Google's Re-inclusion Process For Adwords

The day has finally come that Google realized how much they were shooting themselves in the foot but also hurting real recovery centers around the country with their PPC ban on most addiction related keywords. 

In an announcement from Google, they basicly said that they are working with a firm, Legit Script (https://www.legitscript.com/service/certification/addiction-treatment/) to review all recovery centers to ensure they are actually centers.  This will still eliminate a lot of lead generation companies and body brokers, which was the entire point to begin with. Click the link above to begin your two step process. Step one is paying the fees.  One time fee of $995 and an annual fee of $1,995.  Then you will need to provide a long list of documents that are needed.  The key document being your center Policies and Procedures manual.  That is a genius move as all licensed centers must have a P&P for licensure which will weed out the lead gen companies and body brokers. 

That all being said, and we are VERY excited for our clients to have access to Google Adwords again, don't forget about what happened.  If you are reading this blog, chances are you were hurt, badly, by the removal of Adwords from your marketing spend. That change lowered your census and put you in a rough financial spot. 

The old school mentality of marketing for recovery centers is dead.  That needs to be 100% said and without any interpretation. The days of just spending $20k in Adwords to generate 5 intakes instantly is gone. The process has changed, which means your marketing strategy needs to change with it. Or, go the way of the 100's of  treatment centers that didn't adapt and are now closed for business. 

The process from initial interest to entering treatment is a window of 27-46 days.  That is how long it takes the average person to trust themselves enough to make the call and change their life. Throwing money into Adwords doesn't speed that up. (although sure, you could target bottom of the funnel keywords to be included in the conversation, but that will increase your Cost Per Intake to a major level.  This is why we are happy to be the only addiction marketing agency offering retargeting and connected TV to our clients.  These two platforms allow our clients to continue the conversation with those that have landed on their website but not yet made the choice to call or enter treatment.  Through both retargeting across the web and on television (yes, tv.  The days of buying a demographic are over, its all about targeted advertising) we can continue to brand your treatment facility and message the individual until they are ready to make the call. Our data shows that when used, correctly, our clients say a 42% increase in the number of leads they received. 

In conclusion, as an agency parter of Google's, we are very happy that our clients are able to get included in this program quickly and we are excited to fire up the Adwords programs as well.  However, we also will never forget what this did to many of the smaller centers in the country that were doing good work.  Our advice? Engage with Google Adwords, but incorporate more than just Adwords into your marketing strategy. Not only will this benefit you today, but if they ever make a change like this again, you won't be hurt as badly. 

If you would like to learn more, just give us a call.  877-506-8389.  We would be happy to explain the process further. 

Marketing Your Florida Treatment Center After July 1st 2017

HUGE changes came down on the 1st of July for treatment centers in the state of Florida.  First, we want to go on record that we agree with what has been done in Florida.  For a long time, we have all known about the patient brokering happening down there.  However, with the new legislation being VERY broad, treatment centers trying to market the right way are also suffering. 

So, what can you do? What does this law mean for your center in terms of online and offline marketing? First, let me be clear, we are NOT a legal resource and we highly recommend contacting a local Florida attorney to understand exactly what you can and can not do.  However, we had our attorney review things and here is what you need to know. 

1. STOP BUYING LEADS. If you are in Florida, you can no longer buy phone calls.  
2. You must update the way you answer the phone when potential clients call  you.  You MUST mention that you are in Florida. "Thank you for calling XYZ a Florida recovery center, how can we help you?".  But don't use that, its horrible. 
3. You must review everything on your website to ensure it is 100% factual.  Any mention of "best" or "voted number 1" or anything like that needs to be verifiable. 
4. When you are using Adwords to target areas outside of Florida, you need to mention that you are a Florida based treatment center in the ad. 
5. You must work with a Florida licensed marketing agency. Yes, that is a real thing and we are currently going through the process. 

Okay, so catch your breath for a minute.  This is actually a good thing for a lot of the better centers in Florida. I agree, the law is a HUGE overreach and is very vague.  And, you KNOW, they are going to be looking for those that step out of line to use as an example.  So, here is what you can do. 

Branded is Your New Best Friend

Your pay per call campaigns are gone, but you can still generate leads the good old fashioned way.   The use of SEO, Paid Search, Social, TV and Radio are still 100% okay as long as it is branded to your center. This means, your TV commercial that generates callers must be about your center, specifically. Your paid search campaigns must go to your centers website. You can no longer buy those $40 calls (but lets be honest, that was a crap shoot anyway). We have seen clients do much better when they purchase the TV themselves and generate interest in their business. People are tired of the same old fake doctor telling them that addiction is a disease. They want something more. With a branded TV or radio spot, you not only get the direct response calls, but your organic and paid search will increase as well.  Built a great commercial and they will come. Calls that is. 

You have held out long enough. It is time for SEO

The day is finally here.  You MUST do SEO now.  Local rankings drive a lot of traffic for centers, and can be a large intake machine for your center. Now, I know, it takes a long time, and costs a lot, but in the end, it is worth it.  We have clients that get just 110 calls a month and generate 10+ intakes at a $300 cost per admit. So, jump on it. The sooner you start, the sooner you get the results you want. Plust there will be a lot of centers shutting down over this new rule, and those that are positioned well, organically, will be able to rise to the top. 

Your New Immediate is Paid Search Marketing

Update your PPC campaigns, or begin one. You can target anywhere in the country you want and a good PPC managment company can hyper target for better cost per admit goals. (Yes, we do that). Yes, placement services have made the cost of Adwords go up, however, they will quickly run from Florida as patient brokering is a serious offense now. This leaves it open to centers that can move quickly and have quality landing pages to drive visitors towards. Estimate about $15,000/month in budget directly with Google and a 15% managment fee to see a quality cost per intake. 

Hope Is Not Lost

As I said, hope is not lost.  In fact, if you own a center that offers quality treatment and doesn't play the "game", you will do well with this new law. Just reset your prospective and expectations. If you are interested in our services, we are not able to work within the state of Florida as of yet, as we are awaiting our licensing approval.  However, if you give us a call, we will update you as soon as it is approved. 

Non-Profit Centers Can Get Free Marketing

At The Drug Rehab Agency, we speak to roughly 10 centers a week.  Many of them smaller, non-profits trying to compete in our competitive market. They don't have the budget that is needed to spread the word and help people.  This is why The Drug Rehab Agency is excited to announce that starting in April, we will "scholarship" two non-profit treatment centers that are trying to help the less fortunate, and can prove it.  

Our addiction marketing services for these selected two non-profits may include:

1. Organic Search
2. Local SEO
3. Paid Search Management
4. Paid Social Media Management
5. Display Advertising

Although we understand there are many other methods to generate leads in our space, these five areas of marketing produce great ROI and once implemented correctly, can generate intakes for the foreseeable future, without our help. 

If you would like to have your non-profit rehab center considered, please fill out the following form.  We will reach out to you shortly after to speak about the opportunity. 

How To Generate More Leads For Your Treatment Center

Have you tried everything available to generate leads and intakes for your center? Bought those phone calls that everyone says, “You will close 2-3 per 100 you buy”, only to be sent phone calls for people looking for other centers, free treatment, or hang-ups? How about Google Adwords? Have you gone down that path and spent $10’s of thousands of dollars and maybe received one intake? Here is what to do when the calls stop coming in and you are in need of intakes.

Stop Buying from Different Vendors

One of the largest problems that we see as an addiction marketing agency is that centers (or the executives) want to divide up the marketing expenses by vendor.  Stop doing that! What if you marketing team didn’t communicate with your intake team? Your medical and executive staff didn’t communicate new modalities with your marketing team? It would fall short.  So why think it wouldn’t when it comes to driving leads?  Hire a company or two companies that either own everything in that space, or are willing to communicate with another company to drive the best result for your center.

Look To Social Media

Social media has been a HUGE driver for leads and intakes for many centers.  Like anything else, you need to do some quality targeting to ensure you are approaching the right people.  A large issue we see is that people are using Google Adwords to heavily when Facebook and other social platforms can produce a similar result for less.  On average, the cost per click on Facebook is just $8.00 versus Adwords which is over $20.00 if now over $50.00 a click. 

Review Your Local SEO

Everyone in treatment will agree that when it comes to online marketing, the best leads come from organic search.  Depending on your centers geographical location, this may be more difficult to achieve, however, it is the center piece for all successful marketing programs.  Google “Drug rehab (city name)” if you don’t see yourself, no one else does either.  It is time to focus on Organic Search to generate long term results and a continues flow of leads.

Display Advertising

A long lost advertising platform, the display ad may seem an older form of marketing, however, it is inexpensive and, when done correctly, can generate the type of calls and leads you want.  The key here is to ensure you are advertising on sites that make sense.  If you are trying to generate intakes for your luxury treatment center, you won’t want your ads on Buzzfeed.  Remember, demographics are still targetable online, and should be used in any display purchase.  Also, if you are a new center, look into Rehab.com and recovery.org.  They rank well for just about any state keyword, and you can purchase the rights to be name a top center in that state.

Paid Search Through Google, Yahoo, and Bing

In the last year, this mode of generating leads has gotten very expensive.  With more and more placement/lead generation companies entering the market, the demand has increased, while supply has stayed the same. (see, Econ 101 wasn't a waste of time).  Although it has gotten more and more expensive, there are still small tweaks you can make to your paid search platforms to make sure that click matters.  One way is to focus on the wealthy areas of your market.  You can look up home prices and find the areas of the country with the most expensive homes and target them through your platform.  You can also run a click to call campaign for mobile search, allowing the searcher to simply call you from the Google homepage. 

Television and Radio

Let’s get this out of the way first.  Buying phone calls from a generic commercial on the TV or radio is not what we are suggesting.  Most likely, you have tried this and, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph, its garbage.  I am suggesting you do a branded TV advertisement and/or branded radio ad.  Based on your budget and target marketing, we are seeing Cost Per Admits under $4,000 through both radio and television.  The key is that the ads are branded to your specific center.  Not the general, “Do you or someone you love suffer from addiction?” stuff you see during day time television. 

The Drug Rehab Agency Offering

The key to success in the marketing space is hiring the right agency to manage this process.  The Drug Rehab Agency is able to manage each of the above platforms with over 20 years of combined experience.  As an agency, we have buying power that you may not get on your own, as well as the true experience in the treatment space to make your ad spend return an ROI. 

How we Do It:

Not all advertising works 100% of the time.  There are times when your paid search will not return a positive ROI. Or the cost of TV and radio has increased like it did in the election.   This could be because more people entered the market, or the cost is simply to high.  Working with The Drug Rehab Agency allows us to manage this for you.  Allowing us to pivot away from Adwords and reallocate that budget to more radio or TV spots, or increase quantity of display ads we are showing on selected websites. Our job is to deliver as many phone calls as possible for the budget you have provided.  On average, our clients see a Cost Per Admit below $5,500 in the first month and below $4,500 the second.  Select clients are below the $3,500 cost per admit mark after 3 months.

If you are interested in learning how our marketing programs can generate intakes quickly and cost effectively, contact us today!

Cheap SEO - Learn How to Protect Your Treatment Center

We get a lot of calls from treatment centers asking for help with SEO.  We also work with a lot of new centers that are starting out and really don’t know much about the space.  An issue we have seen over and over again is that SEO companies are promising the world to these centers in order to close the deal.  Too often, we come across a company after they have already been taken advantage of by a dishonest SEO firm, and we have to help dig them out of the quagmire.  I want to discuss this issue and give you the information you need to make a smart, safe decision when it comes to selecting an SEO firm. 

There are two types of SEO that can be done to your site: Quick or correct (Risky or True).  Not both.  If a firm says they can get you first page rankings in two months, they are either lying to you, or are using risky SEO practices. 

What are These “Risky” SEO Practices? 

An estimated 70% of what determines a website’s ranking increase in Google are the links pointing to the site.  We have discussed this before – links are like votes for your site.  The more websites that link to your site, the more authority you have in Google’s eyes, and hence, the higher your site will rank for keywords.

Risky SEO is not playing by the rules Google has outlined for SEO.  This means BUYING links, not earning links.  You can buy 10,000 links to your site for about $250. This method worked great in 2006, however not so much in 2015.  The draw here is that it is much cheaper to do link building this way, which is why risky SEO companies can offer you such a low rate for services. 

The benefit of Risky SEO practices is that it, sadly, still works but only for a short period of time.  You can get rankings in 2 to 3 months, but in 6 to 9 months, Google will penalize you and you will not rank for ANYTHING.  Imagine what that would do to your business.

What is “True” SEO?

True SEO is what The Drug Rehab Agency and a few other firms in the space do.  This is based around providing Google with what it wants – lots of top level content.  Then we use this content to approach websites and ask for a link to the content.  Another form we use is writing knowledgeable content to host on publishers’ websites in the treatment space. This content then links back to your site.  As long as the content quality is there and there is not exchange for services, this is 100% above the board with Google. 

Take-Away

SEO is not instant.  Period.  No matter what you are told; there is no way for SEO to give you instant results.  That is what your paid search budget is for. We have found that it takes 5 to 7 months for a new website’s rankings to reach the first page of Google’s search results, and about 3 to 4 months for a currently live site. Be very careful when selecting your SEO partner as their “work” may leave your site worse than before they started.  SEO takes time, and can be a HUGE ROI driver for your treatment center, so ensure you select the right company for the job.  Or, you can just call us…