Circle Social Inc.

12/26/2024

Copy this ad, switch out the logo, and run it on another coffee company's Facebook account. Is it going to work?

Of course not.

Notice the ad copy, "Your festive faves are back."

People know what they are going to get from Starbucks in terms of service, quality, options, etc. That reputation has been built over long periods of consistent ex*****on.

Starbucks looks at their own internal sales data and knows what people bought from previous seasons, which they then use to inform their marketing.

So many people think marketing is a magic combination of ad copy and audience targeting, that, with the right combination, marketing will flood any business with customers. That's not how it works.

Start a coffee shop, copy/paste Starbucks ads, and let us know how you do.

The key to good marketing is differentiated campaigns that speak uniquely to your organization. There must be a feedback loop between operations and marketing so that your organization's campaigns work for you and not for someone else.

08/09/2024

Moving from Senior Care to Behavioral Health is not easy. While stories of success circulate, especially in the Hasidic community, more providers fail than succeed. Senior care is all about controlling costs, but finding residents and filling beds is relatively easy. This is not the case with behavioral health.

In fact, there are very few similarities between the two, something many who attempt to make the transition don’t understand. This article explores these key differences so that new operators can be well-prepared for the challenges they will inevitably face.

https://www.circlesocialinc.com/senior-care-to-behavioral-health/

Moving from Senior Care to Behavioral Health is not easy. While stories of success circulate, especially in the Hasidic community, more providers fail than succeed.

08/05/2024

What do you think a better model is, sitting around and waiting for patients to find you or putting in time and effort to make sure they know who you are so that they seek you out when they need services?

Most of you will probably answer the latter, but I bet if you look at your own marketing, most of your budget is invested in the former.

When providers invest only in Google, whether ads or SEO, they're passively waiting for someone to stumble across them. In fact, the way most providers do business development is also passive. Instead of actively cultivating relationships, they're just trying to get in front of a referral partner in the hope that they'll remember them first when they have a patient needing a referral to their services.

Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TV, these are key advertising channels for healthcare providers that most are underinvested in or not invested in at all. Business development focused on actively cultivating strong relationships is also a way to pursue active awareness marketing.

The problem with passive marketing, like on Google, is that you have to wait for someone to search for your services. There's volume there, so of course you do want to invest in those channels, but investing in outbound channels allows you to control your destiny rather than waiting and hoping for patients to search and find you.

Outbound allows you to control your messaging, what potential patients know about you, how they see you. It builds broad community awareness so that you no longer need to rely on search, hoping that they choose you from a sea of search results.

08/02/2024

One of the best converting websites among our clients is one that looks like it was designed by a freshman college student new to web design (because it was). When we first looked at it, we wanted to change it, but then we saw the conversion rates were double the average.

Visually, it's cluttered, blocks are janky, images are blurry, user navigation is clunky.

So why is the conversation rate good?

Because, when you look at competitors in the market, their site represents the facility and program. Staff pictures and stories are front and center, not stock photos. Unique clinical programming is highlighted rather than amenities. The program is clearly run by someone local and invested in the program rather than a distant corporate head office focused on revenue goals.

Despite lacking polish and professionalism, the site still does very well.

Obviously, our recommendation here is not to create a crappy-looking site, but it is to be real and authentic in how you portray your program. Does your website speak uniquely to you? When a visitor looks at your site compared to a competitor is it clear to them why they should choose your program vs. another? Do they get a sense of who you are and how you are best suited to help them?

A site that answers those questions helps your call team because the caller is already half sold on your program before they even pick up the phone.

07/02/2024

The image is a common one found along the Aegean Coast of Turkey, which I visit every summer. It says, "Blackberry Juice, Cold as Ice!" The problem?

Half of the time, if you stop, it's not cold. They don't even have any ice or anywhere cold to store it! It was just marketing BS to get you to stop.

This is how many companies think about their marketing: "If the marketing message gets a call, a click, whatever, then we'll get sales." Except, of course, we know what really happens is that most of the customers get angry.

So if many customers get angry, why do these roadside stands continue to lie?

Because they do get some sales, enough to pay their bills one assumes. This is a tourist area. They don't need a lot of repeat customers. There are enough tourists passing by that stop and buy for them to support themselves.

And this is the falsehood that keeps companies putting out bad marketing. They do get "some sales." It seems to "be working." But if they were open and honest in their marketing or, at the very least, delivered on what they promised, this would be a gamechanger.

While there are many tourists who will never come back, there are also many more that come each year. And, of course, there are many many locals that drive these same roads. If they sold real blackberry juice that was cold as ice, they'd stand out from their competitors. They'd attract repeat customers both locally and during tourist season. Those customers would tell others what stand to visit because that stand was true to its word. That, right there, is brand building done right.

06/19/2024

As an organization grows, it needs more volume. The biggest mistake we see growing providers make is that they think that what got them here will get them there. This isn't the case.

We'll keep it simple and just talk about a single channel, Google Ads. As a treatment provider, you can run campaigns focused on high-intent searches such as "addiction treatment center near me" or "therapist for depression." And, maybe for a 30-bed provider in a metropolitan area, that's all they need to do.

So providers think, if we add on another 30 beds, we just increase the spend on Google Ads and it'll work the same. Wrong!

There isn't enough volume to fill 60 beds with those key terms. So what does this mean? It means you have to expand out. If we just stick with Google Ads, this means:

◙ Expanding geographic radius. But this is harder because people are less likely to admit the farther away they are.

◙ Expanding keyword targeting. But this is harder because someone searching for "drinking problem" is far less likely to admit than someone search for "treatment for alcoholism near me."

◙ Expanding ad type. Instead of just search, adding on display or extensions. But this is harder because these are lower-intent calls.

The structure for each of those campaign options above is different than the structure for the high intent targeting being done before. This means none of the organization's past data will get them from here to there because none of their past data utilized the above tactics.

It also means different call tactics. Admitting someone nearby from a "drug rehab near me" search is quite easy. Admitting someone 300 miles away from a "drinking problem search" is much much harder.

So not only do you have to learn brand new campaign management tactics, the call team also needs new training.

Finally, it means lower conversions. Ad extensions are the lowest quality calls, but, at scale, they are a must-have part of the marketing mix. There is a lot of volume in ad extensions and, at scale, volume is the name of the game. Yes, this means that, as you scale, your conversion rates will change for the worse as you add in more lower-quality strategies. But, the fact of the matter is, that you need all the volume. You need the high-quality volume, the medium quality, and the low quality. It's the only way to fill a big program.

05/17/2024

Keys to good advertising are understanding your audience and standing out from the competition. Look at the Google Ads below. Which one would you click on?

Some notes:

➼ " #1", "the best", "top-rated". These are all turn offs. General marketing research and our own internal data show lower engagement with this kind of language. Why? Because it comes across as disingenuous. People are smart. They know you're not the #1 program. If you're willing to lie in an ad, what else are you lying about?

➼ What do people want in treatment? Is "same day admission" their primary criteria? Most of the time, no. Patients and families want to find lasting recovery. That's their goal. Same day only appeals to those most in crisis, which is only a small percent of call volume.

➼ "Keep your phone and laptop?" That's not a treatment differentiator. It's a desperate cry to get patients into a program because the program doesn't have anything clinical worth talking about. Also, who are you trying to attract? Do you really want the patient whose primary concern is keeping their phone? Or do you want the patient that's looking for the best chance of recovery? Lowering your AMA rate starts by attracting the right patients and letting other providers take the flighty ones.

➼ MAT and traditional rehab are two completely different kinds of patients that require different messaging. Mixing the two is just confusing.

➼ Much internal language is not understood by those outside the field. What does "multiple levels of care" or "dual diagnosis" mean to the average American? Good copy speaks to the average patient, not to the industry expert.

➼ The ad headlines should match the user search intent. All the ads do this well.

➼ The 90-day guarantee is a good differentiator.

➼ 95% of searchers want to go to treatment near them. 3 of the ads do a good job of highlighting location.

04/30/2024

The channels you use have a large effect on inquiry quality. It's easy to see the reason behind this:

🔹Google Ads have the worst rate for commercial providers, with only about 10% being qualified. Think about who clicks on ads at the top of Google search. 90% of people skip the ads. The ones who don't don't really care where they are calling. They've put no thought into it. 33% of ad calls are straight from the ad, they didn't even bother to visit your website, so they know nothing about you. As many as 20% are simply wrong numbers, people who didn't even bother to read the ad and just called the first number they saw after they searched for a competitor's name.

🔹Organic Google search inquiries are better with about 25% being qualified. That's a 2.5X improvement over ads! These searchers are taking the time to scroll down and evaluate listings. They also can't call directly from the result link, so they at least have to visit your website.

🔹With outbound channels such as Facebook, Twitter, TV, etc., these don't generate direct calls, but are seen in lift through organic search, particularly brand search. They are also qualified around 33%. These people didn't call off an ad. They've seen your ad multiple times, have clicked your ad links, have researched you on Google, have read your online reviews, and then still decided to call. They know what you offer, they know what they want, and they've usually self-qualified themselves in terms of insurance/ability to pay. That's why they are the most likely to be qualified versus other channels.

These metrics aren't just related to call qualification rates, they directly impact conversion rates as well. The more qualified they are, the easier it is for the call team. Call teams are least likely to convert a Google Ad if a non-crisis call. These callers know nothing about your program and called on a whim. They have to be convinced your program is the right fit, so require the call team to build empathy, address pain points, and clearly differentiate your program.

For someone that comes off of a regular Facebook campaign, they've already done the research and mostly decided you're already the right fit. In that case, the call team simply needs to answer some basic questions without truly having to build a strong rapport or highlight how your program is the best fit.

Channel strategy matters.

03/08/2024

Stagnant community outreach and business development strategies are still the norm in much of the field of behavioral health, which is why so many providers struggle to build consistently high-performing teams.

Often, lack of results are ascribed to the outreach reps themselves, but the reality is that there is significant opportunity for providers to step up their hiring, training, and support processes for their teams.

Shelley Plemons, most recently the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Growth for Discovery Behavioral and now a Senior Consultant for Circle Social, discusses the strategies and tactics that define successful outreach teams. We discuss how much of it is really common sense, but this is certainly a topic where the adage "common sense is often not common practice" applies.

https://www.circlesocialinc.com/ep-103-common-sense-business-development-with-shelley-plemons/

Common Sense Business Development with Shelley Plemons

02/29/2024

The behavioral health landscape remains as challenging as ever. Providers that look successful from the outside due to size or scale have stopped expanding or have retracted. This has been the story of behavioral health since we entered the field 10 years ago. While there certainly have been numerous successful exits by founders, the stories of providers succeeding in the long run are few and far between. Last year was no different. Many providers are happy to simply be in the black at all, with a focus on margin a dream for a future day.

After a decade in the behavioral health space working very closely with many of the largest providers in the country and countless small-to-medium-sized ones, we understand the landscape like no one else. This is why even KKR, one of the largest private equity firms in the world, has relied on us for advice regarding its forays into behavioral health.

As we do every year, we’ll be providing a practical guide to what works and doesn’t work in the space based on current trends we see across the country. The right place to start this year’s overview is the perennial difference between building a business and betting on a trend. Not unique to behavioral health, this dynamic is simply the function of capital markets in the US, the product of a seriously overcrowded private equity space, and the usual mix of speculative opportunists versus long-term visionaries...

In this year's overview, we cover:

- Sustainable growth models

- How to tackle rising costs

- What's wrong with current approaches to value-based care

- How to move beyond vanilla care models

- If providers should be adding on adolescent treatment or other service lines

You can access the full report at the link below.

https://www.circlesocialinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Circle-Social-2024-Behavioral-Health-Outlook-Whitepaper.pdf

02/14/2024

Intakes for psych hospitals are complex. Due to EMTALA, hospitals are required to serve anyone that meets criteria, but, if the only patients showing up to your door are ones that have no insurance and can't pay, your hospital will quickly close, which helps no one.

So how do acute care facilities manage their marketing, outreach, and intake so that they are able to achieve their goals of being a good community partner, serving patients in need, and also surviving financially?

To answer this question, our CEO speaks with Lance Folske, MA, MFT, who has run psych hospitals and multisite operations for 2 decades. We discuss the right marketing channels, how to think about community outreach, and how to manage intake to successfully meet the 3 goals above.

https://www.circlesocialinc.com/ep-103-managing-the-psych-hospital-frontdoor-for-admissions-with-lance-folske/

Due to EMTALA, hospitals are required to serve anyone that meets criteria,

01/08/2024

A lot of marketing is understanding consumer mindset per platform. Take something like Facebook. Why are your customers there? They're there to check up on family and friends and to relieve boredom.

So if you're an ecomm brand, Facebook is phenomenal. Shopping for and even buying some new clothes is a great way to relieve boredom as well. As a marketer, it's fairly easy for me to entice someone off of Facebook and onto a fashion website with the right targeting.

Healthcare is different. We're not looking to relieve boredom for Facebook users. Instead, we want to engage them on a problem they or a family/friend is having. We need to shift their focus from "Let me entertain myself and check on family/friends" to "I should spend some time searching for solutions to this problem."

On Google, it's completely different. The consumer is already searching for a solution to a problem, so we simply have to present the solution.

TV is yet different again. With TV, consumers are looking to watch their shows, so commercials are an interruption and annoyance to that primary goal. Most people do something else during commercials, like stare at their phones or get up to make a sandwich.

So TV commercials need to grab attention. After grabbing attention, they simply need to be repetitive. Once you've obtained the viewer's attention so they know what your ad is about, simply seeing or hearing the beginning of the ad will be enough to keep your brand top of mind.

The bottom line is that creative on different platforms needs to be created with the state of mind of the consumers on that platform as it relates to your product/service.