James Dooley:
So if I have a rehab clinic and I want more patients, I want to grow my business, maybe I want to set up in multiple locations, what would you recommend from a marketing point of view? Where do you think I should spend my money and where do you think I should avoid spending money?

Kasra Dash:
It’s a very interesting one where you need to start understanding what type of rehab clinic you are. Are you a rehab clinic that wants to put bums on beds so you want to do a 28-day type programme, or is it online therapy, or is it day release where people come in?
Majority of drug and alcohol rehab clinics run on a 28-day cycle. If you’re looking to grow a rehab clinic business you need to dig deeper. You should look at what type of drug addiction leads have come in over the last 12 months. If you realise loads of patients have been cocaine addicts, cocaine is an expensive drug, so people will pay good money to get off it. Family members will also pay.
You then might start doing SEO or potentially social media content about cocaine addiction and the costs. You aim to rank for terms like cocaine addiction rehab, cocaine addiction help, get off cocaine addiction, and so on.
Heroin addicts might have burnt bridges and might not have resources to pay. Alcohol is good but dig deeper into what type of alcohol addiction is most common. You want someone doing data analysis and segmenting who your demographic is. That then shapes your keyword research.
In rehab you cannot run PPC. So SEO is huge. That is what I would do first.

James Dooley:
What about social media type ads?

Kasra Dash:
With social media, I don’t know if you can run Facebook ads for this. You need to be careful because it’s regulated. You want to offer information and advice and then say speak to a specialist.
If someone has been addicted for five years and spending £4,000 a month on cocaine you need to get them booked in for a consult. You need to give enough information for them to see you’re the expert, then get the enquiry.

James Dooley:
For sure. A good strategy is YouTube videos like what we are doing. Maybe be more informative. You can do videos like what does it feel like to recover from cocaine addiction, what does cocaine addiction look like, what does alcohol addiction look like.
You start creating content for each individual drug. Then you build an audience and have a call to action.

Kasra Dash:
Another marketing strategy is putting yourself in as many places as you can. This niche is one of the toughest to do marketing for because of regulation.
It’s also difficult because people don’t want to publicly say they were drug addicts.
The ones that do can make amazing video testimonials. Someone might resonate and think I want to be where that person is now. That works really well.
Images and video rankings are a great strategy.

James Dooley:
What about lead generation?

Kasra Dash:
That would be my major play. Number one would be lead generation, then SEO.
If you are a rehab centre looking to grow, head to FatRank.com. They do rehab lead generation. They might rank specific areas like addiction rehab in Manchester, Liverpool or London. They generate leads through SEO. You only pay on conversions.
Others sell leads per-lead with no guarantee on ROI.
I would team up with two or three other clinics that might refer work outside their area. Any other lead generation company can help as long as you get ROI.
Diversification is important if you want to grow a rehab centre.