If you’ve stumbled upon this article, chances are you’re looking for effective ways to promote your senior living community. Chances are as well you’ve heard of various digital marketing strategies but are unsure of how to go about developing a strategy for your community.
This article will focus around the key concepts around which your community should build its digital marketing strategy. If your community does not have the capabilities in-house, consider hiring an outside partner, such as The Lionstone Agency, to assist you both with the development and execution of this strategy.
Decide which Digital Channels will Resonate with Potential Residents
As a senior living community, it’s crucial to expand your digital presence, especially in this day-and-age. As a starting point, this means having a easily navigable website with up-to-date contact information. Once that’s established, then you can begin exploring the wide variety of digital channels available such as search engines, text-based social media (LinkedIn, e.g.), image-based social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, e.g.), and email.
Trying to maintain all of these channels, however, will prove to be ineffective, so decide which ones you believe will resonate with potential residents. At a minimum, it’s recommended you go through your existing website and go through a process called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Start with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
As alluded to in the previous concept, the minimum requirement for any digital presence is a website with up-to-date contact information. If this foundation is not established, search engines such as Google will rank your community’s website low on its results page. Even if the resident does find your community’s website, the presence of wrong information will deter them from exploring your community any further. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that makes your community’s website and all places it’s present online (industry publications, social media, e.g.) easily discoverable. Search engine algorithms primarily look for two (2) things:
- Can you answer the query of the user on your website (or related web page)?
- How easy is it to find the answer to the user’s query on your website (or related web page)?
The first point of interaction with senior living communities is increasingly becoming their search engine result. Therefore, before any further steps are taken, it’s paramount you’ve performed a thorough Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process.
Harness the Power of Content Marketing
Senior living communities can benefit significantly from content marketing by building authority and trust with potential residents. Sharing valuable information such as caregiving tips, senior wellness advice, and community updates helps attract potential residents and their families to your community’s website, and ultimately to your community in-person. Effective content marketing can be achieved using any medium – audio, text, photo, videos, GIFs, e.g. – but, again, you must decide which medium will resonate most with your potential residents. The medium(s) you choose will also dictate which platform(s) you should leverage.
For example, if you decide written articles resonate most with potential residents, it would be important to place a lot of these articles on your website and provide links to them on LinkedIn. It would not be as important, though, to have a strong presence on Facebook and Instagram, which are primarily image-based platforms. Finally, irrespective of the platform, your community needs to be consistent in producing content.
Increase Awareness and Leads with Paid Ads
If done correctly and with a solid digital foundation (achieved using the aforementioned concepts), paid advertising platforms such as Google and Facebook can provide an extra boost to your digital marketing strategy. Creating targeted ads highlighting your community’s amenities and services will ensure potential residents will encounter your community first in search engine results or on social media. Paid ads should not be the first step in your community’s strategy, however. The ads will only be effective if the underlying website or content pieces are relevant to the audience. They are a megaphone, and nothing more.
One final point – it’s important to understand your audience’s needs around senior living when creating targeted communication. Be sure all outreach encapsulates trustworthiness and demonstrates insight into potential residents’ anxieties about leaving his or home. This process is not an easy one for the resident and his or her family, and whichever digital marketing strategy you pursue should be sensitive to this undeniable fact.
Providing excellent digital marketing for senior living communities is essential to their success in today’s competitive market. The Lionstone Agency, through its systematic, search engine optimization (SEO) based approach, specializes in assisting communities with this process.
