Evolving technology, decreased attention spans, and more competition are just a few of the challenges businesses face these days when trying to promote their business, so I’ve got some marketing tips that can help your home care agency navigate the process.
If you operate a busy home care agency, odds are you’re in the industry because you love helping people. While your background may include caregiving, nursing, or general administrative duties, marketing might not be your forte.
But marketing is one of the most important things you can do to:
- Get your business started
- Grow your business consistently
- Reach your business goals on time
What is Marketing?
So what exactly is marketing? It’s whatever you do to promote your business and sell your products or services.
You might be marketing right now and not even know it because marketing comes in many forms such as:
- Attending local networking groups
- Involvement in peer groups such as Chambers of Commerce, non-profit organization boards, or advocacy groups
- Dropping off brochures at local pharmacies
- Letting rehabilitation facilities know you are accepting new clients
- Advertising including TV ads, digital media, radio, and print publications
- Posting on social media
- Writing blogs for your website that inform your target audience
- Asking happy customers for referrals (word-of-mouth marketing)
Traditional marketing can also include direct mail, email blasts, and attending trade shows or vending at health fairs.
What type of marketing is right for you? That depends on your budget, your time, and your desire.
One of the most common and popular forms of marketing these days is social media, most likely because it’s free and easy, and more than 72% of US internet users have at least one social media. That being said, there are so many different social channels, it can be difficult to gain followers and feel like you’re making an impact, especially if your agency is spreading itself too thin and trying to participate in every social channel.
5 Social Media Marketing Tips
Here are 5 marketing tips to help you decide how to devote your time and resources to social media marketing.
Marketing Tip #1: Choose wisely when it comes to social media marketing.
The best way to get started with social media and to build your presence is to choose one or two platforms that are most visited by your target audience. Typically, businesses start with Facebook, Instagram, or X (formerly Twitter).
Choose one or two of these options and do it (or them) really well. When you’ve reached a point where you feel confident that you can handle another platform, add another channel to your marketing routine. If you start by trying to post across 10 different platforms right out of the gate, it will likely feel overwhelming and your brand reputation may suffer.
Marketing Tip #2: Schedule your social posts in advance.
With the META business suite, it’s easy to schedule your Facebook and Instagram posts at the same time. There are other tools like Buffer, Loomly, and Hootsuite (just to name a few), that allow you to schedule your social media posts across multiple platforms.
By doing this, your agency can generate content and images for a week’s worth of social posts and schedule them one day a week rather than trying to find time every single day to squeeze in a post.
Marketing Tip #3: Use the 80/20 rule.
I’ve recently attended several social media webinars by experts from companies like Hubspot, Hootsuite, and SEMRush. The one key message each of these experts wanted their audience to come away with is that social media should not be all about your business.
No one wants to be sold something all the time. In fact, social for brands is very similar to social for personal use, in that you don’t follow your friends to be sold a product or service. Rather, you follow your friends because you’re interested in what they have to say. Their posts are more relatable to your life and more personal. Brands should emulate that sort of messaging.
People come to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, and other social media platforms for entertainment and value. Use your messaging to impress your audience, keep them engaged, and make things entertaining so they’ll want to come back to your page again and again.
Determine what sort of value you can provide to your audience and post informative content. All of your social posts do not need to be an ad about your business. In fact, best practice is to post about your business 20% of the time and post entertaining, informative, and fun content the other 80% of the time.
Fun and entertaining content is not meaningless, nor is it a waste of time. It’s important to your brand because it’s important to your audience.
Here are a few examples of what your agency can post that will help relay your brand messaging while also building a following of people who can relate to your content:
- Industry insights and tips from experts in-home care on subjects like dementia, aging at home, and how to watch for signs that a loved one needs home care
- Information on family caregiver burnout or how to practice self-care
- Funny memes or stories that will make your audience stop scrolling through their feed when they see your post because sometimes, people just want to see something that will make them laugh or smile
- Inspirational quotes, messages about self-care, or fun holiday posts (there are a ton of “social media holidays” to choose from if you’re running out of content ideas)
Marketing Tip #4: Use social media for sales.
Whether your sales goals are to get more customers or hire more caregivers, social media should be a part of your marketing strategy. According to LinkedIn, 78% of businesses that use social selling end up outselling their peers that aren’t utilizing the power of social. In addition, prioritizing social selling helps businesses reach their sales quotas by creating more sales opportunities.
All that being said, remember Tip #3 and be careful not to oversell on social media.
Marketing Tip #5: Be consistent and authentic.
WIth social media, you can’t fake it till you make it. Your audience will be more likely to turn on your notifications, engage with your content, and share your posts if your agency is putting out authentic content on a consistent basis.
In a world filled with AI chatbots, many people tend to get frustrated by the lack of human response or type of answers AI spits out. Use your social channels to showcase your humanity and build a strong relationship with your audience.
Humanizing your social posts rather than letting an AI tool write them for you will go a long way with your social followers.
This goes back to the 80/20 Rule. Your job on social media is not to constantly be selling your product. Be personal. Share content that addresses your audience’s pain points. Be engaged and responsive to comments or questions you get on your posts.
While there are many forms of marketing, social media marketing seems to be the one people think of most often these days. But remember that traditional marketing such as word of mouth, networking, emails, direct mail, and advertising are also still very important marketing tools that can contribute to your home care agency’s growth strategy and goals.
Rosemark Can Track Marketing Efforts
For customers who are currently using Rosematk to manage their operations, caregiver scheduling, billing, and payroll, did you know you can also use our home care software to track your marketing efforts?
Use the Referral Feature in Rosemark to keep track of inquiries who found your agency through your social channels. You can also use the same feature to track if your leads came from word-of-mouth, ads, networking, etc.
If your agency is still on the fence about moving to the industry’s leading home care software, removing the barriers of manual processes, and improving your daily operations with more efficient workflows, please reach out to a member of the Rosemark team today for more information.