Choosing the content for your treatment facility’s website is more than picking out relevant drug-related topics. Certain topics will give you traffic, but will not appeal to your target demographic. You must consider who you’re writing for, what information will drive traffic to your website, and what would entice your visitors to learn more about your facility and convert.

Choosing your target audience

Your target audience isn’t necessarily going to be the person going to treatment, and your content should reflect that balance. While many of your clients will reach out to get help themselves, many others will be loved ones who are seeking help for your future client.

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Your target audience will determine your topics and style.

These people are seeking to learn more about why their loved one is suffering from addiction, and what they can do to get help for them. Although they aren’t the ones going to treatment, they are just as important to reach out to with your content. Often, it’s going to be a family member who pays for treatment because their loved one has spent too much money fueling their addiction and can’t afford it themselves.

Because there are essentially two target audiences, they should not be targeted differently. For an person suffering from addiction, they’re more likely to search for motivation-related or direct topics like:

  1. How to get sober
  2. Getting help for addiction
  3. How to detox from drugs
  4. Avoiding a relapse
  5. The types of addiction treatment

For a loved one of a person suffering from addiction, their search terms will be more education or social topics like:

  1. Talking to a loved one about addiction
  2. Staging an intervention
  3. What are the effects of [drug]?
  4. The signs of addiction
  5. Finding the right treatment center

There will be some overlap between what a future client might search for and what their loved one might. However, it’s important to distinguish between the two when you’re picking out your topics to avoid having meandering, unclear content.

Accoring to RavenTools, a clear, refined target market audience gives your content and marketing more clarity and focus instead of limiting it – and makes it that much more effective.

Picking out the right topics

While some topics might seem relevant, consider what a person who is actually seeking a treatment facility might search for. When seeking out content, your target audiences are going to be a different points in the sales process, and you should have content that appeals to each of them.

For those who are already seeking out a treatment facility, consider this content:
  1. Your services offered: Your visitor needs to know that you offer what they’re looking for.
  2. Your unique selling points: Since they’re much farther along in the sales pipeline, your visitor needs to know why you are different from your competitors, and how that benefits them.
For those who are seeking help but aren’t sure if they need a facility, these topics would be useful:
  1. Your motivational blog posts: Let them know that seeking treatment is a normal process and they’re not weak for needing it.
  2. Your educational content: Educating your visitor about the processes and benefits of rehab can help assuage any fears or concerns they might have.
For loved ones who are looking for a treatment center for their loved one, create these types of content:
  1. Your services offered: Your visitor needs to know that your clients receive the treatment they need in a safe environment.
  2. Your educational blog posts: Because they’re not the actual client, they might not know as much about what their loved one is going through, whether with their addiction or with the treatment process.
For a loved one who’s looking for motivation to help someone get help, choose these types of topics:
  1. Your educational blog posts: They need to learn as much as possible about the benefits and drawbacks of seeking treatment to enable them to actually seek it out.
  2. Your instructional blog posts: This is a little different from the education posts – with instructional blog posts, you’ll be telling your visitor how exactly to reach you, and what they need to do in order to make their treatment successful.

The right topics are so important because these will develop into your headlines, and your headlines need to be able to grab attention. 90% of visitors will decide whether to continue reading based on the headline alone.

Topics that appeal to a specific audience and their position in the sales pipeline will be more likely to generate leads or return visitors. The headline is more likely to grab their attention and keep them reading.

To learn more about the right topics and keywords for your content, click here.

Writing content for addiction treatment

The tone of voice you take with your audience can vary depending on what type of person you wish to attract. This tone will connect more closely with your brand image and will determine the amount of detail and even the voice of your content.

needs help

How should your audience seek help?

If your brand image tends to be more homely, it’s appropriate to take a more casual tone with your audience. Your content will use a second-person (“you”) voice more often and cater more towards motivational blog posts rather than educational. Essentially, you want to seem like a mom-and-pop shop with corporate-level service.

According to Douglas J. Edwards, content marketing establishes a distinctive competence that stands out from the marketplace noise.

In other words, you’re building authority that stands out.
For a more traditional facility, it’s more important to take a more formal tone. A second-person tone of voice works for emotional appeals, but shouldn’t be used throughout the site. Instead of focusing on a strong emotional appeal, instead work towards being an authority in the information you provide.

Developing a call-to-action

You’re not just providing information for information’s sake; remind your audience that if they need your services, they should contact you. There are a few ways you can insert a call-to-action into your content so that it flows naturally, each with its own benefits:

  1. Within the content itself: This can be especially effective for your motivational content – “To help get your loved one the help they need, contact us today.”
  2. Down the side of the page: A simple form or phone number that travels with the visitor as they read the content is a reminder that you’re available if they need to talk and not just read.
  3. At the bottom of the page: Don’t let someone who has finished reading your content click away without you reminding them of the website they’re on, and what they should do to get help.

None of your content should be just for information’s sake.

You provide informational content in order to make sure that your visitor has all the information they need to feel good about contacting you. Being an authority in your industry by creating great content will also make your visitors trust you more and be more likely to convert.

To learn more about site structure for addiction treatment, see our earlier post.

Converting, not just informing

The overall purpose of content is to drive traffic to your website that has the potential to convert, and that content can help in several different ways. It can:

  1. Build trust with your visitor
  2. Inform your visitor to empower them to convert
  3. Motivate your visitor to seek treatment (for themselves or a loved one)
  4. Pitch your visitor on the benefits of choosing your facility over another

Knowing your target audience, picking out the right topics, creating the right tone, and providing a call-to-action will inform, empower, and motivate your visitors to trust you and seek the treatment you can provide.