Why brands matter

Addiction treatment marketing is heavily focused on leads. How many people did you meet at a conference? How many calls is our Web site generating? How many referrals do business development professionals generate every month?

Often lost within this constant focus on “heads in beds” is the power of a treatment center’s brand. Executives dismiss branding as a "costly" exercise, focusing on just "leads," as if these concepts are somehow separate.

At last month’s Admissions and Marketing Symposium in Delray Beach, Florida, opening keynoter Andy Dischmann reminded attendees that brands foster emotional connections with customers, referral sources, consumers, and communities. Brands have power and build expectations, and strong brands carry their emotional connection throughout the entire consumer experience.

As an example, Dischmann asked the audience members who had an Apple product what they remember about the packaging in which they received their iPhone or iPad. Most recalled it was white, and of high quality. Unwrapping that device is exciting, made more powerful through the high quality of the box itself. In contrast, I wonder if Android owners readily recall what the box their phones came in looked like.

Of course, addiction treatment is not about gizmos in boxes, but Dischmann’s comments still ring true. A solid brand is so much more than a logo and a color palette. A brand is a marketing tool and a lived experience. It’s a passion that needs to be conveyed by everyone working for an organization, from the driver, to the front-line clinician, night tech, and medical director. It's a philosophy that needs to be carried through marketing brochures, the color of the paint on the walls, and the way someone answers the phone. You can generate all the leads you want, but if you don't have a solid brand behind that effort, ready to shepherd a family and consumer through the brand's desired experience, the lead-generation efforts will ultimately be unsuccessful.

To test your own brand’s depth in your organization, ask yourself and colleagues what four adjectives best describe your company. Dischmann says everyone in an organization with a healthy brand will be able to answer that question quickly and with the same answers. If you’re like me, the answers were not immediately forthcoming from me or my co-workers.

Marketers often share with me that their executives don’t understand the importance of branding, but perhaps that’s because branding has often been positioned as a static, non-ROI-generating, graphic-design-focused exercise. Yet branding can and will generate ROI, if implemented strategically and methodically. Brands that are nurtured and promoted do breed loyalty, trust and, in the case of referrals, return business.

Dischmann’s presentation reinvigorated my passion and interest in building a strong brand. I would encourage all marketers to consider undertaking similar efforts, as having a strongly shared brand that inspires loyalty and trust certainly will make anyone’s company stronger and ultimately more profitable. 

And when everyone is sharing a brand experience, on the same page and living and breathing the mission, with common identifiers such as logos and images serving as visual cues, going to work everyday is simply so much more rewarding. 

Crowdsourcing logo selection

Logo design can be a painstakingly slow process. Graphic designers and branding consultants might kick off the process, followed by weeks of internal debate. At least in my experience, oftentimes the community to which the logo is supposed to appeal, whether that be consumers, businesses, the media, etc., is left out of the process. The result is that a company’s most recognizable branding element is created in a vacuum, which is hardly ideal considering the investments in treasure and time these decisions require.

With that in mind, I was absolutely delighted to come across the booth for LaVia Detox and Treatment Center at the Moments of Change conference this past week. CEO Sarah Sacks had solicited online a new logo design, but wanted insight on which of the finalists she should select. She produced a sign featuring her top five logo choices, inviting attendees to drop their business cards in numbered cups corresponding to their favorite. Post-show she will e-mail participants the results.

Sacks’ strategy is brilliant on several levels. First, her crowdsourcing strategy provides valuable input into this important branding decision. By inviting community feedback, she also provided attendees with a reason to linger at her booth, talk with her, and learn more about LaVia. Inviting attendees to submit their business cards to vote for their favorite design was a savvy lead-generation technique as well. 

In the past 14 years I have attended many conferences (My tally at the end of next week will be 4 in 14 days), and this is the first time I have come across such an amazingly simple yet effective marketing strategy. For those struggling with new logo selection I would encourage you to emulate Sacks' method.

PS UPDATE, OCTOBER 15
Here is the winning logo.

Smoking in treatment settings--the marketer's dilemma

Smoking is often called one of the most difficult addictions to overcome. Permitting the use of nicotine at treatment centers has been controversial—made even more so now by the proliferation of e-cigarettes. I have been particularly intrigued by treatment centers’ marketing around nicotine use.

For example, a prominent sober home for men in New England features clients smoking cigars on the front of its brochure. Executives at a residential setting in the Southwest I recently visited mentioned that they are lucky to be able to still offer designated smoking areas on campus—after all, marketing a tobacco-free campus to a prospective client can be a tough sell. A consumer-oriented magazine for people in recovery has an ad for an e-cigarette establishment on its back cover. Industry conferences have featured e-cigarette exhibitors, with seemingly enthusiastic attendee responses. In fact, one event actually offers a cigar-rolling sponsorship. On the other hand, a well-known New Jersey facility decided to publicize its decision to go smoke-free months before a state law required it to do so.

Nicotine use is generally frowned upon by society these days, with regulations restricting its advertising and most healthcare organizations adopting smoke-free campuses—and even zero-tolerance policies for employee tobacco use. Thus, it is surprising that as addiction treatment attempts to integrate into overall healthcare that marketers use smoking, overtly and subtly, to market their services. I’m no expert on whether smoking should be permitted in rehab settings, but one has to wonder how the public perceives treatment environments and affiliated field resources that permit smoking and even actively promote it.

Yet it is important to acknowledge that for a family in crisis looking to place a treatment-resistant loved one, a center permitting smoking may be desirable, given that nicotine seems to be the substance many are most reluctant to quit and, I suspect, an excuse for not going to treatment. If permitting smoking encourages more "hard-core" drug users to enter treatment, then one can argue that nicotine use, while not desirable, should be permissible.

I am not taking a position on one side or the other, as I can certainly understand the arguments for smoke-free campuses as well as empathize with the marketer who finds that a nonsmoking environment immediately turns off prospective clients who, many clinicians and marketers note, have "bigger" issues to tackle while in treatment. I suspect that overall societal headwinds will eventually snuff out smoking at all addiction settings, but in the meantime some facilities will find a competitive advantage to permitting smoking—and perhaps even promote this “benefit.” Whether there is value in promoting a smoke-free or smoke-friendly environment is certainly an interesting discussion that marketers should be having with clinical and executive staff, particularly as e-cigarette use becomes more pervasive.  

Are you part of the conversation?

Are you part of the conversation?

That is one of the questions marketers need to ask themselves at this time of year: budget season for many organizations.  Whether a vendor in the behavioral healthcare market is selling software or offering treatment services, a company needs to be part of the conversation in order to attract new business.

There are multiple ways to be part of the conversation. On a national level, is your organization engaged in discussions of policy, trends, or other field-changing activities? This can be accomplished through multiple thought leadership and content marketing activities, such as Webinars, conference presentations, association meetings, and so on. Although marketers often are pushed to focus only on immediate ROI, being part of a national conversation develops trust and credibility for your brand in the marketplace. These characteristics are essential for companies with long sales cycles, such as software companies and treatment centers.

On an industry level, is your organization visible to prospects in the market? Branding is crucial as more and more options emerge, such as the proliferation of treatment centers in recent years. Although branding is often constrained by budget realities, companies in the behavioral healthcare and addiction treatment market need to maintain a consistent and memorable presence at industry events, in publications, and through other media and venues that interact with prospects. After all, when the time comes to make a referral or issue an RPF, you want to be at the top of that prospect’s mind. And remember that branding is not only for the benefit of prospects but for existing customers/referral sources as well, who look to your branding to not only to learn about new developments but to reassure themselves that they made the right choice by selecting your products and services.

On an individual level, is your organization part of the conversation at organizations looking to make a referral or purchase your product or service? Consistent lead generation – and lead nurturing – activities are essential to ensure you are feeding sales and admissions staff a consistent pipeline of prospects. National and industry-level conversation efforts will make this process easier, but marketers must make sure they are being considered in the organizations ready to purchase or refer.

All of this points to an integrated marketing campaign for generating new business in the addiction treatment and behavioral healthcare market. Being part of the conversation is just an early step to closing the deal, but if you’re not part of the conversation you certainly can’t be part of the solution the prospect is seeking.

What do you get when you cross a zebra and an elephant?

Recently I came across one of the strangest conference logos I've ever seen. The logo, for a substance abuse prevention summit, features an elephant with zebra stripes with its tusk harpooning a neon green apple. A quick review of the site doesn't provide much insight into the design, although it certainly plays into the conference's tag line to "Stand up stand out." As much as I find the logo puzzling, I admit that it does have a "viral" quality to it--I'm talking about it and sharing it with you, after all. In fact, the logo is so memorable, albeit odd, that the design just might be a stroke of genius. I wouldn't recommend most organizations take a similar approach, but I am very curious if the buzz surrounding the design just might pay off.