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Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Dawn Fiala, Lisa Marsolais, Annette Ziegler, and Valerie VanBooven RN BSN provide insight into home care marketing strategies. They cover in-person, in-field sales and online marketing every other week. These podcast episodes are part of the Home Care Marketing Mastermind, sponsored by Approved Senior Network®. Find more information at https://ASNHomeCareMarketing.com
Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Holiday Home Care Marketing: The December Window- Urgency, Empathy, Action
The moment you step through the door for a holiday visit, everything feels different: expired food in the fridge, untouched meds, slippery steps, and a parent who seems a little more confused than the last FaceTime. That’s the recognition moment countless families experience in December—and the exact point where a responsive, empathetic home care agency can make all the difference.
We dive into a practical playbook for meeting families where they are right now. You’ll hear how to craft clear, seasonal messaging that mirrors what adult children see—bath avoidance, mobility issues, unpaid bills, loneliness—and offer one simple next step: a same-day safety assessment. We walk through a high-converting email cadence for early December, Christmas week, and post-New Year; social and search strategies that reach ages 45–65; and print leave-behinds designed for referral partners who want tools, not pitches. You’ll also get our winter home safety checklist approach, plus ideas to get you in the home quickly and respectfully.
Beyond marketing, we share community moves that build genuine goodwill and long-term referrals: cookie decorating events with activity directors, elf-style deliveries with small gifts, reading classic holiday stories, partnering with Meals on Wheels, and sponsoring residents who don’t have family. We also outline concrete ways to support current clients through the season—decorating safely, gift shopping, post office runs, worship transport, wellness checks, and caregiver-led connections with distant relatives—so care feels personal and present.
If you’re ready to turn December’s urgency into compassionate action, this guide gives you the words, the assets, and the timing to show up fast and do real good. Subscribe for more timely strategies, share this episode with a colleague who needs new holiday ideas, and leave a quick review to help us reach more agencies ready to serve.
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You guys all know who we are. And since we're starting a little late, we will just leave that there for a split second. We're happy that you're here today. We're excited. This is all going to be about the holidays. Go ahead and switch their net. Um, housekeeping, lines muted unless you're speaking. Share any stories, experiences, tips that you have. Ask questions. We want this to be an open forum. You can always use the chat feature. Lisa will send us a little chat, or maybe she already did. That's the chat. If you don't feel like talking and you want to ask a question there, feel free to do that. Make recommendations, tell us what you want to know. We we love to speak to you about things you're interested in. We have all have a very big background in home care, but there could be things going on that you want to talk about. Please send those in. So today we're gonna talk about holiday marketing strategies for home care agencies. So we're gonna turn those see the family visits into meaningful care opportunities through strategic outreach and education. So our agenda today, we're gonna talk about why holidays drive care decisions, what families notice during visits, how to market your agency during the holidays, referral source engagement, digital and direct campaigns, educational resources, community outreach ideas, supporting your current clients, and then we have some December and January leave behinds. Speaking of leave behinds, before we get started, go on back one, Justinette. We do have a free giveaways. So if you are interested in getting the January Leave Behinds for no charge with all of your colors and your contact information on there, we will send them to you. We'll put you in a drawing to send them to you. But you have to agree to send us pictures so we can share what you did with the leave behinds, where you went, and how what you did with it, what it looked like before without and how to see it. Want to see it? We want to see it. So if that's something you want to do, type in yes in the chat, and we will put you in the drawing and we will let you know probably later today if you win. Okay, go ahead. Here we go. Okay, good luck, everybody. Good luck, yeah. So, why do the holidays matter for home care agencies? A lot's going on during the holidays, and I've been in home care a long time, and I used to get the calls during the holidays. I came home for Thanksgiving, and my mom and dad are not okay. I didn't know they weren't okay until I physically laid eyes on them. I think the seniors are really good at hiding how they feel and what's going on. I had someone call me one time and she said, Yeah, I came home for Thanksgiving. My mom seemed fine. I got up in the morning and she was trying to cut a watermelon with a plate. And so she's she's not okay. And I need someone out here pronto because I'm only here for one more day. So the holidays, they're FaceTiming their parents, they text their parents, they talk on the phone, but until they're physically in front of them and they see that all the refrigerator in or the food in the refrigerator is expired, or they have a 30-day med set and none of it's December 20th and they've taken no meds the whole month. Like they don't really know what's going on. So when they come home to visit or go see their parents, that's when they're like, oh my goodness, they have that recognition moment of I didn't realize how bad they were. And they have an urgent need for solutions. So if you are manning, womaning the phones during the holidays, they must be answered live, guys, nighttime, daytime. You gotta answer these calls live because it's crisis right now. It's going to be more crisis driven than the rest of the year. Um, so December can bring consistent, consistently brings a surge of inquiries from adult children who have just visited their aging parents. It creates a critical window of opportunity for your agency. So you need to be ready to be out there because many of them want to meet somebody from the company before they leave. They want the services signed for before they leave. Some of them even want to meet the caregiver before they leave town. So it is a very quick and you got to be ready for that. Okay, next slide, Annette. So the holiday recognition moment. So what triggers that realization? Everything I just talked about. They're seeing their parents in a very different way, not through the weekly call, not through the FaceTime. They're physically in their space. They see mom struggling with mobility. The house isn't tidy, and mom's always been really tidy. There are clues and hints that things are not okay. And there's an emotional shift then. They go from I'm here for the holidays to enjoy my mom and dad to worry, urgently, guilt, overwhelming desire to find help immediately. And so that's where you can come in. And it's really important then that you have smart, it's a really good time for smart, timely holiday marketing, which makes all of the difference. So all of your marketing, feed on the ground marketing, social media, newsletters, blogs on your websites, all of it should be talking about this and catching them where they are in the moment. Okay, Annette. So what help children notice during the holiday visits? Cognitive and memory changes. And it's good for you to know this so you can target your messaging. So increase forgetfulness or confusion. And it's interesting because if mom and dad are both still alive, they cover for each other. I'm noticing this in my in-laws. My mother-in-law's just a little bit of memory. She can't remember certain things. And I'll see my father-in-law jump in and won't even let her answer a question because he can see that she's struggling. They can't fake this in person. Like this is something that they're noticing. They're having difficulty following conversations. Maybe there's daily living strugglings, difficulty with basic tasks like cooking or bathing. Many seniors just quit bathing. They don't want to bathe. It's cold, they're scared, it's uncomfortable. And so when the adult child comes home and notices that they're not bathing, that's also can be an issue. That was actually a pretty big one. And now that I and Lisa, did you see that? Yes. Now that I'm thinking about it, it's like my mom's always been well kept and she's just not. She has her hair is oily, she's not washing it. That tends to be, that tended to be a really like a normal call during the holidays. Home health management, maybe they haven't opened any of their mail, they have unpaid bills, missed medications, empty prescription bottles, weight loss, poor nutrition, safety and maintenance concerns, unsafe during winter conditions, maybe they have icy steps or poor lighting, a home that's not being maintained the way it was before, or signs of loneliness or depression. These are all things that are important for you to know. So you know how to gear your conversation, gear your marketing, gear your flyers that you're taking out in the field, all of that, this is going to help you with that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. I think painting that picture and you are the you understand that all these things are happening and this is what you're noticing as the adult child. Now, how do we help you with that?
SPEAKER_03:And how do you reach families when care concerns arise? So share content that matches what they're seeing. So the last slide was all the things that they're seeing. So your what you're carrying out in the field, your social media, your blogs, everything that you're putting out into the universe, into the world needs to address those things. Fall prevention tips, medication management reminders, nutrition guidance, holiday stress resources specifically for family caregivers. Speak directly to their concerns. So are you noticing changes during your holiday visit? You're not alone. If mom wasn't doing as well as you expected, we can help. Holiday peace of mind starts with professional safety assessment. We understand how difficult it is to see your parents struggling. Make your presence known everywhere. So social media, targeted ads on platforms adult children use daily, email campaigns, educational materials physically distributed out to your referral sources. Offer simple, fast next step. So whenever you are on the phone with anybody, we've talked about this a million times, you're doing a service inquiry and you're trying to get them to schedule an assessment. It should always be for this today, anyway. That's how you get in the door. That's how you're the first one. I'm actually in your area today at three o'clock. I mean, that I used to say that all the time, even though it's clear across town. Because you get in the door and you've got to get in the door. They need the help anyway. They're calling for a reason. It's no different with the holidays. It's probably even more pressing because, again, people are here for a short time. Many seniors will not make this decision without their children involved. Let me talk to my daughter, let me talk to my son. I'm not sure. So the holiday is perfect because everybody's already there. The whole family's together in one place. The adult children can participate firsthand. Family can make decisions together. There's real-time observation and multiple perspectives this way. Because many times it is my, I don't know what my daughter would think about this. Let me talk to her. And then they never call their daughter, and you don't know how to reach the daughter. So the holiday really is a great way to get this started. So we came up with a holiday and winter home safety checklist for you guys. I was gonna or Nat, I guess you can click on it and pull it up with the little link here.
SPEAKER_02:And we're gonna send you these PDFs with this link.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so you'll have the link. And so this is a safety checklist that you can send out in an email blast. You can bring it to your referral sources to give out to their patients. You can offer to come into the home and do the safety check yourself. And this is a great way to keep track of what needs to be looked at. So this can be used in all you can put it on social media. Hey, let we'll come out and do a free home safety check. This gets you in the home. And many times you get in the home and it's oh my goodness, they should have had home care five years ago. I've been in several homes like that. So this can be the way that you get in the home. There could be social workers in skilled nursing, mom's going home, daughter's here now because it's the holidays, and the daughters, I just don't think she's safe at all. I'm just not sure. But when the social worker sees that you've given, they're gonna talk about this to them. Oh, I have someone that'll come out and check the home. So you don't have to be the one to tell your mom that when there's extension cords running through the living room with throw rugs over the top of them, that's not safe. Like the daughter can't always broach that conversation with mom or dad. So you get to be the bad guy, you can come in and do the checklist. Offering to do a safety checklist, even not during the holidays, is a great way to get into the homes. Annette, Lisa, do you guys have anything to add to this?
SPEAKER_00:No, I just this just like you said, this is a great way to get in the home, talk to them about your services. We are gonna send you the PDFs with this, but just a reminder to make it your own, you're just gonna hit file, make a copy. Okay, and then you will be able to edit this leave behind that Lisa made for you and put your logo. I just think in Christmas time, I mean, I worked in home care and I would get so many calls from families. They were visiting, that was their time that they could all be together. I think bringing this to the assessment or meeting with the family is also a really good thing to do because a lot of times the kids think, oh my gosh, my mother has all these rugs and all these crazy things going on. You can go through this list and talk to them about everything that maybe is a little dangerous in their house. Yeah, but we have a chat here.
SPEAKER_03:Let's see. Tess said, I just did this morning. The daughter appreciated as they've mentioned moving a small table for their mom, and she was resistant. Um, yet she heard what I said and moved it. Yeah, it takes that third party, that person who's not related to come in and suggest something. And so it's great because it's by category. So, like it's all the different areas of concern throughout the house. So this is a great thing. You can just hand it all out to your referral sources and get your contact info logo on there, and they can hand it out for you to their residents if it's assisted living. Of course, they shouldn't be in an unsafe environment. Mostly, probably your skilled nursing facilities and independent living would be a great place for this.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You'd be surprised at what people think is okay because they've for years, right? And so you come in and go, but wait, and they go, Oh, yeah, that is pretty unsafe. Or yeah, I did fall. I have fallen before and I've tripped over that rug 10 times.
SPEAKER_03:Have you guys seen the extension cord running across the house with the throw rugs? Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03:It was just an Arizona thing that I've seen it.
SPEAKER_00:Or the dog cords where they have three or four dogs and all the chains are hanging all over and hoarded houses. We've seen it, I've seen it all. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So you guys will have access to that. The link is there. You'll also get a PDF of the slides for you, because these links are active in the slides that you get.
SPEAKER_01:I'm so this is probably a lot of what you guys already have in your assessments, things that you're looking at, but this is just a really great way to have it just in one thing and be able to leave it behind or take it to families and use it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a great thing. And if you don't have snowfake flakes where you are, you could put sunshine or little flamingos with Santa Hats. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Something else there. Okay, marketing or home care agency during the holidays. Use holiday themed messaging everywhere. Your ads, websites, social media, email campaigns, printed flyers should speak directly to the emotions families are experiencing during the holiday season. They need to be real, it needs to be relatable to them. So holiday peace of mind is relatable because they're not peaceful right now. They're stressed out about mom and dad. Noticing changes during the holiday, we understand we can help. Support for travel, support for seniors while families travel. Sometimes the family leaves, maybe senior lives with them, but the family leaves for the holidays and the senior stays home because they're not healthy enough to travel. In that case, they need a caregiver to stay with them. Safety focus, holiday safety checklist available now. So schedule before you head home. So that's another thing. You could even just post that. Well, come in and do a safety check of your home on your social media and see if you get any bites. The targeted messaging creates relevance that makes families immediately connect your services to what's going on in their lives right now. So that's the whole point of it. The context gives you marketing, gives your marketing natural urgency and emotional reassurance that this is the right thing to do.
SPEAKER_02:There you go.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, holiday marketing campaign examples. So there's digital advertising, create targeted campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and Google that reach adult children ages 45 to 65 in your service area. Print materials, develop postcards, liars, brochures, and holiday themed that referral partners can distribute to families. So that checklist is a great one. Add copy. And so we've given you some copy examples of things that you can say. And then your distribution channels. You have senior living communities, medical office and clinics, physical therapy centers, discharge planners, church bulletins, communities. So there's a lot of places that you can just link at the city with all of this. And they'll think they really get it, they really understand what I'm going through. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I even had a couple of our clients recently who have uh made some changes on their website with holiday themes, holiday specials or sales. I want to say they're not really sales, but a special on care. And that's a really great way for anyone who's finding your website, being able to see, oh, exactly what's right there. It's a cool pop. I've been seeing that recently too, which I think is really cool.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that is a really good idea. So run your holiday social media campaigns, holiday safety tips, senior loneliness awareness, before you travel, reminders, gift ideas for seniors. We had gift certificates where I worked where people could buy care. They could buy the home care and give it to somebody as a gift. They could buy five hours, 10 hours, 12 hours. And a lot of times the adult children would do that. They would say, Mom and dad will live this care. They won't let me pay for it, but I know they can't afford it. Every birthday, every Christmas, every everything, they would be gifting them home care. And the parents liked it. That's also if you don't have a gift certificate, that might be something to think about doing as well. That's a great idea. You can use relative hashtags like holiday caregiving, senior safety, family caregivers to expand your reach. Lisa, were you gonna say something? No, I think I just said that's a great idea.
SPEAKER_01:Having it like a gift certificate, that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, it was pretty cool. And we would give them out sometimes to the referral sources. Yeah, that's a great discharges for giving you a five-hour free home care. Of course, they still need to sign an agreement because you need to have that agreement in place, even though it's free for them. They still need to sign.
SPEAKER_01:But that's a great way to just bring it forward and say, here you go, here's care. You don't have to do anything but obviously sign an agreement. You already have it. Here you go. Let's try it out and see what you think of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the social workers liked having that to give to someone too that maybe didn't have any money, but we did some help after discharge. Love it. All right, another send strategic holiday email campaign. So we've got three emails here for you. So early December, so that would be now. Holiday safety checklist for aging parents. And so we've got the checklist done for you. You can throw in an email, it can be downloadable and send it out. Email two is the week of Christmas, noticing changes during your holiday visit. So this is talking all about the things that you're noticing about mom and dad that seem off or about the home. And then email three is after the new year. So start 2020, oops, say 2026. We've got mine, schedule a free assessment. And so maybe they've already been through the ringer with mom and dad, they're home now, and it's still bothering them. And so you're sending another email, or maybe you talk to them, and mom and dad don't do the assessment right now. You've got to you've got to target these to the right people at the right time. But I think they can be really powerful to stay out in front of them. Educating prospects and referrals. So creating effective educational materials, the most powerful strategy is equipping your referral partners with materials they can proactively distribute to patients, residents, and families before the holidays arrive. So this checklist is great. Again, we've got the link here for you. It makes the material effective, is that you're not being pushy, right? These are action-oriented checklists. You're not really asking for anything from them. You're just trying to help. It's easy to distribute and it's just professional and warm. And hey, let us help you. Let us help your patients. Let us help. It's you're not being pushy and give me all your all of your patients. You're just offering to help. And your distribution strategy, meet with referral sources and provide them with stacks of your educational materials. Explain that these are tools to help their patients, residents stay safe during the holidays. So this is a great way to educate them and that you really care too during the holidays. You just want them to be safe. So you're willing to go in and do the safety check.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And we and this will get you right in front of that social worker too.
SPEAKER_00:And we always talk about having something different to go out and talk about. A lot of I've hear from a lot of people that take the sales training class with us. Oh, November, December, it's the holidays, nobody wants to talk to me. But you're going out there targeting it's the holidays. Families are going to be home. We have a winter safety checklist. I used to see get a lot of referrals at Christmas time. I'd get those calls from those families that haven't seen their mom or dad for a year. So it's a good time. But if you go out with this targeted messaging, I think it definitely helps you and you have a reason to stop by. Totally agree.
SPEAKER_01:It's a great opportunity. The holidays are a great opportunity. Don't stop your marketing just because everyone else is that you should even be getting it harder.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, this is the time to put your foot on the gas. Many people are like, I'm not going to be able to get in front of anybody anyway. I don't need to, I'm not just not going to go because everybody's out on vacation. You know what? When you go, you're going to get to see the social worker because nobody else is going. It's a really good time to like slide under the radar. And with the safety checklist, you have a purposeful, timeful thing. Like they need to look at it now because it's regarding the holidays. And the holiday hangout family visit safety checklist. So you've got your there's a home safety inspection you could do. Or actually, I think this is more for the family. So there you could do it too, but you got to be careful with the health and medication review. But so there's a home safety inspection you could do, health and medication review. Maybe these are just things you give to the adult child. You could certainly look to see if medications are expired. We just have to be careful with the medicine because we're non-medical. Most of us are non-medical. Nutrition and hygiene assessment, cognitive and emotional wielding. You could offer to go in and do all of this and just kind of check these little each little box. Offer to go in and do this as a free kind of thing, and then report back to the adult children and maybe care start. So this is another angle, another way to look at it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And checking that refrigerator for spoiled food. How many times did you walk in a new client and they had things from 10 years ago? Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Crazy years.
SPEAKER_03:I think the biggest one was 23-year-old can of soup. Oh my gosh. 23 years expired. Yeah. Crazy. I thought it was like 10 years old. But at least open, it's fine. Oh, sure. Yeah, that's exactly what they think. Oh, it's fine. And the thing is, seniors really like their soup. So if they open one of those expired ones, it won't be good. So building relationships through holiday giving, you can also, it's another good idea during the holidays, sponsor a senior at a skilled nursing facility. So this would be a long-term care resident, probably. It could be a short-term person that's going to be going home too. So one of the most meaningful ways to build referral relations during the holidays is connect directly with those social workers and ask that they have any residents, social workers, they would be patients actually, who could use a little extra holiday cheer. Whether it's a senior with no family, someone going through some tough time, a resident patient who could simply use a small pick-me-up. Social workers know exactly who would benefit. So if you're in assisted living, they're residents, you're going to probably talk to the director of nursing. If you're in skilled nursing, you're going to talk to the social workers about their patients. Usually in a skilled nursing facility, you have long-term side, short-term side, long-term side are people that live there. They get lonely. They have people never come visit. So maybe you're going to sponsor one of them, or maybe somebody's discharging. They've been there a couple of weeks and they're discharging and they're very lonely and need something. So lots of different angles and ways to do this. So you'll just reach out to whomever it is to build a relationship, offer to sponsor, um, let them choose who it is, follow their guidance on what they need most, and deliver thoughtfully with a warm, personalized note from your agency. I used to for skill nursing facilities, it was called, I don't know where it came from, but I followed the lead on some national thing. And it was a shoebox full of toiletry stuff. And so I would collect toiletry stuff from all over and I would put it in individual shoeboxes and give this skill nursing facility 20 of them. Or assisted living typically didn't need it. And senior centers liked that. And it was just toiletries, it was all the things that they needed to go home and just have in front of them. That's something that I did for a few years too, that really went over well. So sponsoring is a really great idea this time of year. And again, it's going to get you in front of the right people, and you're not trying to sell anything, you're not trying to sell your services or do anything like that. You're really just trying to help, which is the whole point of the holidays, is the holiday spirit. And they'll really like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I personally did this. I personally did this every year. And I have to say, it you're not really trying to sell something, but what it did for me, I would contact the social worker and ask her if she had a resident there at the skilled nursing facility that doesn't have family. And she would give me the name and get all the information. I remember this one lady, she loved Elvis. So we went and bought her all this Elvis stuff. And the social worker and I really got close over this. And they actually called the news station. So we were on the news. It was a bright spot on our local news, and they talked about our agency, how every year we pick a resident that needs some holiday chairs. So it was really nice, but it was also, again, another way to get in, create those relationships. I'm not trying, of course, we want to get business from them, but that social worker and I were talking directly because she was giving me the list of everything this person wanted. So I really love doing it every year. And I would dress up as an elf or whatever I wanted to do. But I would highly recommend it. It's a real healing thing to do.
SPEAKER_01:Plus, the social worker gets to see you in action, see your heart, see you stick and move and what you do when you're taking care of someone. So I love that.
SPEAKER_03:All right, Lisa, you're up.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, holiday cookie decorating event. A huge hit. Communities love this. So why this works well. So activity directors at senior living communities are always looking for memorable activities for their residents. Probably their December is full, but it might not be yet. So you still have some time to maybe just ask around. But I think one of the things is when you bring a cookie decorating event to them, you're not just marketing, you're providing genuine value and joy. Yes, I'm reading from the I'm reading from here. This creates positive associations with your agency. So I think if you go out, and we have, I already created a leaf behind for this, but you're gonna want to go and partner with the activity director, talk with the social worker, talk with the director of nursing, wherever you're going out to, and make sure that you're hosting for everybody, staff, residents, and you're including everyone. You can either do this at your location, having an open house for more like for your referral partners. But I think that this idea here is really more for going out to the communities and just doing it decorating and just have fun with it. Post that up on socials, take lots of pictures, make it a big thing, um, and use everything that you can repurpose for your marketing as well for next year and for more folks. But things you need to bring, so pre-baked sugar cookies. And I think I have another slide here where there's a little more information, but frosting in multiple colors, sprinkles, and you're gonna want to have napkins, plates, all of the cleanup stuff too. And then bring festive music, bring Annette the elf, have someone dress up and maybe just help you, maybe a caregiver's there with you. Yeah, or really one of your top-tier caregivers comes out with you and helps you create this and set up for this. And I already mentioned all this stuff. I didn't when I stopped reading off of here, I had it from memory. But so your December Leave Behind Materials. So December 4th, okay, so this is like triple threat, like I said a couple weeks back. December 4th, which is tomorrow, is National Cookie Day, right? So perfect time for decorating or at least going out and like dropping some of these things off and seeing who do you want to target to maybe host an event like this? Pick a couple. And you may strike out because it's already December, but it's okay. Have a couple in the mix ready to go. December 1st through the 7th. So this whole week is cookie cutter week. So you could go out and maybe use your cookie cutters to make some cool little cookies like here in the picture. And then December 19th to 23rd is cookie exchange week. So you can use this flyer again and again for all of these different things. Oh, we have a message here. Okay, bye, Carrie. She had to hop off. But if you click on the links here, the cookie decorating Canva template is there. Boom, it's already pretty much created for you. You can move stuff around here. ABC home care obviously is going to be you. You can decorate cookies, you can bring the cocoa, you can bring the marshmallows for the cocoa, whatever you need to bring to make this event successful for you and the community. And again, you get to show off who you are and how you kind of stick and move and how you deal with situations like this in front of the social worker or director of nursing, depending on where you're at. And here's the here it is, the triple threat. Yep. I'm more I was more used to this slide. The link is trying to coordinate now. You still have some time. And again, you could also use this. We did something similar to this during a rebrand. Um, the rebrand happened right around this season. So what we did is had an open house and we had all of these things. I even decorated the walls, like I decorated so much, but it was a huge success with our rebrand and inviting our referral partners in to just spend some time with them and mingle with them and get them to see who we were. So you can use it for both ways. All right, next slide. Elf deliveries make it fun and festive. I want to say, does anyone know who these elves are? It's all of us. There's Valerie at the end. She's not here right now, but create unforgettable moments. I think they like AI's this. I AI'd a picture and said make us elves, and there we are. So one of the most memorable marketing strategies is go in and dress as Mrs. Claus, Mr. Claus, an elf, something like that, and deliver gifts, deliver holiday treats. It could be cookies, it could be the flyers that I was just talking about, small little gifts for residents. You can go to the Dollar Tree and find some pretty cute stuff there. Yeah. It could be ornaments from the Dollar Tree and you're giving each person an ornament to go and decorate the community tree, little things like that. Or again, I think Don mentioned this earlier, but little personalized cards or thinking notes. This is fun, it's unf it's unforgettable, it's amazing. You're gonna really connect with people and they're gonna see it's not all serious business, but you're really connecting, you're having a good time with it, you're enjoying life and your job. So it would be really cute. I want to see some pictures, Annette, uh of you as an elf.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna say you don't really have to go all out, but you can go to the dollar store. They have little headbands and cute things. You can wear a Christmas sweater and ugly quiz. You could do anything. If you go out festive, you know, they love it, it's be a little festive.
SPEAKER_01:They have the little light up noses right now. They put one of the necklaces that light up. And they have really cool light up ties too, you could just wear just to be really cute. But yeah, definitely anything like that. Just a hat, I was thinking too. But hey, they even have ears now, like elf ears. All right, offer to read holiday stories to residents. How cute is this? So bring out a book that really would just create some nostalgia, like the night before Christmas, and read it. Sit down, plan this, of course, ask for permission, sit down on one of the happy hour evenings or something like that, and just grab a book. Maybe you provide hot cocoa or something like that as well. Of course, make it holiday, make it feel good and festive, make it feel warm, but read a book. I think that is the cutest idea ever.
SPEAKER_03:Something we did, Lisa, was we brought children from my kids' school. And the kids sat down and read the seniors. Yes, that is they absolutely love that. We brought a Girl Scout troop once I brought kids from their school, like just different. And they like to get out and do something fun too during the holiday. Nothing better than the multi-generational piece of that. So that's another if you don't want to sit and read with them, you could always have some kids do it. They absolutely love the children being there.
SPEAKER_01:Adorable. I've actually too have taken my own children out to lots of different places when I was in home care, and they've got some stories.
SPEAKER_03:Mine do too, yes. The kids love it though, most of the time. There's some things sometimes. I don't know, my daughter got called a cheater when she called bingo. It was not trivial.
SPEAKER_02:I remember that story actually.
SPEAKER_03:But most of the departments were she also ran. We also had a professional ballet person, ballerina, in one of the facilities, and she taught my daughter how to spin. And so there's good and some other things that could happen. But the kids love it, the seniors love it. It's a great way to do the holidays too.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. 100%. Bringing the kids in is great because holidays are for the kids. Christmas is for the kids. All right, community presence and outreach during the holidays. I'm just not used to these slides yet. Host the holiday senior safety workshop. This is great. You could bring your checklist in, and I don't know how much it would apply in actual, like an assisted living, maybe, but if they're getting ready to go home, like a short-term sniff or something like that, be a great way to talk about safety going home. Sponsor crafts at communities, get on their calendar. You could even do stuff like donating paper and pens and crayons and things like that. Donating things. You don't have to necessarily be there to do a craft, but a lot of the times they do like to have some kind of hands-on someone to help. This is it's a great way, again, for the social worker or director of nursing to see you in action, see how you do things. People have to go. Partner with local meals on wheels, another excellent way to make sure folks are getting their eating, being a resource there too. I guess getting in the home and seeing if someone isn't eating regularly, or like you said, expired foods and things like that. That's one way where you can start if there's no like next of kin or someone to speak with, but partnering with local meals on wheels is great. And or organize a food or coat drive, or like you said, the shoebox idea. That's a great, that's a great way. There's another one that's a shoe box. I forget who does it, but it's shoebox for kids. And you go and you pick a kid and you pick the gender and age, and then you go buy gifts and put them in a shoebox and wrap the shoebox up. I forget who it is right now, but it's a great way to make sure that everyone gets something burnt for Christmas and for the holiday. So all of these are really great. Do you guys have anything to add to this?
SPEAKER_00:I would I did the meals on wheels. I was gonna say I contacted our local meals on wheels and we did a flyer. They would deliver the meals every week, and they allowed different agencies or companies to put a flyer in with a little snack. So we put a flyer with all our agencies' information, and this would be great doing it at Christmas time and doing the holiday checklist. But these people are homebound, most of them. I used to deliver that too. I was a volunteer delivering them, and these people just sit in their house and they don't see anybody. You might uh reach somebody that says, wow, okay, I can get some extra help at home. So I think that's a great way to get your agency recognized and what you offer to these seniors that are stuck at home in their home, in their households.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's yeah, I want to go out to every single one of them and I don't know. Do some caroling or I don't know what, just give them a hug. Supporting your current clients during the holidays. So don't forget about those folks that we already are engaged with during the holiday season, holiday decorating assistance. This kind of ties into the four leave behinds that are like the elf, the four weeks of Christmas. So week one is like holiday decorating. Who's gonna put up the the star on the top of the tree? Definitely not the senior. We're gonna do that, or something that's safe, obviously. Shopping. They still want to go shopping or give you a list to go shopping, but they still want to go shopping. They want help with the gift wrapping, they want to go and take the packages to send to their grandchildren to the post office. And do they want to go and worship that day? There's different times the day of Christmas, the day before Christmas, calling family, getting in touch with family that they haven't talked to in a little while, and doing like a Zoom or something like that, FaceTime, holiday wellness checks, of course. Let's check in on make sure if you haven't heard from someone or they're canceling shifts, just make sure that they're okay. Do a pop-in, do a pop-in and make sure check in with family if you have access to the family, the special holiday meals. A lot of the time you can help them prepare at home, but a lot of the time too, like Thanksgiving. We used to, there was one company I was working for where we did a Thanksgiving meal where caregivers and clients were invited in. And a lot of the time the caregiver and the client would come together. So you could do something like that too. You still have time to be able to organize something like that as well. But just taking care of them is a great way to show that you care, not just about the new biz, but the current biz too. And then these are the leave behinds I was talking about. Home care for the holidays. If you don't talk about it, people won't know what you do or what it includes. So here I like to mention here that caregivers can help with nutritious meals. Yeah, I know the cookies aren't nutritious, but it's just, or maybe they are. Just talking about that. Your social workers and families need to know that you can help with these things. Again and again, I remember people when I would say we can do meal prep, they would be like, Oh my god, you can? Yay! So I always want to try to mention all of those things because you know, social workers and they know what you do, but they don't know all of the details within, right? Here again, number two, December week two. Here's wrapping gifts and post office trips. People love that. I know lots of seniors who love to still go and do that shopping and find things for their family and then send it off. The next one. This one, I guess I just basically talked about this one too. Who's gonna put the star on the tree? We can help with that. We can help with all these little things. Sleepless nights, maybe we have someone who can be around the clock with you to make things just calm. The holidays can bring up some past anxieties and other things. And so having someone there really can help. So use those. You can change those. Remember, you just go in, click on these file, make a copy. That copy is yours to create whatever you'd like. But really, all you have to do is change the logo and the contact information, and it's super duper easy.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, great. All right, we've got our sales training slide. Uh, we have a lot of people on the call today that are in our sales training. So just a reminder here, we have classes every month. We still have room in our December 10th class and our January classes. We will soon be adding our February classes, 12 weeks, once a week, an hour via Zoom. We have the classes are great. I just had somebody that finished week 12 today. He said a social worker called him and gave him four referrals yesterday. We try and we teach you, Dawn, myself, and Lisa, we were boots on the ground. We did marketing, we know what works, and it's making those relationships. And we try to teach you all the tips and tricks to make you successful. So if you're interested, please let us know. We still have room left in these dates.
SPEAKER_03:And I always like to say Annette moves the class when there's a holiday. So just keep that in mind. September 10th doesn't mean you're gonna be in class. So she's real good about moving things around. So yeah, it's a great class. We've got lots and lots of testimonials on our website. I think there's probably 60 or more now of people who've taken the class and really it's really helped them get those referrals.
SPEAKER_00:Actually, I think Anthony, you're right there. I'm not gonna call you out, but he's the one that just sent in for referrals. Yay, Anthony.
SPEAKER_01:I made him tell the story again because I came in just a little late. Usually on the week 12, I'll come in and pop in just to see how everything went. And I made him tell the story again because I was like, four same social worker, hallelujah. What did you want to call?
SPEAKER_00:That's that might be a record. That's fabulous. Amazing. Great job. Okay, so now we've got the home care marketing story. We'll see everybody in a couple weeks, and hope you guys have a great rest of your day. Bye, everyone. Bye bye. Bye, everybody. Take care.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Bye bye. Thank you, everyone. Have a good day.
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