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PDT
#159 - Is Your Brand Fresh and New?
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Start the new decade with a fresh marketing
approach January
6, 2010
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Private Duty Today
Welcome to Private Duty Today,
the bi-weekly electronic newsletter for Private Duty Home Care Leaders
from Leading Home Care ...a Tweed Jeffries company.
I'm Jason Tweed, Director of Business Development for
Leading Home Care, and Editor of Private
Duty Today.
Private Duty Today is published every
other Wednesday, and currently goes to over 8000 subscribers.
Private Duty Today is
a permission-based newsletter.
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Academy for Private Duty Home Care comes to Florida in
January
Join us for
the next Academy for Private Duty Home Care in Sanibel Island, Florida.
January 22,
2010
Sanibel Island Resort
DEADLINE: While
registrations will be taken right up to the workshop date, you
must reserve your hotel room by January 6, 2010.
Upcoming academies have also been scheduled in Seattle in
April and Dallas in May. Registration is now open.
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My brother-in-law works for an
Atlantic City architectural firm. As you may have imagined, many of
their clients are casinos, restaurants and tourist attractions. These
companies have huge annual budgets dedicated to remodeling and interior
design.
In the hospitality industry,
looking new and fresh is incredibly important. Nowhere is this truer
than Atlantic City or Vegas where the newest casino hotel is a gold
mine and the oldest is a ghost town.
What can we learn from the
hospitality industry? Private duty home care companies also need to
think in terms of "what's new and fresh?"
Year to year, your product
changes very little. Your core business is recruiting caregivers and
scheduling them to provide assistance with activities of daily living.
We've been calling this service "private duty home care" for
a couple of decades, but the service itself has been around for eons.
So how do you freshen your
brand and your product?
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 One of America's oldest
retailers was on the verge of bankruptcy.
The Sears & Roebuck Company
started as a catalog retailer in the 1800s focusing on farmers and
their families in towns too small to have more than a general store.
Over 100 years later they were the largest retailer and manufacturer of
tools and household appliances in the world. They created the concept
of a department store. The annual catalog was more of an icon than a
marketing piece.
Suddenly, Sears was being
passed by in favor of other department stores. They had gone stale in
the minds of consumers. They needed a fresh way to promote the products
and services they'd been selling for a century.
The solution was women. Sears had marketed itself
to heads of household for a hundred years. These had been predominately
men. What Sears realized, almost too late, is that during the 80s women
had become the most important decision maker in most households. The
messages and media used to promote Sears' products didn't appeal to
them.
Sears created one of the most
influential and memorable marketing campaigns in history, "The
Softer Side of Sears". Sears had always sold clothing, linens and
a variety of household accessories. They wanted women to know that this
wasn't their Dad's hardware store anymore.
They still make most of their
money selling Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, lawn tractors and
vacuum cleaners, however, they pulled families back into their store by
attracting mothers who were shopping for kids' clothing, linens, suits
and dresses. Families came to shop because Mom needed new bed sheets or
towels.
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What's
Fresh and New About You?
 Your product hasn't changed.
Your audience hasn't changed much either. What has changed is
competition. If you were in business 20 years ago, your customers
didn't know much about home care. You had to educate them. If you were
in business 10 years ago, your customers were better educated and you
had little competition. Today your customers understand the need for
assistance in their homes and competition is fierce and growing.
If you're still marketing like
you were a decade or two ago, you're in trouble. If you are a new
business, you're competing against well established companies who
created the market for your services in your community. If you aren't
bringing something new to offer, you're also in trouble.
The first week of January in a
brand new decade is the perfect time to think about freshening your
products, your brand and your approach.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Has the decision making
audience changed in the past year?
- Have the needs of your
audience changed?
- Have you changed the way
you offer your services?
- Have you added more
products, services or packages?
- Are you doing new things
internally that improve the customer experience?
If you answered "yes"
to any of the above, this is an opportunity for you to promote a fresh
new idea to your customers and your prospects.
If you answered "no" to all of the above,
it's time to rethink your business. You need to first find something
new, and then freshen your approach to marketing.
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What's New at Private Duty
Today?
My father has been consulting
and speaking for 30 years now. It's an old profession, probably as old
as business itself. Socrates was one of the first documented people who
made his living from public speaking and giving advice. Thank goodness
the penalties for innovative thought have become less severe.
In 2010 my Dad, his team, and I
will still be selling information and expertise. We will still be
selling it to the same people, owners of home health care companies and
non-medical home care businesses.
In 2010 we have new ways of
learning and gathering information about our industry that are
innovative and unique.
In 2010 we're going to make
that information more accessible to more people by using more methods.
In 2010 we're growing our body
of expertise and will have multiple ways of helping CEOs directly with
their businesses.
In 2010 our clients and
customers will understand more about their customers, their business,
and the industry of caring.
How are we going to do all
this? You'll have to read every issue of Private Duty Today to find out, but here are a few teasers
to get you started.
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Registration Deadline for
Florida Academy
The next Academy for Private
Duty Home Care is rapidly approaching. On January 22nd the
Academy is coming to Sanibel Island, Florida and the beautiful Sanibel
Resort and Spa just outside Fort Myers.
While registrations for the
Academy will be accepted up until the day of the event the DEADLINE
FOR REGISTRATION IS TODAY if you want to be guaranteed
a room at the resort hotel at our negotiated rate. At the end of
business today the resort will open the remaining rooms in our block to
the public.
If you were considering
attending the Academy in Florida, register today. Whether you're
traveling across the country or just across South Florida we encourage
you to stay on site and enjoy this extraordinary venue.
Learn more about the Academy for Private
Duty Home Care.
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