By Casey Callanan, MBA

It is no secret that the trials and tribulations brought on by the global pandemic have been significant. In addition to the physical toll it has taken, the psychological impact has been substantial. Over the past two and a half years, mental health has experienced an awareness boom throughout the world in tandem with the global pandemic.

Many mental health advocates have been vocal on social media, and this includes major celebrities and influencers. If there is at least one silver lining to take away from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is the extra attention it has brought to mental health’s importance.

With the awareness boom has come an increased need for reliable patient education and content in the mental health and family therapy space. As Communications Director for a therapy practice in Maryland, called the Center for Intimacy, Connection and Change, mental health education has been at the forefront of our flagship website’s mission.

This is also true about our companion website ErectionIQ.com, which delivers patient education on the intersection of sexual health, relationships, and psychology. 

I have always been a major proponent of content marketing’s role in this digital era. With the need for reliable, mental health patient education placed at an all-time high, it only made sense that marketing our mental health services through educational content was the move to make. We do this through the following tactics:

  • A weekly podcast
  • In-depth educational articles
  • Regular blog posts

Harnessing the SMEs on Staff

Looking for a place to start when it comes to gathering high-quality content? Look no further than the folks you already have on staff.

For example, we launched a blog as one of our therapists is a writer. We have a weekly podcast hosted by our therapy practice’s founder. Our podcast and blog content is always related to the actual core services of our therapy practice—this helps us convert website traffic and podcast listeners into future patients.  

They key is planning for these content objectives well in advance with an editorial content calendar that outlines all the content we plan to release and when it is scheduled for publish. This helps ensure our podcast and blog are producing regularly scheduled posts and that our social media channels are promoting the content every time a new podcast or blog is published.

Respecting Your SME’s Time

When it comes to getting high-quality content from our on-staff subject matter experts, it’s vitally important to be as efficient as possible with their time.

You do not want to take up too much of your SME’s time with marketing initiatives. Marketing is important but it is also probably time they are spending away from their core competencies that help your business run its daily operations.

To help streamline the amount of time your staff spends being interviewed on podcasts or writing blogs, you have to make it as turnkey as an initiative as is possible for them. As the marketing and communications director, it is my responsibility to make sure every podcast is planned in advance with an outline of questions prepared for our subject matter expert to answer.

In an ideal scenario, you will record multiple podcasts with your SME in an hour of time you block off on your calendar for them. This means you’ll be recording more than one podcast in a sitting so bring an extra shirt of two as a wardrobe change may be necessary!

Organic Web Traffic Strategies

Now that you have created great content for your audience you have to make sure your audience and potential audience can find it!

When it comes to making sure our content ranks locally on Google, it’s all about consistency. We make sure that all of our webpage’s mention that we are located in Baltimore and the Washington DC region, (especially when it comes to those header tags!)

We make sure any and all of our business directory listings are consistent and we do everything we can to make sure Google knows we have multiple locations. Our therapy practice has locations in both the Baltimore and Washington DC metro regions.

Of course, every blog and webpage we are hoping to have rank on Google is keyword researched beforehand. There is definitely a balance to be struck here though because we want to make sure we are ranking for Google AND we are providing the highest quality content possible.

Sometimes it’s not always feasible to write about what we think Google says might rank best. 

Good luck marketers! Should you ever have any questions about our content, please feel free to drop us a line over in the contact us section on CenterICC.com or reach out to us through ErectionIQ.com.