Executive Summary
Visiting Angels is a privately owned company that offers nursing care and therapy services to the elderly in New City. It has established a satellite office in the nearby town to extend her services. To achieve this, the marketing plan is developed which covers key areas like the company history and the trends in service delivery. The marketing plan states the available data of the demographics to be 55000 people and through the establishment of new centers; it expects this population to rise. The services cannot be delivered with the current workforce thus; the quality standards needed to achieve the company objective are discussed. The market is fully analyzed based on the market share the company is getting. Several marketing strategies have been developed to ensure the company delivers her services in the best convenient manner. The expectations that the company intends to achieve in the set period is projected in the market plan. Tools to implement the plan for the company are discussed too. They have touched the training of personnel and establishment of new branched in other towns where people can get their services.
Visiting Angels Market Plan Development
Background Information
Visiting Angles is a private homecare company in New City with her headquarters at Cedar Park. In the 1980’s, Jeffrey Johnson was an employee in a nursing home in Baltimore, Maryland. He gave a listening ear to families expressing their frustration that they were so busy with daily chores forcing them to have no option but to lay their loved ones in a nursing facility. This idea made Jeffrey resign and start a business that would offer care for homebound aged citizens. He began a private non-medical agency known as “The Senior Care Group” in Baltimore. In 1998, Jeffrey joined some three directors, two of whom had a vast experience in non-medical home care agencies and established “Visiting Angels.” This was to act as a network for all homecare agencies in America; this was achieved within four years.
The mission of Visiting Angels is striving to educate, support in a compassionate manner to deliver the best care services to families across the whole of America so that the aged would remain independent for their residents. Their business is a franchise and thus establishment of new home care facilities in other areas where they find opportunities is part of their business agenda. The directors of Visiting Angels have the best experience as there are several pieces of training offered through this franchise business to their entire city or area based agencies so that they deliver homecare services in the best professional manner. Visiting Angles offers her services to Westchester, Queens, Manhattan and The Bronx. Most of the population prefers their services for over ten years. The primary goal of Visiting Angels is to provide compassionate, caring and quality care. The slogan that motivates everyone is that “loving care when you cannot be there.” The services offered in Visiting Angels include; nursing and medical care, homecare and personal care services, acquired brain injury care, palliative care services and specialty child care.
The rates that are charged at Visiting Angels are hourly and dependent on the kind of attention that the client wants from them. The assisted living for the elderly is paid for privately, but we allow insurance and other bodies that have benefit plans for their employees. The rate per hour is about $ 10.65, but it is dependent on the situation and service that a client wants. The rates include all payroll, taxes, insurance, bonding, and workers compensation insurance schemes. Currently, Visiting Angels is making a profit not more than $ 1 million, but we project the profits to go up to $ 5 million by 2020. The income is approximately in an increase of four percent as compared to 2004 profits.
Demographic Statistics
The aging population in America is expected to double by 2030; hence, there is a need for more homecare facilities in America. According to the US DHHS, the older population, which is determined to be people of sixty-five years of age and above, was 39.6 million people in 2009. This was a representation of 12.9% of all the United States population. The number is projected to be around 72.1 million inhabitants by the year 2030.
Quality Standards
We are guided and moved by our customers hence the objective of being the best in this industry would be achieved through putting in place the best-qualified personnel and delivering services as per client expectations. The management is very selective on whom to hire since there particular qualities and standards that they need from their employees. Working dedicatedly to make the life of the customers easier and healthier needs inborn qualities thus for compassion and understanding of our customers, Visiting Angels ensures that all the workers are well trained to have best skills that will fully satisfy their customers. Establishment of a training institute to give the skills to our workforce is a quality standard. Through this, we will create more employment to the society, through absorbing the personnel we will train. The excess-trained personnel would be competent to be of great service to other companies.
Market Analysis
The current market strategy is taking advantage of the nearby town to open a new physical homecare facility that will take care of clientstraveling long distances in search for a homecare service. Reaching customers at their convenient places is our current strategy. The long-term strategic plan is to have our services to all people in America and to expand our services to the rest of the continents. The quality of our services and convenient locations are the strategies to reach more clients and grow our market share. The world has changed due to technological advancements, and this has made customers enough knowledge to understand fully what they want (Cravens and Piercy, 2006). Community marketing is the current technique used by Visiting Angels. It involves meeting the needs of the current customers by offering the services they want in the manner that they want them (Cravens and Piercy, 2006).
The strategy brings customers in an active mode where they feel proud to be part of the service offered. Through community marketing, Visiting Angels is in a position to connect the existing clients with the prospective ones. The company workers are also linked to thepotential customers hence building a network between the business, existing customers, and prospective customers. This market plan is helpful to the company as it clearly analyzes the market to understand the strengths and weaknesses that we have so that we can improve performance by emphasizing more on our strengths. The biggest strength that Visiting Angels has is the potential nearby town with little population but in the near future most of the population would be retirees. These would be potential customers and having a convenient home care facility, we will have established.
The main competitor to or company is the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, who have the biggest market share. They manage about seventy thousand beds in twenty-two states according to the study of 2012 by American Health Care Association. The strategy of this competing firm is charge low rates for their services; they do not emphasize on quality, but they are price friendly. The use of price as a competing strategy has taken Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society to be the leader in homecare services. Upon realizing their strategy, our management has seen product differentiation putting in mind quality and customer needs will outdo the competition. Through our competitors are cheap in services they are offering, they have not raised enough capital to establish branches in all the convenient places where customers can access their services.
Models used to reach Audience
With the population projection of the elderly people to increase up to 72.1 million by 2030, there is a significant opportunity for homecare service companies in America. Identification of a town that has elderly people and many retirees is an indication that we will increase profits through widened market. Making the customers feel unique and important is the strategy that would attract more and more clients (Berry, 2005). To counteract the competition we are facing, Visiting Angels will use market segmentation to offer each market the services needed (Berry, 2005). To achieve this, there is need to establish different centers in different locations where many people can access the services. The technology of mobile phones and personal computers is very helpful to reach as many people as possible. Through Facebook blogging, we would attract many people to know more about our services. Therefore, a lot of funding towards advertisement of our services to the public is critical.
References
Berry, L. L. (2005). Relationship marketing of services—growing interest, emerging perspectives. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 23(4), 236-245.
Cravens, D. W., & Piercy, N. (2006). Strategic Marketing (Vol. 7). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mawl, B. (2016). Senior Home Care and Elder Care Services | Visiting Angels Living Assistance Services. Visitingangels.com. Retrieved 3 May 2016, from http://www.visitingangels.com/
National Center for Health Statistics US. (2013). Health, United States, 2012: With special feature on emergency care for the elderly.
The United States Department of Health. (2006). Aging population health: a report of the Surgeon General. Diane Publishing.
