For many home care businesses, a website can often take a back seat these days. And we know why. With all the flashy offers and imagery of the ever-evolving social media landscape, you tend to forego the attention-to-detail which could make your website stand out. However, considering how exciting and innovative the social media boom has been for the home care industry, keeping your site usability up-to-date is still something that you should check as frequently as your Instagram or Facebook feed.

Have you ever come across a website that looks good at first, but turns out a nightmare when you use it?

Have you ever come across a website that looks good at first, but turns out a nightmare when you use it?

Know Your Audience Well:

Find out who is visiting your website and how.

• Are the visitors mostly young job seekers or the family members of seniors looking for home care services?
• Do they reach your website through search engines or blog posts you shared via social media?
• Does majority of your website traffic come from a mobile device or a desktop computer?

Knowing all this lets you optimize your home care website for your target audience.

Define a Clear Purpose:

Every page of your website should serve one primary purpose.

For example, the ‘Contact Us’ page of your home care website should provide your contact information so that your home care prospects can easily get in touch with you. Include a simple contact form, your address, and phone numbers. Too much information can overwhelm and confuse the users. Also, make sure the content as well as the imagery on the page supports your main objective.

Keep It Concise:

When scouting for specific information on a website, nobody wants to read a novel to find it. Users quickly scan the web pages to look for the desired information, and if it takes too long, they simple leave and move on to some other website. A thumb rule to create a great copy is to be clear and concise.

Tip: Draft your first copy, cut in half, and convert to bullet points where possible.

If you do not want to cut down the copy because it might lose its essence, simply add visual clues such as images, charts, or graphs to make it look appealing.

Put these tips to good use and improve the usability of your home care website.

Ever thought what it really takes for your potential home care clients to reach you?

If not, think about it…

Before they get on a call with you, there are several micro-steps that they have already taken just to get to you.

• They had their aging parent or grandparent admitted to the hospital and then rehab center.
• A discharge planner or possibly a social worker referred them to you, or
• They clicked on your Facebook or Google Adwords ad.
• They checked your website.
• They filled out the form on your website sharing details of their care needs.
• They shared their contact address.
• They ANSWERED (probably apprehensively) when you called them, or
• They called you hoping the person who answered the call would be nice and knowledgeable.

For you, it might be the first time that you will talk to them…

…yet the whole journey which led them to you plus, the challenges which they have already encountered,have taken longer…

One thing many home care agency owners forget is that it’s easy not to take the perspective of a potential client in to consideration.

HERE’S WHY

As home care agency owners, you rely on NUMBERS to help you track down the growth of your business, right?

You can easily access all your business-related data on a spreadsheet.

Your business is entirely represented in figures, percentages, and numbers.

However, you never really look at the NAMES mentioned on a spreadsheet… Do you?

You do not see faces, pictures, or stories, nor do you do see the several steps which the person you are about to talk over the phone has taken to actually reach you.

So…what do you think about why these potential customers put in so much effort to get in touch with you?

SIMPLY PUT

They are real people with a real problem.

They are seeking a solution to their dilemma.

They cannot overcome their struggles alone.

They are worried, apprehensive, and fearful

• …but your words have shown them a ray of HOPE…
• …HOPE suggesting that they can have a better tomorrow.

That is why they’ve gone to such great lengths just to talk to you.

REMEMBER, behind every phone number, ad click, or an email address which you have collected, there’s a real person who perhaps prays every night that they find someone like you to help solve their problem.

If there is a section of people, seniors and their families, with a problem that you can help solve…but they cannot find you…just because you aren’t good at marketing your home care business and getting your message across, book a call with our experts at https://homecareonlinemarketing.com/

We can discuss how a slight change in your marketing strategy can help you reach out to hundreds and thousands of people who need you. Plus, most of all, you can begin to have the impact that you always wanted to have in the world.

The Chief Executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, touts the world’s biggest social media network as a platform to bring people closer. However, the Cambridge Analyticafiasco stirred by the news of Facebook data breach has fueled fears that social media is tearing Americans apart.

The news that over 50 million Facebook user profiles were leaked to some controversial political data analytics provider is apparently a warning to marketers concerning the significance of transparency with consumers about how their personal information is used. There should also be more stringent practices for data access as well as usage.

Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and Home Healthcare Marketing

For the many people paying heed to this whole fiasco, this is probably the first time they are exposed to such intimate details about how organizations may use data in order to attain their marketing goals. This event is not only an eye-opener for marketers but also the consumers as it has definitely awakened and sensitized them to the intrusiveness and power of digital marketing.

Although experience says that the U.S. public has a short memory and is generally not tuned-in, this news has raised awareness among many about data harvesting, targeted digital marketing, and many such terms.

So, will healthcare consumers now become more sensitive to the invasive digital practices, like cross-device targeting or domain re-targeting? Indeed, this a fair question every marketer should be asking. Re-targeting can feel creepy and stalkerish if done by retail companies. In the healthcare industry, this creepy feeling increases tenfold. Therefore, healthcare organizations should tread lightly and very carefully when it comes to re-targeting. There are some heath care organizations and hospitals that already cap their re-targeting campaign or strategy by setting clear limits on the number of impressions per day or the duration of their efforts.

Recognizing the challenges in this specific arena, Google has placed some restrictions on re-marketing related to medical and health messaging. There are many such marketing strategies that healthcare agencies need to be careful about while using.

Summary

Healthcare business owners will now be dealing with more informed, or perhaps more suspicious,consumers. Taking that into consideration, it may be a good idea to refrain from using some of the current digital marketing strategies. Doing things that may creep out your potential consumers is a sure-fire way to lose their interest in your services before you can even talk with them. In the healthcare industry, you sometimes need to hold yourself to higher standards.

The home care industry is white-hot these days and smart senior care providers are looking for innovative strategies to capitalize on this growing market. With annual growth rates expected to reach up to 7.5%, the industry is estimated to be worth an astonishing $130 billion by the end of 2017.

So, how can home care agencies save a piece of this pie for themselves?

The key to success for most home care agencies is to create a stable referral stream. While freeing you from endlessly chasing individual clients, a referral stream provides a steady flow of new business coming in the most effective way possible. In a competitive industry like home care, obtaining the maximum number of referrals from physicians, hospitals, and various other sources, can mean the difference between a home care business thriving or struggling – or even closing its doors.

Here are some powerful strategies that can help boost your home care referrals.

Deliver Quality Care:

It isn’t enough for home care agencies to simply say, “Our caregivers provide outstanding service.” Your potential clients want to see the evidence of how true it is. Agencies need to focus on unequivocally establishing that the care they provide aligns with the care the clients require. They should ensure that their elder care plans are always up-to-date and that every member of their care team always has access to these updated plans.

Another very critical factor here is the accuracy in agency visit documentation. Client visits are often tightly scheduled, leaving caregivers with very little time during or between the visits to complete their notes. A digital documentation solution can be of great help for the agency owners in this case. It puts automated surveys, standardized assessment forms, and other critical material right at your caregivers’ fingertips.

Continuous Improvement:

Home care is unpredictable and services do not always go as intended. What agencies must do is demonstrate that they’re committed to continually improving their services.

Doing this requires home care agencies to keep an eye on how they provide care.

• They need to see if their caregivers stay long enough to accomplish the duties assigned to them. Do they stay too long – or not long enough? To validate the visits against your care plans, you need accurate Electronic Visit Verification data.
• Automation of the workflow and eliminating paper based processes is also a smart move. This improves caregiver efficiency, which further helps increase productivity.

Identify Your Best Promoters:

Identify your “happy” clients and ask them for a referral. The easiest way of doing so is to ask them how much they liked your services. Many times, happy clients keep their praise to themselves. To gauge the satisfaction of a client, ask them this simple question: “On a scale of 1-10, how would you recommend our services to others?” If your clients show willingness to refer their friends and family to you, they are satisfied with your services. Once you get a score from your clients, categorize their answers into given categories, such as the following.

• Promoters (score 9-10): These are your loyal clients who are most likely to promote you.
• Passives (score 7-8): These clients are satisfied, but may easily be enticed by competitive offerings.
• Detractors (score 0-6): These are unsatisfied clients who may pose a threat to your brand reputation through negative word of mouth.

Creating positive client experiences with these proven strategies will help pave the way for more referrals.

With over 1.32 billion Daily Active Users, Facebook is currently the most widely used social media platform in the world. Whatever your home care business goals – improved ROI, brand exposure, lead generation, website traffic – Facebook should make up a sizable part of your marketing strategy.

However, it’s not the easiest platform to stay on top of, due to constant updates, frequently changing ad setup interfaces, and regular algorithm adjustments. In addition, there are certain subtleties in the setup, which may cost you in the ad spend, traffic generation, and potential ROI depending on your marketing strategy and goals.

We have put together some common mistakes that home care businesses should avoid when creating Facebook ads.

• Taking the Shotgun or Rifle Approach to Marketing

Shotgunning is a side-effect of wanting your home care ads to be quickly seen by as many people possible. As Facebook is the center of attention for such a diverse audience, it is important to select the right groups, locations, and demographics, which make up the core of your target audience. Facebook algorithms are tied to content relevancy – so, if your ads are not relevant, you would be simply burning your marketing budget with your own hands.

• Investing in Click-Bait Ads

Everyone hates click-bait ads. In fact, if you use blatant click-bait headlines in your ad content on Facebook, it may limit your reach as a penalty. Simply put, a click-bait ad promises something great that it does not deliver. It is specifically designed just to prompt users to click on it. Ads that manage to make enough people click on them become widely distributed since the algorithm powering Facebook is programmed to view likes, clicks, comments, and shares as indicators of valuable content.

Using a click-bait ad once or twice to get a little boost may be forgiven by your audience, however if you do that all the time, they will eventually begin to ignore everything you deliver. This will even carry over to your other ads which may not have click-bait titles. Your audience will simply assume that they won’t get what they see in the headlines.

• Choosing Bad Imagery

Imagery is the most vital aspect of a Facebook ad. Like content, if your imagery fails to attract your potential customers right off the bat, you could be in trouble. There is a thumb rule when it comes to imagery: if your advertisement image does not catch your audience’s attention in the first three seconds, they have already forgotten it. So, be very careful when selecting images for your Facebook ad. Look for visually compelling, meaningful and relevant images which your audience can instantly connect with.

Sometimes, even the simplest marketing mistakes can trigger an adverse event or unexpectedly eat up a huge portion of your budget in minutes. Keep in mind the tips listed above to avoid being guilty of the possible mishaps. Good Luck!

Have you ever found a company’s social media presence a bit too robotic or too personal? Well, we have all seen it once or twice or perhaps over a dozen times. The worst part is that these underwhelming social media fails often stand out more than the brands that are doing everything right.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Yelp, and more

With the expansion of social media not seeming to slow down anytime soon, home care agencies need to be aware of their online image and take proactive steps for maintaining a positive reputation on every social media outlet. If you think, ‘Seniors don’t Facebook’, you are in for a surprise! According to a recent research, 82% of baby boomers belong to at least one social media site, and a study at Colorado University revealed that baby boomers spend 27 hours per week online, which is 2 hours more per week than those who are between 16 and 34.

While you may be aware of the significance of social media in reaching out to your home care prospects, creating a successful social media marketing campaign isn’t that simple. The fear of committing mistakes in an unfamiliar environment holds back many home care agencies from using social media. If you do not want to find yourself in a social media mess, aggravated over why you cannot seem to grow an active following of prospects, here are a few tips on ‘what to do’ and ‘what not to do’ as your business takes flight

Do’s

Know your target audience:

Your social media accounts must be tailored to your client base, not your personal interests. Post stories which they can relate to and would like to read.

Be active, but do not over do it:

It is good to be active on social media, but only to the extent that it does not annoy or overwhelm people. Being over active may lead to 2 problems:

• Too much information can sometimes be the reason for your followers to unfollow your posts.
• Your posts may get lost in their newsfeeds and they wouldn’t see the information that could be really useful to them.

Always keep track of the time:

Post at various times to find when your followers are most active, and then continue to post during those times.

Maintain one voice:

Keep your message clear and consistent across all social media channels. This helps avoid confusion in the minds of your customers and prevents you from looking scattered.

Have a personality:

Bad posts lead to bad results. Be original and creative with your posts. Show your unique personality and what makes you stand out.

Don’ts

Do Not ‘Spam’:

A no brainer, really. If you’re engaging in spamming on social media sites, you’re clearly preparing for a quick death for your social media campaign. Social spamming is sure-fire way to lose your credibility faster than you’d imagine.

Do not neglect your profile(s):

Nobody likes following or even ‘fanning’ inactive profiles. To make your social media accounts work for your home care business, do not forget to keep them live and updated.

Do not drop ‘Search’ in favor of ‘Social’:

Your Social Media Marketing (SMM) efforts must complement your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) efforts. Do not make the mistake of choose just one over the other as they both hold equal value. So, build links and optimize your website while building your presence on social media.

Don’t rely on automation:

Humanize your home care brand to make the engagement experience for your customers more personable. You lose the personal touch if the customers feel like they are talking to a computer.

Don’t get ‘Comfortable’:

Try new things instead of sticking to just one approach to SMM (Social Media Marketing). To keep your audience interested, keep experimenting and tweaking your campaign. Introduce new, exciting features and build new links with other communities.

Apply these practices to your social media strategy to create a network as true to you as you want it to be.

(INFOGRAPHIC)

The Impact of Social Media on the Home care Industry

74% of internet users in the United States participate in social media, and 80% of them search for health-related information.

The Rapid Prevalence of Social Media Has Turned It Into A Strong Force In The Home care Industry – Potentially Influencing The Decisions Of Both Patients And Providers.

Impact on Patients

• 27% of patients comment or post status updates based on their health-related experiences.
• 29% of patients viewing health information on social media are viewing other patients’ experiences with their disease.
• 30% of adults are likely to share information about their health on social media sites with other patients, 47% with doctors, and 43% with hospitals.

Impact on Providers

• Out of 5,624 hospitals in the United States, 1,501 are using a form of social media, which is approximately 26%.
• An exploratory survey of 17 physicians (76% of whom were bloggers) identified the benefits of social media, including career advancement and staying up-to-date on the latest literature.
• In another survey involving 485 physicians, 24% were reportedly using social media at least once a day for ‘professional purposes’.

Impact on Patient-Provider Interactions

• A study focusing on adolescents with psychiatric illnesses indicated that social media allows for a less anxiety-provoking mode of communication (than face-to-face), constant access to providers, and more consistent monitoring.

Source: https://getreferralmd.com/2017/01/30-facts-statistics-on-social-media-and-healthcare/,
https://www.scoop.it/t/pharma-mkt

Your Chance to Motivate Millennials to Step Up!

An estimated 5.5 million seniors in America are living with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a number expected to go up as high as 16 million by 2050. As the number of seniors living with the disease increases, so does the need for skilled professional and family caregivers. On this World Alzheimer’s Day, Sept. 21, let’s take a pledge to raise awareness about this harrowing condition and work together to fight it.

Millennials: The New Generation of Caregivers

According to a recent report by the National Alliance of Caregiving and the AARP Public Policy Institute, millennials now make up nearly a quarter of the approximately 44 million caregivers in the US and that number is growing.

Millennials (born between 1981 and 1997) is officially the largest generational group in the United States workforce. While it is not necessarily fair to lump this entire generation into one cohesive personality, there are some predominant characteristics, such as being highly tech-savvy and flexible, which make them the best saviors in the current full-blown caregiver crisis. It’s no wonder that home care agencies are always striving to attract and retain millennial caregivers.

Currently, millennials constitute 25% of family caregivers in the United States, and this percentage caring for seniors with Alzheimer’s disease must skyrocket to address the shrinking caregiver base. The ratio of caregivers to Alzheimer’s patients is expected to shrink from 7:1 to 3:1 by 2050, clearly implying that millennials may be required to take on additional caring responsibilities, such as looking after aging parents, grandparents or both. It’s no wonder that we must be armed with all the information required to effectively care for seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease – and what better day to begin than ‘World Alzheimer’s Day’!

September is World Alzheimer’s Month; Join the Cause!

September is World Alzheimer’s Month, a global campaign for dementia awareness led by Alzheimer’s disease International (ADI) and Alzheimer’s associations worldwide. ADI coordinates World Alzheimer’s Day, September 21, through organizations across the globe to focus on raising awareness and challenging the stigma associated with the disease.

Here’s what home care agencies can do to participate in World Alzheimer’s Month, while encouraging participation from Millennials:

• GO PURPLE:

  There are endless ideas to go purple. As a home care agency, share some with your home care prospects as well as existing clients. Motivate them to:

  • Wear Purple on World Alzheimer’s Day, Sept. 21.
  • Integrity
  • Compassion
  • Consistency
  • Quality Training

• Be A Motivator, Encourage People to Take the Pledge:

  Motivate your home care prospects to take the pledge, commit to raising awareness, learn the facts about Alzheimer’s disease, and spread the word through social media channels.

• Organize the Longest Day:

  Motivate your home care prospects to take the pledge, commit to raising awareness, learn the facts about Alzheimer’s disease, and spread the word through social media channels.

• Invite People to Participate in Free Live Training Webinars:

  Offer a free live training webinar to educate people about Alzheimer’s and to help them understand the behaviors associated with the disease. Not only will the online sessions help them better respond to the needs of seniors with Alzheimer’s, but will also improve your brand reputation.

These small steps can go a long way in helping you make a difference in the life of seniors with Alzheimer’s.