Creating a 3 step model to integrate Activities with your Marketing Process can give you that time.
You may already know that marketing refers to ‘activities undertaken by a company to promote the buying or selling of a product or service’ and includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers.
Does that feels very business and entrepreneurial focused and not about resident care at all.
But, with the idea in mind that ‘Marketing includes delivering services to customers’, who in care homes are our residents or service users and by extension telling people about our services is a fundamental of marketing.
My point is if your marketing is a stand-alone action it may never become a priority.
You may always put marketing on your ‘To Do’ list but you never seem to have the time to get to it.
We can all be guilty of putting off Marketing and it can be overwhelming and even induce feelings of embarrassment or that we are not being authentic within the care sector, but marketing your care home doesn’t have to feel like that.
So if you have any of these thoughts:
“I can’t do this,”
“I don’t have time”,
I have too much to do”
“I have no budget for marketing,”
“I don’t know how to market,”
“I don’t know who I should be marketing to,”
“I have more important things to do”
It may be time to take a different approach.
At the end of the day if marketing is not an integral part of you management you are reducing the likelihood of people finding out about your care home and the services you provide and that ultimately reduces the number of people you deliver care to.
Linking it to your Current Activities schedules can insert marketing into one of the core services you provide.
Every care home should have an individualized, well thought out activities programme as this is at the heart of a quality life for residents in care homes and a good activity programme can be creative and stimulating for the mind, indeed the health and well-being benefits of a good programme are becoming more and more documented.
Your 3 Step process.
As part of care home management, I have always placed an emphasis on activities being a core part of service delivery that supports a stimulating meaningful quality of life.
But, I won’t pretend that I immediately saw the link between activities and marketing. However, it was not long before I realised the role an active and interesting Activities Programme had in delivering an effective opportunity to market the services we delivered.
I have broken this down into 3 Key Levels or Steps
Level One
Day to day activities that centre around personal assessments and that are documented within individual care plans.
These are often very person centred and can refer to both specific individual activities as well as group ones.
Level Two
Daily and Weekly Schedules that provide structure to an activity programme. These are based on the individualised assessments and care plans and can demonstrate the why behind the activities delivered. So for example, a care home can demonstrate that it is not just a case of ‘it is Wednesday so it must be Bingo!’. Individual activity plans can be referred to and the activity logs demonstrate a link. Activity Plans are well published on posters throughout the care home and in Newsletters or booklets and discussed at relative and residents meetings.
Level Three
The final level includes those ‘over and above activities’ that provide the opportunity to deliver more of an Entertainment or Events Programme. Often this can be created as an annual planner taking into account national/international themes such as Easter; Halloween; Christmas; as obvious dates. However, a successful events programme will include a range of different themes, the important thing is to plot these events for at least a 6 month schedule to allow for maximum planning. These are the wow events that get people talking.
Creating these 3 Distinct Levels or Steps within your Activities Programme supports Marketing
Level One supports your evidence on how you deliver person centred care, a key deliverable.
Level Two shows how your care home promotes and delivers a stimulating and active life for the people that live in your service . Visitors whether professionals, family and friends or visiting enquiries will see that there is always something going on.
Level Three provides a framework to create an events programme that can be used to create an awareness and opportunity to engage with the local and wider community and other stakeholders.
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