Fierce competition in long-term care has led marketers to reevaluate their approaches to marketing assisted living facilities. In recent years, assisted living facilities in America have grown in popularity on account of a growing senior population and the trend of seniors wanting to live as independently as possible.
There are now more than 28,900 assisted living facilities in America, providing care and services to over one million seniors. Additionally, the industry has been growing at an annual rate of 5.48%, and it’s estimated that it will be worth over $140 billion by 2030. This is good news for owners of assisted living facilities, as the market will continue to grow in the years ahead.
This growth presents a great opportunity for marketing assisted living facilities, which are considered a great option for seniors who primarily need assistance with activities of daily living. By appealing to those specific needs and desires, marketers know they will ultimately attract more customers to the facility.
To get the edge over competitors in a hot industry, though, marketers must consider the adult children of seniors in their campaigns. Adult children play a big role in choosing an assisted living facility for their parents or other relatives. They know their parents best and can judge what would be the best fit for them. Thus, they should be considered in inbound marketing campaigns, or, drawing customers in through valuable and relevant content. This can be done in the following ways:
- Creating blog posts
- E-books
- Articles
- Whitepapers
- Infographics
- Social media posts
The idea is to attract seniors and their families with useful information that will interest them, rather than bombarding them with advertisements. By doing this, you develop trust with the target audience and make it more likely they will choose your facility over those of your competitors.
9 Proven Assisted Living Marketing Ideas
In this section, we will discuss proven assisted living marketing tactics and strategies that facility owners can implement when marketing assisted living to seniors and their adult children.
1. Create an effective website for your facility
Your assisted living facility’s website is often the first impression potential customers will have of your facility, so it’s important to make sure that it makes a good impression. Hence, ensure that your website is:
- User-friendly
- Visually appealing
- Informative
It must also be optimized for mobile phones, as research shows that 92.1% of internet users access the internet through their mobile phones. Should you choose to not create a mobile-friendly website, you will miss out on a large chunk of your potential customers and target market.
Fortunately, optimizing a website for mobile phones is not difficult, and there are a number of ways to do so, including the following:
- Use a responsive design that adjusts to the size of the screen
- Create a separate mobile website
- Use a plugin or software that automatically optimizes websites for mobiles, such as WordPress or similar website platforms
The key to success when marketing assisted living facilities through this method is to test and see which method works best for your facility’s website. The important takeaway is to make sure that you do something, as not optimizing your website for mobiles will undoubtedly result in lost business.
2. Focus on informational marketing
One of the most effective ways of marketing assisted living facilities is through informational marketing. This involves providing adult children and their elderly relatives with useful and valuable information—such as admission requirements, insurance requirements, and the cost of care—that will interest them. By doing this, you create a relationship of trust with seniors and their adult children, which can ultimately result in them choosing your facility.
There are a number of ways that you can carry out informational campaigns when marketing an assisted living facility. Some of the most common methods include the following: ·
- Creating blog posts
- Producing e-books
- Publishing articles
- Creating whitepapers
- Sharing helpful videos
- Creating infographics
3. Rank for page one of Google search (SEO)
When marketing assisted living facilities, it’s important that you always aim to rank on page one of Google search. This is because, according to research, around seventy-five percent of internet users never look past the first page of search results.
Furthermore, seventy to eight percent ignore paid ads that appear on their search results, and seventy-three percent of all internet searches are performed on Google. Hence, by ensuring that your website is optimized for Google search and that you’re doing everything possible to rank higher than your competitors, you give yourself a much better chance of being seen by potential customers.
The best practices one should follow to rank highly on Google and other related search engines are referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There is a whole list of blogs dedicated to SEO, but here we will focus on the things that you can do now to immediately improve your ranking on Google, such as the following:
- Creating high-quality content regularly
- Optimizing your website’s metadata
- Link-building and back-linking
While it may require some effort and time to rank higher than your competitors, the payoff can be significant in terms of generating leads and sales from interested customers.
4. Manage your brand’s reputation
Brands are intangible marketing concepts that companies use to create an identity for their product or service. In other words, brands help to differentiate one product or company from another.
For example, if you think of Coca-Cola, you probably think of the color red and people having a good time with friends while having a drink. Another example is Red Bull. If you think about Red Bull, you are probably thinking about stunt drivers and extreme outdoor activities. All these associations are what make up a brand. Think of a brand as the personality of the business.
Brands can help you increase loyalty, as customers will be more likely to return to a company if they have a favorable opinion of its brand. When marketing assisted living facilities, this means that if your brand is associated with providing a good life to your residents, it is likely that generations of families will use your facility.
This is why it is so important to protect your brand’s reputation. Maintaining a positive reputation is important for any business, but it’s especially important when marketing assisted living facilities. Potential customers will conduct online research before making a decision about which facility to choose, and if your facility has a negative reputation then you will likely lose out on business.
There are a number of things that you can do to manage your brand’s reputation when marketing assisted living facilities. Some of the most common methods include the following:
- Responding quickly to negative reviews
- Focusing on customer service
- Creating positive content about your facility
- Monitoring social media for any negative mentions
5. Create videos and promote them
Long-term care videos are one of the most effective ways to market assisted living facilities. This is because videos are a great way to engage potential residents and show them what life at your facility is like. Additionally, videos can help you to build trust with potential customers, as they can see that you’re a reputable business that cares about its residents.
There are a number of ways to use videos to market your assisted living facility. Some of the most common methods include the following:
- Creating marketing videos
- Creating resident testimonial videos
- Creating virtual tour videos
- Uploading videos to social media platforms
- Embedding videos on your website
By using a variety of marketing videos, you have a higher chance of reaching more potential customers while increasing the likelihood of them choosing your facility over your competitors.
6. Cultivate a social media presence
Maintaining a social media presence is vital for any business, but it’s especially crucial when marketing assisted living facilities, as it helps you reach potential residents and show them what life at your facility is like.
One of the most commonly used social media platforms by seniors is Facebook, which is a great way for seniors to stay in touch with friends and family. Further, seniors tend to enjoy its user-friendly interface. Additionally, Facebook has a number of popular features, such as posting photos and videos, creating events, and joining groups that many users enjoy because they can engage and socialize with others.
Facebook can be a great way to promote your assisted living facility. You can create a Facebook page for your facility and post photos and videos of residents enjoying themselves. You can also create local events for your facility and invite members of the community to attend. Additionally, you can join groups related to assisted living facilities to share information about your facility. It should also be mentioned that Facebook Ads are a great option for marketing assisted living facilities, considering the amount of time seniors spend on the app.
The second most commonly used platform by seniors is YouTube. You can upload marketing videos, tour videos, and resident testimonial videos to YouTube or embed YouTube videos on your website to help increase the chances of potential residents seeing them.
By maintaining a social media presence, you can reach a large number of potential customers and increase the chances that they will choose your facility.
7. Let your current residents be your brand ambassadors
Assisted living facility residents are among the best brand ambassadors a company could ask for. They are loyal, enthusiastic, and invested in the success of the business. Furthermore, they are likely to be trusted by others, as they live in the facility and have interacted with its staff regularly.
Residents in assisted living are not there out of necessity but rather because they want to be around other like-minded seniors while enjoying the benefits of your all-inclusive retirement community. This means they are more likely to be open and eager to share their positive experiences with others.
In addition, assisted living residents are typically retired and have time on their hands. They may be interested in volunteering as a brand ambassador or becoming involved in marketing campaigns. This gives businesses a way to reach potential customers through word-of-mouth marketing.
8. Train your sales personnel
Sales personnel play a crucial role in marketing assisted living facilities. They are the ones who interact with potential residents and their adult children and try to convince them to choose your facility. As such, it is important to train your sales personnel on how to market your facility effectively.
Skills that your sales personnel should have include the following:
- Understanding the needs of potential residents
- Using psychology to engage with the adult children and the senior citizen
- Establishing trust
- Acting on what the potential resident is saying
- Helping by providing useful information and not just closing prospects
- Telling compelling stories
Training your sales personnel will help them market your assisted living facility more effectively. This, in turn, will help you attract more residents and increase profits.
9. Build a referral network
Word-of-mouth marketing is still considered to be one of the most effective ways to reach potential residents and their families, so it’s important to make sure your referral program is top-notch. Here are a few tips for creating a successful referral network for your assisted living community:
- Make it easy for residents and families to refer their friends and loved ones: There should be a simple process in place that makes it easy for them to share your community with others.
- Offer incentives for referrals: When someone refers a friend or family member, they should be rewarded with something special, like a discount on their next month’s rent or an extra day of paid leave (if they are an employee at your facility).
- Keep track of referrals and reward those who generate the most business for you: This will encourage residents and families to continue referring people to your community.
- Celebrate success: When someone refers a new resident who signs up, make sure to celebrate with them and thank them for their help in spreading the word about your community
Contact us here if you would like to demo our user-friendly assisted living software.
The Importance of Using a Senior Living Sales Software
Using a senior living sales software or a senior living CRM can prove to be extremely helpful when marketing assisted living communities. Senior living sales software is a type of software that helps assisted living communities to attract potential residents and their families.
This technology provides sales personnel with the tools they need to interact with potential residents and their families, establish trust, and close deals—assuming they already had an effective marketing plan for assisted living. Thus, a good senior living sales software should include the following capabilities:
- Lead generation and follow-up
- Referral source tracking for assisted living marketing
- Inquiry and prospect management
- Marketing programs and campaigns
- Management of sales process activity
- Waitlist management
- Initiation of customer contracts
- Sales forecasts and analysis
- Customer experience, service, and retention
- Donor development
It is worth noting that some facilities may prefer to instead hire a senior living marketing agency to handle all of their marketing efforts. Should you do this, it would still benefit you greatly to understand the process of marketing assisted living communities.
If you are interested in learning how to select a senior living CRM, check out this list of features and benefits of a senior living CRM or elder care software system.
The Multi-Touch Approach To Marketing Assisted Living Facilities
There is one more strategy to consider when marketing assisted living facilities, and that is: the multi-touch approach. This is a marketing strategy that uses multiple methods to reach potential residents and their families. According to recent research, assisted living facility leads need a minimum of 22 touch-points before they commit to a facility. Furthermore, the sales cycle can range from 145 days to 203 days.
All of that is to say that, by using multiple touch-points when marketing assisted living communities, you can increase the chances that someone will learn about your assisted living community and decide to move in.
For more on recent trends in long-term care, read our blog and subscribe to the LTC Heroes podcast.
