The private duty home care industry is a thriving one and it's only expected to grow. In 2011, more than 8,000 people will turn 65 every day. With that in mind, many business people and health care providers have ventured into the private duty industry and are competing for market share.
Many private duty owners and managers aren't aware of the tremendous need to market their services to referral sources and the patient community. Studies show that every month a private duty agency doesn't market to a client, that client loses 10 percent of their interest in ever doing business with that agency again. To communicate with clients on a frequent basis, many agencies have gone the route of the newsletter and are having great results with it. When agencies distribute educational newsletters to the community, all sorts of great things happen. Newsletters create top of mind awareness of the agency and its services, serve as a delivery system for education, is a perfect vehicle to introduce new services and specialty programs, strengthen the agency's relationships with clients, and position the agency as an expert.
Private duty owners and managers often complain that they don't have the time or the resources to create, print and mail out newsletters on a regular basis. Fortunately today, agencies can easily have it done for them with the help of home care marketing companies that specialize in producing and mailing out home care-specific newsletters.
The right newsletter automatically stimulates referrals, builds rapport, strengthens customer relationships, and - most importantly -
creates an ongoing steady stream of referrals.
Newsletters should be created with not only the needs of the audience in mind, but also with what the private duty agency wishes to tell the community about its services. Newsletters ideally should contain an article that educates on a particular disease that is top of mind among the patient and medical community - along with tips on disease prevention and management. Newsletters should also contain articles that are guaranteed to be kept and referred to again and again. Popular articles or features include crossword puzzles or other brain puzzles (to work on later), recipes (to refer to later), and new product or resource spotlights.
In addition, there should be a spot in the newsletter for an agency to list its services and any other information it wishes to promote. For instance, some agencies may choose to include a spotlight on a referral source in article form or question/answer segment. A referral source spotlight offers great publicity for the agency and is guaranteed to boost referrals because when one referral source trusts an agency enough to refer to it (as evidenced by their feature in that agency's newsletter), others will follow suit. Patient testimonials and articles about employees going above and beyond for the patient are other popular promotional pieces to include in the newsletter.
The newsletter is a simple way to build a fence around customers, ensuring that patients, clients, and referral sources revisit the agency over and over again. It may be just what the private duty agency needs.
Author Resource:-
Adam Bishop is founder of HomeCareNewsLetters.com - Personalized Newsletters in just a few clicks! This referral-boosting tool helps home care agencies build a fence around their customers and keep their patients, clients, and referral sources coming back again and again.
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