The home care market in the UK is highly competitive. And in highly competitive markets, marketing has to be stronger to increase prospective client trust and drive growth. That’s the primary goal of home care marketing.
There are an estimated 12,500 registered providers and the majority of these are in England (Policy Bee). Thousands of them are in London. And that’s not including the individuals that offer private home care. So, if you are a home care agency in the UK, you are competing against thousands of others who all want to win the same business and the same clients.
Digital marketing can make your home care business stand out against the others. It can increase brand awareness and get your business in front of potential clients. It can improve client trust. And it can drive traffic to your website, to bring growth.
It does this through tactics like search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and pay-per-click ads, social media and paid social (e.g. Facebook & Instagram ads) but first you need to work out what makes your audience tick.
Home care customers
Identify key segments in your home care customers. For example, does the person arrange home care for themselves or does a family member arrange it for them? Is your core business aimed at health professionals who will refer customers to you?
Work out the different needs of your home care customers. Does your home care agency specialise in dementia or end of life care? What does your potential customer need to know? They need to know you are trustworthy and be reassured that you can look after them or their family members.
Thirdly, establish your unique selling point. What makes your agency stand out from all the other home care providers in your area? Do you have more experience, a higher rating from the Care Quality Commission, statistical proof of exceptional care e.g. fewer trips and falls, excellent reviews, lower prices, more staff, etc.
Set clear marketing goals
What are the objectives for your home care marketing? Include brand awareness, establishing authority, building community, lead generation and sales in these objectives. Be realistic about the goals for your marketing. They need to be measurable and achievable for your budget and resources. An example might be to increase website traffic by 10% this quarter.
Home care social media marketing
Choose the right social media platform for your home care audience.
Facebook is great for community building, sharing updates and reaching older demographics, which the people who are buying home care are likely to be. People use Facebook to stay in touch with family and the local community through Facebook groups.
YouTube is great for visual storytelling and behind the scenes content. Strong storytelling builds trust in the brand and allows the viewer to see clearly that you can help them with home care services. YouTube content can be long or short form.
Linkedin is best for professional networking with health professionals and organisations if you are looking for them to refer patients to your home care services.
Whatever platforms you choose to promote your business on, a strong content strategy is key to home care marketing.
- Share client testimonials and success stories to build trust in potential clients.
- Post educational articles, tips, and how to guides around home care and your specialisms.
- Use visual content, e.g. photos and videos to introduce the team and show them in action.
- Respond to comments and messages promptly.
- Encourage reviews and user generated content.
- Run engagement campaigns e.g. live videos, Q&A sessions, etc.
- Build on your place in the local community with interactions and collaborations.
Home care SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a key part in any digital marketing strategy. Why wouldn’t you want to benefit from ‘free’ visitors from Google?
Make sure your website is well-built and maintained. It needs to be fast, indexable and mobile friendly. It needs to be usable by visitors.
Do your keyword research. Nowhere is this as important as when you are optimising a website in a highly competitive industry, like home care in the UK.
Look for keywords with your location and any specialisms that your home care agency has, e.g. autism awareness.
Use your identified keywords in page titles, meta descriptions, header tags and body content, i.e. optimise your pages. Remember to write for people, not Google and keep it natural.
Regularly update your website with quality, informative content. This includes blog posts, guides, testimonials, new service offerings, and so on. Use your content marketing to educate, highlight USPs and demonstrate your business ethos and care philosophy.
Local SEO is important for in person business, so make sure your Google business profile is up to date and your contact details have been updated across the web.
Collect and showcase positive client reviews to boost local search rankings.
Build a backlink strategy and outreach campaign to ensure that backlinks are high authority and relevant to your industry.
Measure the performance of your website rankings, traffic sources and conversions with Google Analytics and Search Console.
Pay-per-click advertising for home care providers
Pay-per-click advertising is a great way to drive traffic to your website. Users on Google are already looking for assistance with home care. Run targeted Google and Microsoft Ads campaigns for high intent keywords.
Run Facebook and Instagram ads to reach families and caregivers who need respite. These can be highly targeted for your area and your ideal audience that you identified in the first step above. Meta’s targeting is powerful and highly detailed.
Monitor and adjust campaigns for the best return on investment, considering the platform. This will be different for Google ads than for Meta ads.
Email marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool for business growth. If you are driving traffic to your website, capture the details of visitors so that you can follow up with them. Send regular newsletters with service updates, care tips and special offers. Segment interests e.g. potential customers vs health professionals. Personalise newsletters so that the recipients get the right information. For a high cost service, such as home care, an automated sales funnel can continue to warm up prospects while you sleep.
There are many other tactics that you can use as a home care provider to promote your services. Referral schemes can be used to drive leads from satisfied customers and health professionals. Building on community encourages word of mouth referrals, as do online reviews which can be incentivised.
Don’t forget old school marketing tactics like brochures, local events, PR, direct mail, and so on. I have a full list of home care marketing ideas for you, if you would like it, let me know.
Ensure consistency in your messaging and branding across all channels. This is why it is so important to identify your audience, your service offer, and your USPs before you start.
Multi-channel marketing for home care providers
A multi-channel approach to marketing your home care business will build your brand, get your business in front of potential customers, build your community, and drive traffic and growth.
Use social media, SEO, paid social, pay-per-click ads, email, print and PR to market your business consistently which will build trust and increase take up.
Marketing your home care business will require ongoing measurement, adaptation and persistence. If you have the skills in-house, use them. If you don’t, outsourcing to a freelance marketer will allow you the time to build your business.
