Digital Marketing For Assisted Living Communities
Developing a digital strategy for potential residents & adult children looking for high-quality care.
The Current State Of Assisted Living Marketing
The sharp rise in directory-based platforms that list assisted living communities have created an interesting challenge for retirement communities trying to improve online presence.
While these directories create a marketplace for potential residents, communities are charged for lead generation from these outside sites.
That’s why most communities are better served to create their own online lead generation tool. That way, lead conversion can be handled internally and failure to convert leads into residents doesn’t put a dent in the budget.
Our History With The Assisted Living Industry
Our work with assisted living organizations spans across the entire US. We’ve helped companies with one community to companies with 100+ communities. The common thread between all the campaigns is that specifying the different audiences that are searching for assisted living information, and crafting a message for each, is key to building brand trust.
Key Audience Demographics For Assisted Living Communities
Healthcare Staff
- 25-34
- College Educated
- Green Living Enthusiasts
- Advancement-Focused Messaging
Adult-Age Children
- 35-55
- Home-Owners
- Avid Local News Readers
- Care & Staff-Focused Messaging
Potential Residents
- 65+
- Location-Driven
- Jazz Music Enthusiasts
- Amenities-Focused Messaging
Best Digital Strategies For Assisted Living Communities
The Top 5 Digital Improvements
Understanding the need to be present for three-tiers of search - residents, children, and healthcare workers.
With the addition of assisted living directories coming into the fold, an extra emphasis needs to put onto SEO for assisted living websites.
Creating an internal lead generation tool from free traffic produced by good SEO improvements, will help keep marketing budget under control, as well as produce high-quality users to the site.
We’ve found that many searches for assisted living communities come with a location attached to the search. Such as, “assisted living portland or.” Establishing location-searches is key.
Very general search queries like “assisted living near me” or “best assisted living facilities” are beginning to be dominated by directories. A site, due to the links, is difficult to outrank with SEO.
However, utilizing a tool like PPC, allows assisted living communities to appear above the various directories, and target (with great accuracy) locations that draw more qualified leads.
Utilizing a portion of marketing budget with PPC campaigns is necessary to complete search engine coverage for brand name, location-based searches, and general service searches.
Most potential residents and adult-age children go through a process of searching mutiple communities before deciding to move-in.
The best way to keep engagement high with your assisted living facilities to build audience data-bases to increase the number of contact points during the decision-making process.
Our data collection methods show that users are likely to visit a website 4 times – twice through search and twice directly to the site – before making a final decision.
Establishing a well-rounded control over search engine traffic should always include question-based searches. The most common type of search within Google.
Developing content to answer potential questions of adult-age children could be the deciding factor when finally selecting an assisted living community for their parent.
Questions like “What are the early signs of dementia?” are searched frequently, and could establish a business an expert with working with patients of dementia.
While social media will no doubt become more necessary with assisted living communities in the future. Currently, the best use of the various social platforms comes from promoting well-being living of current residents.
This strategy can lead to great word-of-mouth recommendations from others in the area. Also, create some brand recognition.
However, our work has found that social media presence has very little effect on the decision-making process of both potential residents & adult-age children.