Amy Selle is the Managing Director of corecubed, an in-home care marketing company that uses the best home care sales and marketing talent to promote the best care companies. Amy acts as a strategic marketing partner to corecubed clients, helping them achieve results in an increasingly dynamic marketplace. To help ensure your agency stands out in the crowded aging care marketplace, contact the home care marketing experts at corecubed.
Articles and Webinars
by Expert Contributor
by Expert Contributor
Articles and Webinars
As the aging population continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, the need for home care services, naturally, is also expected to drastically increase. As a home care agency owner, it stands to reason that your business should be booming; yet with so much competition, consistent growth isn’t a given. To thrive in the aging care industry requires a multi-step approach, which includes:
Differentiation
A strategic sales plan
A strong online presence
What Sets You Apart?
With so many options available, those in need of in-home care services are likely overwhelmed and unsure where to turn. It’s crucial for your agency to stand apart from the crowd. A good first step is to take a look at your top competitors, and determine:
What are their strengths and weaknesses?
How is your agency different from or better than theirs?
Sharing your story is key to letting consumers, referral sources, and potential care staff know the “why” behind your agency, to highlight your integrity, and to show that you offer more than a cookie-cutter approach to the care you provide. This brand messaging and your care philosophy should shine through in all of your marketing efforts: your website, blog, social media platforms, brochures, etc.
Determine and accentuate the areas in which your agency excels, such as through:
Customer and caregiver satisfaction/online reviews
Caregiver training
Caregiver hiring/screening process
Specialty services
Nurse management/oversight
Reduced rehospitalization rates (for home health care)
Low caregiver turnover rates
Longevity of clients engaging your services
Associations/affiliations
Community involvement
Technologies used
Etc.
You Need a Roadmap
Development and execution of a strategic sales and marketing plan is crucial, and should include the following steps:
Assess where your agency is now, before developing new goals:
Sales experiences
Marketing experiences
Financials
Market share
Create and implement a strategic plan
Track your efforts
Benchmark your results against the industry
Stay the course!
Bear in mind that the sales process begins from the first moment the phone is answered; so be sure all staff are fully trained in the consistent, efficient, professional skills needed to assist inquirers at the first contact and through an appropriate follow-up process.
While we all want instant results, it’s important to allow time – often, 6 months to a year – before you can truly gauge the effectiveness of your plan. Commit to sticking to your plan without jumping to conclusions, while continually monitoring results and tracking measurable data.
Can They Find You?
It takes more than handing out business cards in today’s digital world. Having an online presence is paramount to ensuring that those in need of care can find you, but also to ensure that they have access to online reviews. We know that 97% of consumers read local business reviews, and 93% of them are impacted to make purchasing decisions based on those reviews. Not only that, but 31% of consumers are willing to spend more with a business that has excellent reviews.
Your online presence needs to include:
A professional looking website
Ongoing SEO for maximized site visibility
Great site user experience and viewer engagement with clear calls to action
A social media presence
Claimed and maximized Caring.com, Google My Business and Yelp listings, along with keeping other online directory listings updated
Promotion of positive reviews
Management of negative reviews
As with your strategic sales and marketing plan, your online presence strategy needs to be long-term, keeping the big picture in mind. Trying one strategy and moving on to the next after a few short months (or weeks) does not produce results.
While it may seem daunting, it’s important to cover all the bases; cutting corners in your differentiation, sales, or online presence only opens up the opportunity for your competitors to grow. Turn to the aging care marketing experts at corecubed for the experienced, professional partner you need to extend your agency’s reach, and to obtain the sustainable growth you want for your agency.
***This blog post is related to a Digital Marketing Webinar focused on the topic of home care growth. Available in the webinar archive as:
Utilizing email communications effectively is a vital part of your agency’s sales process, and is key to moving prospects from inquiries to clients. And the operative word to focus on is “effective.” While many home care agencies stay in touch with their leads, referral sources, and clients through email, if not executed properly, those emails often end up simply deleted by their recipients without a second glance. After all, everyone is busy, and without a specific strategy behind the communications, it’s easy for them to get lost in the shuffle. Worse yet, emails that are written in a less than professional manner can actually harm your agency’s reputation and hinder your ability to get business.
In our recent webinar the following tips were shared to ensure your agency’s digital communications stand out:
1. Know the basics.
If you haven’t already signed up for a business email account that allows you to include your agency’s name in your email address, there’s no better time to do so than now! This helps build credibility that your agency is a professional and legitimate business. Without this, your agency looks unprofessional, unestablished, and possibly suspect. Then set standard protocol for each employee to follow, such as including a professional signature that contains your agency’s tagline, any accreditations, trust marks, or awards received, links to review pages, and possibly a small, professional headshot.
2. Prepare for e-blasts.
Explore email blast services such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, SendGrid, etc. which allow you to brand your messages in a professional format, build distribution lists, and categorize those lists for targeted mailings. At the very least, if you decide to forego using an e-blast service, always utilize the BCC field when sending messages to multiple recipients.
3. Nurture leads.
Personalized emails are a great way to follow up with and nurture leads, ensuring you stay top of mind as they’re working through their decision-making process. Make sure to address both the person who inquired about services and his or her loved one who is in need of your services by name. Include any specific details that the caller brought up to show you were listening and are connected. Attach any follow-up materials that were discussed on the call, along with a link to a blog post on your website that is relevant to the caller’s needs, and then clearly provide a next step for the inquirer to take to arrange for care.
After the initial follow-up email has been sent, your agency should follow a documented sales process to continue to move the lead through the sales funnel. This should include follow-up (both calls and emails) at various points in the process, based on the prospect’s actions. Be sure that the cadence and timing of follow-up is standard and consistent for every call, and that all follow-up calls and emails are tracked and documented. Invest in and consistently use a customer relationship management program (CRM) that allows you to add prospective clients to targeted distribution lists based on their particular interests and needs. Then determine the frequency of e-blasts for these specific audiences, and always include a call to action in each communication.
It's also extremely important to ensure that any and all staff members who may potentially answer the phone are fully trained in how to handle inquiry calls, understanding that training is an ongoing process – not a one-time event. Partnering with a professional home care operations and sales coach with expertise in the aging care industry is the perfect way to ensure your email communication is both helpful to your recipients and effective in showcasing your agency as the go-to expert for the solution they’re seeking.
***This blog post is related to a Digital Marketing Webinar focused on using email in home care sales to nurture prospective clients, with Amy Selle and Shelle Womble of corecubed.
Available in the webinar archive as:
corecubed also offers email templates to help agencies with professional communications.
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