The demand for senior assisted living has been rising steadily over the years, and with 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day for the next decade or so, more seniors have been evaluating their living options for when they need assistance to care for themselves.
However, the pandemic briefly interrupted this growth trend in the sector, which is why you may be experiencing low occupancy rates in your community. It’s not just you–senior housing occupancy across the nation dropped to a 78.8% record low in the first three months of 2021, according to the National Investment Center (NIC).
Creative marketing ideas for assisted living communities are today more crucial than ever. With the world moving past COVID-19, potential residents are starting to inquire about senior housing, and occupancy rates are slowly recovering.
Here’s a look at 14 innovative marketing strategies to help grow your senior assisted living business amid the changing healthcare landscape.
#1. Create a Great Impression with Your Website
When it comes to senior assisted living, fundamental changes are happening both offline and online. You need a great website because your target market–baby boomers and their families–are spending a great deal of their time online. An outstanding website should have fast-loading pages and easy navigation, considering the needs of non-tech-savvy visitors. Make sure to showcase your facility’s features and amenities with professional-grade videos and high-quality images.
#2. Incorporate SEO in Your Growth Strategy
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the most efficient organic technique to boost your assisted living facility’s online visibility. Part of it involves improving specific service pages’ rankings on Google Search results for relevant keywords. The residents you’re targeting will find your website more easily when your pages dominate organic search results. Consider optimizing your web content, including articles, blogs, and videos, for search phrases like “assisted living costs” or “senior assisted living facility” to increase traffic to your website.
#3. Optimize Your Website for Local SEO
With local SEO, you’re targeting families looking for senior assisted living facilities in your geographical location. This strategy makes sense because many prospective residents looking for such housing include terms like “assisted living near me” in their internet search. You should use similar phrases in your SEO keywords and mention your specific location in your videos, blogs, image descriptions, and more. Remember to claim your Google My Business (GMB) listing and optimize it for maximum local visibility.
#4. Elevate Your Local SEO with NAP Consistency
Maintaining NAP consistency (business name, address, and phone) is one of the most impactful marketing strategies for senior living today. You should always have accurate and up-to-date contact and location details for every website visit to count. NAP consistency everywhere your business is listed, including GMB, and social media, boosts your search engine credibility and rankings.
#5. Build a Mobile Friendly, Responsive Website
It’s a costly mistake to assume that baby boomers don’t use smartphones for online searches. Remember that when designing your senior living website, and ensure that users have a superior experience across all devices. Surprisingly, only a few websites have a consistent search engine results page (SERP) rank on multiple platforms. Many rank highly on a desktop but poorly on smartphones and tablets for the lack of responsive design. Since most internet searches occur on mobile devices, you have a great opportunity to outrank most of your competitors by delivering a superior user experience across all digital environments.
#6. Deliver Superior Online Content
Keyword-optimized content is great for SERPs dominance, but Google and other search engines expect more. Your website and blog articles should be informative and expertly written–that’s how you build your domain authority and boost your SEO. Also, incorporate in-depth posts that cover topics your potential residents are asking about. For example, provide insightful guides, tips, or general information on issues like caring for aging parents or healthy and safe workout routines for the elderly. Expertly addressing the pain points that senior members of the society and their families face every day showcases your assisted living community as relevant and knowledgeable.
#7. Always Get Your Performance Metrics Right
You should consistently track and audit the performance of your creative marketing ideas for assisted living. Scrutinize each tactic for effectiveness to distinguish between high ROI campaigns or channels from areas that require improvement or abandoning all together. You can even measure ROI by tracking calls from specific senior living ads or marketing channels. Automate the tracking process with software to audit every lead interaction, be it via a web form, phone, in-person, or email.
#8. Don’t Neglect Your Online Reputation
Online comments about your senior home services can make or break your business. Nobody wants to send their aging parents to a community with a tainted image, so you should be careful when handling negative reviews. If you spot a bad comment, respond quickly to show that you always listen and are willing to make things right. Equally important, be proactive and encourage happy residents and their families to provide feedback.
#9. Strengthen Relationships with Email Marketing
Of all modern marketing strategies for senior living, email may seem outdated, but it has an ROI of $38 in revenue for each marketing dollar spent. You don’t want to spam potential residents with emails. Instead, provide a way for them to opt-in for a newsletter, such as a form on your site that accepts visitors’ email addresses. Consider automating the process, and provide value with a blend of senior living guides, news, and special offers. With a perfect email marketing strategy, you can nurture ongoing relationships and make a reasonable offer at the right time.
#10. Improve Your Referrals and Testimonials Game
Word of mouth from happy residents attesting to the excellent dinners and amenities, high-quality care, and friendly, compassionate staff is a powerful endorsement. You can create a referral program where you request residents to recommend your facility to their friends or relatives. Another great idea is to make and upload testimonial videos where residents authentically express their delight and comfort in living in your community.
#11. Showcase Your Community in 3D with Virtual Tours
It isn’t an exaggeration to state that virtual tours are among the most creative marketing ideas for senior assisted living. For older people just starting to check out senior housing options, these tours can conveniently provide a glimpse of life in your community. Include them on your website to showcase the best experiences on offer and show prospective residents and their dear ones that your community is welcoming and secure. Virtual tours are a high-impact differentiator in a healthcare space that’s just beginning to shake off the aftermath of the pandemic.
#12. Drive More Traffic with Paid Advertising
With Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, you pay each time a user clicks on an ad. Google displays these ads at the top of relevant SERPs when targeted keywords are used in a search. You can use this strategy with relevant assisted living keywords on ads that direct prospects to a specific landing page. If there are phrases that are not doing too well with SEO, try incorporating some in your PPC campaign for a change (be sure to measure the difference in ROI).
#13. Attract Prospects Using Compelling Landing Pages
Most of your website marketing strategies for senior living should lead to a landing page. You’d be directing online-generated leads there to capture prospects’ contact information. For this to work, you must provide value, such as a compelling video, audio, or block of text on the landing page. You can even provide a free e-book on topics such as the right time for mom or dad to transition to assisted living. Be sure to include a CTA to get your conversions.
#14. Regularly Connect with Your Social Media Following
You can leverage social media in different ways to engage with community members and grow your business. Potential residents, too, are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and you can reach them with compelling community posts that your followers share widely. You may also engage micro-influencers within the assisted living, senior care, and lifestyle social fraternities to grow brand awareness.
Drive Growth with Creative Marketing Ideas for Assisted Living
With its various challenges and opportunities, the ongoing transformation across the entire healthcare landscape hasn’t spared assisted living communities. As a senior living facility provider, you must get creative with your marketing tactics to safely navigate the uncharted waters and outdo your competition.
At GMR Web Team, our robust healthcare digital marketing strategies and technology can help you attract and retain more residents and accelerate revenue growth. Contact us today to get started on your custom-tailored assisted living marketing strategies!