Start with the Fourth of July and keep the theme going all month.  Since there will be many families traveling to visit relatives, it would be a good time to celebrate the lives of our seniors and their families.

Monthly Reminders:

Start planning for the fall holidays!  Make sure to finalize your orders for holiday cards, calendars, gifts, etc.

Holidays and Important Dates:
Fourth of July

Other Important (and some not so important) Observations:

Anti-Boredom Month
Cell Phone Courtesy Month
Eye Injury Prevention Month
Herbal/Prescription Awareness Month
National Baked Beans Month
National Culinary Arts Month
National Hot Dog Month
National July Belongs to Blueberries Month
National Purposeful Parenting Month
National Recreation and Parks Month
National Water Gardening Month
Social Wellness Month
Women’s Motorcycle Month

Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies That Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget by Michael Ferris.

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Frequently I am asked how marketing not-for-profit home care services differs from marketing for-profit home care services.  The simple answer is that the basics aren’t any different!  The need to market is the same within the community no matter what the type of agency.  But when you dig deeper, you will find that the need to market today at not-for-profit agencies is probably greater than at for profit agencies.  In fact, I have been getting more calls from not-for-profits lately than ever before.

This is because most of the not-for-profits are behind in the game.  For years they have not had to market and have been successful.  Now they find themselves being told by their boards of directors that they have to be more self sustaining—and the way to do so is generally by generating more business with less overhead.  The typical not-for-profit today is subject to more accountability for its financial success and at the same time they are the subject of greater competition.  The old saying, “You must first do well, before you are able to do good,” is certainly true in home care today.

Here are some tips for successfully marketing a not-for-profit home care agency:

- Enlist your board and foundation members in the marketing effort.  They know a lot of people in the community.  Ask for their help in making introductions to potential referral sources or influencers.  If you haven’t asked lately, you should do so.  You cannot count on them to take the initiative.

- Play to your strengths and highlight what makes your agency unique.  What are you known for in the community?  Use these strategic advantages in all of your marketing efforts.

- Package specialty programs around core competencies.  There are certain things that your agency does very well.  This usually means that you have staff that are trained in the specialty, like this type of care or that you get paid best to perform.  Many times every home care agency in town offers the same services.  But to really promote them, you should package a specialty program around these core competencies so that your agency will stand out as the best choice for these types of referrals.

- Make it easy to deal with your agency.  Customer service is very important and the first step to customer service excellence is to be easy to work with.  Intake should be easy to access, friendly and service oriented.  The referral process should be as easy to complete as possible to maximize the number of referrals.  Take a moment to analyze your processes and make sure that you are easy to work with.

- If you provide charity care to low or no income patients, use this to a marketing advantage.  This is a commendable and needed community service.  Make sure that the referral sources that send you these patients also know that you would like to have their Medicare patients as well.  Your competition probably doesn’t provide charity care, so make sure they don’t get all of the profitable cases.

- Enlist your entire staff in the marketing efforts and give them the tools to tell the world about the agency and its services.

- Hire an outside sales team.  There needs to be someone out calling on referral sources on a regular basis and in person.

- Have a clear and consistent message.

These are just some basic ideas to implement to effectively and efficiently market your agency.  Good luck and happy marketing!

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Organizations can use important milestones to anchor marketing messages in their communities.  The fact that the agency has served the community for ten, twenty, or twenty-five years, adds credibility and provides a point of differentiation. 

Celebrating a milestone is important for marketing to the community, to the internal customers, and to your employees.  The agency staff will be proud to be part of this celebration, and even if they’ve only been on board for two years, they will be more likely to stay with the agency.  So two important benefits of celebrating milestones are greater retention of marketing messages, and increased staff retention.

Paint the picture of world class excellence.  Anytime you can add tangible proof to a message that reinforces stability and service to community, you should do so.  Pride will exude from your staff and referral sources.  Everyone wants to be associated with a winner.  Use these same tactics to celebrate awards and other achievements.

How to Promote Milestones

Have anniversary apparel and pins made for your staff to wear proudly.  Buttons, plaques, trophies, and other commemorative items are very effective to thank staff and referral sources.

Look at everything you plan through public relations lenses.  Be proactively seeking ways to turn business events into publicity.  As an example, Great Lakes Home Health and Hospice decided to purchase a fleet of company cars in response to the rising cost of mileage and hardship on the field staff.  From a business perspective it makes perfect sense, and is not necessarily a newsworthy event.  They selected the top mileage employees to qualify for a car. 

Here’s where it gets interesting. The cars were painted red with a white number 1 and “Nurse Car” on the sides and top.  The cars were painted much like NASCAR cars and act as rolling billboards.  Because they are so unique, Ford Motor Company had their PR department get involved, and national and local media covered the event.  The cars were delivered to the staff members at a special ceremony at the Michigan International Speedway.

Public relations, particularly press releases, should be utilized to get the word out to the community about the milestone, as well as those activities that are created to celebrate it.  Send press releases to local media, industry media, and online.  The reason to release online is to get the search engines to find your agency more frequently when someone “Googles” home care or hospice in your community.  There are services that will do this for you; some are even free.  Check out www.prweb.com to see how it works.

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My job is fun.  I love what I do, getting to work with the fun part of home care and hospice—sales and marketing.  And we have never been busier!  Every agency is different and has different needs.  That means that there is never a dull day.  But there is one thing that doesn’t change; new clients come to my firm because they suffer from one of more of the following symptoms:

- Market share is eroding
- Referrals have either leveled off or are in a decline
- Case mix has shifted to one that is less profitable
- Board of Directors has told management to increase revenues and or profitability
- Hospice census and or average length of stay has decreased

Longevity can be a detriment.  Just because your agency has been serving your community for many years, you cannot assume that the referral sources know and appreciate this.  It is easy to get complacent and act as though you own the referral source because you have served their patients for many years.  Get credit for your greatness—including the many years you have served your community!

The fact is that competition is growing with each and every month—in every market.  This should provide sufficient impetus to act.  If you wait for the negative effects of competition to show up, it will take that much more to regain momentum and market share.  Evaluate your competitive environment on a regular basis and be proactive.

There are some things that we have control over and many others that are not controllable.  New agencies expanding into your service areas are not something you can control.  It’s important that you take all of the worry about increased competition from your public statements.  You can create a self fulfilling prophecy by having the increased competition provide negative motivation.  Strategically you must know your competition and how you will maintain your market growth but you will gain nothing by bemoaning the increased competition.

Declining market share is caused by either more agencies fighting for fewer referrals or market share refers to that portion of the total number of referrals in your service area that your agency enjoys.  Do you know your market share?  This is a key statistic to know so that you can monitor where you stand overall in your market.

Declining revenues can also result in a changing case mix.  If the competition is taking the better, higher paying HHRGs and leaving the others for you—you are getting outsold.  Don’t let this happen.  You must determine how they are doing this and then go after them in the marketplace full force.  The referral sources often think that by giving you the private insurance cases and the competition the Medicare cases, that they are doing you a favor.  Perhaps they don’t understand the current reimbursement scenario and just need to be educated and reminded.  Don’t get surprised by dramatic changes that are not caught and show up as problems in the next quarter.

No formal sales training is a very good example of how agencies are squandering budgeted dollars.  The cost of having an outside sales team is high, so agencies must make sure that the investment pays the highest dividends.  The same agencies that wouldn’t think of sending untrained clinical staff to see a patient, send untrained marketers (sales people) out to call on the lifeblood of the agency—their referral sources.  When compared to the aggregate salaries paid to the members of the sales team, the cost of providing adequate ongoing sales training is minimal.  This is a true loss of opportunity.

Lack of sales management is another common missed opportunity.  If you have to select between investing in training for the sales team or training and support for the sales management, always invest in the management.  Then they can coach, train, mentor and lead the sales team to greatness.  Agencies that have invested heavily in a sales team and have poor sales management support for the team, will never see the maximum results from the overall sales program.

Once the sales team and the sales management are hitting on all cylinders, then it is time to look for ways to improve the sales skills and practices of the intake (or admissions) department.  They must also be trained to ask the right questions and to maximize the productivity in their department.  The staff should embrace the idea that they are the inside sales team.

Long term clients know that to stand still is to fall behind.  They know that we have to work very hard to stay ahead of the competition.  Don’t get outsold—never rest on your laurels, work hard to maintain your growth rate and stay ahead of the competition.  Plan to outsell the competition at every opportunity and see your referrals grow.  Happy Sales and Marketing!

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