how to write a newsletter for home care

Your home care agency newsletter is a staple of your marketing strategy. Your clients and family members generally glance at your website and scan your newsletter for updates and interesting information. Your home care agency newsletter gives you new opportunities to tell your subscribers about new and innovative services and other important events happening at your agency.

Good content will engage your subscribers and motivate them to keep reading. Here’s a look at how to attract your readers’ attention to content that’s interesting and informative while tracking your results to improve the quality of your marketing efforts. 

Is Your Home Care Newsletter Easy to Scan?

Long paragraphs are fine when your audience is reading a book. However, it doesn’t work quite as well for a newsletter. To a large degree, we can attribute this to the drastic increase in the number of people that are using mobile phones. Did you know that 46% of emails are opened using mobile devices? (Hubspot)

Short blocks of content reduce the amount of scrolling that readers have to do to read your newsletter. If they have to scroll too far, they apt to stop reading altogether. Excerpts that are concise and easy to read will keep them engaged.

Take a look at these 6 tips for creating content that’s appealing and easy to scan:

1. Limit the paragraphs in your emails to 2 or 3 sentences at the most.

2. Use bullet points or numbering to highlight lists.

3. Opt for a call-to-action button (CTA) rather than using hyperlinked text.  

4. Use headlines to separate sections.

5. Review your content to make sure it’s concise. Don’t be overly wordy or use trendy jargon.

6. Arrange content to display the first paragraph or so and link to the rest of the article.

How to Write a Business Newsletter with Informative Content

Whether they’re existing clients or prospects, your readers are looking for content that’s new and relevant. Believe it or not, there’s an easy way to publish a variety of informative topics all year long. Creating an editorial calendar is the key to planning content that won’t bore your audience to tears.

An editorial calendar will help you see your newsletter topics at a glance and lay the foundation to repurpose content for other platforms. A well-planned editorial calendar created by an email marketing expert will also help you to develop new content to expand upon in the coming months.

What kinds of relevant information is interesting to your readers?

·   News about the home care industry

·   Profiles of your caregivers

·   Upcoming events

·   Awards and achievements for your agency

·   Caregiver accomplishments

·   Testimonials about your services

·   Graphics, photos, and videos

·   Special discounts or other valuable offers

When your content is always informative, your subscribers will be eager to find out what’s new at your agency.

Write a Newsletter for Senior Care That Contains Interesting Content

In addition to telling your subscribers what they need to know, it’s considered best practices to tell them things they want to know. There are always new advancements and innovations emerging in the field of senior care. Your newsletter offers an opportunity to share this information with your subscribers.

Have you been to a senior care conference recently? Why not share what you’ve learned about the latest trends in home care services with your subscribers?

Readers may be interested to learn about new trends in senior care like:

·   GPS devices

·   Smartphone applications to control medical devices

·   Fall and wander prevention devices

·   Home safety devices and equipment

·   Automatic pill dispensers

·   Apps to control lights, play music, or entertain users

You might also consider adding interactive polls, contests, or comment sections to keep your content interesting.

Writing Newsletters for Senior Care and Tracking Results

The only way to know that you were subscribers are reading your newsletters is to track your results. It’s easier to get data than you might think.

Let me share with you some of the ways that I do it:

·   Read the comments for insight on readers’ opinions

·   Evaluate poll results to get feedback on topics or controversial trends

·   Track how long readers are spending on a page

·   Get data on how many readers open your newsletter

·   Track your newsletter’s shares on social media platforms

By tracking data on your newsletters, it helps you in two important ways:

1. Gives you feedback on the most popular topics

2. Assists you in publishing the most relevant topics

Most marketers appreciate the value that SEO and blogging bring to businesses in every industry. These same principles apply to marketing through newsletters as well.If you’re struggling with finding relevant, interesting, and informative content for your home care agency newsletters, SeniorCareClicks is ready to help! Call us at 954-401-9058 to find out how to publish the newsletter subscribers can’t wait to get.

email marketing strategy

Home care agency referrals are hard to come by, but the right email marketing strategy will keep them coming in regularly. If there’s any doubt about the benefits of email marketing campaigns, take a look at this research by Statista:

·   There were 3.9 billion email users in 2019.

·   Email users are projected to increase to 4.3 billion users in 2023. (half the world’s population)

Email marketing is a low-cost way to connect with referrals in a targeted manner. A home care referral program is something that’s sure to attract the attention of quality caregivers and help you build a team of providers to be rivaled by other providers.

Here are a few more statistics that give you an idea of the importance of continually recruiting a strong pipeline of home caregivers:

·   Employment for home care providers is projected to grow by 34% by 2029. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

·   34.2 million adults in the U.S. are caregivers to an adult over the age of 50 (AARP)

·   Recruiting caregivers edges out caregiver turnover as a top concern for home care agencies (2018 Home Care Benchmarking Study)

Getting Referrals from Your Employees

In the home care business, your reputation depends on finding and recruiting the very best caregivers. The challenge is, where do you find them? When you implement an email marketing campaign you won’t lose sleep over finding caregivers to serve your clients.

You might be surprised to learn that the best source of referral comes directly from your existing caregivers. Why not tap into their network of peers and friends? A strategy that’s highly effective for is senior care referrals is building a caregiver referral program that offers rewards.

All you need to do is set up an email marketing workflow to inform your caregivers about your home care referral program and set an amount to offer as a reward.

Here are some tips for a successful referral marketing program:

·   Set a reasonable and affordable reward amount. Home care agencies typically offer around $100.

·   Establish a timeframe for how long your caregivers have to submit referrals. It’s common to limit the campaign to between 1-3 months for hiring.

·   Log your referral activity and track the candidates. Keep your referring caregivers in the loop regarding the status of hiring.

·   Work to get strong visibility for your referral campaign.

Here’s Why Email Marketing Solutions Work

Social media campaigns work well, but email marketing campaigns for home health care referrals can work even better.

Here are three reasons why:

1. Facebook sets limits on the number of times your post appears in the news feed. They do this because they want to drive brands to buy paid ads. As a result, only 2% of your Facebook fans will see your posts in their news feed. With an email marketing campaign, 90% of your messages will be delivered to the intended inbox.

2. Your email subscribers have not opted out of your email campaign. Most people are aware of the laws and regulations around SPAM emails. If they’re still getting your emails it’s because they are interested in reading them.

3. An email marketing campaign is a marketing strategy that gives you a return on investment over the long term.

The primary purpose of social networks is to communicate online with friends and family members. By contrast, most people tend to view email as a more professional type of communication. In general, people tend to look for information about products and services in their email messages and that means there’s a good chance they’ll open your emails.

Imagine your caregivers’ joy and surprise when they read about your home care referral program and learn about an opportunity to earn some extra cash.

Referral marketing is a win-win situation for you and your caregivers. It helps you find quality caregivers without digging too much into your budget, and your caregivers get to make some extra money along the way.

Communicate Your Home Care Referral Program with Caregivers

As a home care agency business owner, your days are jam-packed with important tasks and activities. Due to the nature of home caregiving, and the fact that your caregivers are working variable shifts, it’s not generally possible for you to have regular in-person meetings with all of your caregivers at once. With an email marketing campaign, you can communicate your home care referral program with your caregivers, and they can read it at their convenience.

In any industry, professionals network with people in similar industries. Caregivers are no exception. They become acquainted with other caregivers during educational and training classes. Often, they touch base with other caregivers as they start or end a shift. Naturally, they’ll be talking about the companies they work for. Happy caregivers will be happy to share the news that your home care agency is hiring. A reward program will motivate them to tell other caregivers about the positive experiences they’ve had serving the clients within your agency.

As a word of caution, it can be a bit of a double-edged sword. When caregivers aren’t happy, it can harm your reputation. It’s vital to engage with your caregivers and support them so they can be successful. They’re the lifeblood of your agency and you want to make sure they feel that way.

Here are some tips for how to get your caregivers involved in your home care referral program:

·   Verify that you have accurate contact information for every caregiver Including their preferred email address.

·   Ask them to register for company emails and updates by text.

·   Ask them to follow your social media platforms.

It goes without saying that the more quality caregivers you can employ, the more cases you can take on, and the more profitable your home care agency will be.

Utilize all your communication channels to promote your email marketing campaign including emails, texts, and social media postings.

Creating a Winning Senior Care Referrals Program

Once you set up your email marketing workflow, you need to set up a plan to fulfill your promise to deliver the reward to your caregivers. Set up an email marketing workflow that insurers your caregivers will remain motivated to keep preferring quality caregivers.

The following five steps will ensure a successful home care referral program:

1. Emphasize that you are only looking for the most qualified caregivers.

2. Offer an initial bonus at the initial hiring for caregiver referrals that work more than 35 hours per week.

3. Offer a second bonus when the referred caregiver remains in your employment for a specified period of time, perhaps a year.

4. Incentivize your caregivers a bit more when they refer three or more high-quality caregivers. It can be a monetary reward or some other gift such as a shirt with the company logo or other promotional item along with a sincere thank you note.

5. Pay your rewards to your caregivers in a timely manner. They’re going to the trouble of referring caregivers to your agency and by paying them promptly, your caregivers are building trust in you as their employer.  

Your caregivers care about their job and they’ll likely refer other caregivers within their circle of peers that they consider to be high quality. A home care referral program gives you an opportunity to reward them for helping you find the best caregivers within your community.

Establishing Your Email Marketing Workflow

An email marketing platform will help you set up a sequence of emails for caregivers and set timeframes for delivery.

Here is a list of some of the more popular email marketing platforms:

·   Mailchimp

·   Constant Contact

·   AWeber

·   GoDaddy

·   Sendinblue

Here’s a step-by-step plan to start your email marketing campaign:

1. Create a list and label it “Home Care Referral Program”.

2. Create various segments for active referrals and inactive referrals.

3. Enter your caregiver emails and set up an opt-in request so they have to accept it to receive emails.

4. Create some eye-catching template designs.

5. Write a sequence of emails to promote your referral program.

As for the content of your emails, explain how the program works, and clearly spell out who is eligible to participate in the program. Explain how the rewards work and be clear about the timeframe they have to work with.

You might also consider using text messages to promote your campaign. Your caregivers may forward them to other caregivers they know. Post information about the reward program on your social media platforms. When the opportunity permits, take advantage of the chance to talk to your caregivers about the program in person.

Do your best to build excitement about your home care referral program. Get a little buzz going by sharing referral success stories and recognizing employees that have earned rewards. SeniorCareClicks knows that it can be difficult to set up an email marketing campaign for senior care referrals, but you don’t have to do it on your own. We have access to the right tools and platforms to make the process easy and cost-effective for you. Call us today!