Written on July 20th, 2010 by tasha
It costs less to sell more services to an established customer than it does to acquire a new customer. This maxim of commerce is even more appropriate in times of shrinking budgets. We all have to work smarter. Today’s blog post is particularly inspired by Stan Massey, VP of Strategic Planning at Transcend Hospice Marketing, who did a great presentation on the topic of longer lengths of stay as a way to increase revenue.
If you want to increase revenue by 10-20%, you can do it by increasing the number of clients you see. This is good. But acquiring a new referral often involves “taking” that referral from a competitor. Not an easy task. (See our last blog post on Blue Ocean Strategies.)
Signing a client on to service 10%-20% earlier than you usually do, however, can add up to revenue gains even greater than 10-20%. Many of your expenses are likely frontloaded or on a per-client basis (e.g., marketing expenses, the initial assessment). These expenses are fixed, meaning they do not increase if you serve the client longer. This translates into more profit with a longer length of service since the fixed expenses have already been covered.
As elder care providers, we tend to be a crisis-driven business. The public doesn’t really know what we do, and they may not even know we exist. Your business may only come to their attention because of a crisis that leads to a professional recommending your services. This has several disadvantages:
- You are always coming in under times of high anxiety and low resilience. Crises are not fun.
- Outcomes are frustratingly worse than if you had been called in sooner. At the least, the elder and family could have been spared a lot of distress, and perhaps even physical pain or suffering.
- Your income stream is at the mercy (and timing) of those who recommend you.
This latter point has been most aptly presented to me by a provider who has shifted their “referrals mix” from 5% direct-from-family-referrals to 30%. Wow!
Think pro-actively and market to the public in a way that will reach them earlier.
The advantages to marketing to the public directly are many:
- There is a large pool of potential clients. (Depending on the report you read, between 1:4 and 1:5 households is involved in caring for an elder.)
- The public is in need of support and is thirsty for knowledge. They are worried already. Many are overwhelmed even before the crisis.
- Families can be encouraged to contact you directly.
One way to reach them is to think in terms of those conditions that occur just before the crisis. Crises don’t happen in a vacuum. There are usually precursors. What are the precursors for your service?
- A serious fall? Likely this was preceded by smaller, less serious falls.
- Several ER visits for chronic conditions that are requiring more skill, knowledge or vigilence than the patient/family can manage (e.g., CHF, COPD)?
- Symptoms that are distressing to witness/address: pain, nausea, incontinence?
- Medication management problems that lead to adverse reactions?
- Frequent infections?
- Wandering?
- Depression? Suicidal ideation?
Think about the crises related to these problems and begin a campaign around them, emphasizing the benefits of working with you. Using a content marketing strategy, you offer preventive knowledge (early warning signs), education (what they as family members can do), and support (how you as a professional can help). Present a case for the crises that can be averted and why you are the one to give them that safety and peace of mind.
You can create an earlier demand and recognition of your services by targeting the issues pertinent to clients in their pre-service state. And there is nothing preventing you marketing these resources to your referrers either. They, too, know that crises have precursors. But they most likely have not had anyone to turn to for those early issues. Here’s your chance to solve a problem and differentiate your company, while also increasing your length of service in the process!
The ideas for this blog post are directly inspired from the creative thinking of Rich Chesney of Healthcare Market Resources and Stan Massey of Transcend Hospice Marketing. These two innovators will be speaking together at the Boston Conference on Developing the Care Continuum. If you are going to the conference next month, I highly recommend you attend their session!
Tags: content marketing, Transcend Hospice Marketing
Posted in GCM Marketing, Home Health Marketing, Hospice Marketing, Private Duty Marketing
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