I recently had the opportunity to talk with the team at Home Care Pulse about the 2015 Private Duty Benchmarking Study. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the study is conducted by Home Care Pulse and the Home Care Association of America. It is an annual survey of every aspect of the home care business. They look at agencies’ revenue, recruitment success, retention strategies, marketing efforts and more. This is the 6th edition of the survey.
Much of this year’s study focused on recruitment and retention as the biggest barrier to home care growth. Home Care Pulse has designated 2015 as the Year of the Caregiver in an effort to help agencies focus on how important it is to attract, orient, and retain the right staff. They tackled the tough topic of being brutally honest with what the job really looks like when you interview candidates. For an industry that saw 53.5% growth between 2009 and 2014, retention is critical to success.
Tips for Growing Your Home Care Business
The survey also revealed what agencies across the country identified as revenue generating activities. Those programs and strategies that helped them to grow their business. Here are a few insights:
- Reputation still reigns. 75% of home care clients chose a home care provider based on what someone else had to say about them.
The top 4 consumer marketing sources identified in this year’s survey were:
- SEO for the 2nd year in a row
- Corporate web leads (for franchises and corporately owned agencies)
- Health Fair Exhibits (does this one surprise you?)
- Senior directories (both online and offline ones)
You can download a digital copy of the report for $299.
And if you need a little extra help creating content that improves your SEO and drives home care growth, shoot us a note! We’d love to help…