Create Your Own Brand to Market Home Care Services

There are marketing materials and methods you can use to attract new clients for your senior care business. To build your company's business image, the most important step to take in marketing your business is to develop your company's brand.  Branding is a marketing practice. It includes the development of your company's name, logo or some design/symbol that represents it, and an identity/slogan that differentiates it from other companies that perform the same type of service.

Your brand presents your company's message to potential customers.  Your brand must appeal to clients so that they will choose and use your company over the services of another company. Your brand should be consistently used on all of your logos, business cards, brochures, ads, signs, letterheads and your website. This is what is meant by branding your home care business.

Branding can be done well even by a small company or on a small budget.  When branding your business, do your preparation work carefully.  Determine and define the mission of your company for yourself so that you can clearly express it to others.  Outline, understand and be ready to explain the features and benefits of your service. Know what your former clients thought of and your present clients think about your company. Knowing the answer to that question it is vital to gather feedback from them. Survey them to find out:

• What do they like the most about your company?
• What do they think the strengths of your company are?
• What do they think of your specific services?
• What would they say to a friend when recommending your services?

Compose a list of all the feedback you receive. Highlight what clients especially love about your company's services.  Incorporate all this information in your branding.

If your company is a part of a particular home care franchising business, you will be tapped into their company branding and much of this part of your marketing strategy will already be developed by your parent company.  Independent companies need to develop your own unique mission statement from which to create a tagline/slogan that sums up your company's best features and is your own brand message. It must be sincere, consistent, short and simple. Use it on everything from business cards to your website. Above all, make absolutely sure you and your company live up to it.

Once you choose your logo, your slogan and your message, stick with it. Use the same font, the same colors and the same pictures on all your advertising. Avoid Clip Art and photos downloaded without permission from the Internet.  Use professional looking images legally obtained from sources such as ThinkStock and iStock.  If you can afford it, work with a professional to develop your company's logo. It is the "face" of your company out in the advertising world. Successful branding often makes or breaks a business in the long run.

Using SEO to Market Your Home Care Business

One of the most successful consumer marketing tool used by owners of a leading non-medical home care businesses is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), according to Home Care Pulse.  In fact, their 2014 Benchmark Study reports that companies using SEO as their top marketing tool achieved annual 2013 revenues over 32 percent higher than the industry's yearly average.

The era of using the yellow pages to search for businesses is nearly over. Today's consumers log onto the Internet to look for service providers.  This includes senior citizens, who are becoming more computer savvy, as well as their adult children.  It is crucial for your company to have an easy-to-access, well-designed and content-loaded business website, and to concentrate on SEO in order to attract the greatest number of consumers possible to your website.

When consumers conduct a search for "home care services," your SEO goal is for your company to appear on the first results page on all the search engines such as Google.  To make this happen, you have to set your company up as an expert in the home care field. Once you achieve that, search engines will lead consumers to your website where potential clients may choose your services.  This process does not occur overnight. Your own efforts make it happen through insuring that your website remains active, up-to-date and full of valuable and useful information on home care for seniors.

To achieve SEO success, you must first understand that all search engines want to provide their consumers' inquiries with the most truly relevant websites in their search results. For your website to be one of them, you have to have the best website for the services you provide in the area in which you provide them. 

Offer a blog on your website and keep it up-to-date. Make the blog posts relevant to your field and of interest to people seeking information on home care, senior care and related topics. Use your blog posts to show that you are an expert in your field. By updating your blog posts regularly you are demonstrating that your website is actively managed and relevant with current information on it. Now that you have made sure your website is active, credible and relevant, you may work to make it popular through link building.

You need other credible non-medical home care franchise websites to link to yours in order to become popular. One appropriate way to accomplish this is by finding their blogs and participating in the comments left there. Make them informative and thought-provoking in order to demonstrate your expertise. Add something to the overall discussion that is worthwhile.  Leave a link to your site. Invite that site to leave a link on yours. Networking is all about building relationships with other experts and enhancing your company's reputation.

Using Volunteers to Help Your Home Care Franchise

According to a recent study, one of the complaints most frequently offered by elderly clients of home care services is that their care providers do not exert themselves to help those clients. They may request to have their fingernails painted, their shoulders massaged or their hair trimmed, only to be turned down.  The care giver says he or she does not have the time or is not comfortable providing that service, but the clients feel that they are not appreciated or special.

This should be taken seriously by all elderly care franchise owners.  Owners must figure out how to enhance their services to help their clients feel they are valued and their needs are being met without forcing their employees to perform services they are not comfortable doing.  One way to solve this problem is to tap into the community and seek out the help of willing volunteers. By building up a pool of trustworthy volunteers to provide some special services for your clients, you can meet everyone's needs at little expense to your company.

There are networking tips to help you recruit community volunteers. These are different networking techniques than you use for building clients involved in home care franchising. You are not seeking new clients. You are soliciting caring people with some spare time who can provide an hour or two each week to make your elderly clients feel appreciated and happy.  Your goal is to meet their emotional needs as well as you meet their physical needs.

First, reach out to other businesses in your community. Speak with hair salon and barber shop owners and see if anyone can offer an hour each week to cut seniors' hair. See if nail salon personnel can spend time offering manicures. Second, train your care givers on how to give simple hand and shoulder massages. Bedridden elderly people can particularly benefit from a hand massage. It also releases endorphins that can lift the spirits and improves circulation.

Third, ask other friends for help. See if your snow removal company will include the driveways of your elderly clients in their routes. Check with your lawn care company to see if they can solicit some volunteers to help mow lawns. Fourth, begin an Adopt-a-Grandparent Program at your local high school. This type of community service will enhance students' college applications and build strong friendships between the young and the old.  It can certainly lower depression in your clients. The teen girls can paint fingernails and style hair. The teen boys can play video games and cards, and possibly even help the gentlemen shave.  The teens and seniors can play games, work puzzles, work on scrapbooks and read. Your clients will feel happier and more valued and appreciate your services again.

Getting your Staff Excited About Caregiver Training

Aging is inevitable for all of us, and in the new millennium, it is occurring at an even more increased rate.  Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and healthier lifestyles, we're living longer; and in many cases, we're taking care of our parents.  Baby boomers, the largest generation born in U.S. history, will be between 56 and 74 in the year 2020. Many of them will still have their parents in their lives.    

As the owner of a non-medical home care franchise, you're probably more keenly aware of many of these facts than most people.  Now more than ever, it's important to not only provide training opportunities for your caregiving staff, but also find creative ways to encourage them to be engaged in these opportunities.  Here are some ideas:

1. First, make your training opportunities of special importance in your company.  If your staff is able to see how vitally important this training is to you as well as for their individual success, they are more likely to be positively and actively engaged.  (To encourage your supervisors to support your efforts, consider offering bonuses based on their staff achieving designated training goals.) 

2. Next, once training begins, recognize your caregivers individually in creative ways: thank-you notes, in-person acknowledgements from management, and highlighting their names on your website or company newsletter.  A framed certificate of completion is also a great way to acknowledge your staff.

3. If you will be offering a series of training courses, set up a staff drawing for a prize for completion of a set number of sessions.  And your drawing prizes don't have to break the bank---think about prizes that would be appreciated: gift cards, company shirts, or even scrubs!  Additionally, reward experienced staff by allowing them to assist with training newer caregivers---you will show that you value their experience.

4. Providing lunch before or after training might sound like a simple (or even unnecessary) thing, but think again.  You'd be surprised how much your staff would appreciate the gesture.  And again, it doesn't have to be overly expensive: deli sandwiches and pizza are always crowd-pleasers.

Home care is one of the most critically important jobs around, and ongoing training will make for a more competent and engaged caregiving staff.  Acknowledging your staff for their dedication will not only increase their job satisfaction, but also result in them providing care with an enhanced knowledge and pride in their work.