Are you a small company without the budget to afford a full time marketing person? What can you do to help potential clients or key referral source find you?

Where are your potential clients? Is this person in your local area? Is he or she in another part of the United States in search of a service like yours for a loved one that happens to live in your local area?

How are potential clients finding you now? When you receive inquiry calls are you asking that important question, "May I ask how you learned about us, or how you found us?" It's amazing how many companies don't ask this question.

Where do you suppose potential clients are likely to first learn about you? Your telephone directory ad, print ads or a senior print directory book? Perhaps, however, recent research conducted by The Kelsey Group (http://www.kelseygroup.com) and ConStat Inc., (http://www.constat.com) (March, 2005) found that 70% of US households now use the Internet as an information and research tool - even when searching for services locally.

Many factors influence where and what a person decides to buy or what service they select to contract with. Although the telephone directories and senior print directories are no longer an automatic part of the loop, many potential clients will consult both the Internet and print directories, not relying on either one alone. However, a substantial number will only call print ads that show a website, even it they don't intend to visit it. It goes to the credibility issue.

What's different today than say five or ten years ago?

People Want More Information and they Want it Fast

- Consumers are less trusting and more willing to spend time researching options

- Consumers are pressed for time - it is so much easier to do a key word search than to find the appropriate yellow page listing

- Expanded options - All the major search engines provide convenient 'local search' capabilities

- A web presence provides ample space to tell your story and get your message across

- Increased immigrants and those from other cultures, unaccustomed to Yellow Page use

- Larger cities with multiple directories, rather than one large one

- ROI is substantially higher than print advertising

Unfortunately, you can spend thousands of dollars on a web site, Internet marketing and advertising, and still not see results. A successful web site must appeal to both the reader (web visitor) and to search engines. There is a definite methodology to a successful web page - success defined by increased inquiry calls. Continue Reading at http://www.qualityeldercare.com/site_build_it.html

This is part one of a continued series on effective marketing and networking in today's competitive market within the elder care industry.

About the author:

Founder of Certified Quality Elder Care http://www.qualityeldercare.com