Mental Health and Wellbeing Industry Digital Marketing Strategies: Reaching Those in Need
In an increasingly digital world, the demand for accessible and affordable mental health services has surged. The growth in the online therapy services market is proof of this shift, with the market size projected to increase from $7.6 billion in 2022 to $9.6 billion in 2023, and a further surge expected to reach $24 billion by 2027, according to the Business Research Company.
With big players like BetterHelp, TalkSpace, Online-Therapy.com, and Teen Counselling offering flexible online therapy plans, the competitive landscape is evolving rapidly. To stand out in this growing market, mental health and wellbeing brands must employ effective digital marketing strategies. In this article, we will delve into some key digital marketing tactics these brands need to adopt to ensure their services reach those who need them most.
Challenges in Digital Marketing for Mental Health and Wellbeing Brands
Unlike marketing for products, identifying a specific target audience for mental health services is challenging. Mental health issues can affect anyone, making it crucial to approach marketing with sensitivity. Where in other industries you can create an audience based on their interests, hobbies, and purchase behaviours, making it possible to target relevant audiences for your brand, creating audiences for a mental health service is not as “straight forward”.
Collecting sensitive personal data for marketing purposes is unethical. Therefore, mental health brands must find alternative methods to reach their audience without invading privacy. Furthermore, due to the sensitive nature of mental health searches, this can lead to limited keyword data availability, requiring more creative strategies for keyword research.
Defining Your Audience
While it's true that mental health struggles can affect anyone at any time, wellbeing brands & mental health services can segment their marketing audiences based on the specific areas of mental health and wellbeing they address. For instance, audiences can be segmented by those struggling with relationships, depression, stress, or anxiety. Once a brand has defined the different audience segments this becomes the basis for their digital marketing strategy.
Organic Content Strategy
The key to increasing a website’s visibility is to have well optimised, valuable, well written and comprehensive content which directly relates to their audiences searches in Google. Among a multitude of other ranking factors Google considers when deciding which websites to serve in the search results, ultimately a brand’s website content needs to effectively answer a person’s questions to be ranked highly. Ensuring you’re covering off the key content pillars your audience are searching for is a great place to start. To begin with a brand could create five key content pillars that address various aspects of mental health and under each pillar, provide insightful sub-sections that offer helpful content.
SEO Strategy
Once the content pillars have been defined conduct in-depth keyword research to identify the terms and phrases potential clients might search for. Incorporate these keywords into your content and meta data to boost search engine visibility. Study client reviews to understand their motivations for seeking your services and the benefits they gained. This can inform your SEO keyword research and provide specific language or a tone of voice which will allow you to better connect with individuals facing similar challenges.
Lead Generation
Include a clear call to action at the end of each piece of content to encourage people to explore your services further. This could be an email sign up form which provides website visitors with downloadable helpful resources such as guides, eBooks, and infographics that offer valuable information on managing mental health. Requiring users to provide their email addresses to access these resources, helps you build a mailing list and provides the opportunity for an effective email marketing strategy.
Email Marketing Strategy
An effective email marketing strategy not only provides helpful resources to your website visitors but also ensures people are aware of the additional support services available to them. The first step is to divide your email subscribers into segments based on the mental health issues they are interested in getting support and information for. For instance, if someone downloads a guide on managing anxiety, add them to a list specifically tailored to anxiety-related content.
Use email to regularly share helpful resources, tips, and insights related to the individuals’ concerns. Use call to actions at the end of emails offering additional paid for services such as one-to-one support through online counsellors or therapists. Promoting personalised services in your email marketing campaigns helps establish trust and accessibility.
Paid Social Strategy
To ensure your existing website visitors know that support services are available when they need them, use platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to remarket to your website visitors, with paid social ads promoting your free downloadable resources and paid for support services. Using Facebook’s Page Transparency feature, analyse successful ads from major players such as BetterHelp to understand their strategies and what other services are available in the marketplace.
Google Ads Strategy
Following the same content pillars used for the organic content strategy and the audiences defined in the email marketing strategy, build out segmented Google Ads campaigns such as Discovery, Performance Max, or Text Ad campaigns to maximise reach, brand awareness and conversions. Define clear objectives for each campaign such as impressions, leads or conversions and choose appropriate bid strategies for each campaign objective. Craft compelling ad copy, tailored to each campaign and select relevant targeting options.
Create high quality image and video assets tailored to each campaign, for the display and YouTube placements available within Discovery and Performance Max campaigns.
In conclusion, the growing demand for online mental health services presents a significant opportunity for brands in the mental health and wellbeing sector. To thrive in this competitive landscape, digital marketing strategies must be sensitive, ethical, and provide value.
By defining your audience, creating compelling organic content, employing effective email marketing, leveraging paid social campaigns, and utilising Google Ads, your brand can effectively reach and support those in need of mental health assistance. As the industry continues to expand, adapting and refining these strategies will be key to ensuring your brand's continued success.
For more information on our integrated digital marketing strategies for health and wellbeing brands, request a free digital marketing performance consultation.