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The New Marketing Strategy for Drug and Alcohol Treatment

"You know what these addiction treatment conferences have become? Marketers marketing to marketers." Dr. Kevin McCauley

Over the last ten years the marketing strategy for drug and alcohol treatment facilities across the nation has changed. Once upon a time (ten years ago), marketers for drug and alcohol treatment facilities were segregated. Primary treatment facilities like the Betty Ford Center and the Hazeldon Treatment Centers had their marketing strategy and residential/extended care addiction treatment facilities had their marketing strategy. The primary centers would market to the public, to doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists and the extended care facilities would market to primary centers. It used to be a nice arrangement. Extended care facilities and residential treatment facilities were able to gain the confidence of primary facilities and the primary facilities would refer to the extended care residential treatment facilities when their clients needed more treatment after the 30 days of primary treatment. Everyone was happy. But, over the years the climate has changed. Most Extended Care Residential Addiction Treatment facilities offer primary treatment, or at least almost everything that primary treatment used to offer or offers, and the old 30 day primary facilities all have residential extended care treatment. This left all the residential extended care facilities with no one to refer to them anymore. Why would a primary facility like Betty Ford or Hazeldon refer their clients to an extended care facility when they had their own?

So, the extended care residential addiction treatment facilities were left scrambling for the crumbs and the few primary 30 day treatment facilities left in the Country without extended care treatment were bombarded with marketers from the extended care facilities begging them to send their clients to their particular extended care facility. This continues to happen to this day.

Another thing that happened was that the addiction treatment conventions and conferences began to fill up with treatment facilities all marketing to each other. It used to be a good thing, but today what has happened is that these conferences and conventions are filled with marketers marketing to each other.

I have been involved in marketing since the early days of Sober Living By The Sea, back when no one really knew who they were and credit Dr. Kevin McCauley for coming to the realization one day in our weekly marketing meeting at SLBTS that all the conventions and conferences we were attending were filled with marketers marketing to marketers and none of them could actually refer to each other. The conferences and conventions became a bunch of sharks in a fish tank with no fish. Unfortunately, this continues to happen. These days, every treatment facility essentially does the same thing as every other treatment facility with the exception of minor differences and creativities in programming. The old primary treatment facilities who have not had to rely on other treatment facilities to drive their businesses have long experience in the kind of marketing that extended care facilities now have to learn how to do.

It's a new world out there for marketers marketing extended care/residential treatment facilities. They can no loner rely on each other to generate business, yet many of them continue to convince treatment facilities that the old model still works and that all their marketing connections at other treatment facilities will help them get business. That fact is that it's just not possible. Again the ultimate question is - why would one treatment facility refer to another when they both do essentially the same thing?

Extended care/residential treatment facilities need to seriously reexamine their marketing strategies and realize that the days of marketing to other treatment facilities is dead and buried. The effort it takes to get the few little crumbs one treatment facility might be able to offer another just isn't worth it anymore. Unless the extended care/residential treatment facility has something truly unique to offer other extended care treatment facilities (like a college program, wink, wink) then it is truly a useless practice to market to marketers from other treatment facilities, and soon, every treatment program will have college programs too, and that last avenue will be dead as well.

Labels: History of Drug Rehabs, History of Rehabs in Newport Beach, Marketing Drug and Alcohol Treatment

Orange County California Drug Rehabs - Malibu and O.C. History Continued

Drug Rehabs in California have seen a boom in recent years. What essentially happened was that people who went through treatment in Orange County, or got sober in Orange County, either at a drug rehab or even on their own, began wanting to open up their own drug rehabs in Orange County. Once the Residential Addiction Treatment model had been perfected by places like Sober Living By The Sea, others could see how they operated and soon people were opening up their own residential drug treatment facilities all over Orange County. The same thing happened most recently in Malibu, California. People who went through treatment in Malibu, at places like Promises, began to see how they could open up their own drug rehabs in Malibu. It wasn't long before Malibu began seeing a jump in drug rehabs. One of the primary reasons Malibu and Newport Beach, or Coastal Orange County, are such great places to open rehabs is because of the coastal location. When all is said and done, if you or your loved one is deciding to go to treatment and the choice is between Malibu and the Arizona desert (Sierra Tuscon), then people will most likely choose Malibu. Opening up residential addiction treatment facilities in Orange County and Malibu is not the most cost effective option to say the least. It would be much cheaper to open a place in Texas or Utah, but no one wants to go to drug rehab in Texas or Utah. Many people wonder if the drug rehab business will survive with the tremendous growth the industry has seen in recent years. The answer is yes and no. One of the larger companies CRC Health Group, just shut down many of their drug rehabs across the Country, but some of the better run, more organized, and well staffed, drug rehabs will survive through good economic times and bad. There will always be people with drug and alcohol problems who need drug and alcohol treatment. The trick in the drug treatment industry is finding those people and making sure they find you. There's the rub...

Labels: California Addiction Treatment, History of Rehabs in Newport Beach, Orange County Drug Rehab History

Orange County California Addiction Treatment - History of Residential Addiction Treatment in Orange County

When I went to rehab in Orange County, California I was in for shock for he type of AA meetings that were abundant there. Orange County addiction treatment is plentiful because of the quality of AA in the area. Orange County, California has a long and rich history of leaders in Alcoholics Anonymous. Probably the firs, and most notable, leader in Orange County AA was Chuck C.. Chuck C. gave a series of lectures at an AA retreat which has been turned into a book called "A New Pair of Glasses." It was one of the books that helped me get sober and progress spiritually in my sobriety. Chuck C. lived in Laguna Beach and started many AA meetings in the Orange County area. Leaders like Chuck C. helped Alcoholics Anonymous grow in Orange County. Chuck C. sponsored people all over the world, and many famous and powerful people in the world came to him to help them get sober. As Alcoholics Anonymous in Orange County grew, so did sober living houses. Sober Living houses were essentially "drying out" places where people who were trying to get sober could go to live cheaply and soberly. Sober Living houses in Orange County eventually morphed into full-blown residential treatment facilities as Sober Living houses began to offer more and more psychological and professional services. Sober Living By The Sea, in Newport Beach, California, was one of the first to morph into a residential treatment facility. Started in 1986, it began as a halfway/sober living house for people just out of detox who needed to live in a sober environment with others trying to get sober. Over the years, Sober Living By The Sea grew into one of the biggest and most controversial treatment facilities in Newport Beach. They are controversial, not because they did anything wrong, but because they grew so big, and spawned so many other residential treatment facilities who used the same treatment model, that they began to draw criticism from major Newport Beach land developers who wanted to build on the land that was being leased by many of the residential treatment facilities, particularly land leased by Sober Living By The Sea. But more about that story in my next blog....

Labels: History of Rehabs in Newport Beach, History of Rehabs in Orange County, Residential Addiction Treatment History

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