As the demand for in-home care services continues to rise, agencies must proactively reach and engage with their target audience to stand out and attract new clients. They must build strategies with a focus on developing a comprehensive, multi-channel approach that leverages both traditional and digital marketing tactics.
This may include creating a strong online presence through a user-friendly website, optimizing for search engines, and leveraging social media platforms to build brand awareness and foster relationships with potential clients and referral sources.
Further, implementing targeted advertising campaigns, networking with home care providers, and fostering community partnerships can help home care agencies effectively communicate their unique value proposition and differentiate themselves from competitors.
By adopting a strategic and data-driven approach to marketing, home care agencies can not only increase their visibility and reach but also convert more leads into long-term clients.
Ultimately, effective home care marketing strategies are essential for driving business growth, enhancing the agency’s reputation, and ensuring long-term sustainability in the dynamic home care industry.
To shed some light on the same, we interviewed a home care industry expert to bring his perspective on strategies for home care marketing.
Who Did We Interview?
Kevin Hansen is the Director of Growth and Brand Development at Home Care Ops and a marketing geek. Since 2004, he has consulted various businesses regarding branding and marketing efforts. Today, at Home Care Ops, he coaches entrepreneurs in the home care industry to apply successful operational and marketing strategies. Kevin helps them exit daily operations so they can take a more strategic role to leverage what they have built.
Let us now delve into what he has to say about strategies for home care marketing:
When I learned that half of small business start-ups fail by their fifth year, I became driven to understand why and how I could help small businesses become more successful. Marketing and design proved to be where I excelled the most, and since have helped hundreds of companies across various industries grow through strategic branding and marketing efforts – many of which are home care agencies.
Why home care, though? Helping great home care owners succeed in providing excellent care and services to more people in need is incredibly rewarding.
One of the greatest challenges I’ve seen agencies struggle with is balancing their incredible compassion with capacity. Most become incredibly overwhelmed with avoidable situations as they take on clients that exceed their capacity to provide quality care. There’s a simple equation I share with any business: Desperation + Desperation = Disaster.
We know every client is experiencing varying levels of desperation in their need of care. When home care owners take on a wrong-fit client that requires too few or too many hours, has needs their caregivers are not properly trained for, or the agency makes exceptions about forms of payment, there is an inevitable breakdown in efficiency, productivity, and quality of care.
Home care owners that know when to say, “No” and refer clients to other agencies experience more success than when they say, “Yes” to every prospective client.
When a home care owner defines their Right-Fit Client based – at the very least – on types of care they might require, payment forms and stability, and minimum/maximum weekly hours required that fit with what the agency is capable of supporting, they experience greater client, caregiver, and scheduling team satisfaction. Right-fit client definitions also create greater outcomes in marketing efforts by attracting and converting more qualified leads.
Peter Drucker wrote, “What gets measured, improves.” Fortunately, technology is not just making life easier for home care agencies, it is also more helpful to seniors and their families when finding and working with caregivers.
When connecting with prospective clients, caregivers, and referral partnerships, the most valuable thing you can capture is their email. Having this email in a CRM (customer relationship management) system and your scheduling/billing systems allows you to track leads throughout the capture, nurture, convert, and retain stages of their journeys with your agency.
Using various forms and tags to categorize your leads (emails) based on how you captured them and what they are most interested in allows you to be more strategic and personable in communicating with them.
With this data, you can also assess which lead sources are most successful in generating leads, which are most successful in bringing you qualified leads, which sources lead to the most successful conversions, and which sources lead to the most profitable clients and best hiring outcomes.
In the end, it’s the decisions you make based on what you measure that lead to improvement.
First and foremost, and we can thank Activated Insights (formerly HCP) for the data, the biggest marketing channel for home care agencies is their current and past clients through Word of Mouth. Because the true measure of strength for a brand is the perception held by the community you serve, consistent quality care is your first and most important tactic for marketing. Otherwise, you become a churn-and-burn agency with no significant growth.
From the positive experiences and referrals, providers must capture what’s being said. When working on content for online (the second biggest source of profitable leads) and other marketing material, the stories and testimonials from clients or caregivers will create a far greater connection with prospects than boilerplate content.
In social media (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) and website content, speaking to the problems you know your right-fit clients face, offering solutions, and including the experiences as social proof is the difference between “speaking at” your audience and speaking to them.
With so much humanity within this industry, it should not be surprising that sterile and technical content (devoid of humanity) is less successful than content coordinated with a #create2connect approach.
From an operational perspective, the more an agency can streamline and automate through scheduling software and a CRM, the better. The most overlooked and difficult cost to measure is Opportunity Cost, and the time wasted completing tasks that can be managed in a fraction of the time through software results in significant opportunity cost.
For marketing and branding, content from the perspective of the caregivers and clients dominates all other forms of content. The adage “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care” is increasingly relevant as this space becomes more congested with competing options.
Google serves up search results that connect with the intent of searchers, and those searching for home care are more likely to call or complete a form on your website if they feel confident you understand and can solve their problem(s).
Lead your content writing efforts around the problems you solve and the outcomes they can expect instead of writing dictionary-style definitions of the services you provide.
Video as a medium is over a century old. However, it continues to be successful in connecting as more distribution platforms develop. Not only do search engines add more preference to pages with videos on them, but they can also help create a greater emotional connection with viewers.
Prioritize capturing video testimonials from clients and their families. Rather than write a social media post, do a brief 60 to 90-second video to educate and connect with your audience.
Unlike written content or static images, video gives those you hope to work with a sense of passion, compassion, and purpose in your agency. Hearing your voice or the voices of your caregivers and clients adds to the reality and depth of how you can help them.
All effective home care marketing hinges on providing consistent, high-quality care. It builds trust and generates positive word-of-mouth, the most powerful marketing tool.
Digital strategies, including SEO and social media, are crucial for visibility. However, personalized content that resonates with clients’ needs is essential. Also, data analytics can optimize operations and identify successful marketing channels.
Agencies can build connections and drive growth by focusing on client problems and showcasing genuine care through video content.
Ultimately, combining exceptional care with strategic marketing is the key to thriving in the competitive home care industry.
Our users reported 95% customer satisfaction in 2023. Schedule a personal walkthrough to see CareSmartz360 in action.
AI Hub
