Are your home care marketers facing locked doors at care facilities?
Yes, the prospecting landscape for home care salespeople has radically changed in the light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
It’s been six months since the virus restrictions began in March, and it’s like we landed on the moon. An unfamiliar and difficult sales environment to navigate.
Routine visits to hospitals, to rehab facilities and other institutions were once the common way of building relationships with referring partners.
No more.
The virus problem has locked down these doors, and now home care agencies are scrambling to figure out how to maintain a constant flow of new clients.
Is your home care agency coping?
How is your home care agency dealing with the problem?
It’s time to re-evaluate and re-tool. One way is to rely more on phone calls. But you don’t get the personal touch. You need other means to augment this approach. The best way is to combine phone calls with a robust digital marketing system, and even direct mail. You need to consider these lines of attack:
- A more complete website, one that is mobile-friendly, looks great and is secure (SSL).
- A “lead magnet” such as a guide, video instruction or other freebie on your site that brings people into the sales funnel.
- A website that is optimized for search ranking, and serves as an ongoing source of good content.
- Social media activity, and this means constant posting to your Google My Business listing, Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets.
- Email marketing – a constant flow of helpful newsletters.
- Direct mail pieces to your best prospects, as well as current clients.
- Pay-per-click ads, which are a quick way to attract interest and compel prospects to call or submit their emails.
And home care agencies are doing just this. One home care marketing owner in Florida that I talked to yesterday has caught the wave of interest. He’s seen an increase of the number of home care clients – from 75 to 273 in the last year. He said the COVID situation was largely behind this.
Greater demand for home care
In all of this, here’s the good news. More people want mom or dad to stay at home and get good care rather than have them stay in a senior care facility where they are more vulnerable to viruses. One industry expert, Mark Goetz, told Home Health Care News recently,
“Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, home-based care has become the preferred setting for seniors, due in large part to the outbreaks that have occurred in congregate settings.”
Goetz is the co-founder and president of the newly-formed HomeCare Advocacy Network. This company forms franchised partnerships with existing senior care facilities to provide home care to its current residents and prospects.
“Skip the facility”
In the Chicago area, a home care agency owner I spoke to yesterday says that he has been “super busy” with inquiries from people who want to “skip the facility and go directly to home from the hospital,” or even pull their parent out of a facility and put them into a condo or take them home.
The opportunities are there. Your competition is finding a way to reach this growing market. Has your agency taken steps to reach them?
Why not try the digital means mentioned above? The world is going more digital and those who wait for tomorrow will be left behind. Thus, think about turning your website into more of a true sales funnel, and driving people to it so that they will contact you for their home care needs.
Why not use this marketing method to bring in more clients and customers? Get in touch with us at Savvy Senior Marketing by making an appointment for a free 20-minute phone consult, or by sending us an email.
