4 Easy Solutions to 4 Home Care Marketing Challenges

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Regular readers of the Ankota home care blog know how important I feel it is for businesses to put mindfulness and effort into their marketing campaigns.
 
In that same breath though, I usually mention that I understand that for business owners, with all that goes into managing operations, caregivers, clients, delivering care, billing, payroll, and so on...it's understandable if marketing isn't at the forefront of your mind.  (As I type all this out, I realize that the Ankota software system can help you save time with a lot of what I just mentioned, so please feel free to reach out to learn more).
 
The point is: You're busy, and in the age of Coronavirus, we are all trying our best to manage in this seemingly ever-changing business climate.  That said, having a strong marketing component to your business is vitally important, now more than ever.
 
Over the years I have mentored startups and small businesses, managed marketing for a a number of companies across a few industries, and I've done marketing for a wide variety of my own business endeavors.  In that time, I've heard from folks a lot of consistent answers to the question: "What are your top challenges for marketing your business."
 
For this blog, I thought I'd share some of the top challenges people have shared with me over the years as well as offering ways to overcome those challenges:  
 

Not Enough Time

Running a business these days can take more time and energy that perhaps we ever thought was possible. It also can be difficult to manage your time and set aside dedicated blocks of time to focus on one item at a time considering the time-sensitive needs of your clients, caregivers, office staff, and your own to-do lists.

It's difficult, it might even feel impossible.  But even if it is 30 minutes or 15 minutes per day, finding some dedicated time is a must both to sustain and grow your business.  Everyone's situation is different, so I'm not going to presume to give you time-management advice here.  I will suggest that setting a goal to focus on marketing on a regular basis and asking the people in your life to help you achieve this goal may work out better than you think if you keep at it.

Not Enough Know-How

These days, you don't need a traditional education to learn about current marketing and sales Best Practices.
 
There is a lot of free content online available to anyone. Whether it be blog articles, free online certificate programs, webinars, or educational materials such as white papers or eBooks, marketing education is available to you.
 
To give you a place to start, here are a few resources I've learned from over the years:

HubSpot marketing blog

HubSpot popularized the term "inbound marketing", or the idea that by getting folks to "opt in" to receiving informational content or offerings as a way to "nurture" them from a lead to a customer.  The HubSpot blog offers free content and certifications on topics ranging from how to write a blog, SEO, marketing concepts overall, website grader, building campaigns, website best practices, and beyond.

Thrive Hive marketing resources

Thrivehive is similar to HubSpot though they focus mainly on helping small businesses grow. Their resource page offers tools such as a "Google My Business Grader," and a lot of Ebooks, videos, 

Neil Patel Growth Hacking resources

What is "Growth Hacking?"  Neil explains it this way:

A growth hacker is not a replacement for a marketer. A growth hacker is not better than marketer. A growth hacker is just different than a marketer. To use the most succinct definition from Sean’s post, “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth.”

Every decision that a growth hacker makes is informed by growth. Every strategy, every tactic, and every initiative, is attempted in the hopes of growing. Growth is the sun that a growth hacker revolves around. Of course, traditional marketers care about growth too, but not to the same extent. Remember, the power of a growth hacker is in their obsessive focus on a singular goal. By ignoring almost everything, they can achieve the one task that matters most early on.

This absolute focus on growth has given rise to a number of methods, tools, and best practices, that simply didn’t exist in the traditional marketing repertoire, and as time passes the chasm between the two discipline deepens.

Not Enough Money

Writing and creating other content takes time, but is free if you and your team put in time and effort on a regular basis. If you do have a bit of a budget, you can always look online for content creators on "freelancer" or "gig" websites such as Fiverr.com.

Not Enough Passion

More specifically, I often hear that folks don't have passion for marketing.  My response is always: you may not have a passion for marketing, but I'm certain you have passion for your business.  That, and desire to see it thrive and grow.  Agencies and caregivers are doing important, vital, and difficult work, and it takes passion to do it.  If you do have trepidation about diving into marketing, my suggestion is to take it step-by-step and one day at a time...and remind yourself that marketing is what makes your business grow. 
 
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Ankota is not a marketing company, we offer home care management software.  But we want to see the home care industry thrive, so we hope these marketing-focused articles are valuable to you.  

On that note, if you haven't read our latest eBook on Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), please click the button below to get your copy today!

Free Electronic Visit Verification  (EVV) eBook

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital, focusing on efficiency and care coordination. Ankota's primary focus is on Care Transitions for Readmission avoidance and on management of Private Duty non-medical home care. To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact us.

 

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