User perspective drives new Sunspire site design

In the highly competitive world of addiction treatment, a well-designed website is essential for treatment centers’ marketing efforts. In assessing their own website, however, the leaders of Sunspire Health, which operates a nationwide network of addiction treatment facilities, reached a somewhat surprising conclusion: In trying to develop an effective marketing tool to promote its services, Sunspire had a website that had strayed from actually serving its audience’s needs.

It was time to start anew, building a new site that would take a patient-centric approach.

“Our old site was focused more on advertising and marketing, and not necessarily on the patient, the family, the consumer,” says Sunspire CEO Chris Diamond. “The big thing for us with our new website is about that person taking the step. You don’t land on a website that’s showing you marketing collateral and photos related to facilities and glamour. You are reaching directly to the consumer, the loved one, the referral source with steps needed to help them access treatment.”

Sunspire announced the launch of its new site earlier this week, the culmination of a six-month project. In addition to providing information on each of the company’s eight locations, the site was designed to serve as a roadmap for those seeking treatment, working through a series of five fundamental steps to evaluate treatment options and identify the one that meets the site visitor’s needs.

Keys to success

Diamond says there were two keys to developing Sunspire’s new site:

• Finding the right partner. During its interviews of web development firms, Diamond says it was essential to find an agency with experience in working with healthcare organizations that could understand the unique needs of the field vs. other industries.
• Listening to constituents. What do people look for when visiting the website of an addiction treatment center? Diamond’s answer is simple: Ask them. “It was doing the due diligence necessary, interviewing our alumni, constituents and referral sources, and understanding what they were looking for,” Diamond says. “All that is what led to the big driver of the website: the five fundamentals in seeking effective treatment.”