Most care home marketing fails for a boring reason: nobody decided in advance what would happen. The awareness week arrives on a Monday, somebody notices on the Thursday, and the moment passes. The fix is a short list of dates, agreed in January with the activities coordinator and the manager, each with one thing to do. Here is a year that works, with the dates that move marked as such.
January and February: the quiet months
Nothing in the calendar needs you. Use them to fix what the busy months will expose: photographs of the home as it is now, a Google listing with this year's pictures, every review from last year answered. Plan the year with the activities coordinator. Book the one event you will invite the MP to.
March: Nutrition and Hydration Week
Usually the second or third week of March. A home that takes food seriously has a story every year: the chef, the residents' favourite dishes, the garden produce if you grow any. A photograph of the kitchen with the cook in it, named, is the kind of local picture that runs.
May: Dementia Action Week
Run by the Alzheimer's Society, usually in the third week of May. The biggest week in the care calendar for coverage, because every outlet is looking for a dementia story and most of them do not have one. An open morning for families, a talk by your dementia lead, a memory cafe with the local church. Send the release a week ahead and again on the day with the photographs.
June: Carers Week, and Care Home Open Week
Carers Week, from Carers UK, is early June. It is about the unpaid carers at home, which means the relatives of your residents and the families who have not come to you yet. A thank-you tea for family carers, with a short talk on respite, is both a kindness and the most natural respite-care advertisement there is.
Care Home Open Week, from Championing Social Care, is usually late June. It exists so that homes open their doors to the community. Do it properly: a garden party, the primary school, the local councillor, a photographer. This is the event to invite the MP to. They come, because it is a photograph with older constituents in a garden, and the paper comes because the MP is there.
July and August: your own summer
No national date is needed. A summer fete, a residents' day trip, the garden at its best. The photographs from these two months carry the Facebook page and the newsletter for the rest of the year.
September: World Alzheimer's Month
World Alzheimer's Day is 21 September and the month around it is used for awareness. A second chance for a dementia story if May got away from you, and a natural time for the manager to write a short piece for the local paper on what families should look for in dementia care. Local papers run those; they are short of expert voices.
October: Grandparents Day and the Day of Older Persons
The International Day of Older Persons is 1 October and Grandparents Day in the UK falls on the first Sunday of October. Both are made for a photograph of a resident with a grandchild, and both are easy to tie to a school visit.
November: Carers Rights Day and World Kindness Day
Carers Rights Day, from Carers UK, is late November. World Kindness Day is 13 November. Either is a reason to say thank you in public to the families who visit most, which they will share, and which prospective families will see.
December: Christmas, and the one story that always runs
The Christmas lunch, the carol service, the school choir. Every paper runs a care home at Christmas. Pick one event, make it good, photograph it in daylight. Then send the release on the Monday of the week before, when the desk is planning its Christmas pages.
The dates only you have
Your home's anniversary. A resident's 100th birthday, with the card from the King. A couple's 70th wedding anniversary. A carer's twenty years of service. Nobody else has these and every one of them runs. Put the known ones in the calendar in January and brief the release three weeks before.
The rule for every date
Something has to actually happen. A post that says "today is Dementia Action Week" is not marketing; it is a calendar. A photograph of your residents and the primary school planting lavender, with a release sent to the local desk the week before, is. Twelve of those a year, and your home is the one the paper rings when it needs a care story.