With the advent of Obamacare forcing insurance companies to provide mandatory coverage for addiction and mental health treatment, the gold rush is on within the addiction treatment industry as it experiences unparalleled expansion and growth. With such growth comes a symbiotic demand for key marketing outsourced services to assist these treatment centers with their admissions expansion. Recovery operations are spending millions upon millions of dollars on marketing services as they race to capture market share. What does that mean for outsourced marketing companies entering the fray of addiction and mental health marketing? Sky’s the limit.

However, with the foray of marketing companies hurdling down the path of addiction and mental health marketing services, as usually there are the many who have little or no experience within this industry and that equates to a higher cost per acquisition for admissions. More to the point for recovery operations is the aspect that selecting the right solution can be extremely challenging. Lack of industry experience is one of the many challenges. Contending with a myriad of providers with greatly varying skill and depth within areas such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click, Social Media Optimization (SMO), and content generation and management can be utterly frustrating. The qualitative difference in skill and results can be staggering.

In the end many of these marketing vendors are selected ultimately by throwing a dart or better stated throwing these lead generation solutions against the wall and seeing what sticks. Selecting the wrong solution can cost recovery operations lost time and potentially millions of dollars. With that said, successful addiction and mental health treatment center operations understand the critical importance of selecting the right partners upfront.

Due diligence is therefore a must. There are qualified marketing service providers that have the experience and track record to deliver results but this ultimately must be verified and confirmed. It doesn’t take a complete forensic review to make the right choice but if you are not sure who to select, get help from someone who has the expertise to make the right selection. Too many recovery operations rush past the due diligence and discovery process only to find themselves locked in with the wrong partner.

Here are some simple tips below to use when identifying and selecting online marketing service providers such as PPC, SEO, and SMO, just to name a few media segments:

TIP #1: Verify that the marketing service provider themselves have a strong online presence and are diligently performing the same services on themselves as they are offering to you. You would be surprised how many do not.

TIP #2: Make sure the marketing service provider is able to demonstrate expertise and results within the addiction and mental health industry. If they can’t then get out your dart board and cross your fingers because it could be a long journey to nowhere.

TIP #3: Verify that your marketing outsourced vendor understands math. This is a big one! For example, if you contract with a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) company or an individual contractor and they can only take tracking to Cost-Per-Click (CPC) then you most likely will have a big problem ahead of you because your provider does not understand critical lead generation metrics such as Cost Per Lead or even worse, Cost Per Acquisition and therefore they lack the skill to regress your disposition and conversion data.

They are leaving it up to you to figure it out all by yourself. Not good. They need to take ownership of those analytics along with you. And if they simply have no clue – run away as fast as you can because, and make no mistake about it, in order to fill beds you must be in the lead generation business with all your online and offline marketing channels. Branding is for the few that made it and even at that level it’s still all about lead generation.

Summary

When it comes to marketing solutions, there are effectively 2 types of recovery operations in the addiction and mental industry today. Those who jump in with anyone who flashes a marketing badge, and those who are planned out and methodically in their approach with addiction lead generation and mental health lead generation. Obviously the probability of achieving lead generation success will favor the latter, as fortune favors not only the bold but the prepared as well. Addiction treatment centers that value both their time and money will take the necessary time to vet out the right partner and employee relationships and as such will get the most gold into their wheel barrow.

Blog Writer: Brian Douglas