May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the perfect time for healthcare providers to highlight their mental health services. Hospitals and doctor’s offices want to ensure content and messaging reach the right segment of their target audiences at the right time. They also want to be extra careful with tone and language, as the topics surrounding mental health are often very sensitive.
Virtucom Group has extensive experience crafting marketing content for a range of industries, including healthcare, and recognizes the value of engaging content. Our team of professional writers and editors creates content with your brand and customer’s needs in mind. Here, we discuss topics healthcare providers may wish to discuss during Mental Health Awareness Month and how our content services can help.
Topics to Consider During Mental Health Awareness Month
Mental Health Awareness Month (MHAM) began in 1949 to raise awareness about the role of mental health in one’s overall wellness. Today, organizations like the Substance Abuse and Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) continue using this month to address key mental health topics. These include:
- Educating people about mental health disorders to combat stigma
- Informing people of policies at the state and federal level that will better the lives of those affected by mental illness
- Discussing ways people can support loved ones with mental illnesses and advocate for policies
- Celebrating innovations in mental health treatments and sharing recovery stories
In addition to these topics, healthcare organizations can use this time to educate patients about their mental health services. They can also connect patients with resources from national or state agencies or inform them about events happening in May. This marketing strategy enables you to join the rest of the health community in acknowledging the importance of mental health and drawing more awareness to your services.
Tips for Mental Health Content Marketing
Healthcare providers have many avenues for publishing mental health content marketing. The question is where to post which material. The following discusses different types of content and how to share it with your audience to have the biggest impact during MHAM:
Blogs and Landing Pages
Blogs and landing pages offer some of the most meaningful opportunities to discuss MHAM. For example, you can create blogs to educate patients about new developments in behavioral health policy and treatment. With patient permission, you can post a series of recovery stories. You can also optimize landing pages to include information about MHAM. You may consider a designated page with links to resources from organizations like SAMHSA and NAMI.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for blogs and pages. It ensures content contains the most relevant information for patients and ranks well on search engine results pages (SERP). This includes researching keywords and phrases, link building, and incorporating local SEO.
Social Posts
Mental health concerns aren’t unique to adults. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 20% of people ages 13 to 18 experience serious mental illness. This group is also more likely to respond to marketing on social media than other channels. Social media posts can increase awareness and engagement among teens and young adults, leading them to services they might not find otherwise.
Social media enables healthcare marketing teams to interact directly with people by responding to questions or concerns left in the comments section of posts. You might consider partnering with an influencer popular among the target demographic to increase your message’s reach.
Email Newsletters
Email personalizes mental health content marketing. Healthcare marketers can encourage patients to sign up for email newsletters and segment audiences to send different messages to each group. During MHAM, you can use email newsletters to highlight the key topics mentioned above or direct readers to relevant blogs you’ve published. You may also want to share other resources, like educational eBooks, via email newsletters.
No matter which avenues you choose, you want to ensure you pay extra attention to language with mental health content marketing. This will help avoid reinforcing stigma. Some examples include:
- Use second-person language to validate the feelings of people with mental health problems who may read the content.
- Replace terms with a strong connotation with less negative terms. For instance, instead of “alcoholic”, say “patient with a substance use disorder”.
- Recognize that people aren’t their conditions. This means saying “a patient who has a condition” rather than “a patient is bipolar, schizophrenic, etc.”
Seek Help with Mental Health Content Marketing from Virtucom Group
Whether educating your audience about Mental Health Awareness Month or informing them of your services any time of the year, trust Virtucom Group to help you with content creation. Our expert team of writers and editors craft content for many industries and take extra care when handling potentially sensitive topics. Contact us today to learn more about our content writing services.
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