Welcome everyone, we're just going to give everyone a few seconds to kind of pull in before we begin. Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to today's HCC Intelligence webinar. Today's webinar is entitled Driving Practice Growth Through Marketing, Media Relations, and Your Community. My name is Sarah Briceux, and I will be your moderator for this event. Before we begin, I do want to cover a few housekeeping things with everyone. All participants are muted upon arrival, but please feel free to use the chat or the question boxes located in your screen to submit comments and questions. This is also going to be a very interactive webinar, so when James or I address that, you can feel free to unmute. Please feel free to do so to keep this a very interactive webinar. Questions that are submitted in the chat box will be answered when we transition into the Q&A portion of the webinar. And lastly, the recording of the webinar from today, the slide presentation, and any supplemental handouts that are discussed will be made available on the HCC Intelligence page within a few days following the webinar. I'd like to begin by presenting our presenter for today. We are joined by James Warda, my colleague and friend, our Vice President of External Affairs and Business Development, and I'm going to go over today's objectives as well. Today we're going to learn how to create a comprehensive outreach strategy to promote your practice through media, marketing, and your community. And then the second objective for today is to learn how to collaborate with your colleagues to drive the growth of house calls and your practices. Lastly, I would like to just discuss what our agenda for today is. We just went over our objectives. Next we're going to go into telling your story. The next topic after that will be sharing your mission, vision, and key messages. And then we're going to learn how to engage the media, how to engage the market, and how to engage your community and colleagues. And lastly, we'll look at next steps. Without further ado, I'd like to transition it to my colleague, James Warda, and we look forward to today's presentation. Thanks, Sarah. I appreciate that. And it's good to have everybody here. This is actually a topic that's really pretty much very dear to my heart. I consider myself a storyteller. I'm a writer by trade. And I think people just happen to, you know, their stories are very compelling. And like if you go and watch any speaker, like any leader, any executive, et cetera, when they start going into a story as part of their speech, everything changes in the room. The energy changes. You'll see people move up to the front of the seats. It's very compelling. So because people want to connect and stories connect, they'll connect you to each other. They connect us to ourselves, that type of thing. So, you know, there will be a couple points throughout this presentation. Really would like to have it be engaging where we'd like to hear, you know, your stories. And Sarah, I may ask you for your stories. I know with your background, I think it'd be very valuable during this, too. So if we can jump to that first slide. There you go. So for those who are on, I'd like you to think about a couple things. And I know we start here with, you know, your practices story, and we're kind of assuming that you work with a practice. You know, you can insert, you can basically just insert organization for the term practice. So you know, what is the story of your practice or organization? But before we get into that, if you can just kind of think about what is your story, right? Because that's what, you know, an organization is simply a group of people, right? Small, medium, large, it's just people, you know, working together in the community, hopefully. And each of those people brings their own story. So, you know, what is your background? What's your experience? What's your passion? I'm kind of assuming you're interested, you're involved in healthcare, you're interested in, you know, home-based primary care, if you're in this webinar, but it doesn't have to be the case. And what brought you here? What's your mission? Because people will feel that. And then that translates into, okay, if a organization, if a practice is just a group of people, and they all have their own mission and passion, right, how does that translate into what is this mission and passion of your practice? So what is it, what is its story? You know, why did it start? What was the need? Who founded it? What was the need? Why does it exist? That's typically why organizations form, right? There's a need. Somebody has a vision, somebody sees a need, and they form the practice. So some of the questions on this slide really apply. So what was the real human need behind that story for you? What is your game changer? So what sets you apart? You know, because obviously there's many organizations out there, we know that. So people want to know, well, what makes you different? What sets you apart? And I guarantee you, I guarantee you that something sets you apart. And it's likely coming from your story. So then also think about, if you want another way of getting to your story, think about what would your patient say? And we're assuming you're in a practice here. So if you're not in a practice, then you just need to apply this to your customers or your systems customers. But what would they do? What would the caregivers do? What would the families do? What would they all do if your practice didn't exist? You know, would they be able to go somewhere else? Does somewhere else even exist to help them? So that's really a key, kind of a key driver of all this. So if we can go to the next slide, Sarah, we've got story and the mind obviously. So this is where we get into some of that interactive piece here. And we've got this set up so that we'd love to get you, you know, if you're comfortable to share your story, a little bit about your story, either in the chat or come on, come on camera. We'd love to hear the story of, you know, your story, maybe your practice's story. And and then we'll we'll we'll go from there. So is there anyone who would like to would like to share that? Again, you know why you started, why you love what you do. Hi. Yeah, I can go ahead and share. Oh, great. We're sure. Anyway, nice to have you here. Hi, thanks. My name is Laura. I'm a nurse practitioner. I started my nursing career in 2002 in LVN school at the county hospital here. And I think one of the things that drove me to start a house call practice was that I didn't really see anybody getting better, you know, long term. They get stabilized in the hospital and sent home or, you know, they have good primary care and they're in the doctor's office every three to six months. But nobody really knows what they're taking on a regular basis, especially supplements. Nobody knows what they're eating. Nobody knows the drama behind getting prescriptions from the pharmacies. You know, and there's a lot of balls that get dropped along the way that just can't be addressed in the eight minutes I have with them in the office. So that's why I ended up giving up the office job. I worked at CVS Minute Clinics for about four years and just really got bored. You know, there's only a limited amount of stuff you can take care of in a retail health environment. So I started my practice right before COVID hit. And that's the whole that's another story. So you started you started your practice before COVID hit and your practice is still going. Yes, I was basically closed through most of 2020. I started October 1st of 2019 in Texas. We're required to still have a collaborative physician. So that took a couple of months and, you know, just all the drama. I really wanted to focus on group classes, patient education, just being able to put somebody's eyes on people a little more frequently than in an office environment. And, you know, when COVID hit, pretty much everything shut down. Even our hours at Minute Clinic were cut. You know, it was it was just crazy, crazy time. I'm not I'm not sure we'll ever really fully recover from all the drama. So hopefully I can continue kind of shifting my practice to meet people's needs and keep them out of the hospital. So that's the goal. So you started your practice and then a global pandemic hit. Yeah, that's it. And as a funny note, I when I first started my hospital nursing career was the year the swine flu hit. So I think I'm going to stop doing new things. It's not good. I think we found the cause here. Yeah, right. It's me. So so I don't know if anybody would like to. So thank you for sharing that. That's a perfect example of what we're talking about. A really powerful story. Is there anyone who would like to, you know, share their own story or tell me what stood out for you about Laura's story? Sarah, how about how about you? What stood out for you from that story? Laura, it sounds exactly like why I started working in the home based primary care sphere, and I actually started on the home health side. It was there's an unmet need. I do not have enough time to actually do everything that I need to do with my patient in eight minutes when I just see them in an office. But when you see someone in the comfort of their own home, you're able to develop a more significant relationship. And when I started with home health, the reason I chose the agency that I did, that I worked for and I was part of their office admin was because of their mission and values. The founder was in my community and I'm a remaining here in the Chicagoland area. And our community is huge. And he saw an unmet need of of people not getting the care that they needed to and the skilled nursing facilities and the assisted living facilities. And so they opted to just go home. But what happens when a patient goes home and doesn't get the care that they need, they end up getting worse and worse and then they get hospitalized. And so he saw that with his own mother and his mother's favorite flower was the aster flower. And so that's what he called this company. And not only did he see a need of patients needing to be seen in the comfort of their own home, but also this aspect of a language barrier. A lot of Romanians in the Chicagoland area don't speak English. And so he was able to work with nurses who are within our community to become part of the team and to be able to translate for people or to be the ones giving the care and doing it in the language that they understand. So, Laura, congratulations on meeting an unmet need. And we really hope that it continues to progress forward. Thank you. I appreciate that. So, Laura, what stood out to you from Sarah's story? I like the the noticing the cultural differences and some of the limitations that people are up against when they're new in a country. We've traveled pretty extensively and know what it's like to be in a country where we don't speak the language. And even if it's only for a couple of weeks or a month at a time, it's very disconcerting. And so when it comes to health care, there's just no way to overestimate the importance of someone understanding where you're coming from. That's a big deal. Perfectly said. You know, it's we do a lot here at HCCI. We do a lot around equity, you know, health equity. And we have another David Crosby and HCCI does a workshops on equity and inclusion. And when you think about the word inclusion, it's about do I feel like I belong somewhere? Right. Yeah. Language is obviously critical to that. But so what I heard in the two stories that really stood out. Was first in your story, Laura, the passion that can get you through a pandemic. You know, passion and perseverance. So if I wanted somebody to take care of me, my loved one, and I need someone who's passionate and who's going to be is going to persevere and going to figure it out and help. And, you know, I know who I'm going to call. From Sarah's story, I heard that again, there is that inclusion, there's that community and there's that little touch, the asking flower. Right. So if I want someone who's got that touch of humanity, you know, my mom's favorite flower, that just tells me a lot. So if I want to feel like a human being and get treated with respect, I know who to call. And and really, that's the whole point of this activity, which is. Tell your story to as many people as possible. Tell your story, tell your practices story to as many people as possible, and then ask them what stood out for you. Because if you keep hearing what stood out for people, that's going to be your cue as to, you know, what should be showing up in your key messaging, what should show up in your marketing, what should show up when you talk to reporters, when you go out and talk in the community. Those are your key messages, because that's what people are resonating with. So if we can go to the next slide, sir. And the next one. Thank you. So I promise you, we are not going to do a mission statement exercise or vision statement exercise today. They are they can be very painful, especially when you have like 20 people in a room trying to come up with your mission. What I will recommend is, you know, if you don't have a vision and mission statement. And again, even if you're a one person nurse practitioner with a practice, you should have these things for yourself, you know. And it all comes from your story, your origin story. You know, why did you begin? You know, the why you began becomes your mission. Right. So the mission is simply, what do you do? For who? And why? And, you know, start with why with Simon Sinek. Why do you do what you do? Because in the tough times, the why is going to be your lifeboat. Right. When global pandemics hit. If you don't remember your why. You're going to be like, you know what? This isn't working. I'm going back. Your why will get you through. And then so as you create your mission statement, you think about this, what people told you, they heard that stood out about your story. You tell this missions, you know, why you're doing what you do, why? For who? And then you remember what most stood out for people. You put those things together. You should be able to come up with a. A succinct mission statement. And when I say a mission statement, it could be as simple as provide home based primary care services for the for the suburb of Cincinnati because there's a real need. And it hasn't been met. I mean, so make and make it human. I was in the corporate world, corporate communications for over 25 years. Don't use corporate ease. Please don't use the word synergize. Please don't use the word synergize. Please don't use the word leverage. Please don't use the word utilize. Use the word use. Just make it human, because if it's not human, it's not going to connect. And that's what you want. You want to connect. And then what is your vision? So imagine, Laura, you've had your practice, you know, going since before the pandemic. If I were to ask you in in the future, in three years on a typical day, what's what is it going to look like for your practice, you know, for your patients, for your caregivers, for your family, for their family members, for your practice staff, for your providers, what will that look like? Because you want to paint that picture. Next slide. Excuse me, I'm battling my allergies. So Laura, if you wouldn't mind unmuting, I'm gonna pick on you a little bit just because your answers are so good. Let's talk about this. I don't know if you have a mission and vision statement, anything like that, and if you don't, that's fine. Yeah, I do. Okay. Do you happen to have them handy? Yeah, yes, I do. I've got them. Now that's, see, that's a great answer. That is a great answer. Yes, I have them and I have them handy. Because I might need them at any time to tell my story, which promotes my practice, which can ensure our success, which means we can serve more patients. Beautiful. Could you share them with us? Sure, that's okay. My mission statement doesn't follow like- Oh, that's okay. It doesn't have to. Traditional guidelines or anything? Yeah. I pulled something together and it's basically my elevator pitch. There you go. We do old-fashioned healthcare with 21st century technology to get people really well instead of just stable. And so if they ask for any specifics, which they usually do, they say, well, I've been dealing with, my blood sugar keeps going up no matter what I do. They put me on insulin and it actually got worse. And so we talk about things like how we manage, help people manage chronic disease so that they can actually learn about the disease process, make the changes in their lifestyle that need to be made and can eliminate some of their medications. I love it. Clear, human communication. And so, I don't know, do you have a, I love having the elevator speech. It's perfect because that's, and it can be an elevator speech, it can be an escalator speech, but wherever you need it, you got it. I love that mission statement. That is excellent. Very catchy, very, very, you could use that in a lot of ways, believe me. Yes, at Chamber of Commerce meetings where I'm just handing out business cards and mints and stuff. That's when I'd give it. Excellent. And in terms of a vision, so three years from now, do you have a vision for what it will look like when you're doing, when everything's really on all cylinders? Yes, it's a little bit longer, kind of drawn out because we have families spread out in like four different states. So eventually my vision will be to have some kind of physical location where people, where patients can come and receive any variety of services. I've seen great success with acupuncture for some things. I use physical therapists, especially once we hit about 50, which I'm there and beyond, it's the strength, balance and flexibility is so important and physical therapists are so well-trained to focus on that. So, it'll be kind of a multidisciplinary facility with all sorts of what I guess you would have to call non-traditional healthcare, but it's still very appropriate, very effective, very evidence-based environments. And of course there'd have to be one in every state because we have people we need to go see. And how will those people who are being cared for by your practice, how are they going to feel? Oh, hopefully, the goal is for them to get off their medications, to not fall or to recover completely if they do, to maintain their independence, and they'll feel good. I think independence is probably a really good, big part of it as our whole culture ages, the independence is a big, big issue. Yeah, control, right? We want our control. Options, yeah. Options, yeah, beautiful. Well, that was outstanding. Sarah, what'd you think of that vision and that mission? I think that's wonderful. And Laura, it just sounds like you've got, everything is laid out perfectly. And Laura, again, I loved your mission, very easy to remember and something that's catchy that I won't easily forget. Oh, thank you, I appreciate it. It's good to hear. Go ahead, Lauren, go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, it's been a lot of work. I'm a one-woman show here, so. You wouldn't know it. Oh, thanks. And that's, see, that's the point, right? So that as you're sharing your stories and marketing yourself, as you're talking to reporters, that you want them to feel like there's a whole organization behind you. And when you just described all that, I couldn't tell. To me, it felt like you had 15 to 20 people working for you. Not yet. But you will, I guarantee it. I will come, we need to talk again in three years because I'm gonna guess pretty strongly that all those things are gonna come true. Hey, yes. Yeah, you made it through a global pandemic, so. Yes, exactly. What else could go wrong, right? Oh God, not gonna lie, okay. Is there anybody else who wanted to share their story? Or their mission and vision? All right. Well, feel free, really, to jump in at any point and go ahead and do that. So we're just gonna keep moving here. Be respectful of time a bit from everybody. If you can back, there we go. So I wanted to give you an example of once you create, once you find your trends, right? Once you create your vision and mission, you're gonna take all that and you're gonna make a, what's a good, I need a, Sarah, I need a good idea for like a dish that you would put together and put everything in it. What would be a good like stew or something? I think of like a beef stew, since there's a lot that goes into that. All right, so we're gonna make a beef stew here. We're gonna make a house calls beef stew. So you take all your, all those trends and everything, and you're gonna be using them to set up, okay, what is the need? You can call it the problem or what's the need? What's the solution? And then what's the overall solution? What's the local solution? And the local solution should be your practice, right? Or your organization. So this is just an example of how that could look. And these numbers are all correct. In the U.S. there are over 7 million homebound adults and those with difficulties leaving the home who need primary care. But 85% of those, over 6 million, 6.5 million, don't get it. They cannot get house calls. And the solution is more house calls, right? To bridge this gap, you know, and improve outcomes, to improve the patient care giver experience, reduce costs, because if there aren't house calls, who are they calling, right? 911, they're in the emergency room, they're getting admitted. We know that story. And then you look at, okay, what's the local solution? So if you were doing a story, if you're talking at the local VFW or you're talking to a recorder in your community and you're setting this up for them, this is the story. Here's the problem. In the U.S. there are over 7 million homebound. You can likely, you can probably get the stats for your own community. If you're ever looking to get that kind of data, you can reach out to HCCI. You can reach out to HCCI. We help practices get that kind of data. But say in Cincinnati, there are over 200,000 people who need house calls, but only, you know, but over 170,000 of them can't get them. We need house calls. So our practice has been offering house calls and we can help with that, right? So visit our website to learn more or call this or email this person. So that kind of sets up how you take all these messages and create your story. Next slide. And next slide, there you go. So once you've got your story, you're going to do a number of things with it. You're going to reach out to the media. You're going to reach out to, you're going to use it in marketing. You're going to reach out to your community because if a tree falls in the forest and doesn't share its story, nobody knows about it. I know that was a weird analogy, but that's what I went with. So once you have your story, you're going to reach out to TV, radio, to podcasts, et cetera, because you want that story out in front of as many eyeballs and in front of as many ears as possible because you never know when somebody is going to need that information. We had a neighbor of ours who, I was out front one day and she came over and her husband had just been in the hospital. She didn't know. Her husband was home. She had no idea what to do, how to get him care. He couldn't leave. She was really just in a bad way. And I said, do you know about house calls? And she's like, well, weren't those like 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago? And I said, yeah, but they're back. And I said, and they're now modern, high tech, high touch. So I said, talk with your primary care provider, ask if they provide house calls. And if not, let me know. We can help you find a provider. And so that's what you want. You want somebody like her not to be distraught. You want someone like her to go, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I heard something about this house call practice. You just want to get in their heads and stay way in the back there. And so that when they need it, for themselves or someone else, they're gonna remember you. And a good thing to remember is, so this third bullet on this slide, because there's different type of media. There's earned media. And it's basically the word earned means, if you want it, you're gonna have to earn it. You're gonna have to go out and get it, right? There's paid media. So that's where if you got the money, you can pay to get that, advertising in the local paper or on social platforms, et cetera. And owned media means I own the channel myself. So your practice's website, your practice's social media platforms, et cetera. So that's the difference. Next slide. So the six steps of a media reach out campaign, right? First of all, you're gonna have to determine your news. And this is tricky because it sounds simple, right? But it really, it needs to be for a reporter, for an editor, for the TV podcast, et cetera. They're typically gonna wanna know what's the news and what is the word in news that we want, new. So what's new? Is your practice launching? Have you added a provider? Are you offering a new service? Those kinds of things. So that's what you're gonna be looking for. What is the news? And you take that and you have your key messages and you're gonna combine them. So after this webinar, there's gonna be a way we'll send you a free media kit. That media kit will include templates for all these things, a press release, an op-ed, sort of opinion editorial, and a letter to the editor. And it'll show you how to create one and how to use them with the media. Now, if you email me to get that free media kit, this is what is not gonna happen. I'm not going to try to sell you anything. I'm just going to send you the media kit. We are always available at HCCI. We're a national nonprofit. We have a lot of resources available on our website, a lot of free resources. We do webinars, workshops. We provide consulting, all that. I'm not gonna try to sell you any of it because I want you to get this media toolkit. I think it's really important. I think it'll help you. And then I do believe over time, you'll see the other valuable stuff HCCI can do for you. So what you're gonna do next, after you've determined your news, you're gonna say, okay, which vehicle am I gonna use? Am I gonna build a press release that says, hey, my practice is launching. Or, hey, Laura now has a physical location for her entire system. She has physical locations. She needed to get that word out. She's gonna build a press release that explains that and why it's important. Or, there's a global pandemic, say, and you have an opinion on what people should be doing. You're gonna write an op-ed or you read something in the newspaper, a newsletter. You read something in the newspaper on a Sunday and you've got a response to it. It's like, you know, I didn't really agree with that or I really did agree with that. Here's my take. That's gonna be a letter to the editor. So you'll be able to use this media toolkit and you'll be able to reach out and do that. I'm gonna give you my email address here at the end of the webinar. If you have questions, email me. You know, we can have a conversation. So once you've determined that, you build a media list and then you're gonna pitch the stories to the media on your list. And basically a media list is simply, who are the reporters and editors in your area? What are the main communication vehicles, right? Thanks, Sarah. Sarah just put my email address in the chat. So what are your local papers? What's the local radio shows that you really listen to? Are there podcasts you're really interested in? So you're gonna build a media list and you're gonna get names and phone numbers and then you're gonna send your stories. You're gonna send whatever vehicle you come up with, the press release, the op-ed, the letter to the editor, to the media. And then you're gonna, hopefully, you'll be taking part in media interviews. And once you do take part in a media interview, once it's published, wherever it's published, you're gonna share that out with your networks, right? And what is the whole point? To get the word out about what you do to those who need it, right? Next slide. So when you do pitch something, and we call it a pitch, if you think about a pitcher, I'm throwing this to you, to a reporter or editor, here's the thing, people don't like to be hard-sold anything. Just imagine, put yourself in their shoes, right? So instead of calling it a pitch, I like to say, start a conversation. So you're gonna probably email your information to them and this is all in the media toolkit. And these slides are gonna be available. But you're gonna start that conversation and then you're gonna give them a week, probably two, depending on how urgent the news is. And then you're gonna call and you're gonna follow up or you're gonna email and you're gonna follow up. And after that, hopefully, the reporter or editor will wanna do your story. Because here's the thing, they need content. You know, you're helping them too. They need content, they need stories. And, sorry. And then you're gonna have a spokesperson in your practice, Laura, in your case, it's probably gonna be you, who's gonna be able to talk to the reporter or editor. Now, the key is, look at that last bullet. You need to understand how busy they are. I'm not saying you aren't busy. I'm sure you're all very busy, especially providing care to patients. But these reporters, editors, typically have a thousand things coming at them from a thousand different places. And they get pitched a lot. So you have to be really ready to work quickly with them. Next slide. So let's say you get a media interview. And I do apologize for this, Bob. I think I need some home-based primary care. Before the interview, if you get an interview with a reporter or editor, you're going to want to Google them. See what they've written, see how they write. Anticipate any questions you might receive, especially challenging ones. And then prepare and practice. And expect the unexpected. So, here's what I would say. People tend to get concerned about working with the media. They tend to get scared, right? Thinking, oh my gosh, what's going to show up? That type of thing. You know, that's very, in my eyes, it's very rare. Most reporters, they're not looking to do any kind of, you know, they're not trying to get you. And especially around home-based primary care or house calls. There's not a lot to get around house calls, you know? Like, oh, let's dig deep and get the secrets on house calls, right? But do remember that everything is on the record. So, whatever you say with that reporter or editor could show up. So, just be aware of that. And make sure everybody in your practice is aware of that. So, just be careful, you know? But don't be scared, just, you know, be mindful. That's all. During the interview, if they're asking you questions, you've already anticipated some questions they might ask. Deliver your messages. Use simple language. If you use stats, make sure they're credible, publishable, or published and citable. Because if you use a stat, the good reporters and editors, they're going to want to make sure there's a place they can link readers to that shows this is a credible, academic, published stat. Like, earlier I said, there were 7 million homebound and home limited. You better believe we have credible, published, citable places that we can send reporters to. If you're doing the interview, don't be afraid of silence. Don't be afraid of saying, I don't know. You can always say, can I follow up with you? You can always send them stuff after the interview. I'm not going to continue to read all these bullets to you. They may likely ask to talk to one of your patients. They may want to do photo shoots with you and your patient, with their caregivers. So my advice would be to have some kind of patient form, you know, that you can get their agreement to be interviewed, that type of thing. And again, you can Google it to see if you can find some templates on that. And again, I am, you're going to have my email address. So worse comes to worse, call me and we'll figure it out together. Because if one of you gets PR, the whole field gets PR. Then the whole point is that all boats rise with the tide. After the interview, then you make sure you send those follow-up resources, make sure you've asked them when their deadline is. That's critical and beat their deadline. The easier you are to work with, the more likely they'll work with you in the past, in the future. And connect them to other practices, you know. We're all in it together. So connect them to organizations you work with. If you can provide public relations and media interplacements for other organizations and partners, they're going to be happy. Hopefully that will, you know, repay the favor. Next slide. Media queries, you may get media calling you. If you put out a press release, there's a lot of press releases out there. So getting media calls from press releases is pretty rare. You might. But if you're constantly posting on social, that type of thing, you might get media requests. If you get a media request. Well, actually before you do, educate your entire practice. Laura, that would mean yourself. So sit down with yourself and explain how important it is to respond to these accurately and quickly. You get one shot typically. If it doesn't go well, if you don't get back to them on their deadline, they're not going to use it. And they probably won't come back to you. Identify somebody, speak to them. You know, hopefully if they could get a little bit of practice ahead of time, you know, do some mock interviews with them, pretending they're getting these questions, that's helpful. But local reporters, editors, it should be fine. If a reporter calls off, you know, just out of the blue and you don't have time to talk, tell them that. Just ask what they need and ask what their deadline is. They're typically working on an urgent deadline, but you know, if they called you, they see value in talking to you. So they'll try to work with you. And then follow the interview best practices you'll see in that media toolkit that we'll send out. Next slide. So once the story appears, you want everybody to know about it. So that's where you put it in your social feeds, your individual feeds, if you'd like, your newsletter, your website, your blogs, billboards, on your car, you know, whatever. Iron-ons on your shirt. I don't know, just get the word out. That's gold. And share it with us. Because if you share it with us, if you tag us on social, we'll share it out again. So, and tag all your partners. And the media toolkit, we'll talk about tagging and how to do that in the social platforms. Next slide. Marketing, again, it's simply taking that same story and now we're not talking about earned media. We're talking about our owned media. So getting it out through your own channels, right? Keep going back to your mission. Keep going back into what makes you different and what you want people to feel about the experience of working with your practice. Next slide. These are some of the, this is some of the content you might share. You know, all these different things about your practice. You might want to spotlight one of your providers. Might want to spotlight one of your patients or caregivers. Obviously get their permission and obviously don't share anything that's HIPAA protected. Photos, videos, you can do a quick video. We work with a partner and one of their providers did a two minute video on what was that thing that came out recently? Wasn't there a monkey? Some monkey virus or something. I can't remember. Obviously I'm not a doctor, which I think you could just see. But, you know, if there's some health scare in the community, do a quick one minute video. Put it on your social channels. It'll help them. It promotes you. How do you get it out? And that's on the right-hand side, right? And again, you'll get these slides, chats, videos, webinars. Submit yourself as a podcast guest. Next slide. Online presence. If you don't have a website today, get one by tomorrow. They are the ticket to the game. They are expected. If you don't have a website, it can really impact your credibility. You can get them very easily now. I got a simple website from going at it for like three bucks a month. You get three pages. I don't care if your website is one page. Just get a web presence. Because I'll tell you, you know, when you're doing that, your elevator speech, Laura, and they say, where can I learn more about you? And you say, well, can you mail me a letter? I mean, you wouldn't say that, Laura, obviously. I was being facetious. It didn't quite work. But, you know, if a reporter, if you're talking to a reporter and they want your information, their reporter's gonna do a story on you, they're gonna want a website. They're also, many of them will want, you know, you want some kind of social media presence. You know, you want a LinkedIn page for your business. You want a Facebook page, a business page for you. That's the way communication happens now. It's social, you know, basically. And you can do easy, you can do boost campaigns. You spend 20 bucks and really get the word out in different ways. It's just, obviously it's the way of the world now. So, you know, if you don't know how to do all that stuff, and a lot of that stuff, you know, I'm in communications and I still have to figure out a lot of that stuff. Sarah has personally helped me with a lot of that stuff. If you don't know, if you need someone to do it and you need some expertise, you can find it in a bunch of different ways, right? Can you have an intern? You know, the colleges, community colleges, colleges, they have marketing students would love to do this kind of thing. And they bring that expertise and passion, right? You can hire a freelancer. You know, this is not a commercial for them, but there's a group called Creative Circle that has agencies throughout the US. And you can get creative people through them that do this kind of thing all the time. Personally, when you can, I think it's a great idea to hire somebody to do all of this for you. Marketing, media, PR, communications, it will pay back. Of course, you have to be set up to handle that influx you might get, but it's worth it. Next slide. And then we come to the community, get out and speak. It's one of the best ways to do it. Find the local organizations in your community and share your story. Houses of worship, Rotary Clubs, Veterans Clubs, go and speak everywhere. You know, if the kindergarten has house call day for the kindergartners, those kindergartners one day will need house calls. So go and talk to them. Go and talk to them. It's just, and it's good practice, you know? Start small and grow larger. And you just never know who is going to be in that audience, right? You're going to have people who need your services. You're going to have prospective donors, funders. You just never know. Somebody is going to want to come up and talk about, you know, merging your practices. You never know. And then just reach out to them and say, do you need speakers? I'm telling you, everybody needs speakers. Everybody wants speakers, but nobody really knows how to find them. So you may be that, you know, silver lining for them. Next slide. Build relationships. Don't network. I don't use the term networking typically because most people have a negative connotation. If someone told you, okay, I want you to go out and network now. It's like, oh God, I'm tired. I don't really want to go and network. Don't think about it like that way. Think about it as just go out and build a relationship with somebody, you know? Help them out. Don't worry about yourself. Help them out first. It always comes back. You know, think about that golden rule. You know, how would you want somebody to network with you? How would you want someone to build a relationship with you, a good, solid business relationship? Well, what if they provided you some value? What if you knew you could trust them, right? What, you know, are you doing it in person or are you doing it online? In person, obviously it can be easier. You've got, you know, body language, context of the situation. Online is tougher. If you're on LinkedIn, you get pretty used to this thing where people connect with you and then they automatically sell you, want to sell you something. And that's where I disconnect right away because, you know, people don't want to deal with that. You know, they don't want to work with people like that. So build that relationship. It's the one you have with the patients and caregivers and families anyway, so. And then the unwritten rules. If they're really busy, I mean, this is all common sense stuff. We all know this, right? You know, if it's a week and you haven't heard back, give them another week. You know, people are busy. They might've lost your email. Give them the benefit of the doubt. The whole key is you want to build a partner. That's why that word is there, really big. So when someone says networking, remember, building a partnership. Next slide. So next steps. This is your homework. And I will be coming personally to everybody's home to check that you've done your homework. No, I won't. But I don't know if I can get that on my expense account. Anyways, if you don't have a website, get one. Do it within the next 30 days. If you don't have a social media presence, get one. Do it within the next 30 days. Once you get a social media presence, let us know, tag HCCI. We will help you get your own word out. And then update them. It's not really valuable to have those presences and not update them because once they get stale, people are going to know that and they're going to stop going to them. And you don't get two tries to make that impression. If they think you're stale, they probably aren't going to come back and three months ago, I wonder if they're still stale. So keep it fresh. And again, this is where an intern, somebody can keep those updated for you. You can tag me on LinkedIn. I'll help you get the word out. Again, HCCI will help you get the word out. And then Media Toolkit will show you how to tag us. You can use other hashtags and keywords. Fourth bullet, that's how to get your free Media Toolkit. And if you order before midnight tonight, no, there'll be none of that. It won't be charging you shipping and handling. You get a free toolkit and that's it. And then share the wealth. So refer your reporters to your colleagues, other organizations, and hopefully they'll do the same. So you probably didn't get on a webinar knowing you'd get homework, but I guarantee if you do these things, it is going to make a huge difference and you will feel that difference. Most importantly, the people, the patients, the caregivers who right now can not get house calls, who don't know about house calls are gonna feel the difference. Next slide. And that's your slide, Sarah. Well, thank you so much, James, for talking on such an important topic. Today's webinar was really special because the reality is marketing is everything. In order for you to get the referrals that you need or the providers to come and work with you and collaborate with you, you've got to have a marketing perspective and a social media presence. So thank you so much, James. I also do want to open it up for questions. I want to remind you that you can feel free to unmute if you have any questions for James or myself, or you can put it up in the chat, but this is our designated time for questions if anyone has any. And if we don't have any questions, this will conclude today's event. We really want to thank you for joining us today. And first and foremost, we want to thank you for what you do. Whether you're a solo provider or a large practice, we, HCCI cares about you. Our mission and our statement is that the future of medicine is in the home. How do we do that? We support you. And that's why today's topic was so important. We want to support you in driving your mission forward. And I do want to remind you that today's webinar, the slides, and like James said, the HCCI Media Toolkit will be made available to you, whether via email or through the HCCI Intelligence page within a few days of this webinar. I'll try to get it up by tomorrow for everyone. You will also find that we have our HCCI Intelligence Resource Center, which provides you with various outlets to connect with us or with our subject matter experts. In addition to our monthly webinars, you can also contact us via our hotline, as well as download our valuable tools and tips sheets. Again, I want to thank you so much for joining us for today's webinar. And if you have any questions or need any further support from us, you can always reach out to us. Thank you and have a great evening, everyone. Thanks, everybody. Take care. Thank you.

webinar

James Warda

marketing

media relations

practice growth

storytelling

online presence

social media platforms

reporter referrals