In order to supercharge your marketing program, there are a handful of strategies that, if executed simultaneously, will skyrocket your referrals and give your agency a competitive advantage. Each strategy is dynamic on its own, and all of them have a common theme: They are designed to help you boost your referrals, maximize your profits, and minimize your marketing efforts. They have helped hundreds of agencies jump-start their referrals and profits in many cases almost immediately.
Strategy Number One: Develop a Marketing Plan on Paper
Action without planning is the cause for every failure.
Less than one percent of all home care companies have a marketing plan. Having a well-developed, written marketing plan for your agency is akin to having a road map to help you get to your intended destination. Without it you and your marketing team will have no clear direction, focus, or benchmark to compare results and will eventually go off course. A marketing plan will ensure your agency a higher rate of return on your marketing efforts and help you accomplish five to 10 times more objectives in less time. The components of a successful marketing plan include: short- and long-term sales goals, marketing strategies, a competitive analysis, S.W.O.T. (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, your target market(s), a menu of services, your company’s purpose, your unique selling proposition (USP), measurement and evaluation strategies, and a financial budget. Once you have developed your marketing plan, you must be sure to review it weekly, monthly, or quarterly and make the necessary revisions to keep it congruent with your agency’s goals. Remember, your marketing plan is only as effective as the information it contains.
Strategy Number Two: Develop a USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
Build your referrals and your profits from a unique selling proposition. A USP is a single statement that differentiates your company from the competition. It should answer the question: Why should I use your product or services versus your competitors? Your USP should take advantage of an “opportunity gap”-something that your competitors are not currently offering to the marketplace. What distinguishes your agency from the competition? What is truly unique about your agency-something “special,” something that your competitors are not offering to the marketplace? Is it quality? Price? Size? Exclusive niche? Expertise? Customer service? Your agency can dominate the market if you can find it. For example, Domino’s Pizza developed the USP “Fresh, hot pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free!” which made it over a billion dollar company in just a few short years by recognizing an unmet need in the marketplace.
Once you develop your USP put it on all your marketing materials, such as brochures, business cards, and advertisements.
Strategy Number Three: Use “Out-of-The-Box” Marketing Strategies
Some home health care companies are doing what everyone else in the industry is doing. For example, agencies all use the same Yellow Page ad format to market their services. They don’t use headlines that advertise benefits or copy explaining how they are different from their competition or a call-to-action such as a FREE brochure, FREE report, or FREE day of home making services to generate leads. Try something different. You can’t be a leader if you are always doing what your competition is doing! If you continue do what your competition does, you will only realize incremental gains because you are competing for the same share of the market using the same strategies and tactics. Look for and begin applying proven strategies from other industries and your chances to realize exponential gains will be much greater.
Implement these proven strategies for marketing success and by taking action on them you will immediately supercharge your agency referrals. Your agency may offer the widest array of services, have the most expertise in a particular “niche,” and be the largest, but if you don’t continue to market your services and consistently remind the marketplace of why your agency is different or better and why they need to use your services over your competitors, you are wasting your agency’s potential and losing potential referrals.
About the Author:
Adam D. Bishop is a partner in The Adam Group and The Home Care Marketing Resource Group (HCmrg) and focuses his time on working with home care and hospice organizations to increase their referrals. He can be reached at adam@theadamgrouphealthcare.com.
