Coach's Blog » Diversify, Diversify, Diversify!

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify!

There are many ways to market and sell your home care services. Should you use just one approach or should you employ a variety? I recommend a multi-pronged approach. First, develop professional looking identity pieces like business cards, brochures and specialty program pieces. Then determine the media that best serves your budget, goals, message and particular target market. Ideally, you should consider all venues and media to market your business with respect to your specific marketplace. Here are just a few strategies that you should consider:

• Direct selling to referral sources
• Variable data direct mail
• Signage and billboards
• Print ads
• Local radio- Expert speaker on national health care observances and consumer awareness messages
• Local television-Expert speaker on national health care observances
• Web Site-Health care information resource
• Existing clients and referral marketing
• Tradeshows and senior fairs
• Host-parasite relationships with non-competing vendors
• Public relations-Hosting or sponsoring local educational events

Why do you need to diversify your marketing?

As the old adage goes: “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.” And like your stock portfolio advisor recommends: Diversify, diversify, and diversify!

Diversification will reduce your level of risk and provide a steady influx of new business from different sources. Sales is the key to the success of your business, so you must have multiple strategies working at all times to provide your company with maximum sales.

Sometimes one strategy might have an unanticipated dip in referrals compared to what has been forecasted. This could be your direct sales strategy to an “A” account referral source (e.g., doctor who is on vacation or has recently retired). If you have a multi-pronged approach with other strategies in place, staggered to hit different market segments, you will have a more consistent level of sales, and you’ll reduce your risk of huge dips that could have a major impact on referrals and ultimately cash flow.

How do you diversify your marketing strategies?

Sit down with your marketing managers/team and plan out your marketing strategies for the rest of the year. I recommend that you use plenty of notebook paper.

Key: You must plan your marketing strategies on paper.

This will help you establish clear objectives and goals. Then, everyone in the organization will have a road map of what needs to be done and where the company is going. By just writing down your goals, you will have an 80 percent chance of success and be ahead of 99 percent of other home care agencies that do not have a marketing plan!

Finding one particular strategy that works great for you doesn’t mean that you should terminate your other strategies. Stick to the original marketing strategies that you set at the beginning of the year and you’ll experience greater results than you could imagine.

The biggest problem most agencies face is failure to stick to their original plan and starting a “shotgun” or panic strategy when sales are down - dumping a huge amount of money into one strategy and waiting for the calls.

When a company is already suffering cash-flow problems from lack of sales, this panic strategy is an expensive way to yield very few results.

Remember, it can take 30 days or more for a new strategy to take hold.

A diversified strategy can target several market segments at once, whereas the shotgun strategy targets a single segment. A diversified strategy also provides you with the benefit of having your audience experience repetition of your marketing, which is by far the most effective strategy to get the market to recall and identify your company name.

For help with proven collateral and strategies, or to get you started on a marketing plan, simply contact one of my sales coaches at TAG Home Care Marketing for a FREE 30-minute coaching call. (866-232-6477)

Working to grow your referrals,

Adam
a.k.a. - Home Care Referral-Man

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