Perhaps one of the silliest things that online Treatment Marketing can do is to try to empathize with the potential applicants. It is already patronizing enough when vapid celebrities go online and tout the benefits of rehab, but it is even worse having an online advert pretend it knows what the addict is going through. That is just one silly mistake that rehab treatment centers make when they market their services. Here are a few more mistakes to consider.
Framing the Marketing as a Solution to a Problem
Selling a service to the end user, and selling it to the abuser’s family members, are two very different things. Framing your message around being the solution to a problem is great for selling to family members, but it doesn’t sell the service to the addict.
It is not that addict think they “Don’t” have a problem. It is because in an addicts eyes, the solution isn’t the problem, it is life after the solution. Plus, to many addicts, a solution to the problem isn’t a step forward.
When selling to addicts and especially to substance abusers, you need to frame your services as the next step in their lives. It is the next step towards living a fulfilling, more efficient, more controlled life. Anything less, and all you are offering is suffering and the eventual knowledge that all that suffering will be for naught because the abuser doesn’t believe in happily ever after.
Giving Reviews On Your Website
It is frightening how many treatment marketing plans include testimonials. How would you feel if you knew that people were giving reviews on the place you are planning to go? Even if your applicant has no intention of ever giving a review or online testimonial, you shouldn’t put the idea into that person’s head. The addict may believe you convince people to give testimonials, and that he or she may be forced at some point to give a review. At its worst, it gives addicts yet another thing to worry about because they fear their problem will be exposed to the world. At the very best, it gives abusers yet another flimsy reason not to enter rehab.
Pushing a Plan Narrative
The 12-step program worked for some people, but it set sad trend where other forms of treatment marketing proposed plans, schemes and a whole host of other things that supposedly cure addiction. Chemical abusers and addicts are not stupid. They have heard every possible plan, cure and scheme to get them well, and they know to treat them with skepticism and disdain.
When somebody takes up cancer treatment, the clinics do not say, “We wipe out cancer in 3 months or your money back,” they don’t offer a 12-step program to curing cancer or offer any other sort of cure-all plan. Yet, treatment centers think they can sell a recovery plan to addicts without realizing how flawed such a notion is. Your marketing should stress that people can recover at their own rate, and that they can re-learn how to be themselves without any pressure from plans, schemes, or whatever else is a hot trend.
For more marketing advice from seasoned veterans in the trade, contact Reputation Rehab today.