In a recent Home Care Daily article, LTC Expert Publications Co-Owner Valerie VanBooven wrote about ways to make your required franchise website work for your private duty business. We wanted to share her helpful tips and add a few of our own.
1) Add a blog
2) Post regularly on your blog and share it across your social media accounts
3) Use client and family success stories to your advantage
As VanBooven points out, with a required franchise website, you may or may not have the flexibility to add a blog. If your in-home care franchise allows you to add a blog, take full advantage. If that's not an option with your franchise website, look into establishing your own blog. Blogs give you an opportunity to connect personally with your community and prospects, regularly refresh your website content and drive search engine traffic to your home care agency to generate leads.
When you post on your blog, you should distribute that content through all available channels to make sure you are getting as much traction as possible. Use your Facebook page, LinkedIn profile and any other social media pages to post links to blog articles. With the link, think about including a question that your followers can respond to. For example, if you post an article about ways to help an elderly mom or dad have access to healthy meals throughout the week, ask your followers a question like "What timesaving ways have you found to help your mom and dad with meals?" Encourage interaction wherever possible!
Whether you are communicating with prospects and current clients through your website, blog, social media or a more traditional newsletter, use your success stories. How have you helped change or improve the life of one of your clients? How have you improved life for the family members? Do you have a caregiver who goes above and beyond? When your office staff receive a call from a satisfied family member, encourage them to document the testimonial and forward it to you. Nothing speaks louder than a positive personal experience.
While you may have specific parameters for your website and marketing materials through your franchise, you can use them to your advantage to help drive leads to your home care agency.
