Call Tracking & The Addiction Rehab Industry

Transcription

1 Call Tracking & The Addiction Rehab Industry Phone calls are a crucial part of the sales process for rehab clinics. Changing economics in the industry are leading to an increased need for performance management tools like call tracking. Industry Overview Addiction rehab in the US is big business $35 billion this year. There are now 14,000+ treatment facilities and growing. 2.5 million people receive treatment annually, but many more need it. Some experts worry that with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, 3 million people will enter the system in need of treatment and the capacity and structure is not in place to support that expected surge in demand. The expected growth in this industry and the changing economics are driving an increased desire for performance management tools like call tracking. Clinics are spending more money on advertising, investing heavily in their capacity, and they are in need of tools to determine if they are spending money in the right places. Trends Impacting Call Tracking 1) Consolidation and For-Profit Structures Traditionally, the market has been comprised of small clinics and notfor-profits. We are now seeing the emergence of larger organizations, for-profit models, and even some of the players going public, such as the IPO of American Addiction Centers in It became the first business

2 focused solely on addiction treatment to go public, raising $75 million in an IPO. With the rise of profit-making models, the demand for accountability and reporting is increasing. 2) Affordable Care Act Treatment centers are benefiting from the increasing sources of payment for addiction treatment that have emerged as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Not only are more individuals covered by private health plans under the law s provisions, but their plans are also more likely to cover mental health and SUD services. For the centers, what this means is more scrutiny on their outcomes and processes, but also the potential for huge growth. 3) Increasing Costs Due to the increasing demand and money coming into this industry, the cost of advertising across all mediums is on the rise. Jim Peake, CEO of Addiction-Rep (one of the leading advertising agencies serving this industry), sees it as high as 20% year over year. This is leading to increasing costs per admission a key metric each center needs to watch. Advertising agencies who manage marketing campaigns in this industry, such as Addiction-Rep, are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate performance; specifically, how many admissions, how much each admission costs, and how much revenue can be tied back to each dollar of advertising. One of Peake s biggest pieces of advice to clients: If you can t measure it, you can t manage it." How is call tracking implemented? Call tracking systems typically charge by the phone line and the minute, so the monthly cost will vary depending on how much call volume a center will be doing on a monthly basis. For example, CallTrackingMetrics, one of the leading call tracking providers, charges $2.00 per local number per month and 4 cents per minute for each phone call. The cost is typically just a small fraction of what the centers are spending on advertising, so marketing directors can justify the cost fairly easily because of the expected efficiencies that will be gained from the data. For example, a typical medium size center receiving 50 calls a day from their advertising would spend about $600 a month on call tracking. That same size center typically spends at least $20,000 a month on advertising and they charge the average 30-day program patient $20,000. On average, CallTrackingMetrics clients typically see at least a 1 to 2% increase in conversions (what % of phone calls close). So, if this center increased

3 their conversion rate from 3% to 4%, they would see 10 additional conversions that month or $200,000 in additional revenue. The $600 per month in call tracking costs becomes a no-brainer. The setup begins by selecting tracking phone numbers for each advertising channel that needs to be tracked. Typically this includes Google Adwords, Bing Ads, display ads, social media, organic, TV, radio, print, and other sources of traffic to a center s website. Once the numbers are in place, a clinic will set up the routing patterns so that calls are getting to the right people at the right times of day. Systems like CallTrackingMetrics offer the ability for agents to accept phone calls not only on landlines, but also mobile phones, SIP endpoints, and the browser-based softphone. The last step is typically placing the required code on the clinic s website so that the tracking numbers will display dynamically when visitors come from one of the tracked advertising channels. Addiction-Rep offers full implementation support as part of their engagements so centers can have them complete the call tracking setup. If clients would like to set up call tracking on their own, systems like CallTrackingMetrics make it straightforward for them with a userfriendly, self-service interface. What information does a clinic start receiving? 1) Call Attribution Once calls start coming in, clinics will immediately see breakdowns of calls by each advertising channel (in real time) so that each time they pick up the phone, they know who this person is and how they found the clinic. They will know things like which ads, keywords, or landing pages the caller saw, as well as the referring URLs of each of their callers. They don t have to ask callers how they heard about the clinic - they know that before they even answer the call. They can also see which channels are leading to the types of calls that convert best- such as which channels have the longest calls and the calls coming from search keywords that are the best matches for the clinic. In addition, systems like CallTrackingMetrics immediately start syncing calls and conversions into Google Analytics and Adwords. PPC and SEO managers in particular love this feature because they can optimize their landing pages and ad copy towards those leading to the most phone calls and calls that convert. 2) Revenue Attribution Many centers want to know not just how many calls are coming from an ad channel, but how many

4 conversions and how much revenue is attributed. Some call tracking systems provide the ability to report at that level, but it requires a few process changes on the part of the center. For example, in CallTrackingMetrics, there is an agent activity view where centers can see each call as it comes in and record what happens on the call, including scoring the call, converting the call, and associating revenue to the call. By doing this, the system will have the data to report an overall ROI on each ad channel, allowing the center to know how much revenue they can expect to gain by increasing spending on each ad channel. What are clinics doing with this information? There is increasing pressure in the industry around cost per admission. So, many centers are watching call tracking data carefully to understand where the biggest bang for their buck is. For example, according to Peake from Addiction-Rep, there is increasing data showing that callers coming from organic search channels tend to be higher quality phone calls and longer phone calls which eventually convert into admissions and consistently outperform PPC channels. Thus, he makes sure that SEO work (which includes social media) is a critical part of the marketing campaign he puts in place for each client, and they watch landing page and search keyword data carefully for those organic calls. Does that mean PPC isn t worth it? Not necessarily. PPC can often be the first touch source, and if the sales cycle is especially long, that visitor may come back months or years later through organic because they recall the name of the center. Particularly with this industry, these are customers are making a big decision and it s usually thought through for months. PPC is a much faster to market solution for advertisers than SEO. The information gained from PPC research can often be utilized in SEO strategies. SEO and PPC often work well together. When the drug rehab admissions climb to full census, the PPC manager can throttle back the PPC budget instantly. More often than not, even basic statistics that come from call tracking, like the volume of calls, the length of calls, the timing of calls, and how many go unanswered are real a-ha moments for management. According to Peake, many centers can immediately see that they have an issue with agents not answering the phone. They also often uncover performance issues in their call center through the use of call recording and call length analysis. It starts to become clear that certain agents tend to have longer (i.e. better) calls and unsurprisingly, more conversions.

5 Want to learn more? CallTrackingMetrics provides software to advertising agencies and businesses to track which advertisements are leading to the best phone calls. They provide a full service call tracking and contact center solution. With over 20,000 customers in 30 countries, CallTrackingMetrics is known for customer service, easy-to-use software, and the ability to integrate with major services such as Google Analytics, Adwords, Salesforce, and Wordpress. Their simple, pay-as-you-go pricing provides businesses all the tools they need to track their calls and get them into the right hands quickly. Addiction-Rep is a direct response marketing firm focused specifically on the Drug Rehab and Mental Health industry. They drive leads and inquiries to the facilities using a variety of media. Their specialties are SEO, PPC, social media, website development, radio, TV, outdoor, and direct mail. They emphasize analytics, so that they can identify which ad sources are performing the best and delivering admissions. Their years of experience give clients an advantage in acquiring their new clients. They pay attention to many of the small details that others don t to give their clients a significant marketing advantage. They offer a free 14-day trial and demonstrations of the software. Website: signup.calltrackingmetrics.com/addiction/ Phone: (800) sales@calltrackingmetrics.com Website: Phone: