rehab marketing plan that will hook in whoever sees it, it won’t do much good if your website is not generating any traffic.
Investing in an SEO strategy can be a big undertaking if you don’t know what you’re doing. Creating a rehab marketing strategy in and of itself is a difficult and time-consuming task.
Your SEO should not be something you ignore but it’s best to leave it in the hands to professionals.
Invest In Your Rehab Marketing
Rehab is a sensitive topic that needs to be handled responsibly. With this guide, you should be more than prepared to develop a marketing strategy that will hook your target audience.
But you need to make sure that your marketing is being utilized to its maximum potential.
Contact us today for an instant quote on SEO services that will have new clients coming to your site in droves.
