Join us on a deep-dive journey into the world of fall marketing and online visibility in the home care industry, illuminated by the personal experiences of Heather from Visiting Angels and Rebecca from Care with Love. These dynamic women have transformed our marketing kit into engaging packages for their referral partners, sparking creativity and connection. Hear my perspective as a Registered Nurse and a home care industry veteran with over 15 years under my belt, as we delve into the artistry of creating engaging online content and the importance of quality website experience.
We'll unravel the intricacies of creating compelling content, from blog posts and company news to infographics, videos, and beyond. Imagine the power of a perfectly crafted blog post or a captivating video, drawing your audience in and leaving them wanting more. We'll also navigate the world of website optimization, discussing the significance of a professional, accessible, and responsive site, and the potential pitfalls that can cost you dearly.
As we journey toward the end, we'll discuss SEO in-depth, dissecting elements like on-page optimization, website speed, and lead capturing. Picture your brand ranking for vital keyword phrases in the home care market, even in cities where you don't have an office. We'll close by exploring case studies and marketing ideas that can ignite your campaigns and foster stronger relationships with referral sources. So, buckle up and get ready for a ride filled with insights, tips, and inspirations!
Follow us and learn more:
https://asnhomecaremarketing.com
https://www.facebook.com/homecaremarketing
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk75cRzwU4Nsefc4Gk7Xa0w
https://www.tiktok.com/@homecaremarketing
https://www.instagram.com/homecaremarketingexpert/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ltc-expert-publications-llc/
Join us on a deep-dive journey into the world of fall marketing and online visibility in the home care industry, illuminated by the personal experiences of Heather from Visiting Angels and Rebecca from Care with Love. These dynamic women have transformed our marketing kit into engaging packages for their referral partners, sparking creativity and connection. Hear my perspective as a Registered Nurse and a home care industry veteran with over 15 years under my belt, as we delve into the artistry of creating engaging online content and the importance of quality website experience.
We'll unravel the intricacies of creating compelling content, from blog posts and company news to infographics, videos, and beyond. Imagine the power of a perfectly crafted blog post or a captivating video, drawing your audience in and leaving them wanting more. We'll also navigate the world of website optimization, discussing the significance of a professional, accessible, and responsive site, and the potential pitfalls that can cost you dearly.
As we journey toward the end, we'll discuss SEO in-depth, dissecting elements like on-page optimization, website speed, and lead capturing. Picture your brand ranking for vital keyword phrases in the home care market, even in cities where you don't have an office. We'll close by exploring case studies and marketing ideas that can ignite your campaigns and foster stronger relationships with referral sources. So, buckle up and get ready for a ride filled with insights, tips, and inspirations!
Follow us and learn more:
https://asnhomecaremarketing.com
https://www.facebook.com/homecaremarketing
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk75cRzwU4Nsefc4Gk7Xa0w
https://www.tiktok.com/@homecaremarketing
https://www.instagram.com/homecaremarketingexpert/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ltc-expert-publications-llc/
All right, hey everybody. Today's September 8th I can't believe it. Some of us went out the door and we are heading into our fall marketing season, which is great. Some of us are happy to have the cooler weather. Maybe everybody in the lower half of the United States. I'm going to let a few more people in. People are going to be arriving as I go through the little homework here. We'll just let them in as they arrive.
Speaker 1:I started recording All right Rules of the road. If you're new, share your successes. Say that five times fast. Share your successes. Please mute your lines if you're not sharing. Ask for any help, tips or advice. Contribute to the conversations. Adjust topics for discussion.
Speaker 1:While many of our masterminds are all about in-person sales and marketing because the crux of what we do is also online marketing we're throwing in every once in a while Maybe twice a quarter, maybe once or twice a quarter we're going to do some online marketing stuff. Today is one of those days. I'm going to drive the train today. Then we're also going to talk a little bit about in-person marketing. If you need anything, let us know. If you have any suggestions or tips, let us know. Don't forget that you can log into the private portal and see everything, every video, every conversation we've had. Last time we got together was probably one of the most fantastic masterminds of all time because it was your questions. It was Dawn and Lisa answering your questions and doing some role play. It was fabulous. I let other people see that one because it was pretty darn good. We posted that on our website.
Speaker 1:Everything we do here is actually available through our podcast. Whatever podcast format you use, you can always go and listen. If you don't have time to watch, you can listen to the entire mastermind. You just type in the words homecare marketing and you will find us. You can listen to all of the episodes. For the most part, this is private, to just the folks that are enrolled and for our clients To log into the private portal. If you'd like to do that and get all the handouts and see all the different things that we have available wwwhomecaremarketingmastermindcom. Your email address that you are receiving information at is that's your username and your password is whatever was emailed to you. You can use the forgot your password feature. If you have trouble with that, reach out to us and support. Somebody said hello, maybe. I think you're all you all should be needed, just so you know.
Speaker 1:All right, so we're going to do show and tell. I thought let's call this something. When people submit their their in-person marketing pictures, we're going to call it show and tell. So Heather from visiting angels she submitted some pictures for her August self-care stuff, so she was one of the marketing kit winners, I think, last time. We also want to make sure everybody's muted here. Just one second. Let's see if we can. If you're not muted, if you can mute your line, that would be super great. Let me see if I can, everybody Muting mute. All right, there we go. All right. So for show and tell visiting angels, and this is Heather, and she sent in what she put together for her little marketing kit. So what we sent as a marketing kit winner. She received the face mask, the bath bombs, the, I think, the lip balm, maybe the lab and the hand soaps. It looks like she added a few other cute things and a little card.
Speaker 1:Smiley. Smiling is infectious. You catch it like the flu. When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too. I passed around the corner and someone saw my grin. When he smiled. I realized I passed it on to him. I thought about that smile, then realized it's worth a single smile, just like mine, could travel around the earth. So if you feel a smile, begin. Don't leave it undetected. Let's start an epidemic quick and get the world infected. Thank you for bringing a smile to those who care, those you care for. What a sweet little. I love that. That's great.
Speaker 1:So she put all this stuff in a bag and she took those around to her referral partners. We also had is it Keaton? Keaton Shaw? He had also. Last time you guys got together, you'd show pictures of what he sent out, which was something similar. Now, for all of you who have won the September marketing kits, they have all been delivered to you. So what we would love to see is what kind of cool stuff you come up with, how you put your bags together and show us what it is that you are handing out. So we have three people who have those marketing kits that they're going to send us some pictures. We're counting on you. Oh, and here's Samar. Oh, you must have put the, did you? Yes?
Speaker 2:I did, I popped that in there, mallory.
Speaker 1:Rebecca always does a great job, so he is care with love and she did. September is Fall Prevention Month, so they we sent out these little socks for and the bags. It's up to you guys to do the pretty stuff on the bags, like print out the little notes, and that this is super cute. And she put some socks and some bags and sent them and gave those out. That's really cute, and I know she probably did a dozen other things. She'll do a dozen other things in the month of September, but that's awesome. Thank you, rebecca.
Speaker 1:Yay, all right, we're going to talk about online marketing today. What matters most and I'm sure that you all have heard this from others. I'm going to give you my perspective as someone who's worked at the home care industry for over 15 years and as a registered nurse, and as someone who's a complete website nerd. So, oh, when you put all that together, I hope I'm going to give you some really great advice. I know I will. Some of it might seem a little nerdy, but just bear with me here. So, online marketing what matters most is your quality, your content, the user experience and online visibility. We're going to talk about each of these and I'm going to give you some a look into what we've done with SEO and a few things, a couple of little small case studies, so you can see where people started and where they are today. So it's not just about, it's not just one thing that's going to make you more visible online, it's all the things. This is a package deal that comes together. So quality content we talk about this a lot amongst our team. What is quality content? What's going to make the needle move for anybody? And it's really a combination of things. It's the creation of informative, valuable and relevant content that meets the needs and preferences of your target audience so well researched, well written and should provide value to the readers.
Speaker 1:When we blog post for our clients, we and blog posts are is one of the examples here on my screen. When we do that, we do that from an educational standpoint. We don't know when the last time was that you went and saw a marketing partner out in the community. We don't know the last community event you went to. We are depending on you to send that information to us. That is also quality content. But in the meantime, if we're not hearing from you or if no matter what we, we blog post for you at least two times a month, sometimes four times a month, depending on who you are, what program you're in, and that content is always pretty much just educational content, which is great, and we try to stick with the themes of the month. So if it's National Eye Health Month, you know you might see some articles about glaucoma or low vision, the impact of low vision on seniors and how home care can help. So we try to take anything that's you know, or maybe it's a spring, fall, summer or winter kind of post, depending on where you are in the United States. So we always try to make the content not only relevant to an adult child or a senior, but also relevant to where you are in the world, in the country north, south, east or west, and what kind of holidays we are in or what month we're in. So all of that really does matter.
Speaker 1:So well researched and informative blog posts I will say this for it's you all typically hire us to do that and the writers that we have have been with us for a very, very long time. They have written for us for a very long time. They know what our expectations are. We do not write dissertations for blog posts, because no one will read them. We do throw in for some of our programs some really long guide style blog posts, but for the most part we're talking about 500 words, bulleted lists, easy on the eyes, easy to read. It's not really giving anybody a brain cramp and that's okay. People need easy content. So that's kind of how I feel about blog posts. You don't have to write a dissertation in order for it to really resonate with your audience.
Speaker 1:When it comes to what I call company news for blog posting, what we ask and what we expect of our clients is very little, but it's so important because what we want are the pictures. So when I say company news, what I mean is this right here or this right here and maybe you handing one of these bags to a social worker or or just standing in front of a building where you're about to go in. You don't have to take pictures of other people necessarily, but it's telling us what your recent activity is. Translates into the following you send us pictures or you add pictures to your blog if you're not a content client of ours of the things that you're doing out in your community. You don't have to write 500 words about that visit. You can. If you want to, that's certainly awesome, but you don't have to.
Speaker 1:So what we ask of our clients is we need like four or five sentences Tell us where you were, what you were doing, who were you visiting. You know, how was it, where was it, you know. So if you have ever taken any kind of writing or journalism class, you'll know that you want to answer the questions who, what, why, where, how and when. If you can answer even three of those questions who were you visiting, what were you doing, where were you at that's plenty, because the posts that you send in well ours are more educational. The posting that you do about your experience in your community is more engaging to your local community because it's people in your area, it's your local area. It's pictures of buildings and people they might recognize If they're in the industry. They're another referral source. They're a community member, so you don't have to write a dissertation in order for that to really make a difference. What we have happen is all of the blog posting that we do on your website goes straight out to Facebook. It goes out to LinkedIn automatically. It gets posted on Pinterest, so people in your community see those blog posts.
Speaker 1:So the other examples I have here on my screen are infographics, videos, ebooks and white papers and case studies. Probably 99 percent of you are never going to write an eBook or a case study, and that's okay. You don't have to. If that's something you feel like you have time to do, then I highly recommend doing it. That's absolutely okay.
Speaker 1:Infographics are like I don't want to say a PowerPoint presentation, but a long picture or a picture of a process that illustrates how home care works or illustrates what lighthouse keeping really means. So it's an illustration of a concept and it makes it easy for the consumer to understand. We don't do a lot of infographics, but we certainly do a lot of imagery. So infographics are pretty fun and some people really like to do them. If you are a user of Canva, canvacom, they already have pre-made infographics that you can just change the content of them or the colors and they're already in the right format If that's something that you really, really want to do. But blog posting with images is super important.
Speaker 1:Another example of a great blog post is caregiver of the month employee of the month. If you're not out in the world and able to take pictures today, that's okay. Which caregiver did you honor. What did they receive? Do you have a picture of them receiving that? I always have told people this for years. I kind of quit saying it during COVID, but I've always said to our clients if you can either go to that caregiver while they're working with a senior in the home, you do not have to get a picture of the senior in the home and take a picture of them. Give them a little spring bouquet of flowers and a gift card and take a happy, smiling picture of them. That speaks volumes to your audience online. You are making someone happy. You have just given them a small gift. It doesn't have to be outrageous. Maybe it's a gas card, maybe it's a small Visa gift card, maybe it's whatever it is you do. Maybe it's chocolates and a little bouquet of flowers. We're talking grocery store flowers here. We are not calling the florists and having something made that's going to cost you $100. We're talking simple and easy. If you do that and you take a picture of that smiling caregiver, that is the most amazing contribution to your community, to your caregivers and to the people who are going to see your social media.
Speaker 1:In our case, that content doesn't stop with social media. We also make sure all those blog posts end up in your next newsletter. And yes, monthly newsletters do work. And when I say quality content, if you were to look at, if a client of ours were to look at their Google Analytics pretty carefully, they would see that the traffic on their website goes up every month. One time, once a month, it goes, there's a big spike in traffic and that's the day their newsletter goes out. People really do open them, they really do look at them and they really do enjoy them, especially if you have pictures of people, places and things that they might recognize in your local area. So that is what quality content is to me and hopefully that is understandable for everybody.
Speaker 1:Videos Now the world has become a video world. We all know this. Many of you don't want to have your face on camera. You never, ever, ever want to be on video in a million years, and I understand that. But videos of pretty much anything that is educational or happy or you know, maybe it's a collage of pictures that you put together of an event that you attended, so you don't have to be in the video, but maybe it's a bunch of pictures you took at ABCD event. That is wonderful If you can manage to create a small video of pictures or a video of yourself answering one frequently asked question about home care, that is totally amazing and you should do that. You should post it. If you're our client, please send us the link to the video so we can post it for you. Video is where it's at. I can't stress that enough. I know I'm not going to convince non-video people to do videos, but if you can do a video, you should do them as often as you can with real quality content.
Speaker 2:Valerie, we have a question. Going back to the emails Is an email campaign the best way to send out your newsletter, or just posting it?
Speaker 1:Oh, you should email out your newsletter. Sorry, I'm dripping on myself. You should definitely email it out. We email our newsletters out once a month, so that is.
Speaker 1:I'm not a believer in creating a PDF document and sending it out in an email or posting it. You can do that, but to me, just emailing it directly to someone's email is the best way to do that. They're not going to go to your website. Most, let's say, we're in the home care business. This is not a sexy business. This is not a sexy, crazy business that people are going to go. Oh, I got to go back to that website today. Uh-uh, that's not what's happening. So in order to get people to see what it is, you have to say you have to send it to them in some way. You have to email it to them.
Speaker 1:I'm not even a big fan of print materials. However, I do see a bit of a resurgence in print materials going out, and if you want to spend that kind of money, that's totally okay. But I would say, be selective. Don't do 2,000 mass mailers to a certain zip code in full color and spend that kind of dough. There are way better things you could spend that money on. So, yes, I believe in emailing out your newsletter.
Speaker 2:Valerie. Another question. Back to videos. What's the best platform to use to make a video?
Speaker 1:That's rough. Okay, so Facebook is where. Okay, so you should use your phone if you don't have any camera equipment. I don't expect people have camera equipment, but you can use your phone. I used to tell everybody let's see, can you see my little bitty face? Hold on, you can see my little bitty face up in the corner of your screen. I used to tell everybody that this is the way. I'm sorry, this is the way you should do a video, but guess what? Nobody does videos like this anymore. They do them like this. So if you can hold your phone and do a video of yourself, more power to you. Nobody cares if it's professional, nobody cares what you look like. People love to see videos.
Speaker 1:If you have ever gone on TikTok, people don't wear makeup, they don't have their hair fixed and they're telling a story. Now I get it. If this is about your business, please fix your hair. Don't look crazy. But you don't have to be perfect for your message to resonate with another human. That's not what it's about anymore. You don't have to be a news broadcaster sitting at a desk looking like you won the Miss America award. It's not how it works. You can be your authentic self and just, obviously, if it's for business, tidy up a bit and you can use TikTok.
Speaker 1:You can use Facebook to make your video. You can do Instagram In our market segment. Remember that Facebook is your demographic. The adult, children and grandparents are on Facebook. Most of them have probably looked at Instagram as well. It's not going to be as heavily trafficked as Facebook is for the senior population or older adults and TikTok, while it is a very young demographic in most cases, there's a whole subsection of those of us who are in the 50 plus range who absolutely adore TikTok, whether it's you know, you can get into all the things. Yes, china owns it and they're spying on us, whatever. So that's probably true, but there's a lot worse things in the world. So, having said that, if you're going to use TikTok, that's fine. There are some caveats and some things that you should do for each one of those different platforms.
Speaker 1:I also suggest YouTube shorts, but if you're going to use YouTube shorts and again, youtube shorts are with your phone, like this the video has to be under one minute. It will not post as a short unless it's under one minute, and those shorts do get a lot more views than a traditional YouTube video like this. That's over one minute. Not saying that, yes, you can do longer videos, but YouTube shorts are well watched. I don't know why. Maybe it's a demographic thing, but we post both. We do both for our clients. We do regular three minute videos and we do shorts. We condense that video down, do shorts, and they always get more views, 100% of the time instantly almost it's weird.
Speaker 1:Also, hashtags are important with videos. You have to know what hashtags you're putting in there. You can do a whole talk on video. I wouldn't spend an enormous amount of time, like your whole day, worrying about doing videos. You need a plan, you need a set of topics that you're going to cover, and you can do some off the cuff stuff too, like when you're visiting somebody, but you need to work it out so you're not, you know, just doing random videos that make no sense. Have a plan behind your video creation and keep them short. Nobody cares about an hour long video. Well, I love watching long videos, but there is a better market for short, short videos under five minutes. Okay, user experience. Anything else, don, we're good.
Speaker 2:Nope, I don't see anything else. We have a couple of people. Sandra said you know that the blogs have been great. She's actually received calls inquiring about some of the blog information and that we do a great job.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's very nice. Thank you, sandra, I'm sure I'll try.
Speaker 2:It's been an owning or joining our ASN marketing program so I'm going to call her after.
Speaker 1:Okay, so cool. Um, we have. Um, we do see that when we send out those blogs that sometimes people will hit, reply and say something to the person like great job. Or if it's your mom, they're going to reply and say, oh, this is very nice. So we do see that people reply to the blogs or the I'm sorry, the newsletters quite a bit. Uh, and that's great. We want engagement, we want people to click on them and I think that, overall, if you have a good email list, you actually get and I mean one that's not been purchased that you know, I did his people. I've had some real people who you've interacted with. Typically you get a really good response, um, and you get a really good open rate. So the content and the people on your list really matter.
Speaker 1:Okay, user experience. You've probably heard people talk about UX, ui, which drives me crazy. I don't know exactly what that means, but user experience is UX. It means the experience that someone has while interacting with your website, your pictures, your Facebook. It's a overall experience and in this case, what we're talking about mostly is your website. If your website is janky and I know that's a word some of you have never heard, but I can tell you that here in the Midwest, um, I can send you to the Jank store because you're, because you're janky, um, so, uh, if my kids would say that's, that's so Jank store and that means that means it's bad or it's it's like cheap, I don't know. Anyway, we use that, I use janky a lot. So if your website's janky and you probably don't know that, if it is, I mean you may know it but you may not realize it it needs to be professionally created, not by cousin Larry in 1999 and not by Google website tonight or whatever it is. Do it yourself.
Speaker 1:Wix stuff. I know wix can be nice. Don't get me wrong. I know there are beautiful wix websites. I'm just not a fan. Anyway, responsive design. So the design of your website needs to make sure. That means that we need to make sure that when we look at it on a mobile device like your phone so when I look at it like this, it's just as pretty and easy to read easy on my old eyes as it is when I'm looking at this giant screen in front of me I need to be able to see the phone number, what you do, who you are and where you service. Those are the most important things. So we need to make sure the user experience is good. If it's not good, google says see ya, I only want great experiences for my people that are on Google search.
Speaker 1:Fast loading time oh my gosh, ad nauseam. We talk about this. If your website takes too long to load on desktop or mobile especially mobile according to Google, you're out. You're out Jank store Beep.
Speaker 1:We do a lot of website audits for our clients, for people who are not our clients, and the first thing we do is run a speed test and say is your website fast or not fast? And if it's getting a CDEF, then we say look, google's never going to help you. If you don't help yourself. You've got to help this website. And if you have a great web developer, they should be able to get you to an A rating with your website by making a few changes to it.
Speaker 1:If your website's really old, then that's a different story. You probably need a new website because the back end technology is probably really outdated and slow. We're not working with 1999 technology anymore. We're working with 2023 technology and you need to upgrade. It's an investment, just like your brick and mortar building or the computer you just bought. You need to have a good online presence. I could harp on that all day. Easy navigation. The cleaner the website, the easier it is to click around on it, the better. All the telephone numbers should be clickable. I should be able to be on my phone. Click your phone number because I need help and, bam, it dials that phone number right now.
Speaker 1:Interactive elements I'm not a fan of quizzes and calculators on, especially on the homepage of our website. In our market that's not how this works. We don't want quizzes and calculators, generally speaking, on the homepage. That's not to say that you can't do something like that. A lot of assessment forms, things like that, happen. I'm not sure if a quiz is the right way to go. Somebody's really struggling with an aging parent. I'm not sure that a I don't know what they would calculate. Of course we have Valerie Darling who's here today and she's with Home Care Quote. She also owns a Home Care Agency. That kind of software is absolutely the right thing to do, but a little calculator about anything this is kind of generic in that regard. Interactive elements also include things like clicking on that phone number or a small form to sign up for your newsletter or a small form to get somebody to call you back or to be able to schedule an appointment. There are a lot of clients when we build their website. They ask us can you put a calendar on my website or a calendar link where people can go ahead and schedule an appointment to talk to us on the phone? Absolutely, we can do that. I'm not sure that it's used that much, but we will absolutely put a calendar. Those are some of the interactive things you can do.
Speaker 1:Accessibility there's a big, big push and this has been going on for years. If you are a small business, you want to make sure that you have. People with disabilities can see your website well. That means people who have low vision. That also means people who are colorblind and have other issues with their vision. They can change how the website looks to them so that they can actually read it better. And audio your website should be able to be read either by a standalone system that a hearing impaired person has or by just clicking on it, and we do put them on every website that we have. So, yes, people with disabilities need to be able to read and hear what's on your website. Just stop me if there's a question.
Speaker 1:Okay, online visibility, what matters most. Search engine optimization. We're going to talk about that a little bit. Social media presence having an active presence on social media content marketing. We just talked about Paper click advertising. Yes, quick advertising. We deal with clients that do Google Ads with us and I can just say this about that Google Ads is a challenge for even the most experienced Google Ads person out there.
Speaker 1:The home care market is double challenging when it comes to Google Ads, because we have a component of Google Ads that other markets don't necessarily have. Some of them do and that irritating component is caregivers clicking on your ads. They don't understand that that costs you money, or maybe they do and they don't care, more likely, and they click on the ads and they call you or they go to your website and fill out a form that's not for them and they waste your time and money. Now, I realize everybody needs caregivers pretty much, but then they're maybe they're from I don't know Nigeria and they're looking for someone to sponsor them to come over to the United States. I mean, it's all over the place. It's people in the United States, it's people outside of the United States, it's caregivers or people looking for jobs that don't qualify to work for you that do qualify to work for you, but what you're really looking for are leads, and that is the challenge.
Speaker 1:You have to be able to spend enough in your local market, and for some of you that local market is ultra competitive. You have to be able to spend enough to cut through that clutter and get to the leads. If you're not able to spend enough and for everybody that number's gonna be different I'm not gonna go into it today. I can tell you Manhattan is easily 10,000 a month $10,000 a month on Google Ads to cut through the clutter and get to the leads. It's hard to understand.
Speaker 1:We have a bigger issue in the home care industry than a plumber or a roofer has, because they don't get as many. They may get stuff that they can't help or service, but their wasted leads are less troublesome than our wasted leads, our wasted clicks. Anyway, long story short, it costs a lot of money, so think about it clearly. I would rather have somebody do newsletters, content, blog posting, search engine optimization, in-person marketing and networking all day long than do paperclip. We do it for our clients, but it's not my first recommendation Email marketing oh, go ahead, we didn't have a question.
Speaker 2:a couple of things. So when someone messages in on the website, who gets that message? John Good's asking, and then also when we were talking about a calculator on the mobile or on the front of the website that compares his agency with a private caregiver, something like that. Would that be good?
Speaker 1:Sure. So let's talk about the first thing. If you have a chat feature, if you're our client, so there's lots of chat features you can add to your website that have nothing to do with us. There's all kinds of people out there that will sell you all kinds of things, and it's basically a code you put on your website and when somebody comes to your website they can send a note to you. So, depending on the kind of chat feature you have, they all work a little differently. Some are real time. Talk to them, they talk to you. You've probably done this with a support desk somewhere. Our support desk does this, so you talk to me, I'll type something back to you. But the one that we typically put on our clients website is different, and the reason it's different is because I know that you do not have a person who can sit in front of that computer all day long and wait for somebody to start chatting with them and chat back with them instantly. That's never gonna happen. You have too much to do, and so do your staff. You're gonna miss that person and then they're gonna get irritated.
Speaker 1:So what our chat feature does? We call it a chat feature, but it's really a text, a message to texting feature. So this little thing pops up and says how can we help you today? And you put that person the consumer will put in on. My mother is 95 years old and she needs the agility. They put in their name, their phone number and their email address and their little message to you and, bam, what happens is that message goes to whoever it is you designate in your office by email. Could be multiple people, could be one person, but it also gets texted to a phone number that you choose and you don't have to choose texting. But if you choose texting, it texts you the note and the note says hey, john, mary Jones, just put in this message phone number, email address my mom's 95 years old and she needs help with it. So you get the message instantly.
Speaker 1:But we do the same thing with our forms. Every form on your website pretty much not, maybe not caregiver forms, but all of the lead forms are always emailed and texted to whoever you designate to us to receive that. You receive it. It's up to you to call that person back or text them back if you'd like, whatever you wanna do, and there's a mobile app that goes along with our system that you can use if you want. You don't have to, but you can. So you should be notified instantly.
Speaker 1:So that's what that little texting thing is. It's not waiting for you to answer them on the screen, it just sends you the message you get back to them when you can't Now. In the meantime, I will tell you that our system has already texted that person and emailed them and said thank you for reaching out to us. We will be with you shortly. As soon as one of our staff members can tell you, it's gonna instantly send them a little note that says we got you, we know, we know you're there, we know you're there and we will be in touch ASAP. So we don't leave them hanging. But it's up to you as to how you wanna interact with them after that. Does that help? I hope that helps, okay anything else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the question about a calculator, oh, the calculator, okay.
Speaker 1:I would not put that on the homepage of my website, but I would make sure that I address it on my service pages or on About Us or somewhere else. I don't think you need to have that be front and center on your homepage. Your homepage needs to be about you and about what your value is to that person, how you're solving their problem. You wanna keep it real simple. So if you wanna put a table, I wouldn't put a calculator, but a table that says you know, hiring a home care agency means this de-de-de-de-de-de, hiring a caregiver privately means you're responsible for this de-de-de-de-de-de-de, and illustrate in a table format why it's better to hire a home care agency than a private caregiver the taxes, the liability and all that stuff. Perfect for another page on your website. But I wouldn't necessarily put it on the homepage.
Speaker 2:What about a quiz Like when is it time to take the keys from your parents?
Speaker 1:You could do that along with. I wouldn't put any quizzes or tables like that on the homepage of your website, but we can always find a place for it. You can always have a resources tab on your website that has access to PDFs to download, that has maybe a quiz, maybe a you know, I don't know a little table that shows them the difference between or maybe that's in a PDF itself difference between hiring privately versus agency. Those kinds of things are great and important, but not necessarily on the homepage of your website. And the reason I say that is because a lot of people aren't gonna get past the top of the fold on your homepage of your website. They need help right now. And if you want, if they're going to read something else, it's because either you directed them to that information or they are tire kicking and they're clicking around, which is fine. They need to be educated. But for that instant need need your help right now. You wanna keep it super simple on that homepage. I hope that helps, but anything that you wanna add to your website that's educational for the consumer is super fabulous. I love it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm down to email marketing building and nurturing an email list to keep the audience engaged and drive repeat traffic to the website. Excuse me, we just talked about this with regard to the newsletter. Not only do I think you should have a newsletter once a month, you're not killing people with multiple crazy emails, you're just sending them something once a month. They can unsubscribe at the bottom of the newsletter every single time if they want to perfect and, trust me, if they want to unsubscribe, they will, or they will send you a note. Please unsubscribe me from this list, and that's fine. Okay, but let's talk about other things you can do with email marketing. When somebody comes to your website for the first time and they fill out a form or they do the little chatty thing or whatever, you're capturing their email address and having an instant email. Go back to them to tell them that we understand you're here, we know you may have questions. It reiterates what your phone number is. It tells them someone will be reaching out to them. Those are all great, but you can continue that. If this is the first time someone's come into your fray or your web, then you're going to want to tell them all the different things in a very simple way that you do and why home care is important and all the educational things that go along with it, and I recommend a drip campaign.
Speaker 1:A drip campaign is a series of emails that go out to that newbie, that new person, over the course of, say, 30 days. So it starts with a welcome email, tells them a little bit about you all, tells them that you hope that they'll we can connect so that we can understand more about your situation as a consumer. And then over time it expands that email. Subject changes to what your specialties are or if you're a family caregiver, how to respite care can help with stress. So there's about 10 subject 10 emails. One goes out every three or four days over the course of 30 days. That's a great way to introduce yourself and keep that person in your sights and keep you top of mind with them for the first 30 days that they inquire. So if they are a tire kicker and they are researching because they've never had to deal with this before, you've got 30 days to kind of remind them that you're here and you're willing to help. Also, you have to obviously call them, talk to them. After that. They should be definitely on your newsletter list. So every month they're still receiving a little something from you. So those are the things I recommend as far as email marketing, and you can do one-off emails. You can do a one-time email blast about the Alzheimer's walk this fall and that you have a team and we'd love for them to join you. Or you can always do one-off emails every once in a while, but drip campaigns are very important.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to move on to SEO. Wait a minute, I'm going to. Oh, I got to move through this baby. All right, what actions contribute to SEO and what is SEO anyway?
Speaker 1:Seo assertion and optimization it's something that we like to do to any website that we build and maintain, because you have a lot of competition in your area and Google and the consumer needs to know who you are, what you're doing, what your services are, where you're located, what service areas you cover, and that requires a lot of work and content. Google is finicky, to say the least, so components of SEO are on-page SEO, so when we're building a website or we're creating content for you, we make sure that all of your keywords are in the content. We take care of what's called meta descriptions. I put that over here on the right. This is what we call a meta description. The content quality is good and we use something called advanced schema that most web developers don't do. They use some basic schema but they don't do the advanced stuff that we do and that is the back-end nerdy stuff that Google reads. Google doesn't see how pretty your website is, it's a machine, it's a computer and all it reads is the stuff behind the scenes. All it reads is the computer generated text and bits and zeros and ones. And if you don't have a good explanation of who you are, where you're located and what you do behind the scenes, google kind of flips through it and moves on, doesn't really may get a few things. Obviously it gets some stuff, but it may not get the whole picture and you need Google to understand your whole picture. So at the top of this page on the right it says what your URL is.
Speaker 1:So if we're writing a page about senior home care, kind of a global look at what home care is for a consumer, then we're gonna title it senior home care and we're gonna put a page title on it that matches and we're gonna have an SEO title that matches and we're gonna put with that. Sorry, there's a little extra character there. We're gonna put senior home care. We're gonna put the location that you're in, your main location, maybe where your office is located, and then I white it out the name of this company so you can't see it, but then we would put your company name after that In the meta description. We wanna hit certain keyword phrases. We wanna make sure that we have senior home care. We have your main location. We have things like compassionate support, tailored home care services for your loved ones. We can even go a little bit further, but we have only 160 characters to get that message across. So these are the things that we make sure we craft carefully so that they resonate well, not only with the reader, but also with Google.
Speaker 1:That's on page SEO. Off page SEO is backlink, so it's other websites linking back to your website reputable ones, never, ever, ever, ever by backlinks. Do not do it. You're killing your website, you're killing your visibility. So when we do that for our clients, we're very careful. We use mainly Google properties and some online properties that we know are reputable Social signals. So you wanna make sure you have that. Those Facebook posts going up there, maybe Instagram, maybe TikTok. You definitely wanna have LinkedIn. Facebook and LinkedIn are your friends in the home care market and then technical SEO.
Speaker 1:That doesn't really give a very good description of what that is, but we definitely wanna make sure you have all your citations correct. So that means that a citation is your name, address, phone number and website. So if I were to go on yellowpagescom your yellowpagescom listing, which nobody uses or goes to, but that listing is exactly the same as the one that's listed as the name, address, phone number that's on your website, and that one matches the same one that's in Google and that one matches the same one that's in carecom or caringcom or yahoocom. They all need to match when they are conflicting. They have the wrong address because you moved last year and didn't tell anybody, or they have the wrong sweet number, or they have the wrong phone number. That's confusing. So we go in and we usually do citations for our clients to get everything in the right order. We do at least 50, I believe. And then website speed. I've already talked about that On mobile. It has to be fast. If it's not fast, you're out, you're a Jankstar. Any questions?
Speaker 2:We have a question back to emails. What is the best way to capture someone's email address for the email campaigns?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. Anytime somebody fills out a form on your website, you have to make sure you put the right disclaimers in the small print, please. But anytime somebody fills out a form on your website or there might be a newsletter subscription on your website we usually put those in the footer of the website, so it's on every page. Also, the little chatty thing that we talked about that's a great way to collect email addresses, business cards if you know someone, if you're talking to someone on a regular basis and they know you. Business cards if you are in a local Chamber of Commerce. I would not just randomly upload the entire list of Chamber members, but the ones that you've met, that you have a relationship with, that you've talked to. I always tell ladies grab all those business cards out of the bottom of your purse and all the ones off your desk and start making that list. Or hand it off to the teenager to make you an Excel spreadsheet. Whatever you need to do. Anybody that you've talked to and networked with is a great person to add to your newsletter list. Referral sources, caregivers, caregivers you have to maybe your head caregiver, your long standing caregivers, maybe not the one you just hired yesterday because you won't remember to take them off the list if you get rid of them or they leave you. So maybe you're a long time caregivers or your caregiver leads your office staff. Put your office staff on your newsletter list. They want to see what you're putting out there and if you're highlighting a caregiver of the month, make sure they get that newsletter. If you're highlighting an assisted living facility that you just went to and visited, make sure that that person gets your newsletter so they can see their picture too and tag them on Facebook. All right, anything else? Building trust okay. Building trust in a third.
Speaker 1:Why does SEO take time? So what we tell people is okay. Look, it depends on the location. If you tell me that you want to be number one on the first page of Google for West Winamukah Nevada, I will make you number one on the first page of Google for West Winamukah Nevada within one week, because nobody lives there. I'll give you a day. I don't know, but and I'm sure I've used that for so long there's probably a lot of people living there now. But if you tell me that you want to be number one on the first page of Google for Las Vegas, manhattan, fairfax, virginia, you tell Miami Florida. I cannot tell you that that's gonna happen in a week or a month. It depends on the whole picture.
Speaker 1:Did we build your website? Do you have enough content? Are we adding content every month? What kind of processes have you already had in place? What shape is that website in?
Speaker 1:In fact, we don't even do SEO for clients that we did not build their website, because we can never guarantee who's had their hands on it or where it's been or what's happening. It could be beautiful and wonderful, but it also could be a complete disaster and nobody really knows it. So building trust and authority takes time. I always tell people to stay in an SEO program for at least six months and see how things go from there. In fact, I would tell people to stay in an SEO program forever because it depends on continuous work. I could show you a screenshot I think Lauren's here today of what Lauren does in one month for one client for one set of pages on a website, and it would blow your mind. It's a ton of work and thank goodness she seems to like it. It's also kind of fun to see the results of that.
Speaker 1:But building trust and authority means that you're building trust and authority with Google and with consumers and with your local area. There's a lot that goes into that. It's all content driven and without that content, you're not gonna be able to compete against the big boys. So if you tell me you want to beat Home Instead, I'm gonna tell you that they have a 400,000 page website. Every single location is linked to that and millions of backlinks. So I'd love for you to beat Home Instead and in some locations we do but I'm never gonna guarantee anything because I don't know what kind of competitor they are. If they're very involved in their online presence, that's gonna be really tough. If they never look at it or they don't do anything, yeah, we could probably beat them.
Speaker 1:Content indexing that means Google has looked at your website and has re-looked at your website and continues to re-look at you. Every time you add a blog post, every time you change something on your website, google comes by every three, four, five weeks and says, oh, look at this, there's something new. We need to re-index the whole website. Now, let's do that and then they come by. If they come by a month later and nothing is new, boom, they're passing you by. You wanna make sure every time that comes by. There's something different there. There's something new for Google to see, and so they'll re-index your website. Competition and market saturation I don't have to speak much to that. Some of you are in the most competitive markets of all time, and so SEO takes a lot of time because of that. Okay, next slide.
Speaker 2:I have a question, Valerie Deetrek Layde at Gladden. I have a contact us form on my website, but I'm getting weird messages that are not legit. Should I change the form?
Speaker 1:Yes, is this our client?
Speaker 2:No, Don't think we've built her website.
Speaker 1:All right, so yes, what we do for our contact us form. We have two different forms on our clients website. One is a long form. We call it the long form because it asks a lot of questions, not a lot in terms of like not like a job application but maybe five or six questions. The person has to specifically answer each question and that's what we consider a real lead. The contact us form is also there, but we do not leave it open to comments.
Speaker 1:So that other box, or add your comment or question here, whatever you have, that's where the spammers love to see you, because they're gonna put whatever. I don't know why. Don't ask me why. I don't know why. They're gonna put all a bunch of stuff in there and it's ridiculous. So we just ask the you know name, email, phone number, and then for that last piece, we say we only give them two options. I have questions about home care or I have questions about a home care job. Pick one, that's it. You don't get to say anything else to my owner because we're not gonna bother them with spam. Do they still get spam once in a while? Yes, people are crazy, but that cuts down on it considerably. Take off that open comment box on your contact us form or any form that you have, and that will go away. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is, okay. Next slide oh me, that's me, that's me, not you.
Speaker 1:The role of keywords and how to choose the right keywords. Let's talk about it. I know you guys want to know what the right keywords are, so I'm going to show you today Not all of them, but I'm going to show you some of them. I'm not going to go through this whole thing because I know we are we are way short on time, all right, so the role of keywords is really important in SEO. Obviously, I bet all of you know that the keyword phrase of the day is home care and in about 200 other iterations of the word, home care. So understanding user intent, the way you create your content, your website traffic with right keyword opposition, your competitive advantage and the conversions that you get by targeting the right keywords are all important, and I could talk all day about this, too, until I'm a little passionate about it.
Speaker 1:So what keywords are important in the home care markets? All right, so we have what we call small, we have short keyword phrases like home care, and we have long tail keyword phrases like elderly in home care or companion care at home or elderly companion care at home. Those are long keyword phrases. We have our short ones. Our short ones are the most competitive and the hardest to rank for. Our long tail ones are less competitive, easier to rank for, but they're important because if you can start ranking for a long tail keyword phrase, then you eventually you're also going to rank for that short keyword phrase. So let's look at some of them.
Speaker 1:Hold on a second. Here we go. I know you can't see that screen very well, but you can take a picture of it if you want. I want to show you some things that are really important on this list. We're going to start in the top left hand corner home health care. This is showing you the volume of searches nationwide for keyword phrases, not in your local market. You may have 10 searches for home health care in a week. I don't know. For a month I'm sure it's more than that, maybe 60, 70, but you're you know, nationwide. In one month, 33,000 people type in or visits are for the words home health care and a lot of you most of you on this call are a home care agency. You are a non medical home care agency, yet everyone in the world is searching for home health care, and Google is not helpful with that, because if you have ever put your Google, my Business page or listing together, you know that the only real choice you have is home health care.
Speaker 1:No home care, yeah, even though you're non medical. Now there are a few other ones like agent help or agent care. Trust me when I say that is not the US market. You need to choose home health care and quit fooling around with these other ones that you got in there. Just home health care, just do it. I know you're not a home health care agency, but the consumer doesn't understand that. So, even though you're not a home health care agency, you still want to throw in you know some, maybe some words. Now there are states where that is not okay.
Speaker 1:We cannot use the word home health care at all for a non medical home care agency. 100%, I understand that and we don't do it. But you have to know that that's the top keyword phrase home care. We come in at 10,000 searches less at 22,000 per month. Home health care near me 22,000. So you can see. Look at this one right here. This used to be higher home instead senior care 22,000 visits nationwide per month for that brand home instead senior care. So you can't put the words home instead senior care really big on your on your website. That's not. You will get in trouble for that, trust me. But that is the power of branding. If you ever wondered why your name matters, why the name that you choose matters and how you market it in person and online matters, look at home instead, senior care. They've been around a long time, but they have branded the but Jesus out of this. This is branding 22,000 people searching that home care near me 14,000. Bayada, bayada I really want to say that. Another good brand. Okay, so this is also going to throw in some stuff as nothing to do with you care and home insurance quotes. Who cares? Home care services, home health care services, synergy home care another brand I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:Home care assistance right here. All right. So for those of you who pay attention to the world out there of franchises, you know that home care systems change their name to the key. So I don't know who made that glorious decision, but that is so. For a while, they were just putting the key on everything and then they change it to the key. So, but home care assistance is a word you can use all over your website. They do not own the exclusive rights to the using the word home care assistance. They can't. It's a normal phrase. Home instead. Senior care is a little more tricky, but home care assistance is pretty easy. So it's a well search keyword phrase and I highly recommend just making sure it's part of the text of your blog posts and other things in home care and then Griswold.
Speaker 1:So as we go through here, if you can, you guys can take a picture of this screenshot at whatever you want to do. You'll see some stuff that's weird, that comes in here that doesn't make any sense. Comfort Keepers has dropped off quite a bit. They are only in the 4000 range. Medicare home health there's some really interesting ones in here.
Speaker 1:Lots of brands branding is important. Your brand matters, your name matters. So just as much as you would like us to get you to number one for the word in home care, you also want to always be number one for whatever the name of your home care agency is and you want to push that. Branding is important in your brand should always be top of mind. All right. Success story of a home care business using SEO. All right.
Speaker 1:So we have a lot of these, but I just screenshot it a few of them to show you what it looks like. So for a home care agency located in Alexandria Virginia, if you were sitting in Alexandria Virginia today and you typed in Alzheimer's home care, alexandria, on May 31st, you would not find this person or this client or this agency. Until this is where they were, they were five pages back. Slots one through 10 or the first page of Google. Slots 10 through 21 or 11 through 21 are the second page of Google, and on, so on and so on. So number 42 is somewhere in the fifth page of Google. For fifth, I don't know Today, they're number eight, first page of Google. So it's come up 34 spots.
Speaker 1:Now would I like them to be number one? Of course, that's not really what I'm worried about. I just want to show you that where you begin and where you end it matters, based on the SEO that we do on your website. Yeah, for the ones that have a dash here and some of the ones that you see at the bottom, the dashes mean they weren't even in the first 10 pages of Google and now they're on the second page of Google. For this one down here in home care, they were number 94 and now they're number 19 have come up 75 spots. Well, you say well, they're not on the first page, not today, but it takes a long time. So this is all of June, july and August, so for about 90 days in. This is where they are for one of the most competitive markets in the United States.
Speaker 2:Nali, are they in our enhanced SEO program? Yes, they are.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and it's neat to see where somebody starts versus where they are. This client is. I wanted to show you two different illustrations here. This client's office is located in Malvern, pennsylvania. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but that's where it is. In Malvern it's probably way easier to rank for right. I mean, it's probably not a big town. They're near, probably near Philadelphia somewhere, I'm guessing. I don't, I can't remember, but Malvern obviously is not one. We've all heard of over and over again, so it's probably a smaller town outside, you know, is somewhere in their service area. So easy. They started on June 28. So they started. So they've had the whole month of July and the whole month of August, so 60 days plus a few days here on either end, and they went from these places that you see here to number one, number one, number two, number two, number four, number four, number five. So all first page until you get down to some new ones. We added, by the way, these are all brand new these last three, and they are get paid to care for a family member. So they're in part of that. They're part of that program. We just added that page not too long ago.
Speaker 1:But anyway, having said that, nicely situated on the first page of Google, now for all those keyword phrases. If we go over here to Westchester, most of us would recognize the name Westchester, westchester this is Westchester, pennsylvania, or Westchester, I don't know how they say it Westchester, pennsylvania. They started on June 28 over here on the left hand side, kind of hit or miss, not really doing very well. 60 days later we've got them to the first page of Google for a couple of keyword phrases, but they're hitting for almost everything now, except for this brand new one we just added get paid to be a caregiver. So Westchester is in much bigger town. It's where a lot of their clients probably come from or they'd like to have more clients, and now we can see movement there Way more competitive than Malvern where their office is located.
Speaker 1:Alright, this one is another example of less competitive versus way more competitive. So this client has a home care agency in Pikesville. There are offices in Pikesville, but of course they serve the entire Baltimore metro area pretty much. So where they are located in Pikesville, they had a pretty good. This is just July 11, so we've had part of July and all of August and a little bit of September, so maybe not quite 60 days, but somewhere in there they were doing pretty good already. For Pikesville, right, we've had them come up, maybe a little bit. But if you look at some of these other keyword phrases, they were kind of nowhere to be found, except for maybe nursing home care, which is ridiculous because they're not a nursing home. I don't know why I put that in there. It should be home care, nursing or something like that Anyway. So they have a lot of holes here and not very much action. So now we've got them for Pikesville coming all the way up to the first page for more keyword phrases, and they're on the move.
Speaker 2:Are they also on the map now?
Speaker 1:Yes, all of these little icons are map icons. So, in other words, if you see that little picture, that little icon, that map icon or that place icon, that means you are listed on number one in the maps. I'd have to go back and look at everybody who's in the maps. There's a bunch of little icons that mean things. Some are knowledge panels, some are you know, people have other questions like this and you're in there. I mean, those are great places to be found, but maps is where everybody pretty much wants to be. Sometimes we find that we're above the maps, which is weird, but that does happen too.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is the other example of that They've. You know, only we've started down this road with them for the last 45 days or so, but you can see that Baltimore oh, my goodness, they're not located in Baltimore number one. They don't have an office there, but they want to rank for Baltimore. Well, this is going to take a lot longer. So you can see, when we first started July 11th, they were for personal care at home Baltimore, because that's in their name, by the way. They were like eighth page of Google. But if you look at September 8th now we can see we're starting to get a little traction, albeit not much, but we're starting to get there. And the more we work on the word Baltimore, the closer we're going to get them to the first page of Google for these keyword phrases. So that's kind of the difference between not as competitive and where you're located, versus very competitive with no office in that area, and that's it. That's everything for SEO.
Speaker 1:I just want to show you guys those, those case studies. That's great. Now we're going to talk about September. We've got time? Yeah, well, we about five minutes. Okay, so well, you can do this part, because you know this better than I do.
Speaker 2:September we saw Rebecca's. September is fall right, it's beginning of fall. It is also National Fall month, fall Prevention month. So we came up with these little handouts and we also have socks so you can like you saw Rebecca attached them. The socks are individually wrapped, which is nice. So, like these socks, we're going to prevent falls. Our services can help to prevent falls. They have little grips on the bottom, so they're preventing falls also.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. What's the next one? It's also rehab week. So we talked about doing an ice cream social at the rehabs. You're not going to do this with all the rehabs, of course, that would get to be a lot and be expensive, but pick two or three. It's week of September 18th through the 24th. You can go to your favorite SNFs. You can go to some that maybe haven't referred and do an ice cream social.
Speaker 2:It's also National Assisted Living Week, september 10th through the 16th. This is assisted livings logo. This is their theme this year season of reflection. So we say your reflection is an example of empathy and compassion. And along with that we have go ahead Valerie's mirrors and put a little bag, put a string around that, attach it to the little handout and handout mirrors. Everyone loves to have a mirror at their desk. It's a great, great little handout. You get $25 for $13. So not very expensive. For October keeping the person at the heart of collaborative care. It is National Case Management Week, october 8th through the 14th. This is their theme keeping the person at the heart of collaborative care. So we went with that and we either have stress ball hearts and we have these little heart stones. Either one can go out. They're very inexpensive and you can put it in a little bag and attach it to the handout. A little piece of paper to the bag.
Speaker 2:October also we've got Halloween coming up. We need to start thinking about this. In September, you're going to start bringing your referral sources little pumpkins. They're three to four inches big and you're going to bring them the pumpkin and you're going to say we're going to have a pumpkin decorating contest. They're not going to carve it, don't expect them to carve it. They will never carve it. You bring them the pumpkins. You bring them one, two for their facility. They have a month to decorate it. You need to start letting them know that this is coming.
Speaker 2:If it were me, I would start handing this flyer out now and I would start drumming up this. I would send them emails. I would get it in my newsletter. We're going to be doing this. When they've decorated their pumpkin, they're going to send you a picture of the pumpkin and that's going to be via text because we want their cell phone number. We want to be on a texting basis with the referral sources. When they have a discharge and they have your cell phone number and they can text you, they're going to call you, they're going to text you because you're easy to get a hold of.
Speaker 2:They can win whatever. You want this handout. There's a Google link here and a Canva link. You can take out what they're going to win very easily. Go ahead, valerie. I think there's more. These are called Weeby Little Pumpkins. That's the official name. If you go to a farmer's market to get them they have them at Walmart usually as well.
Speaker 2:Start handing them out first of October. Start telling them that this is coming now. First of October, you start handing out the pumpkins. You can do this two ways. You can hand out one pumpkin per facility or you can go with 15, 20 pumpkins and sit down with their residents and help their residents decorate. If you're going to do that, you need to supply everything, including the decorations, pumpkins and the decorations. They're not going to have decorations. Play some creepy Halloween music, get some cookies and sit with their residents and decorate and invite the social worker, if it's in a sniff, invite the director of nursing, if it's in assisted living, let them see you do this with their residents. Some examples of people who have participated through the years I've done this every year and I'm telling you the referral sources are like are you doing it again.
Speaker 2:Make sure we're included. That was so much fun last year. Make sure, of course, you want this all over your social media, in your newsletter, on your website, all the good things. There's more examples, valerie, as you click through. People get really creative. It was really fun for them. Some even invited children to help decorate. These are Rebecca's from last year and she said she has some referral sources already asking her if she's going to be doing this again this year. That's how much they love this. It's just fun. It brings some fun into their day. You're getting their cell phone number and they just see you in a different way. You're more of a partner, not just this person that does home care. I think there's some more, valerie. Oh, here we go.
Speaker 2:November leave behind. Home care and hospice work hand in hand. It is National Home Care and Hospice Month in November. We're turning your frown upside down. We have a couple of different things that you can say here.
Speaker 2:Lisa created a poem. We have go ahead. It's the next one for this Hospital care month. The recipe of caring. She's got the ingredients and then it's best served warm. You could bring this with some cookies. It could be really a warm and touching kind of thing as well.
Speaker 2:You've got a couple of choices for hospice and home care month. The next one these are some leave behinds that you could attach to either for the hospice and home care. These are just really nice, inspirational, thoughtful things on the bracelet. Of course, I always hand out this turkey one time. They keep these at their desk. They're turkey stress balls for November and you can put your logo and phone number on them. This is the handout. Don't be a turkey in stress over discharges. We can help you and you just tie this around his little neck and they get it out every year. Every year I see them put it out on their desk.
Speaker 2:This is a little more expensive. I think it was like $1.70. The link is down here on the left to go see how much they cost. Super fun, they love these. People were asking do you have any more turkeys? We didn't buy a lot because they were expensive. They're like $1.70. I don't like to spend over a dollar. We did this actually two years because people were asking so much. Two years, we did this. What's the next one?
Speaker 1:Oh no, there we go.
Speaker 2:This is a huge poster. It's 48 by 63. They have different themes. They have a beautiful one for Thanksgiving. They can print whatever you would like them to print. Over the poster you can have your logo added and this says approved senior network is thankful for all you do at ABC sniff.
Speaker 2:I just came up with names. What I would do with this poster is only give it out to maybe one or two places. They're going to hang it in their lobby or in their break room Coloring is so therapeutic and their staff will do it or people in the lobby will color this. You have to supply the markers, you have to supply the tax to get it hung up on the wall. It'll just sit in a drawer. If you don't. What I would do is color in my words approved senior network and thankful for. I would color that in a bright orange, a bright red, a bright something. So everybody knows where this poster came from. Then everybody else just walks by. It's up the whole month of November and they walk by and just maybe I'm going to color the pumpkin and somebody else is going to come in and color something else. Very therapeutic, very fun. Those are the handouts. We ran a little bit long today. We'll be starting to work on December here pretty soon.
Speaker 1:Next week we'll do our drawing for October giveaways. We'll do our call out for October. Who wants to participate? Some of the October? I'm not sending pumpkins, it'll be something else for October, but we'll figure it out Next week. If you raise your hand, we'll put you in the hat, pick your name and we'll do our drawings and send out some goodies for October Stuff that you can do all month long. All right, that's it. Thank you everybody. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for being here. We will get the replay up with all the links and everything at ASAP. Thank you everyone.
Speaker 2:Have a great weekend. Bye, bye, bye.