ROC Weekly Marketing Minute

Creating Superfans for your Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center

A superfan can be one of your biggest assets in the drug and alcohol rehab industry. They are people that support your business, staff, offering, and brand. They recommend your business to others and support your efforts and strategies. Their loyalty to your brand inspires others to pursue your services and become clients themselves.

Superfans know they can rely on your business when they need you, and in turn, you know you can rely on them to promote your brand.

Why are superfans important?

Superfans can become some of your best ambassadors, and they can encourage others to become clients or superfans themselves. The more superfans you have, the more likely you are to experience the benefits. Superfans build enthusiasm around your business, talk to others about your facility, help recruit new clients, share your content, promote your events, and encourage the people that need your services to seek them.

Pyramid of fandom

Author of the book Superfans: The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe, and Build a Successful Business, Pat Flynn, identified a pyramid of fandom¹. It categorizes people that have ever interacted with your business into four sections:

1. Casual: This is the largest segment of your client base and is typically engaged through online advertising and other marketing methods. They typically know little about your business or offering.

2. Active: This group has taken an action with your brand. They are aware of your offering but are typically unwilling to put in the effort to engage with you. This includes email subscribers or people that follow you on social media.

3. Connected Community: Your connected community is the group of people that interact with your business and talk with each other. This group helps build brand awareness.

4. Superfan: This is the group of people that engage with your brand, share your content, recommend you to others, and attend your events. Nurture this group to help encourage their ongoing support.

How to create superfans

Here is a list of steps you can take to create a group of superfans:

1. Assess your approach to customer service

Be sure to offer personalized assistance to each client and build a relationship with everyone who contacts your rehab center. Identify their challenges and short and long terms goals, and create a unique plan that can help them.

2. Exceed the norms of the industry

Create a strategy to improve your reputation in the industry. Be sure to empower your staff and provide resources to help them become leaders in the industry.

3. Create a community and connect with them

Assess the people that interact with your rehab center, either online or offline, and make an effort to connect with them and create a community. This can involve inviting them to an event, interacting with them online, or calling them directly to see if there is anything your facility can offer them. Strive to get to know people on a personal level and engage in conversations with them. Create opportunities for clients (past, present, and potential) to interact with each other.

4. Provide ongoing value

People know when you are interacting with them just to gain their business. It is important to offer value beyond this. This includes creating informational content, hosting events, and creating alumni groups to continue engaging your community.

5. Make people feel special

Superfans show their support because of the way you make them feel and the results they have experienced because of your program. Focus on how you can continue to bring change and value to them. You can focus on the big picture, but putting in the effort to make positive small changes also helps to maintain this sentiment.

Using superfans to change your marketing approach

Common marketing funnels look like an inverted pyramid of fandom, where efforts are made to move people from leads to clients. By identifying your superfans, you can focus on nurturing them and building relationships, which in turn creates a group that supports and promotes your business and attracts more clients.

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1. Taken from: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-develop-superfans-who-gladly-evangelize-for-you-pat-flynn/