As a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) business, it’s vital that you understand how to reach any and all potential clients. But, with so many new NDIS providers popping out, it’s become important that you do more than just the minimum to stand out above the rest. Discover how to make yourself known today.
How many participants are on NDIS?
As of the time of writing, the Australian government reports over 550,000 Australians receiving NDIS support, a number that’s only growing with each quarterly report. That’s over half a million people who you could potentially be advertising yourself towards. And of that half a million only some will fit your idea of the ideal client.
Understanding your client base is vital to understanding how to advertise yourself! So, do your due research before committing your budget to ads.
Things to consider when considering your target audience include:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Type of disability
- Level of support required
- Self-managed or agency-managed
And more. While as an NDIS business, you shouldn’t need to worry about budget too badly compared to unregistered providers. Understanding these details will help immensely in deciding the tone and direction for your advertisements.
How do I advertise my NDIS business?
Like many businesses these days, there are a multitude of ways to advertise yourself for you to choose from. A list of which you should only choose a select few based on your budget and target audience.
As an NDIS provider, it’s generally best advised though to choose a mixture of online and offline options. This will help you reach a the widest range of people possible. Starting with the cheapest and most important and working your way down through the rest of your chosen options.
Building a personal brand
The first thing to remember when building a business is to keep your branding consistent.
By keeping your brand consistent, you make it easier for people to connect separate advertising together for stronger mental connections. But you also make it easier on yourself in future for people to remember your brand and create new ads from there.
Some key traits of making a strong brand might include having a strong and memorable symbol or slogan, or using a memorable voice, or having a unique tone or style. But, no matter what you choose to keep yourself memorable, keep yourself consistent.
Once you find the right voice, people will remember you for it and changing that voice might alienate your client base. As an example simply think about how the biggest brands around you work so hard to keep a consistent image.
Your own website
Having a good website is vital to a strong continued presence, but it’s not as simple as merely existing. Firstly, you need to consider search engine optimisation (SEO). Ranking high in these online search rankings will help your online visibility so that you can be more easily discovered.
Having a good website is also vital in helping provide a place for you to link back to in all your other online and in some cases offline, advertising.
The other thing to remember when designing your website is presentation. Presenting yourself in the best light is key to ensuring that those finding your page will stick by your page.
This means clean user interfaces, accurate price guides, nice photos, contact details, client success stories, and clear NDIS certifications. While less important, you can also even consider providing blog posts or examples of personal journeys to provide a more social element to your stories.
Online business directories
As an NDIS business, you’ll have access to a range of NDIS-specific directories. Putting yourself out on these business listings will help people searching broadly for help through these to find you.
These online directories also better allow you to be compared directly to your competitors through online business reviews, so make sure to remind your satisfied clients to leave reviews.
Some examples of these online directories include:
Advertising on social platforms
We all know social media platforms, and we’ve all seen the advertising on them. These social media ads often come in two main forms you’re likely familiar with.
The first of these is going to be from your own social media account. While it’s important not to be too pushy, you should still self-promote online. Striking the right balance between authenticity and professionalism will help keep your name present in the online community so that when people are in need, they’ll remember to come back to you.
The other main method is paid advertising. By paying a certain amount you can potentially pay for your ad to run regularly for a certain time. You might think of it like hiring a billboard for only a set time. When considering paid advertising you need to think about a wide range of variables based on your target audience.
Most prominently, which online platforms do you want to run the ad on and what would be most likely to get clicks. Create an engaging ad and, in the best-case scenario, your website will build huge traffic numbers. If you get it perfectly right, people will leave remembering you, even if they don’t click on your page.
Local events
As an NDIS business likely working within a tight-knit local community, one of the best offline advertising options is to attend your local community events. These might include your local fairs, workshops, and presentations.
By attending these events you can help cement yourself, and your business cards, within the local community by becoming a regular face. Socialise well enough and when the time comes for them to need NDIS services, you’ll be the first one they remember.
If possible, try and even get your business involved with these local events to garner even more goodwill and get your name out there. Some ways of doing this might include volunteering, speaking, or even sponsoring the event if possible.
If you can, try and get your registered providers involved as well. The more you have to help out, the more likely it is people will remember your brand.
Networking events
Following on the topic of offline events, are the more professional networking types. These networking events are great opportunities to get your name out there and to connect with clients, providers, and industry professionals.
These connections can help both give you further guidance on your business and also give you potential chances to form partnerships. After all, no business can offer every single service, so you want to make it so that your business is the one they’ll refer to when needed.
Now, all these benefits can only follow from a foundation of strong social skills. A strong first impression will be a lasting impression. This means preparing and practising your pitch and summary so that you can expertly and succinctly describe what your business does to those already in the NDIS sphere.
It also means knowing when to speak, and knowing when to listen. This all comes from practice and experience, which in turn only comes from prior social events.
Creating a bit of a circular problem that will only ever be solved by going to these events and making an effort to both sell yourself and your business and also to improve.
Reaching out to your local NDIS coordinators
While it might seem enough to just wait for your local events, it can do wonders to take the initiative and reach out first to your local NDIS community. Building a relationship with your local area coordinator, plan managers, and support coordinators can help cement you in the community.
Give off the right impression and you’ll have them referring clients to you for your services. While events are great to find people and be discovered by people, sometimes it’ll pay off for you to take the dive and search first.
Word-of-mouth and referrals
Finally, we have the most simple and perhaps the most effective: Word of mouth.
Above all else, people will be far more willing to listen to proven experiences from people they know. Sometimes, curated advertisements are a turn off or not convincing.
In an online space, you can push to get reviews by reminding customers to leave them afterwards. In most cases, people only leave high reviews when they get that extra reminder. Those leaving low reviews will often already remember.
But how to get those coveted offline word-of-mouth referrals? Only from excellent service.
If you provide high-quality care and the client remembers you, then they’ll be far more likely to recommend you to those they know. Sounds simple enough, right?