Start-Up Geriatric Care Management Marketing and PR Checklist

April 7, 2021

To grow an ALCA or Geriatric Care management business, you must use- marketing and public relations (PR). ( usually social workers and nurses have never done )Here is a helpful start –

Start-Up Geriatric Care Management PR/ Marketing Checklist

1. Brand Identity- including logo design and collateral material design

Services needed to complete

Research competition, develop key differentiating features, develop a brand positioning statement, and develop business names, graphic design for the logo.

, colors for business communication. Consider consulting a branding firm.

2. Business Identity –

Get coordinated business card envelopes, note cards, and folders

Services needed to complete

Graphic design, printing, and delivery

3. Products sheets or Sell sheets, Brochures

Services needed to complete- Copywriting, graphic design, printing, and delivery

4. Identified and 3rd party targets – including a prospect profile

Services needed to complete-

Identify targets ( elder law attorneys, assisted living, concierge physicians, trust/wealth management departments) in your services area. Research develops prospect profiles, mailing lists, key factors in specific communication messages per target audience. Add to marketing excel sheets.

Want to know more?

What are Three Key Ways to Market Your ALCA or GCM Business in 2021

April 4, 2021

How should you market your ALCA or care management business in 2021?

As we are still in the throes of COVID, slowly pulling out, three marketing methods will increase your business this year. The first is email marketing, the second videos and the third is marketing your safety as an agency. Since we still cannot see third parties like elder law attorneys, trust officers or concierge physicians in person, an email newsletter is a ticket to reach contacts who can make referrals. During the pandemic, most business people work from home and are glued to their computers. Snail Mail only shows a 29% return on your marketing dollar while digital (email specifically) explodes with a whopping 124% return on your money.

Success Tip 4 email Marketing

Choose from email marketing bases likes Constant Contact Survey Monkey Other choices. Provide content worth reading. Grab the reader with a powerful headline/subject. Questions work best. Write for your audience. Do emails for your different care management services and match with your third-party audience. Keep it short and simple- more space – fewer words-no paragraphs. Use great photos, from good photo sites Use photos to punctuate what you are saying. Keep sending on a regular basis once

a month every two weeks.

Videos are the new powerful Marketing Tool

Use videos in your e-newsletters. The importance of video marketing shows in its growth to a $135 billion industry. Brands everywhere are realizing the value of video and creating them. According to ALCA’s marketing guru Courtney Pulitzer,75 million people watch videos every day and stunning viewers retain 95% of the message while watching compared to only 10 % of reading text.

Videos are not hard to make

You just need a smartphone tripod and a person to do the videoing. I have a YouTube Channel on Geriatric Care Management for years. Tips to make one a video are, keep it short, script it out, practice, include a “call to action”, and have good lighting. If you want a professional the Aging Life Care Association’s “Coffee Talk has an entire list of sites that will do the videos for you.

Lifespan, a geriatric care management agency, in Santa Cruz California, has been adding videos to their email newsletters for 6 months. It is all done with a phone by a talented staff member. The agency provides Quality of Life activities and adds videos about Lifespan‘s Well Bring Program. They upload them to their YouTube channel another great way to market

Build trust with your company

Market safety from Covid-19. During the pandemic, as clients begin to use services like care managers and home care again, it is critical that you build that trust by showing customers you are safe. Market trust through your website and email newsletters. On the front page of your website, the main marketing tool, list why your agency is safe to work with during COVID-19. What % of you of office staff, caregivers, have been vaccinated against COVID-19; a partnership with your County Health Department; your staff is wearing PPE & type that is safest: staff and caregiver screening for COVID- temp checks, etc. Lifespan’s website has an excellent first page on its company safety from COVID

Use these marketing tools in 2021 to help your agency thrive.

Reach Cathy in Social Media

Social media links

YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaoHdozwS0RvKD

Social media links

YouTube channel: Website: https://cathycress.com/

Blog: https://www.cathycress.com/blog/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Gerontologist/Cathy-Cress-MSW-633836950007072/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cathyjocress

Email: cressgcm@got.net

Do You the Have Business Skills to Run a ALCA or GCM Agency ? Watch This Video

March 23, 2021

You chose to Start A Business

You need clinical skills to start and run an aging life or geriatric care management agency but you must have business skills as well- It IS A Business.

Geriatric care managers need to understand revenue- how they make money to be financially to make a profit. Revenue does come from billing – but poor billing is very unprofitable billing. Money-losing billing is anything less than 85% of your client’s time. When you bill less than 85% you actually start losing money. Revenue is the high tide of money and is calculated by the number of clients you serve, new clients per month, number of clients canceling service. % of the time billed (the goal is 85%) and what you charge for travel time.

Competition Survey Mandatory To Start A Business

You need to know how to do a competition survey to measure whether you have too much competition and what your competitors offer so you can offer more and be chosen. You should also identify and survey other direct GCM competitors like the non-profit area agency on aging which may have a GCM arm or for-profits like accountants or elder law attorneys who include geriatric care management in their service mix.

Do You Understand Branding?

You need to know branding. Aging life or geriatric care manager must use different branding and a marketing approach that messages hyper-attention to seamless care to attract these top 10% concierge clients who can afford your services long term.

Do You Have a Marketing Strategy?

Marketing Strategy Business concept. The meeting at the white office table

Marketing your existing or new Aging Life or GCM business is vital to growth, but where you spend your marketing dollars? What marketing tactics make the most sense for you? Where will you reach your concierge client base best?

This is where your marketing strategy comes into play. Before the business can start generating large revenue, a concierge marketing strategy and sales techniques must be in place.

Your marketing message must be communicated to the concierge customer. You need to how to write a business plan, use social media to attract customers, how to do 1-1 marketing to third parties-.

Check out my Online GCM Business Class which includes 10 modules on starting your GCM Business including one module on Organizational Design with the job descriptions for every role in a GCM agency and recruitment tools to get the best candidate.

Skills you will learn in My GCM Business Class

GCM organizational design skills to create your business flow chart and job descriptions, and outline how power flows down your staff to deliver gold standard care to clients
GCM marketing survey skills to pinpoint your area’s upper 10% clients and 3rd-party referrals to market, to make your business profitable
GCM competitive analysis skills to set the fee per hour your market will bear for your services and to gather information from each, to position your services vs your competition’s so clients will choose you
GCM timeline skills to identify and list (in a manageable, doable order), major tasks to complete before you open your business
GCM business planning skills to write a 13-part business plan to create a blueprint of measurable goals for your business’s financial success
GCM marketing skills to create a marketing plan to develop lead sources, conduct lead generation, launch social media, and conduct content marketing to gain new customers
GCM sales skills to position your agency to sell your menu of services
through benefits to 3rd parties and clients through cold calling, 1-1 sales meetings, and inquiries, by knowing how to close the sale and sign the contract
GCM ALCA billing skills to develop a billing system that allows you to bill 85% of your time, control your cash flow, invoice promptly to make a profit
GCM financial forecasting skills to develop a 3-year financial forecast Excel spreadsheet to track your basic profit and expenses and to track the number of clients and billable hours needed to break even make a profit, pay back loans, hire new staff, and take a salary yourself
The Business class set for a start-up GCM Budget and now offers a subscription payment plan for a start-up budget

Wonder Woman Saves Proactive , Long Distance Aging Family on the Holidays

December 1, 2020

Geriatric care managers are wonder woman for long-distance care providers

More than a million people have died of COVID in the past 7 days , according to the CDC.

This is an important message for care managers to use before the upcoming holidays. Getting on a plane to travel is dangerous for the long-distance care provider in the

highest national spread of COVID. Plus they might carry the deadly infection to their aging parents, the most vulnerable group to die of COVID. This gives these distant caring family members every reason not to see their parents- but what will they then do to keep them safe- Hire a Geriatric Care Manager.

Add This to Your Ad Copy or Website

If You live Long Distance from an aging parent during the COVID spread, it’s a preventative and prudent idea to have a geriatric care manager in the town where your older relative resides. If your parents are sheltering in place, they can make sure they are safe and use tools to prevent the loneliness and isolation that can set in over the holidays. If there is a crisis, like a COVID diagnosis,

they are right there to professionally manage it. In an urgent situation, a care manager can go to the hospital or emergency room. This is saner, safer, and more cost-effective than you getting on last-minute, expensive flights without any social distancing protection for you or your aging parents when you see them. Geriatric Care Managers are good insurance.”

Use Telehealth to Market to 3rd Parties Over the Holiday

You can make marketing visits to 3rd parties through HIPAA-compliant video

conferencing services like elder law attornies or wealth managers. You can pitch “Before any crisis, the GCM do an initial assessment and visit your long-distance older client on a regular basis. This is preventative. That way a professional is there for your client 1-1, when you need them and has a health care background to solve the problem.”

Here is a better line for long-distance adult children:

“Think of care managers the way you do one of those blow-up beds. You can pump them

up when you need them in a crisis—perhaps avoid that crisis, and you yourself can sleep more soundly and with more peace of mind in your own bed.

Some of the things a geriatric care manager can do for long-distance care providers are:

1. Save your worry, fear of COVID, and money by helping keep your parent safe from COVID and out of the hospital and you off dangerous emergency long-distance flights.

2.Help your parents avoid loneliness and isolation by arranging virtual quality of life activities to keep them socially engaged while sheltering in place.

4.Facilitate a family discussion of needs, resources, and division of labor among friends family

5. Recommend ways to proactively prepare and plan for a parent’s possible health care crisis like COVID.

6. Work on family cooperation to formulate a realistic parent-care plan.

7.Assess the strengths and weaknesses of all of the potential caregivers if needed

7. Help adult siblings resolve conflicts, if any, about care decisions.

8. Help the long-distance care provider deal with guilt and frustration that may result from their inability to provide more of the day-to-day care.

9. Locate aging resources in your elder parents’ area quickly and without you having to do it.

Learn more about gaining new long-distance care provider clients -this coming holiday season.

SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

ONLY 4 DAYS LEFT to SIGN UP

Learn how!

How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent struggling with Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

How Do You Brand Geriatric Care Management?

October 10, 2020

Branding is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan.

Do You understand how to create one for your company? Successful companies like Coca-Cola, Kleenex, and Band-Aid have one important thing in common: a strong brand. In fact, their brand names have become generic terms for all similar products in their niche. If you cut yourself, do you ask for a bandage or a Band-Aid? They are the ultimate brands. They have gone into the lexicon.

Geriatric Care Management and Aging Life are not so lucky.

What is a brand? – A brand is made in the mind, not manufactured in a plant” Understanding branding and how it significant it is to your GCM- start-up can mean success for your for profit’s geriatric care management business. Geriatric care management is not a well know brand nor is the new brand ALCA after 35 years.So your company has to do everything it can to get your own brand known in the area you serve. How? Although often associated with just advertising, your own branding is essential to everything your company puts in front of current and potential clients: business cards, brochures, web site, trade show booths, letterheads, e-newsletter, and so forth.

Branding Is About Managing People’s Image of Your Agency

You need to make sure that the image is one that is in line with your company values and the benefits your company provides. With geriatric care management that is about concierge care as you can only deliver services to the upper 10%.By taking the time to manage expectations and build positive gut feelings about your company, you establish yourself as a trusted leader in your market.

Your brand identity is built upon your key messages

Your messages are about the unique customer benefits that you provide, and the expectations you set for your target audience.

By consistently delivering the same symbols, messages, and design, you are reinforcing those messages, creating a link to your brand, and building an identity for your business that people will remember.

FREE Webinar

MARKET LIKE YOUR BUSINESS DEPENDED ON IT DURING COVID

October 22 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm PST

As you are approaching the busiest season for care manager’s the holidays when families visit for the holiday and seeing their elderly parents skating on very thin aging ice

Learn care management marketing that works at all time but especially during COVID so you can:

Consult with and help client’s during COVID and post COVID

Convert Consultation into regular clients

Understand branding

Develop a positioning strategy so the caller chooses you

Understand lead generation in care management

Understand how to do an e-newsletter

Get the best marketing software

Understand Public Relations Press, TV-Radio, Social Media Coverage

Understand Zoom Webinars

SIGN UP NOW

Do You the Have Business Skills to Run a ALCA or GCM Agency ? Watch This Video

You chose to Start A Business

Competition Survey Mandatory To Start A Business

Do You Understand Branding?

Do You Have a Marketing Strategy?

Skills you will learn in My GCM Business Class

Contact

Connect with Cathy

Get Cathy’s “10 Critical Success Steps to a Profitable Aging Life or GCM Business”