Digital marketing encompasses all the tactics used to engage residents and their families in the digital medium. Post pandemic this has become a significant mix to drive qualified leads to senior communities. People searching for Senior Living are now visiting 6-7 web pages before making contact.
Within the vertical of Senior Living, there are many facets that are critical to understand when implementing effective marketing. With the best leads coming from professional referral sources and local marketers driving the agenda, where does digital marketing stand in the mix of lead generation and how much should it contribute to census growth?
Digital marketing encompasses all the tactics used to engage residents and their families in the digital medium. Post pandemic this has become a significant mix to drive qualified leads to senior communities.
Digital marketing starts with the right website that includes compelling content to help families and individuals take the next steps for themselves and their loved ones. Digital advertising drives qualified traffic to the website which includes the following tactics: SEO best practices to rank organically on search engines, paid advertising on search engines, ads placed on other websites, social media promotion (both organic and paid), reputation management, and email marketing – known also as marketing automation.
Tilladelse supports all these functions with a high level of expertise. Each tactic serves a different purpose and helps build census.
The basics are that we take a prospect through the different phases of decision-making by positioning the community and what it offers the family.
The “decision-making journey” begins differently for each senior care level. With independent living starting 200+ days before deposit driving awareness is critical. According to ASHA, assisted living is a consideration approximately 60+ days prior to move-in. When it comes to memory care and or respite care, the decision on which community is often inside a 30-day window.
As you can see the vertical of Senior Living requires attention to detail based on each care level and where the family is in the decision-making journey.
Search Engine Optimization is the technique where website content ranks so that families can find it without the community utilizing paid advertising. To rank well, Google requires a few things that amount to authority and relevance for the content provided. By following best practices Tilladelse satisfies what Google is evaluating to rank content.
SEO is great to meet demand when a family is already queued up to make a decision on a specific community. This is later in the marketing cycle after awareness and intrigue are established for IL and AL. This is a powerful tactic for both memory care and respite care which have a short marketing shelf life.
Pay Per Click refers generally to paid ads on search engines such as Google. This is effective when trying to rank for highly competitive terms. This can be a very efficient and effective approach especially when the community is in a highly competitive market.
PPC is great to meet demand and later in the marketing cycle after awareness and intrigue are established when search terms are too difficult to rank for organically.
Social marketing can be organic or paid and generally refers to advertising on Facebook, and YouTube for Senior Living. Organic advertising for both social media platforms can be owned by the community and highlight what living in that community is like. This provides a vantage for prospective families or residents to catch the vision for what life will look like in the community. Paid advertising is typically paid for with an impression basis and can be very targeted.
Social marketing is an effective way to create awareness and craft demand. It is a great way to advertise for independent living. The cost of social marketing is typically quite a bit less per thousand to drive awareness.
Email marketing or marketing automation is great to nurture other marketing efforts. This email marketing can be highly personalized based on website visits and other media engagement and will help prospects receive valuable content while in the decision-making process.
Leveraging email marketing to re-engage lapsed customers or to help guide the sales process for marketers in each community is a very common utilization.
Tilladelse recognizes how critical reputation is to Senior living communities. We partner with a reputation platform that has dedicated resources to receive and respond (or automate) to reputation requests from Google, Facebook, and senior-specific platforms such as Caring.com through a single dashboard.
You will have the ability to solicit reviews via email and SMS or both with direct posting to most social platforms including Facebook and Google. Integration to most senior living CRMs for automated solicitation is possible as well.
Instead of advertising through traditional media to an unqualified audience and hoping for the best you can craft intrigue with your ideal client (family) you can measure the return of investment with digital ads.
Digital marketing is an amazing way to use when targeting your ideal customers. Just imagine that your ads will only be served to those who are already interested and have a large bias to be interested in what you community. Instead of advertising through traditional media to an unqualified audience and hoping for the best, you can craft intrigue with your ideal client (family) you can measure the return of investment with digital ads.
Be found when the family searches Google and meet their demand at the very moment they are inquiring.
One of our principals came from a background of Senior Living marketing as the marketing director for 40+ communities. This background provided the much-needed insights for Tilladelse to provide real-world solutions to deliver on census growth. The rest of our team are digital marketing ninjas that pride themselves in staying in the know of the latest digital tactics and strategies.
At Tilladelse we look at your website and digital advertising as an extension of each other. Imagine your website is the centerpiece where all families and residents end up. By approaching your marketing plan with all media in mind it becomes clear how to engage and what work each element of your digital marketing is there to do and what the next steps look like to foster consistent census growth.
We not only understand how to build an integrated digital marketing plan with the right website, but we also work closely with the largest digital agency in the country. They extend the latest technologies to ensure your community receives the best and most relevant tactics available.
From cross-media optimization where AI utilizes one budget across multiple mediums including social and search based on real-time results, to the latest data trends by industry verticals, we have access to get the results you are looking for.
Tilladelse also provides premier reputation management for the Senior Living vertical that rolls up reviews from all the major Senior Living sources into a convenient dashboard where you can view and respond all in one place.
With the latest tactics implemented for your website, SEO, paid advertising, reputation, and marketing automation you will be looking to see what is working and how your marketing investment is returning census to your communities.
Rest assured that Tilladelse is full service and will provide real-time reporting, call tracking, and recording through a custom dashboard and dedicated client support.
The best part is we will de-mystify what is happening with your digital engagement so that you can easily understand how your marketing spend is working for you.
