Valerie VanBooven:

Thanks for joining us, everybody. Today is the day we talk about Marketing Your Home Care Business From Start-Up to Seasoned. I’m so glad you could join us. We had lots and lots of folks sign up for this. Very excited to present this to you, and I am Valerie VanBooven if we haven’t met before.

Valerie VanBooven:

Welcome to the webinar. I have a couple of other things I’d like for you all … If you have a look at a computer screen and you have a phone, you’re going to want to take a screenshot of this. Hold on. Oh, wait a minute. Here we go.

Valerie VanBooven:

Take a screenshot of this. A couple of things I wanted to point out to you, and then I’ll talk about the agenda a little bit. This is our website address, ASNMarketingPlan.com. We also have a free download, and as we talk about marketing, this might be helpful to you. Of course, my mouse is very sensitive.

Valerie VanBooven:

Download the 12,000 holiday celebration list. Go to bit.ly, Bit.ly/2022CALENDARASN, so you might want to snap a picture of this instead of trying to write it down.

Also, if you are new to us and you have never done this before, if you’re our client, by the way, this is already done for you so you don’t have to do it. You can get a free listing on our website, ApprovedSeniorNetwork.com/join. If you do that, what will happen is we’ll set you up with a free listing.

Valerie VanBooven:

You can get all kinds of free, cool stuff. You’ll get an email that’ll tell you how to view it all and how to use Approved Senior Network as a directory listing. Then, we also have, tomorrow, we have the Home Care Marketing Mastermind every week on Friday. If you’re our client, it’s free. If you are not our client, then there is a monthly fee.

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s just a tiny fee, and you can go to Bit.ly, B-I-T.L-Y/hcm2022, /hcm2022. When you go there, it’ll give you a list of all the things that we do, what we talk about, and join if you want to join us. If you don’t, that’s okay too, but we meet every Friday at 12:00 noon Central Time, 1:00 PM Eastern Time, and what we do is we talk about marketing, caregiver retention, caregiver recruiting, all the things that everybody’s talking about right now. There are seasoned home care agency owners on that call, and there are brand new home care agency owners on that call and everybody in between, so feel free to join us. It’s a great group, and all of the replays for all the videos that we’ve done with that group from January on are all in our little private area that you get access to, so you can see all of those as well.

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s my little commercial. Take a little snap picture of this and feel free to join us. Of course, I’m sure you can hear the dogs barking. The mowing people decided to show up today and mow the grass, so the dogs are going crazy. Sorry about that.

Valerie VanBooven:

Hopefully they’re done now. Okay.

On our agenda today, we’re going to talk about what seasoned home care agency should be doing now, and this is for those of you who are at the five plus, 10 plus, 20 plus years in business. We’re going to talk about where to spend your marketing Dollars today regardless of your time in business. You’re going to learn where you can save money and where you should spend money for best-in-class marketing, some things you can skimp on, some things you cannot.

Valerie VanBooven:

Clearing up misconceptions about marketing and online and in-person, and we’re going to talk about, finally, what startups should focus on in the first year in business. We’re going to cover all these things, but I will say this, it doesn’t really matter where you are in business, whether you’re a newbie or you’ve been around for 20 plus years. Some of this is going to be a great new idea or adventure for you, so keep all of this in mind, and of course, when this webinar ends, I will be sending out the replay to all of you, and I’ll also send the links from the screen to you as well. Questions and answers, by the way. For questions and answers, let me just go here.

Valerie VanBooven:

I’m going to lower all attendees’ hands. For questions and answers, just type them into the chat or the Q&A. Let’s see what we have here today. We have a Q&A section and we have a chat. If you type them into the Q&A section as I go, I will take all the questions at the end and I will answer all of them.

Valerie VanBooven:

All right, a little history about us. Approved Senior Network, myself, George Novoson and our team, we’ve been around since 2008, so we’ve been helping home care agencies and other senior care businesses market online for 15 years. 15, 14 years. 14 years. Almost 15, I guess, and we have seen a lot of changes in that time, and we have worked with people from independent home care agencies to franchise owners to other kinds of senior care providers who are in all different stages of their life, their business life, from beginning to end. I’m just going to give you sort of our perspective on what we have seen and talked about and learned from best practices over the last 14 years.

Valerie VanBooven:

Of course, if you have any questions, like I said, put them in the Q&A section and I’ll answer them as we go.

All right. For those of you who’ve been around the block a while, I would imagine by now, and this is what I talk to very successful home care agency owners, these are the things they know.

They know their numbers. You should know your numbers, and by numbers, what do I mean?

Valerie VanBooven:

How many clients you have, how much revenue you have coming in, how many caregivers you have, numbers in, numbers out, where are your leads coming from, all the numbers that matter when you’re running a home care business. You should know where your business is coming from, like the zip codes, the locations, the people … Where are you getting most of your business? You should know who your referral sources are, and if you’ve been around for a while, you do. You know who your referral sources are, who your guaranteed referral sources are, and you probably have a wish list so people you wish would refer to you.

Valerie VanBooven:

You know who your competition is and how they work. You know your best combination of services, so you know that live-ins make … If you do offer live-in, you know live-ins make more money than, are more revenue for you than hourly, or you know that your best package is helping people who are discharging from the hospital and everything that comes with that, so you know your best combination of services and hours and things like that, and you know your weaknesses. Once you’ve been in business five years, you definitely know your weaknesses and you know your staffing limitations, and of course, that’s gotten even crazier in the last few years, but you know that you’d love to serve more zip codes, but you can’t staff those zip codes right now, perhaps, or those counties, so you know what your staffing limitations are, and you know that it might be time to change a few things, and that’s a value. The good news about being in business for a while is you can recognize when things really do need to change, or you need to just get a little creative, go a different direction, do something new, or try something you haven’t tried in several years.

Valerie VanBooven:

I can honestly say that some things that people may have tried five years ago work way better now in terms of online marketing than they used to, so we’ll talk about that. All right. For all of you seasoned home care agency owners out there, we’re going to talk about online marketing and offline marketing. In terms of online marketing, once you’ve been around the block for a while, I want you to think about your website. How old is it?

Valerie VanBooven:

It seems like you just had it built yesterday, but it’s actually like three years old. That might not seem old, but in terms of technology, it is old, and I say that because we’ve been building websites all these years, and we have websites that we have built from, I mean, from 2014, and they need to be rebuilt. They are simply too old and need to be redone. The look and feel needs to be updated, the technology on the back end, even if it’s a WordPress website. You may be keeping up with all of the plug-in changes and things like that, but there are so many vulnerabilities and things that slow a website down, that the way we used to build them are completely different than the way we would build one today.

Valerie VanBooven:

If your website is more than two or three years old or maybe you’ve had staff changes, you’ve got some old pictures up there that you need to take down, maybe you’ve had some system changes, you’re using third-party apps for certain things and your website is not linked to them correctly or using them correctly, maybe it looks outdated. Maybe your website acts outdated. Maybe it’s misting images or it’s slow to load, or it doesn’t look good on mobile at all. Maybe it does look bad on mobile. Have you looked at your own website on a mobile device?

Valerie VanBooven:

Are things out of place or is there images missing? That needs to all be fixed. Maybe you’ve lost ranking on Google. Maybe there was a day when you knew you were on the maps or you were on the first page of Google, and now, no way. You’re like third page.

Valerie VanBooven:

I would ask yourself this question, “Are you getting consistent leads from your website? Are people filling out a form or making a phone call to you from your website?” Now, you’ll know if people are filling out a form on your website, but I bet most of you don’t know how many phone calls come in from your website. The only way to know that, typically, is to have a tracked and recorded line on your website. We do that for our clients when they want a tracked and recorded line, so are you getting consistent leads from your website?

Valerie VanBooven:

That is one of those numbers that you should know. Are there old SEO practices? SEO is Search Engine Optimization. The way we used to do things in 2012, 2015, even 2018 are different today. We are using Search Engine Optimization in different ways behind the scenes, things that you probably will never see, but if you want to get to the first page of Google or back to the first page of Google, you need to know what today’s practices are and what the best practices are because they are definitely not the same as they used to be.

Valerie VanBooven:

Maybe you need some location pages to expand your reach. If you’re showing up really good for the city that your office is in, but you’re not showing up for the surrounding areas that you serve, there are ways to fix that. You can have something called location pages, and there’s more to that story. It’s not just about flopping up a page, but it definitely is, there is the ability to expand your reach. Maybe you need long-form service pages instead of just …

Valerie VanBooven:

Oh, look at my typo, instead of just a bulleted list and a paragraph. What do I mean by that? When you look at your website and you look at the services, the services that you provide, you have a page for your services. Some people have one page that describes all their services, some people have a page for hourly care, 24-hour care or companion care, or personal care or whatever they want to call it. However, there’s just a paragraph and a bulleted list, and that’s it.

Valerie VanBooven:

That is what I mean by old SEO practices. That page needs to be written in long-form. It needs to be completely written out paragraph by paragraph. It needs to answer the right questions. It needs to tell Google in words who you are, what you do, and what your services you’re providing, and those pages are very important.

Valerie VanBooven:

Long-form service pages means the content is written out in long-form. We’re not just sticking with one, little bulleted list and a paragraph. That’s what I see, and that’s what we used to do all the time, is just do a paragraph and a bulleted list, because what else are you going to say? Well, guess what? There’s actually a lot you can say, and so we have writers who write out those content pages so that you show up, and Google likes you or likes your website a lot better. All right?

Valerie VanBooven:

Let’s see. Let’s make sure … Okay. I see your questions, and I will come back to those. All right. Online marketing content matters.

Valerie VanBooven:

Big question for you who have been in business for a while, “Do you have a blog?” A blog is where you put articles that are related to you, your services and Alzheimer’s care and Parkinson’s care and things like that. “Do you have a blog of articles, about senior care, elderly care? Do you have unique content being added regularly?” If you have a blog there, when I see this a lot, and everybody’s gung-ho at first and they’re all ready to go with the blog, but I look at it and I see that no one has posted since 2020, and so that needs to be fixed. If you have a website that you love and you want to keep it, you need to update the content.

Valerie VanBooven:

Google comes back to your website every time you add new content, and if that content is written the right way, Google’s going to reindex your website to find out, “Did I miss anything else on this website, or is it just this page?,” so you’re going to get more attention from Google when you have unique content being added regularly. Now, in a perfect world, you’d add a beautiful, amazing, engaging article three times a week, but most of us don’t have that kind of time or money because that’s not cheap, and most of us aren’t writers, so at least twice a month, if not, four times a month, you should have unique content being added to your blog or to your website. Do you engage with social media? We have clients that are all over the map on this. Now, we post to their social media for them five days a week, so that’s no problem, but then, we have some clients that are really engaged with Facebook, which by the way, is your audience.

Valerie VanBooven:

Whether you like Facebook or not, that’s where your audience is, so do you engage with social media? Do you post? Do you come out from behind your website? Do you show people that you are here, you are present, you’re out in the community, do you do those things? If you do, that’s awesome. If you don’t, then you might consider hiring someone to help you with that because it does matter.

Valerie VanBooven:

People are looking at your website. They’re vetting you. They’re looking to see what kind of content you have, and if the last post that was on your Facebook page was in 2016, they’re not going to be very impressed because your competition next door posts every day and they’re all out there smiling and wearing costumes and having fun with their colleagues and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so you don’t have to go crazy, but posting regularly is really important. Are you on the right platforms for your audience? A platform, by that, I mean Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and I will say that Facebook and LinkedIn are still the two leaders for this market.

Valerie VanBooven:

They might not be interesting to you, they might not be interesting to a 12-year-old, or my 12-year-old probably shouldn’t be on there anyway, to an 18-year-old, but that is your target market. Facebook is growing older by the day, the demographic, so you have your 40’s, your 50’s, your 60’s, your 70’s. You have grandma and grandpa who will get on Facebook and look at pictures of the kids, the grandkids that they live too far away to visit all the time, so you do have quite a nice audience on Facebook. On LinkedIn, that’s where your referral partners live, your professional referral partners, so marketing to them and talking to them, and connecting with them, and starting a conversation with them on LinkedIn, that’s where it’s at. TikTok is a whole lot of fun, and you may not like TikTok at all.

Valerie VanBooven:

I have no idea, but I will say this, TikTok has taken off in different ways, and one of the ways that it’s taken off is that it’s not just for kids. If you know who Teepa Snow is, Teepa is one of the leading dementia trainers in the world, I would guess, and she’s an older lady. She’s lovely. She’s been doing this a really long time. She teaches people how to care for folks with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and she has a channel on TikTok, so you can go to TikTok.com and you can put in a search for Teepa Snow, T-E-E-P-A Snow.

Valerie VanBooven:

She has millions of views, hundreds of thousands of followers. This is no joke, and this is all she talks about, is dementia training. She does skits and she does funny things, and she adds humor to it, but she’s very sensitive also about it. TikTok is for everyone, and I’m not saying you need to go start a TikTok account just because I said it, but I would investigate it, and just look at some of the videos. There are a lot of dementia-focused channels or accounts on TikTok.

Valerie VanBooven:

YouTube is another one that would … We get a lot of views from YouTube. Our clients get a lot of views from YouTube, so that’s another one that makes a lot of sense. I know that all of this is overwhelming, so pick your platform. If it’s just Facebook, just do Facebook. Facebook and LinkedIn are the two winners in this category for home care, so focus on those.

Valerie VanBooven:

“Do you have a monthly newsletter that goes out regularly?” Some people will say, “Ah, people don’t like to get email. Like it’s going to spam. It’ll hang it …” If you send out, and I don’t mean if you wish you send out, if you actually send out a newsletter every single month, and we do this for our clients, so that’s how we know, you will increase your revenue. I’m not saying I don’t know by how much, but you would see if you started a newsletter January 1st of this year and did it all the way through December 31st, once a month, so 12 newsletters and you looked at your revenue and all other things being equal, your revenue would’ve increased over the year before just because of your newsletter, not by thousands of millions of Dollars, but by a couple clients, so why not send out 12 newsletters a year?

Valerie VanBooven:

You should have a monthly newsletter that goes out, or hire somebody to do it for you. “Do you create videos?” That goes back to our TikTok and our YouTube. Some people will never create a video in their entire life, and I get that, and it’s okay, but if you like creating videos or you think you might like creating videos or you’re not camera shy, then start creating videos. We’re talking really small, short videos.

Valerie VanBooven:

Under three minutes is good, so a video that answers the question, “What is home care? What services do you provide?” Keep it simple. Do one frequently asked question per video. Make sure your audio and your lighting are awesome.

Valerie VanBooven:

If you can see me, you can see that I have a light shining right on my face. The light is not coming from behind me. It’s shining right at me, at my face, and that’s how you should have your lighting. You can also see maybe this. Here’s my microphone.

Valerie VanBooven:

You don’t have to pay a lot of money for microphones. You don’t have to pay a lot of money for lighting. You can get a cheap microphone and a cheap light on Amazon, and you can create videos, and you can just be you, or you and a PowerPoint, like I’m doing now, and just talk about frequently asked questions. Keep it simple, keep it short. “Do you have a podcast?,” and everybody’s, “Oh, everybody’s in a podcast.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Well, so what? Maybe you should have one too. Podcasting, that just requires the microphone piece and not so much the camera. We do a netcast. I call it a netcast because we interview people on camera and we also talk into a microphone, and then we upload it to our podcast channels and we use it on YouTube, and we make it a blog post.

Valerie VanBooven:

There’s so much that you can do today, and it doesn’t take gobs and gobs of money or gobs and gobs of equipment. For those of you who have been in the business for a while and you know your stuff, this might be a new adventure for you. It might be something you want to try. If you are brand new to this business, it doesn’t hurt to go ahead and add some of these things because over the years, when you look back, you’ll be glad you did, videos and podcasts. “What is your content strategy, and do you have one?”

Valerie VanBooven:

Once you’ve been around the block for a while, it’s important to know what holidays you’re going to celebrate, what healthcare celebrations you’re going to … Like for instance, National Nurses Week coming right up, May 6. Woohoo. Have you prepared for that? If you’ve been in business a while, you know that National Nurses Week or whatever nurse week is coming up May 6ish, first full week of May, and you know that everybody drops off trinkets and says, “Thank you for being a nurse,” and post something on social media.

Valerie VanBooven:

You’ve been around a while. You know this happens, so today is the day that you need to decide what you’re going to do. Well, actually, you probably should have decided that in January, but you need to have a content strategy. What are you going to do? What are you going to say?

Valerie VanBooven:

Are you going to take some pictures? Are you going to post them on Facebook? Are you going to write a blog post or have someone else write one for you? What are you going to do that has to do with nurses week? Your referral partners will be happy that you’re celebrating nurses week with them.

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s one of the many that are important. Do you have a content strategy? You should have one. All right, so let’s keep going here. Don’t forget, if you have questions, put them in the Q&A section down below, and I will answer your questions at the very end.

Valerie VanBooven:

All right. For you who are seasoned, “What about paid advertising? Are you using Google Ads? Have you used them and gotten burned maybe? Are you using Facebook ads?”

Valerie VanBooven:

“Are you doing this yourself or with a professional? Do you see a return on investment?” Again, know your numbers. “Do you know your numbers?” That’s my next bullet point.

Valerie VanBooven:

If you’re going to run ads, you need to know how many leads came in and how many closed. Did they come in by phone? Did they come in by form? Did you talk to them on the phone? Did they close?

Valerie VanBooven:

Are they … What is it? So know your numbers. Are you using a landing page to run Google Ads? Let’s say you run a Google Ad.

Valerie VanBooven:

“Are you using a landing page where people go straight to a certain page on your website that’s designed for lead capture, or you’re just running ads to your homepage?” There’s a hint there. Don’t run them straight to your homepage. “Is your homepage a good lead generator?” Most of them aren’t.

Valerie VanBooven:

That doesn’t mean they all aren’t, but most of them aren’t. You need a little landing page that’s just specific to your Google Ads. “Are you spending too much on Google Ads? Are you spending too little on Google Ads?” If you are in New York City, you are not going to get any leads for $300 a month on Google Ads.

Valerie VanBooven:

You have to spend way more than that to get a return on investment that’s worthwhile, so if you work with a professional or set of professionals who understand home care and understand Google Ads, then you’ll know how much you need to spend. Typically, for most of our clients that run these kinds of ads, if they’re not in Manhattan or Los Angeles or Miami, they can get away with 600 a month, maybe. Sometimes they need to spend 1,000 a month, but you don’t have to spend $10,000 a month on Google Ads in order to get leads. “Are you closing leads?” Closing a lead means a lead calls in and says, “Hey, I’m interested in your services for my mom, and you are a great closer,” meaning, you got this.

Valerie VanBooven:

You’re going to make sure that you get an appointment with that person in their home before you get off the phone to set up an assessment time and your closing leads. Some people are great closers. They’re just naturally very talkative and animated, and they’re great with selling, and they’re compassionate on the phone, and they totally get it, and some people are not good closers. It’s not because … They might be good at something else, but they’re just not good salespeople.

Valerie VanBooven:

I’m like that. I’m not great at closing. I’m not a good salesperson, but I do like doing this part. I like the education, but I’m not a closer, so are you closing leads? If you’re not, then you might not want to do paid ads right away because you could get a lot of great leads, and then none of them close, so think about it.

Valerie VanBooven:

Use an honest assessment of your skills, self-assessment, and then, “Are you listening to phone calls?” Here’s another piece of the puzzle. When you’re doing paid ads, at least in our case, we always use a tracked and recorded line for this, and that way, I can tell you how many leads came in via phone. You can listen to those calls. Maybe it’s you answering the phone every time, or maybe it’s somebody else in your office answering the phone.

Valerie VanBooven:

If it’s somebody else or maybe multiple somebody else’s, just depending on who’s available, you’re going to want to know how that call went. Trust me when I say, it is a eye-opener when you listen to phone calls. It’s an eye-opener. It’s a learning experience. Yeah, so I would suggest to you that if you do Google Ads, or even Facebook, that you definitely record the calls that come in from that phone number and make sure you’re listening back to them.

Valerie VanBooven:

“What can we do better? How could we have been a more compassionate person? How could we have slowed down our talking? How could we have listened better? What could we do differently next time we answer the phone?”

Valerie VanBooven:

Everybody can learn from recorded phone calls. All right. That is my recommendation on paid ads. Okay, let’s talk about buying leads. For those of you who’ve been around the block, some of you have probably already tried buying leads, and maybe you buy them all the time. Maybe you tried it and it was a burn.

Valerie VanBooven:

I don’t know. The question I would have for you is, “Are you closing those leads?” Same question I just asked. If you’re going to buy them, you need to make sure you’re good at closing them because otherwise, you’re just wasting your money. “Are they exclusive leads or are they shared leads?”

Valerie VanBooven:

An exclusive lead means they only go to you. No one else is going to get this lead. That’s the way in the slide before, that’s how Google Ads is. They are exclusive to you. If they’re shared leads, that means the cost might be lower, but that lead is going to five or six other people in your local area, five or six other businesses who are also trying to close that lead, so whoever calls first is going to get that person’s attention, or the fifth caller may be the person … You may be the person that gets the annoyed consumer, who has just been called and texted by six other people, so it just depends on the situation, but just know that there are shared and exclusive leads when you buy them.

Valerie VanBooven:

Is it worth the investment? This goes back to my last bullet point, “Do you know your numbers?” If you took a look at all the leads that came in from that lead service over the last 30 days, how many of them closed? How many of them were not even worth calling back? How many of them did you get business from?

Valerie VanBooven:

Those are the things that you need to know, and that’ll tell you whether or not it’s worth continuing down that road. “Do you have a follow-up system in place?” If you are buying leads, let’s say you talk to many people who are lovely, but they’re just not ready to pull the trigger, they’re still kicking the tires, do you have a follow-up system in place? That means that you’re sending out a monthly newsletter. You’re sending out an automated set of emails that goes out to them every three days and lets them know, “Hey, we’re here. If you decide that you want to start services, here are some frequently asked questions that we can answer for you.”

Valerie VanBooven:

We’re just checking in to make sure you’re okay because you know, that sometimes a lead will start researching, an adult child will start researching home care options, and it might be another three months before mom falls and breaks her hip or has as a stroke, or leaves the burner on too long, and that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back and they’re in for home care, and it’s a crisis now,” so home care leads sometimes close fast. Sometimes it takes a few months, but if you continuously send them just a little bit of a drip of an email here and there, you will be top of mind the day grandma falls, and they’ll be calling you, so make sure you have follow-up system in place. “Does your staff know how to close leads?” Not only do you have that great skill of getting an appointment to get in the house and do an assessment, but does your staff also know how to do that, or does anyone on your staff know how to do that? Again, listen to the recorded phone calls.

Valerie VanBooven:

If you do get recorded phone calls with the leads that you buy, you should listen to those calls. Very interesting. Don’t forget if you have questions, to put them in the little Q&A section, and I will answer them. All right, in-person and offline marketing. Let’s talk about this.

Valerie VanBooven:

Now, this is for our seasoned folks, but it could apply to anybody. By now, if you’ve been around the block and you’re five years in, 10 years in, 20 years in, you’re probably doing some community outreach events. What does that mean? That means that your town, your area agency on aging, your local senior independent living community hosts antique car day or a car show, or, I don’t know, it could be anything, a health fair, whatever, and you go and you participate and you help, and you have goodies to give away, and you’re there to be a part of it, and maybe you have to pay or maybe it’s free, you’re volunteering, whatever, community outreach events means that you are getting out there and being present with other communities to make them fun and engaging. You should be doing that, absolutely.

Valerie VanBooven:

Networking meetings. This could be a chamber meeting. This could be the Local Social Workers Association meeting or the Local Long-term Care Association meeting. I don’t know. There’s tons of them around here.

Valerie VanBooven:

It could be a women’s group, a business women’s group that meets. It could be rotary club. “Are you going to networking meetings?” You never ever know where you’re going to find a lead. Everybody has aging parents, right, or most of us do, so networking meetings are super important.

Valerie VanBooven:

Don’t go to networking meetings, and you’re pretty sure of this, you’re never going to get a leave from it. If it’s just there for chitty-chat, lunch and hoo-ha time, then pass on it. Okay, leave-behinds for referral sources. All right. What is a leave-behind?

Valerie VanBooven:

Some people will tell you that is a brochure and a business card, and I will tell you that is not a brochure business card. A leave-behind is something that you have taken the time to craft or buy or whatever that is cute and makes sense for the month, the day, the year. Back on one of my first slides, I said there’s a list of 12,000 celebrations that happen every year. There is a list there of all the celebrations. Some of them will never apply to you.

Valerie VanBooven:

Some of them are funny like National Popcorn Day, National Coffee Day. Of course, you have your Mother’s Day, you have National Nurses Week. You have your big ones, but you also have all kinds of cutesy little ones, the first day of spring, St. Patrick’s Day. May is Older Americans Month coming up. May is the nurses’ thing.

Valerie VanBooven:

May is Mother’s Day. There’s all kinds of little, cute things you can do in May, so you can go online, and we have tons of examples of this, and you can see … This is Dollar store stuff. I’m not talking about going out and spending gobs and gobs of money on stuff, because you’re not even supposed to be doing that. I’m talking about something super cute and little, that for instance, let’s picture in your mind a little gardening spade, and it’s just a little … It could be plastic.

Valerie VanBooven:

It doesn’t have to be even be real. It’s just a little gardening spade. Maybe you get it from the Dollar store in the kids’ section, and you tie a little ribbon on it, something simple and cute, and you attach your business card to that ribbon or a little … On one side it says, “Your referrals make my business grow,” or, “Thank you, and your referrals make your business grow,” or something like that. Get it? They’re growing spade, you’re planting a garden.

Valerie VanBooven:

Maybe you attach a packet of seeds to it, I don’t know. That’s it. That’s the whole thing, and you leave them behind for the people that you know you want to connect with, so yeah, your business card attached to it, yeah, you do the same thing that everybody else in town does, but you’re leaving behind something that’s cute and memorable and you took the time to do it, and it is appreciated, and if you do it more than once or once a month, you’re stopping by National Donut Day, national whatever, hotdog day, I don’t know, you have to look at the list and pick out a few, plan ahead, order your stuff or go to the Dollar store and collect whatever it is you need for these things, have a kid in the house or a teenager help you put them together, put together 20 or 30 of your little cutey items, and then on whatever day, go out and deliver them, so plan ahead. Get these leave-behinds ready, and stop and talk to the people, and make sure that you’re talking to the gatekeeper. Talk to that lady that sits at the front desk.

Valerie VanBooven:

They are a wealth of information, and make sure you have a thing, one of the things that you’re making for her specifically because she will remember that. Even if you can’t get past her, make sure you have one that’s specific to her, or an extra for her even if … I don’t know, whatever. You could have a basket or a little plastic bucket full of microwave popcorns and something, I don’t know, for Popcorn Day. I mean, there’s just so much you can do.

Valerie VanBooven:

If you were to do a Google Search for leave-behinds for April 2022, you will get lists and lists of people, especially real estate agents who do this all the time, and you can copy off what they do. Just change the wording on their little messages so it doesn’t say anything about buying a house. Obviously, yours is going to be about home care. Okay. “Do you have a database?”

Valerie VanBooven:

If you have any questions about that, about leave-behinds, about where to go, what to do, put it in the little Q&A section there, and I’ll answer that at the end. Database of referral sources, so every business card, every contact that you have in your phone, all of them should be in a database on your computer or on your phone so that you can send out emails. You should be sending them that same monthly newsletter that you would send to anybody. You should send them at least once a month, maybe weekly a personalized email that says, “Hey, Jane. It was so nice to see you last week.”

Valerie VanBooven:

“I hope you’re doing well. Just wanted to let you know that we are available if you have any referrals,” da, da, da, da, da. Thank you notes, if someone does something for you or you’re invited to something, send a handwritten thank you note or stop by and drop off, it’s another reason to stop by and say hi, a handwritten thank you note to that person. You don’t have to go crazy and put gifts with it, just a thank you note. You should host CEU events.

Valerie VanBooven:

If you don’t know what that is, nurses and social workers are always looking for continuing education credits or continuing education units, and we just posted one for a home care agency today, as a matter of fact. It was about dealing with difficult clients or aging adults, dementia, things like that. It’s hosted by the home care agency. They have a doctor or social worker, somebody like that, who’s actually presenting. They applied to the state of Illinois for the CEU credit.

Valerie VanBooven:

Don’t ask me how to do that. Every state’s different, but it’s easy to look it up. Google it, CEU credits, how to apply. The state says, “Yes, this is good for one CEU credit.” This is virtual, it’s online, so nobody has to go anywhere.

Valerie VanBooven:

You can do it as a brown bag lunch, get on Zoom, just like we’re doing right now, and they get their little CEU credit at the end if they attended, and they need that for their licensure. If you do a CEU event, you’re going to get lots of professional designations, showing up to your Zoom for … It doesn’t have to be you that’s presenting. It could be somebody else that’s presenting. Hosting a happy hour.

Valerie VanBooven:

Now, that’s a little bit more challenging. You could do a happy hour without alcohol in your office, or if you are the type that likes to do a happy hour at a local Mexican restaurant or something like that, you could do that. You could have an open house. Remind people who you are and where you are. You could have a luncheon if you have a big enough office space, or you could host it somewhere else.

Valerie VanBooven:

There’s all kinds of in-person, offline marketing things you can do. A brochure and a business card are not enough. They are great, but they are not enough. You have to do something that keeps you in their mind and makes you memorable. Be sure to stop and form a relationship with somebody.

Valerie VanBooven:

Don’t just drop off your stuff and run. You need to stand there and talk for a minute. Of course, if they’re busy, that might not work, but form relationships. Okay, let’s talk about where to spend your marketing dollars today regardless of your time in business. New or old, here’s where you should be spending your dollars.

Valerie VanBooven:

In-person networking and marketing. Now, this is more about your time than it is your dollars, but you’re still spending dollars on gas and fees and subscriptions to whatever. I don’t know, but in-person marketing, that’s definitely on the top of the list. What can you do to get network with your community today? Online marketing, absolutely. Everybody right now and for a long time, are going to be on this right here.

Valerie VanBooven:

This is where your referral sources are. This is where your consumers are. They’re on your phone. If they look at your website and it is jank store on your phone, jank store means that they’re going to move on, you should not judge a book by its cover, however, that is exactly what’s going to happen. Please make sure that your online presence is up-to-date, it’s 2022, and it reflects a professionalism and a compassion for seniors that they can see straight from going to your website, and it’s also very easy to figure out how to contact you, so online marketing, absolutely, in-person market, absolutely.

Valerie VanBooven:

Unless you’ve done this and you know their success, I would tell you do not do TV. The reason I say that is because, number one, it’s very expensive. If you’re in an election cycle or in an election year locally or even nationally, it’s outrageous to advertise on TV. A lot of folks are not watching TV to find out the latest and greatest in home care. They’re watching TV to escape their problems, not to address them.

Valerie VanBooven:

If you have a cable station, they’re like, “Older people watch the golf channel.” You’re never going to get a phone call from the golf channel or from the local, if you have a baseball team and a … People are trying to escape. They are not looking for solutions to their elder care issues. I would tell you, no TV. Now, if you’ve got a great deal, it’s a local station, there’s somebody there that’s amazing and everybody knows them and your whole community, it’s a totally different story.

Valerie VanBooven:

That’s up to you. Next is no excessive print. Now, do you need brochures and business cards? Absolutely, you do, but you do not need to spend thousands of dollars on direct mail, zero direct mail. If you want to know why, I can tell you why. Just ask a question in the Q&A section.

Valerie VanBooven:

I would say if you’re going to have brochures and business card printed just to 100 or 200 a time, don’t have thousands of things. You’re inevitably going to change your address, change your phone number, change your logo, change your website address, or something’s going to happen, and those are going to be useless to you, so just have small batches printed at a time, and don’t go crazy. Newspaper ads, no. No. No newspaper ads.

Valerie VanBooven:

You’re never going to get anywhere with that. If it’s your church bulletin and you know it’s going toward, obviously to support your church or your neighbor’s church or whatever, fine. You want to do something like that, that’s great. Guess what? You’re never going to get any business from it, but guess what?

Valerie VanBooven:

You just supported a great cause, and that’s okay. Maybe they can have you come talk to their senior group one day about the benefits of home care. I don’t know. No excessive print. Stop worrying about that, unless it’s something that every single other person in your community is in.

Valerie VanBooven:

Don’t do it. The booklets that go around that are senior living books or whatever they are, no. No, no. Don’t do it. Okay, radio, only in certain circumstances.

Valerie VanBooven:

I am usually not a fan of radio. I have seen the following work. The following is this. There is a radio personality in your local area on an AM or FM talk station, or maybe it’s a different oldie station, and everybody loves that person, and they do a lot of in-person appearances and everybody loves them, and they’re awesome, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they really have a great senior following, and they really have a great senior audience, and you have enough money to have them do what’s called a live testimonial. Now, of course, they’re probably recorded, so they’re not live, but that means that that radio personality during their broadcast is going to sing your praises about your business, and I would also recommend that if you’re going to do that, that you do it at drive time in the evening.

Valerie VanBooven:

Drive time, talk radio or oldie station, a celebrity, local celebrity who’s very in with the senior population doing a live testimonial for you, that is the only kind of radio I would suggest. Nothing else is going to work. It has to come from their mouth, they’re saying that you’re the best, and then I would say that might be worth it, but that’s also the most expensive radio you could ever do, because every time they open their mouth, it’s going to be three or 400 bucks, so that’s the only radio I’d recommend. Okay. Now, you’re back to in-person marketing and online marketing, the two most cost-effective, best ways, best investments in your business today, tomorrow and for the rest of your business life.

Valerie VanBooven:

Okay, “Where can you save money versus always get best-in-class?” Always invest in some things, but in other cases, you can save money. You can save money on leave-behinds. I just talked about this. We’re talking Dollar store, Oriental trading, cute, fun, and memorable, not expensive.

Valerie VanBooven:

Cute, fun, and memorable is the bomb. That is … Trust me, there are so much cute, fun and memorable stuff. You don’t have to be crafty to do this. You can buy stuff that’s already done, but it can be cheap.

Valerie VanBooven:

You can buy it in hoards off of Oriental trading, Dollar store stuff. I mean, even … Remember I talked about TikTok? If you go to TikTok and type in Dollar store crafts, not that anybody … I do not want to do Dollar store crafts.

Valerie VanBooven:

If you’re into that kind of thing or your teenagers can help you, there are TikToks out the wazoo on Dollar store crafting, so cute, fun and memorable. No expensive stuff. People are not supposed to be accepting expensive gifts from you, and you should not be giving them, and gift cards are not a good idea because they can be construed as against a safe harbor loss. Look that up. Okay, save money on communications.

Valerie VanBooven:

Email follow-ups, CRMs, e-newsletters, you know the drill. You don’t have to spend gazillions of dollars on fancy-dancy e-newsletters. Email follow-up, CRM, we have a CRM that all of our clients can use for free. If they are using our services, they get the CRM for free. It’s awesome.

Valerie VanBooven:

We set everything up. Your emails that you send out do not have to be amazing, colored, full, crazy email follow-ups. They can be very simple. In fact, they’ll get past spam filters if they’re very simple. Now, your e-newsletters, they need a little style, little class, Constant Contact, Mailchimp.

Valerie VanBooven:

The CRM that we have all do that. Save money on print, but be careful about that. You do want to save money on print, like don’t do dumb stuff like sending out direct mail to 100,000 people in your local area that’s in color. Don’t do stuff like that. It’s not going to work.

Valerie VanBooven:

However, for your brochures and your business cards, print like 100 to 200 at a time just so you have a nice stash. You don’t want to go super cheap. There’s nothing yuckier than a cheap business card or a cheap … Just go standard. Just go middle of the road on quality there. Don’t go crazy, hyper …

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s not going to help you, but don’t do a flimsy paper, yucky-looking thing either. Make sure it’s professionally done, but don’t go crazy. Okay. Do not skimp on your online presence. The Wix website is not where it’s at, friends, and I know some of you have Wix websites.

Valerie VanBooven:

I get it. Squarespace, Wix, Marketing 360, LiveWire, GoDaddy … I say that to you because I’ve been doing this for 14 years. You need to have a WordPress website that is hosted on super fast hosting, that is up-to-date, that is actually going to generate leads for you. If cousin Eddie built your website three years ago, and now he’s really not available to help you with updates and it looks terrible, get a new website.

Valerie VanBooven:

Cousin Eddie’s out. You need to really take care of that. It’s an investment in your business. It’s a more important investment than almost anything else. If you’re thinking about a website versus wrapping your car, get a website, and then wrap your car.

Valerie VanBooven:

That’s how important that is. It’s just important, so do not skimp on your online presence, your website, your social media post, your articles, your content. Do not outsource content, writing to somebody in another country who doesn’t understand the American healthcare system or maybe English is a second language, because when they write content, they will spin the content, they will write it from a British English perspective, and it won’t sound right, so be very careful where you get your content. Make sure that whoever you’re having write for you is writing great content and not just gobbledygook just to get it done, so don’t skimp on your online presence. You don’t need to spend $10,000 typically on a website.

Valerie VanBooven:

That is not what I’m saying, but what I am saying is make sure you’re dealing with professionals, not cousin Eddie, not the friend down the street, not the guy who just quit his full-time job and decided to have a side gig of doing websites, because side gigs will go away really quick. That is my recommendation there. Okay. If you have any questions, please put them in the Q&A section, and I will answer them. We’re almost done.

Valerie VanBooven:

Clearing up misconceptions about marketing online and in-person, 10 common misconceptions related to online marketing. “Online marketing is synonymous with computers.” Well, it is sort of, but meaning, is it complicated and technical? It’s also everything else in our world. It’s Alexa. Online marketing is about email.

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s about Facebook. It’s about TikTok. It’s about the content on your website. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be a wizard using a computer. “Online marketing is only for big businesses,” absolutely not.

Valerie VanBooven:

Small businesses make a fortune on correct online marketing. Only massive website traffic can make digital marketing successful,” also not true. Not true at all. Everybody in your town gets essentially the same amount of traffic. There’s only so many people at one time that are looking for home care, and so you want to be on the first page of Google for some keyword phrases.

Valerie VanBooven:

You do not need massive amounts of traffic. No. Online marketing is not integral to a company’s business strategy. This is super false. It should be one of the first things you think about.

Valerie VanBooven:

In fact, the URL, the website address that you choose is really important. Online marketing is part of your company’s business strategies, also should be a part of your exit strategy. The better your online presence is when you exit your business, the more you will get for your business, right? Online marketing is a technical aspect. It does have some technical issues and some things, but if you don’t want to do it yourself, you can have someone else do it.

Valerie VanBooven:

You don’t have to be a tech-head in order to do online marketing. “Designing a website is enough for online marketing.” Designing a website is not enough. It needs more than that. You need more than that.

Valerie VanBooven:

You need a presence in lots of different places, not just on your website. “Optimizing websites for mobile devices is unnecessary.” That is 100% false. You have to have a … I mean, everybody’s on their mobile device.

Valerie VanBooven:

This is pretty much glued to our faces 24/7, so if your website doesn’t look good on mobile, you’re lost, and Google only cares about mobile now, so the way your website loads on mobile, the way your website looks on mobile is so important. “Criticism on social media is harmful to business.” It’s only harmful to your business if you don’t respond professionally. If you get a bad review and you respond professionally to that review with evidence, not giving out names, but with evidence to the contrary of whatever that insane, disgruntled person said, then you win. You’re not writing a response to a bad review for the person who wrote the review.

Valerie VanBooven:

You’re writing the response to the review for the next person who’s reading the review. Have you ever gone to Vrbo, where you rent a house for the weekend or for a week or whatever at the beach? We do it all the time for our summer vacation. I read all of the reviews, and I can tell by reading the reviews, if someone is a nut job, if they’re cray-cray, I can tell because if the owner of the home has replied sincerely and professionally, it makes a person who left the review look like a total idiot, so that’s your goal, is to respond professionally. Wait a day.

Valerie VanBooven:

Do not reply in anger. Wait, and then post your reply. If you know that it’s false, you know that this is just a friend of someone who just got fired or whatever, then you needed to report it to Google and hope they’ll take it down. They don’t always. Anyway, no.

Valerie VanBooven:

Criticism is not harmful to your business. It is helpful to your business if you respond appropriately. “Search engine optimization is a dead concept.” Oh, no. Oh, no, sista. It is not a dead concept because that’s how we get people to the first page of Google.

Valerie VanBooven:

“Online goals and metrics are all that matter.” No. Online goals and metrics are not all that matter. What actually matters is how many times your phone rings and how many new clients you have this month. That’s what matters.

Valerie VanBooven:

Okay. Common misconceptions related to online marketing, again. “I don’t need a great website.” Yes, you do. “I don’t need a monthly newsletter.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Yeah, you do. “I don’t need a blog or regular content.” Yes, you do. “Online marketing is only for big businesses.” No.

Valerie VanBooven:

I don’t know how I have two of these, and the rest are the same, so all these things. Yes, you need a great website and a monthly newsletter. All right. In-person marketing. That’s the one I’m looking for.

Valerie VanBooven:

“All I need to do is drop off brochures and leave.” No. You have to form relationships. Do more than drop off brochures and leave. “All I need to do is attend of a couple of networking meetings.”

Valerie VanBooven:

No. You need to be consistent. Show up, get to know people, form relationships. “There’s no point in dropping off leave-behinds each week.” Yes, there is.

Valerie VanBooven:

You might not get a referral the first time, but you got to keep going. You got to keep doing. You got to keep being remembered. It has to happen all the time, or it’s not worth doing it the first time. “I don’t have to answer my business phone. I can let it go to voicemail.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Ha, this is a great one. Answer your phone. Answer your phone. These people are in crisis. Please answer your phone.

Valerie VanBooven:

Don’t let it go to voicemail. If you can’t answer it, you can’t answer it. If you can get a answering service, get an answering service. You have to answer your phone. “I don’t want to bug people with emails.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Yes, you do. Bug them. “I don’t want to bug people with phone calls.” Yes, you do. You need to bug them.

Valerie VanBooven:

“My competitor is the enemy.” No. Your competitor is another resource to learn from and collaborate with. Think about it that way. “I don’t have time for community outreach.”

Valerie VanBooven:

Then, you don’t have time to grow your business. “I don’t want to post my community outreach on social media.” Yes, you do. Yes, you do, because you need to show other people in your community who couldn’t attend that event that you are out there, you are present, that you care about your community, you care about your seniors in your community. Post it.

Valerie VanBooven:

Do it. Okay. Almost my last slide. Are you ready? “What startups should focus on in the first year?”

Valerie VanBooven:

This is for all of you who are startups. Get organized and get busy. You may have a full-time job on top of trying to start a home care agency, I totally get it, but if you want this thing to take off, you have to prioritize some time for it. It’s just like going back to college. You have to say, “I’m going to study tonight or I’m going to da, da, da, da, da.”

Valerie VanBooven:

You have to prioritize. Remember your why. I interview professionals in the senior care market every week, almost every week, and I ask them, “What is one piece of advice that you would give to other people in senior care business or the home care business?,” and this is actually great advice no matter where you are, because it becomes very hard when you’re disappointed. Remember your why. Why did you get into this business?

Valerie VanBooven:

Why did you start this in the first place? When you’re having a bad day, did you start this business because you saw how your mother was treated or how hard it was for your family to find good care? If that’s your why, then keep going. If that means more to you than failure, then keep going. Visit 10 to 15 potential referral sources per week.

Valerie VanBooven:

That’s two to three a day. Go, go, go, go, go. “Leave-behind more than a brochure and a business card.” Yes. Please do some little leave-behinds that are cute.

Valerie VanBooven:

You don’t have to make a big deal out of it. Always leave your business card with those. “Keep all contact information in a database of some kind.” If you don’t have a CRM, which is a Customer Relationship Management tool, you’re not our client, then put it on an Excel spreadsheet, or on a Word Document. Do something, but keep everybody’s contact information.

Valerie VanBooven:

Form relationships. Don’t just drop off your stuff and run away. Form a relationship with that lady that’s sitting at the front desk. Find out her name. If she’s full-time, she’ll be there every time.

Valerie VanBooven:

Find out what role she plays. Ask her some questions. Talk about the weather, whatever it is. Form a relationship with her. Tell her why you’re there and what you hope for, and that, “Here’s a few goodies that I wanted to leave for the staff,” or whatever you’re doing.

Valerie VanBooven:

Form a relationship with her. Get involved with your community. Look for volunteer opportunities. Participate in senior-related events. There are so many.

Valerie VanBooven:

Go to your area agency in aging and find out what they are. Email potential referrals sources weekly. If you can’t see them, then email them. Invest in small print and … Wait a minute.

Valerie VanBooven:

Wait a minute. Small print and big online presence, so invest in a small amount of print so that you always have a business card or a brochure, and then reorder. If you find you need more than two or three, then reorder 100. I don’t mean one or two. Invest in small amount of print, but a big online presence.

Valerie VanBooven:

Even if a social worker had a hospital, refers you, which they’re not supposed to do, they’re supposed to give people a list, even if you’re on the list, do you know what that adult child is doing? They’re going through the list and they’re Googling or looking up every single home care agency on that list. They’re looking at their website, and you know what? They’re sitting next to mom’s bed while she’s recovering from that hip replacement, and they’re on their phone, and they’re looking this stuff up, and they’re making phone calls, and they’re like, “Oh my God, what am I going to do?,” so invest in a big online presence because that is where ultimately people are going to look at you and judge your business. Start with your online presence.

Valerie VanBooven:

Okay, wait a minute. What’s happening? Here we go. Okay. Last slide, questions and answers. You can visit our website at ASNMarketingPlan.com.

Valerie VanBooven:

You can get your 12,000 holiday celebrations list. You can take a picture of this, screenshot of this, and get that free listing on approvedseniornetwork.com/join. Add your free listing, and join the Home Care Marketing Mastermind if you’d like to talk to us every Friday. We have lots of fun with that. All right.

Valerie VanBooven:

I’m going to take questions, so if you have a question, please put it in the Q&A section. Here we go. “Can you provide some websites for review?” Yes, I can. It says I can type the answer.

Valerie VanBooven:

I’m going to do … Well, let’s just say just go to ASNMarketingPlan.com, right here on your screen, and I think the second tab over talks about websites. There’s an entire website portfolio on our website, so if you go to the second tab over, I think it says website development or something like that, home care websites. I’m not sure. You can go there and look at all the websites, all the different styles.

Valerie VanBooven:

“How much do you charge to build a website?” Well, that depends on what you need. There’s two things I’ve learned, never talk about pricing on a webinar because it’s going to change or it’s not appropriate for you, and always make sure that you have a private, but very professional conversation with one of us so we know what you need versus just selling you something that is not a good fit. We want to only help you with what actually makes sense for you. There’s a Contact Us page on our website at ASNMarketingPlan.com.

Valerie VanBooven:

Go to ASNMarketingPlan.com, click on Contact us, and fill out that form, and we will give you all the things that you need, but we’d like to talk to you and just make sure we know what you need first. “Are you still recommending in-person marketing during COVID? Many businesses, doctor’s office still don’t want to come in unless you actually have an appointment.” If you, and there are some hotspots, and I get it. It’s going to go in waves for a while.

Valerie VanBooven:

I’m talking about … There’s a whole list of people that you can be marketing to, assisted livings, rehabs, not just doctors’ offices, so if doctors’ offices don’t want you to come in, then try to make an appointment and wear a mask if they’re okay with you coming in, but be sure to wear a mask anywhere you go that’s in a healthcare facility type place. Even if you don’t have to, it’s nice to wear a mask, and if there’s no one else wearing a mask in there, take your mask off, but yeah, absolutely. I do recommend in-person marketing during COVID and to be respectful of other people and their businesses, but yes, I would do that. “What is your start cost for a website?”

Valerie VanBooven:

It depends on what you need, and the last question is, “Explain CRM.” CRM means Customer Relationship Management. Let’s see. Your outlook is kind of a CRM, your Outlook email, outlook. Gmail is a CRM.

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s got somebody’s name, their email address. Maybe you’ve got more than that on them. Our CRM is where you keep all your contacts in there. We can set up direct, automatic emails to go out to people on a weekly basis. It’s a place where you can keep track of your leads, your referral sources.

Valerie VanBooven:

It’s got a calendar built-in, so different CRMs have different functionalities, but a customer relationship management database is basically what it is, and you can get them in a lot of different places. Ours comes with our services, so you don’t have to pay extra for it. All right. Does anybody else have any questions? Any questions for me about online marketing, about in-person networking and marketing, print materials, any of that?

Valerie VanBooven:

Anybody? All right. Well, I want to thank you all for coming to the webinar, for visiting with us today, and if you have any questions, be sure to reach out to us on our website at ASNMarketingPlan.com. Thanks so much, everybody. We’ll see you next month. Bye.