Hospice is a difficult concept to market. More than any other home care service, hospice agencies must educate to market. Agencies need to educate both the patient community and the medical community. Many people have heard of hospice, but they really don't know what it means or what it can provide them. Physicians and other clinicians need constant reminders of the hospice service options available to their patients. Many clinical referral sources need to be continually reminded about the guidelines for a hospice admission.
So how does an agency properly, easily and frequently market to both the patient and medical community? With the newsletter. Newsletters offer mass appeal and allow hospice agencies to consistently market to their referral sources and patient community. That consistency is important, as studies show that every month an agency doesn't market to a client, that client loses 10 percent of their interest in ever doing business with that agency again. Agencies get a lot of bang with the educational newsletter: Newsletters create top of mind awareness of the agency and its services, serve as a delivery system for education, is a perfect vehicle to introduce new services and specialty programs, strengthen the agency's relationships with clients, and position the agency as an expert.
Creating, printing and mailing out newsletters is a fairly easy process today with so many print companies able to do the work for the agency. Of course, agencies need to find a marketing company that caters to the hospice industry to guarantee the newsletters contain relevant information relating to hospice and the right mix of marketing information to sell the agency. When done right, the newsletter automatically stimulates referrals, builds rapport, strengthens customer relationships, and - most importantly - creates an ongoing steady stream of referrals.
Newsletters ideally should contain articles that educate on end-of-life care, including the role of hospice in disease management. Constant education about hospice is a necessity, as the role of hospice is often misunderstood, even among the medical community. Popular topics include tips for the caregiver, advice on referring to hospice, instructions on preparing advance directives, and articles that educate on the emotional, physical, social, and spiritual support that hospice provides.
In addition, there should be a spot in the newsletter for an agency to list its services and any other information it wishes to promote. For instance, some agencies may choose to include a spotlight on a referral source in article form or question/answer segment. A referral source spotlight offers great publicity for the agency and is guaranteed to boost referrals because when one referral source trusts an agency enough to refer to it (as evidenced by their feature in that agency's newsletter), others will follow suit. Patient/family testimonials and articles about employees going above and beyond for the patient are other popular promotional pieces to include in the newsletter.
It's more important than ever that Hospice agencies educate the community about its services. The newsletter will appeal to both the patient and medical community while promoting the hospice agency that delivered it.
Author Resource:-
Adam Bishop is founder of HomeCareNewsletters.com - Personalized Newsletters in just a few clicks! This referral-boosting tool helps home care agencies build a fence around their customers and keep their patients, clients, and referral sources coming back again and again.
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