How Recovery.com reached the major players in their industry with executive LinkedIn content

LinkedIn ghostwritingFounder ghostwriterCase Studies

Aug 11

Recovery.com founders Jeremiah Calvino and Ben Camp have built Madison’s fastest-growing private company, according to Inc. Photo via Patrick Stutz for Madison Magazine.

Recovery.com's fast growth required a content strategy that reached enterprise decision-makers and built trust in a skeptical industry.

Book a demo with Dan

Key wins

41 of 44 enterprise prospects engaged with content in targeted campaigns
Hundreds of thousands of impressions across executive accounts
Marked inbound increase in direct messages from prospects to executives
An organic strategy buttressed by cost-effective LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

TLDR

"People don't listen to companies, they listen to people, “ says Andrew Averill, Director of B2B Marketing at Recovery.com. “As we've seen company page reach way down, we've seen people reach go way way up. If you’re not putting your people first as a company, you're not going to see a ton of success, especially on social media.”

Drilling down

Recovery.com is a fast-growing health tech company helping treatment centers optimize patient acquisition and outcomes. Operating in behavioral health — an industry where trust and credibility are paramount — Recovery.com needed a way to cut through skepticism and demonstrate their expertise to enterprise decision-makers.

Three challenges drove Recovery.com's decision to invest in executive thought leadership:

Reach enterprise decision-makers at scale.

While Recovery.com's executives excelled in one-on-one conversations, they needed a way to demonstrate their expertise and industry knowledge to hundreds of potential clients simultaneously.

Combat industry skepticism with authentic voices.

The behavioral health industry views many tech products as "nefarious," creating automatic suspicion around new solutions. Recovery.com needed to lead with human beings—not corporate messaging—as the first impression prospects would have of the company.

Create intellectual momentum that translates to revenue.

The company needed content that wouldn't just generate awareness, but would actually influence enterprise buying decisions and create warm leads for their sales team.

“We’re not paying a ton of money for this — but we’re seeing both brand success and performance success.”

An image of Andrew Averill, a man with a mustache smiling against a purple backdrop — Andrew Averill , Director of B2B Marketing @ Recovery.com

The game plan

We built a comprehensive thought leadership program around Recovery.com's executive team, combining authentic storytelling with strategic paid amplification to reach their ideal customer profile.

Selected thought leaders based on industry credibility and “revenue lanes.”

We chose six executives who had deep roots within the behavioral health industry, giving them natural credibility with the target audience. This included leaders who combined personal recovery experiences with business expertise — a powerful combination for building trust in this space.

Mixed mission-driven storytelling with tactical expertise.

Rather than creating generic corporate content, we focused on authentic personal stories from executives like Cliff McDonald and Tom Farley, while also showcasing tactical business insights that demonstrated Recovery.com's operational expertise.

Boosted the best-performing posts with Thought Leader Ads.

After allowing content to perform organically for one month, we used LinkedIn's Thought Leader Ads to boost high-performing posts directly to decision-makers at target enterprise accounts. This approach combined authentic organic engagement with precise targeting.

”The best part about thought leader ads is they show the highest CTR for the lowest cost," says Averill.

“These are still my words. This work is still me. But Dan’s been able to provide me with structure, strategy and purpose.”

Tom Farley, Community Outreach Director @ Recovery.com

The results

Real conversations with major industry players.

In one targeted campaign, Recovery.com reached 41 of 44 enterprise-level prospects through thought leadership content. More importantly, these weren't just impressions — prospects began taking meaningful actions, with one major account's CIO screenshotting a post and forwarding it to their CMO with a recommendation to get in touch.

Deals starting in LinkedIn inboxes.

Rather than forcing prospects through traditional sales funnels, Recovery.com's approach generated direct messages to executives like Cliff McDonald.

Brand trust and authentic human connection.

By leading with stories rather than product features, Recovery.com created a different type of relationship with prospects. "People are feeling so strongly about it that they're coming up to us at conferences and saying, ‘I really like what you're sharing on LinkedIn,'" says Averill. "This is unprompted. We're not fishing for these compliments."

A content engine that’s scalable and sane.

The program created a sustainable system where executives could share their knowledge and experience without overwhelming their schedules, while the content continued working to attract prospects over time.