By Stephen Tweed
This past week, I was in Rutland, VT working with a client on their Private Duty Planning and Coaching process. At the hotel during breakfast, I picked up a copy of the Rutland Business Journal, and was intrigued by an article by Leon Thompson entitled “Successful Content Marketing: Brand Journalism and the Advertising Business.”
The article begins by giving credit to Larry Light, Chief Marketing Officer for McDonalds for coining the phrase “brand journalism” in 2004. This concept, also known as content marketing, relies on journalism-style narratives to tell a story over time. It involves businesses providing stories to editors who are short staffed and looking for worthwhile news to print.
What Does This Have to do with Home Care?
We’ve been saying for a long time that marketing home care is about telling a story. It’s a process of communicating with consumers and referral sources about the trials and tribulations they face in dealing with the elderly, and how home care provides a solution that is meaningful, powerful, and affordable.
There are a number of ways you can use content marketing to tell your story to consumers and referral sources:
1. Blogging – write useful, informative articles for the blog post on your web site.
2. Email Newsletters – write and publish a monthly email newsletter for your clients, families, and referral sources.
3. Direct Mail – write and print focused direct mail pieces to referral sources telling how our services solve their problems in dealing with the elderly.
4. Press Releases – write and distribute regular press releases to the local media with news and feature stories of interest to their readers.
5. Public Speaking – put together a powerful presentation on the issues facing the oldest daughter of the elderly, and present your program to consumer groups or gathering of referral sources.
6. You Tube Video – produce and record short how-to videos that tell our story. Upload them to You Tube, and then link them to your web site, your email newsletter, and your blog posts. You Tube is the second most popular search engine after Google.
For more on marketing your home care business, visit The Academy for Private Duty Home Care.
Give us some examples of how you have used Content Marketing to promote our home care business.
