This blog article on Personalization & Remarketing in Sensitive Industries is focused on the unique nuances of addiction treatment center marketing, but is still relevant to many industries.
Personalized marketing is highly effective and is the best way to get the most ROI out of your campaigns, but what about when you’re dealing with an industry or audience where personalized marketing tends to get a little too personal?
The ethics of remarketing has been long discussed (a quick Google search for ethics of remarketing will give you reading material for days) but what about personalized marketing for addiction clinics? Is remarketing to individuals and families OK?
Remarketing & Addiction
Remarketing works. Remarketing campaigns can often yield conversion rates that blow display campaigns right out of the water. Why do they work so well? Well, it’s because they’re reaching people who have already expressed interest in your services by visiting your website. Reminding them about your services is a great way to secure them as a lead.
If it’s OK for a retailer to show you ads with a product you looked at, is it any different for your clinic to target messages based on user behavior? Yes, it is different. Here’s what Google says:
“In creating ads for Remarketing campaigns in this category, the ad content should not imply knowledge of a person’s medical history or health conditions.”
You can still run an effective remarketing campaign, but it requires sensitivity and strategy to ensure that it is compliance with Google’s policies and will not offend your audience.
Paid Search Restrictions
As with Remarketing, using paid search ads to target users in vulnerable positions is frowned upon.
Paid search ads for health care and addiction clinics must not show that you are collecting any personal medical information to show those ads.
Allowed Ads
Permitted ads do not imply that the website visitor has any problems.
Not Allowed Ads
Ads that say that the user has a medical issue are not permitted.
You can still effectively use paid ads for your medical clinic or addiction treatment center, you just have to make sure you’re not directly targeting someone you know has an issue.
Personalized Email Marketing
Personalization can increase email open rates up to 800%. That is HUGE! But again, when it comes to sensitive topics such as addiction, you want to tread lightly on just how personalized you get. Name? No problem. Mentioning their specific addiction issues? Probably not a great idea. All of your email blasts to your leads, patients, and family members should be VERY thought out and your lists double checked to ensure that you’re sending the right messages to the right people. Your addiction clinic, doctors, and staff are expected to have the utmost respect for patient confidentiality, and that should extend to your marketing team as well.
We work with several medical and addiction clinics to achieve the best ROI for their online marketing campaigns. Working with a marketing team that understands the unique market space for medical marketing can help you reach potential patients at just the right time. Contact us today for assistance with your medical or addiction clinic online marketing.
