Business development
me - and who knows how many other men - with an offer that was both hilarious and completely inappropriate. Not very clever.
Defining and then reaching your target audience is one of the most basic and important elements of your marketing planning. As one industry guru is fond of saying “You’ve got to fish where the fish are”. It may seem obvious but it is amazing how many organisations don’t really understand who their target audience is.
How do you define your target audience? In the care home market, this is slightly more complex than many other markets as there are two very distinct prospective audience types you must understand and reach in quite different ways:
Potential residents l Older age groups may not enjoy or be able to access technology so more traditional marketing channels must be considered to reach these decision makers.
l Some potential residents may have strong objections to the prospect of living in a care home or find the process of moving into care difficult to understand.
l Will value the benefits of living close to friends and family.
Family l Children of potential residents who may be taking the lead on finding a care facility for their elderly parent.
l Family are, on the whole, tech savvy and utilise the internet as their primary research channel, starting with Google but also visiting sites like their local
authority, Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the NHS, among others.
l For the majority of this audience it is the first and usually the only time they will be looking into this complex market and so have no experience to draw on and will value help and advice.
l May find the process quite stressful or confusing and be dealing with a level of guilt at moving their relative from their home and into a care facility.
It is important when considering each of your target audiences and the messages you must communicate, you try to understand the following. l What is motivating their decision to consider a care home?
l What are their hopes and fears of care home life?
l What objections could they have in choosing a care home?
l What are they looking for in a care home?
Step 3 – How do you reach them? Apart from word of mouth, the first port of call for consumers looking to research the local care home market for the majority of families is the internet and in particular Google. So, in order to maximise prospect visits to your website, you must be visible and be well ranked – i.e., appear as close to the top of the search results as possible - when people search for care homes in your area.
To do this, you must ensure your website is optimised for search engines. Most importantly, ensure your site contains the most popular keywords which your audience are searching for, is secure, is mobile and tablet friendly,
loads quickly, and contains links to other trusted sites.
However, as mentioned earlier, the internet is not the be all and end all of care home marketing. Many older decision makers feel uncomfortable using technology and still prefer traditional media, so do not discount your local or regional press for both advertising or publishing good PR stories about your home, e.g. a good CQC rating or a resident’s 100th birthday. The best media for reaching your target audience is the one that offers you the least wastage. The more of your target audience you reach, the more effective your marketing.
One example of targeted media we often utilise for care homes are door drops. These pieces can be targeted by postcode to areas your current residents or their families come from, and can be delivered on their own (solus) or, for less expense, as part of a ‘shared’ drop with other pieces. With so much marketing being digital nowadays, printed media can help you stand out and can be highly effective.
When considering ways in which to target your audience, think as creatively as possible. From posters in local surgeries to giving talks to the local community groups, consider where your target audience is spending time and will be receptive to your messaging. As a rule of thumb, you should over time test a wide range of marketing media. Without spending fortunes, see what works best for you. Once you begin to see encouraging response rates at an acceptable cost, increase those cost- effective activities and refine your message to optimise response rates.
Step 4 – Why choose you? One of the most important principles in marketing is to positively differentiate yourself from your competition in ways which will appeal to your audience. This may be anything from your standards of care to specialist areas of nursing or even beautiful gardens.
What are your areas of difference from your competition? Remember, ideally these benefits should be sustainable and not easy for your competitors to copy.
No matter which target audience you are talking to in the care home market, they are all looking for one thing above all else – trust. Even before Covid, the care sector often received its fair share of challenging publicity.
Justified or not, it should not come as any surprise that prospective residents
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www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • November 2020
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