Today’s senior living marketing leaders are tasked with maintaining occupancy with tight marketing budgets and small teams in an environment where consumer expectations have become even more complex. Since the pandemic, senior living prospects have started to rely more on online research, requiring operators to develop an omnichannel presence so prospects can contact them across a variety of channels and formats. This means marketing and sales teams now have more platforms to monitor and campaigns to develop, making it imperative for senior living communities to start incorporating automation into their strategies.

Below, we outline the specific industry challenges driving the demand for marketing automation and our best practices for implementing automation in your senior living marketing strategies.

The Challenges of Marketing for Senior Living Communities and How Automation Can Address Them

1. Results are difficult to forecast.

With multiple decision-makers, senior living communities’ sales processes can be complicated, making manual tracking very tedious. This also leads to consistency issues in lead generation and nurturing, making it challenging to forecast results.

How automation helps: Plugging in automation in different stages of the sales funnel helps bridge the gap from one sales interaction to another, making tracking conversions easier, quicker, and more consistent. With automation, salespeople in senior living communities can see how many people are in the pipeline and accurately predict results. This also helps in reviewing what’s working and what’s not with the current sales process and improving it to create a better forecasting system.

2. Leads fall through the cracks.

Since 2020, industries were already shifting to an online purchasing economy, since then, this trend has only accelerated. Today’s prospective residents and their families are no longer inclined to wait the same amount of time to get serviced by a sales team and instead expect immediate gratification. However, with senior living prospects coming in through different stages of the decision-making process, it can be very difficult to manually track concerns and provide responses within the time frame that they expect.

How automation helps: Automation lets you create multiple response flows depending on which stage a prospect is entering your sales process, allowing for the quickest turnaround on their inquiries, whether it’s just a simple inquiry on your services or a request to schedule a tour.

3. Prospects go through a long sales cycle.

In the industry, there is a big push to get everyone to the tour stage right away. When prospects get into the door or on the phone, there’s the pressure to get them into the hands of a salesperson as the first next step. However, with the senior living housing journey, some prospects aren’t at that point in the research process.  Many prospects are not the sole decision-makers and are merely “shopping” for information to provide themselves and other decision-makers with the best option possible.

How automation helps: “Soft conversions”, like RSVPs to your events or sign-ups to newsletters, can be just as important as “hard conversions” in that they keep your community top of mind for prospects — and these are only possible with automation in place. By placing automation within the different engagement touchpoints, leads can process information about your community quicker than usual, shortening the span between inquiry to decision.

The Do’s and Don’t of Marketing Automation

It’s not enough, however, to just have a marketing automation strategy — it should be a strategy that works. Here are five do’s and don’ts to creating a winning marketing automation strategy.

It’s true that clients these days want the data, but they don’t necessarily want the computer. While automation allows you to connect with prospects when there are no warm bodies to man the communication lines, it’s still important to offer prospects the option to connect with a real person. Having a live chat option available on your website allows prospects to quickly have more complex questions answered and provides an additional lead capture opportunity.

This can be as simple as putting your prospect’s name within a message that you’re sending. But you can also go deeper with this, especially during any post-initial interactions like follow-ups and re-engagement. Including evidence that you were listening to them the last time you met or acknowledging what you already know about their needs makes your prospect feel connected to you and the community.

The use of AI, like any new technology, can be tricky. One must learn its capabilities and limitations. Leverage the power of AI to help scale repetitive tasks, spark ideas, and make calculations, but make sure to combine AI with an experienced professional when it comes to complex business decision-making. This AI strategy is known as hybrid intelligence and is all about recognizing the unique talents of humans and AI when assigning roles.

Conclusion

Activating automation within your sales and marketing teams will keep you ahead of the competition and enable you to achieve your occupancy goals faster. Teams will save valuable time in their day by letting go of repetitive tasks so they can spend more time engaging with prospects to move them in the customer journey from lead to resident.

Watch the Webinar!

Interested in learning more about this topic? Watch a recording of our latest webinar with Seniors Housing News, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Marketing Automation for Seniors Housing”.

Listen to a lively discussion between Jen Lovey, Executive Vice President of Sales at Conversion Logix, John Greaves, President and Owner of Next Step Sales Management, and Allison L. Singler, EVP of Sales and Marketing at Edison Equity Residential, as they explore the state of marketing automation and AI in senior living and best practices for implementing it in your organization.

The post The Do’s and Don’ts of Marketing Automation for Senior Living Communities appeared first on Conversion Logix.

The article is based on an interview that took place during a virtual panel discussion with Jen Lovely, executive vice president of sales at Conversion Logix and John Greaves, owner, and president of DEI Sales Management Central [Next Step Sales Management]. The panel took place virtually on January 19, 2022. This is an excerpt from the Senior Housing News Sales and Marketing Summit session, which has been edited for length and clarity. 

SHN: Today we’re going to be talking about capturing and unlocking lead data to maximize return on investment. I think if you know anything about senior living sales, it is no secret that residents and their families are using the internet more than probably ever before to search for senior living communities, especially at the start of their journey.

I think one challenge for operators is capturing that anonymous web traffic and turning it into pre-qualified leads. Today we’re going to go over some of the ways that senior living companies can maximize marketing their investment and filling their community again by capturing and unlocking that lead data. I want to introduce our panelists. Joining us we have Jen Lovely of Conversion Logix, where she has built a senior living group that delivers qualified traffic to clients’ websites to accelerate their leads, tours, and move-ins.

A little bit about Jen before joining the company, she spent about 20 years in the hospitality sector as an executive in sales and marketing. Welcome, Jen. We also have John Greaves of DEI Sales Management Central. John is a seasoned senior living sales and marketing coach. He’s also an advocate for integrating operations with sales, and he’s got experience working with companies in multiple industries to optimize performance in I think what you would consider a difficult selling environment.

SHN: Before we begin, I want to thank our thought leadership sponsors: Sherpa, Conversion Logix, and PointClickCare. Our awareness sponsors: caring.com, the Vector, and Gemini: Advanced Marketing Solutions. I guess to start with, Jen, what sparked the idea for Conversion Logix to develop a lead generation software in the first place?

Jen Lovely: Well, probably about seven years ago, we were kind of fumbling around a little bit and clients were saying, “Hey, gosh, we’ve got lots of people coming to the website, but people just aren’t converting.” Nine years ago, we started a live chat, which captured some of those prospects but there were still folks out there who weren’t filling out those long-winded forms. If you think about it, there can be upwards of close to 50% of website traffic that’s coming from digital devices or from mobile devices, like your phone and your iPad.

If you go to websites, a lot of those forms are really long. People want that one-click experience. We needed something that was easy, quick, and accessible. For all the adult children, as well, they don’t have time to enter information and then have somebody call them back, it’s just a long process of even getting in touch with someone in the first place.

I enter my information and I wait for a phone call to confirm a tour. We knew that we needed to come up with something that was quick, easy, that one-touch process, and it would confirm an appointment or confirm some sort of information immediately. That’s what spurred it.

SHN: Tell us more about how senior living companies have difficulty identifying anonymous website visitors and why they have difficulty converting those into customers?

Lovely: When people come to the website, we give them several different options: they can chat live, schedule an appointment, take advantage of a concession, look at a live video, attend an event. What happens is in order to convert through any of these modules or apps, we then receive their name, their phone number, or their email address, even if they’re just requesting a brochure.

Something else that’s kind of neat, is that by identifying these people when they actually complete one of these forms, we’re able to look at their journey visualizer as well.

If all these people are coming to your website, you wouldn’t leave your front desk unattended or your phones unattended, why would you leave your website unattended?

SHN: Great. I’m also curious, do you have any examples of maybe where there was a problem and The Conversion Cloud® helped with that?

Lovely: Yes. We had a community, and it was in a very established neighborhood. A lot of people take a lot of time making decisions and they weren’t ready to schedule a tour. For example, they weren’t ready to pick up the phone. They were just doing a lot of investigative work, just doing their homework.

By using the cloud and by using things like events, or just request a brochure, or join this speaker series group, or listen to this speaker series. We were able to convert people who were just slowly going through the process or just tiptoeing into the process. It took them a long time. Prior to that, this particular community had a really tough time. People just were not converting until they were absolutely ready to take a tour or to talk to somebody.

They felt like if they scheduled the tour, that it would be a hard sell, somebody would want them to move in tomorrow. Again, these people were established. They stay in their homes for years on end and they’re not ready to convert right away. That was a huge success being able to use that.

SHN: Great. Do you have any stats about how many leads The Conversion Cloud has generated or just, generally, what impacts this has all had?

Lovely: After three years, The Conversion Cloud has generated almost 600,000 leads across 800 companies, which is a lot. The thing to know about these types of leads, is people are offering up their information themselves. They’re intentional. Somebody isn’t pulling this information out of them. The clients have really good success. These are good, hot, solid leads, and very intentional.

In fact, I talked to one owner the other day, and his conversion was 27.1% of these folks coming from The Conversion Cloud were depositing or moving in, which is huge. Also, in the first few months after TCC or The Conversion Cloud software launch, we saw clients converting 65% more leads than when they weren’t using it. Just quick, and it’s easy and helpful.

SHN: John, I know you’ve got some thoughts about lead generation and how you do that online. I guess tell us more about that and I guess open the floor for us.

Greaves: It’s interesting because I’m coming from the sales and the sales management side. The idea of getting traffic is certainly valuable when it comes to lead generation, but it’s the ratio that matters most. How many of the clicks into your site, and then how many of the engagement opportunities that you’re presenting actually yield someone who activates as a prospect. It’s that activation that I’m paying a lot of attention to just driving raw traffic or just driving click-throughs is not sufficient to determine whether it’s a good use of your time and money.

What I like about The Conversion Cloud tools is that you’re seeing more of those visitors to the site. You’re not going to get all of them. Certainly, you’re not going to get a sale for each one of them immediately, but you’re getting some engagement, you’re getting a little more information than you might have otherwise. Sometimes that helps you understand what you’re doing well. Sometimes it helps you understand what you’re not doing as well as you could. It’s the opportunities that it drives to that I think it’s just so important.

SHN: Great. I want to talk about some of the strategies that companies are using to actually generate leads. Across the companies that are using The Conversion Cloud, and maybe, Jen, we’ll go back to you to start with, what strategies are they using right now to generate leads? Tell us more about that.

Lovely: There are tons of strategies. Something I wanted to mention too is keep in mind everybody’s in a whole new mindset, a whole new frame of mind. For example, personally, I shopped online a lot prior to the pandemic. I noticed myself saying “I’m being lazy. I’m not going to go pick that up. I’m just going to go online and do it.” There are so many people that are online, the multitude of people shopping online and looking at senior living communities has escalated.

It’s even more than usual. Again, we want to have as many opportunities as possible for as many people in different phases of the selection process or decision-making process. Some really great ideas, for example, just scheduling a tour, that’s great. Or maybe they don’t want to schedule a tour, they just want to schedule a conversation with someone. They just want to schedule an initial conversation. Another thing that’s worked out is doing some fun-themed ideas like taco Tuesdays.

If somebody wants to come in for a tour personally, they can come in for a tour. The chef can make tacos, or they purchase them ahead of time however they want to go about that. They can come in for a tour, or take that home as a dinner or lunch, or even if they do a Zoom tour or a FaceTime tour, the great thing is they can do that if they don’t feel comfortable coming in, but then they can drive up and someone from the community can hand them the meal and they get to have that interaction and say, hi, and see people in person.

It’s so interesting the perception that people have. We actually created an income calculator. It’s like a mini complimentary class analysis about four years ago. Literally, this evolved from sitting around having lunch with a client. We were literally just outside of her office in Napa sitting out on a patio, and she said, “I can’t get people to fill out this complimentary cost analysis. There’s so many questions. That’s a lot of information to fill out on a form online.”

I said, “Why don’t we do a mini version of it?” Just enough to give you something to chew on before you call them, you can’t ask them everything, but what are some of those key questions you want to ask? For example, do you own a home or rent a home? How much do you spend on activities and maybe care outside the home every month? Do you work with an investment broker? Just knowing if they have investments. Maybe just a few top-line questions and you’ll know right away. Even if you assume incorrectly, at least you’ve got something to go off of when you call them. People really are willing to give a shortened version of that.

Live chat is amazing. It just befuddles me, really, how many people like to chat live. They’ll give us their whole life story and it builds trust. There’s maybe a lot of adult children who are sitting in an office or they could be on a call, but they just think of something, and they want to ask a quick question. It’s nice because they can ask a question to get an answer without having to call, and then someone’s looping them into a long-winded conversation.

SHN: I know that some of this software can be used for other departments as well. Can you tell us more about that, and how that works, and what you can also use The Conversion Cloud for?

Lovely: Obviously, we’ve all identified a huge problem in staffing over the last year and a half. We started working with a lot of our clients on recruiting campaigns. Again, you’re bringing people to your website, you’ve got that careers page. What does that career page look like? Are they able to easily access what they need to access? Do they fill out an application form? What do they do?

We’ve used those Conversion Cloud modules for either scheduling an interview, finding out more about current job openings, and viewing our current job openings now. For example, some people have a video showing their property, maybe they have a video of just some of their employees saying, “Hey, we love working here. Hi, I’m Jen and I love working for Senior Housing News.”

It’s neat to be able to do that. Yes, we’ve used those for recruiting purposes. It has worked. I was actually really surprised one of my clients said, for an ED position, they had a $25,000 signing bonus and they were putting it out there with different venues. Got absolutely no traction. Started doing some recruiting advertising with the modules. Literally, within three days, they had four solid recruits and they hired somebody.

Again, people just want to be able to request something immediately, one-click, one-touch, it’s very visible. It’s worked tremendously. You can use it in so many ways and we’ll work with people to do that as well.

The post Capture and Unlock Lead Data to Maximize Your ROI appeared first on Conversion Logix.

Whether searching for themselves or an elderly parent, boomers make up a core audience in today’s senior living market. Unlike the generation before them, boomers are actively using the internet to search for information, seek out entertainment, and connect with people online. While not exactly digital natives, this group has adapted to using technology to meet their goals. To connect with the nation’s second-largest generation, marketers will need to focus their marketing dollars on the right online channels and create digital experiences that align with this cohort’s preferred way of discovering and evaluating products and services. Keep these ten statistics in mind when making decisions about marketing to boomers in the senior living space.

Fact #1

Search engine marketing is the most effective channel for marketing to boomers. 65% of boomers made a purchase as a result of using a search engine, a greater percentage than social media or watching videos (DMN3). Investing in pay-per-click advertising is the best way to reach your target market consistently across search engines. We recommend our senior living clients use Google and Bing Ads to capture market share in the search engine when boomers are searching for senior care in their local area.

Fact #2

37% of boomers increased their social media usage over the past year, and 16% expect their usage to continue to increase over the next three years (Sprout Social). Social media advertising is a great way to promote your community to seniors due to its increasing popularity. When advertising to this audience use clear and straightforward marketing messaging, speak to their desire to avoid isolation, remain active in their retirement years, and avoid making direct references to their status as a “senior”.

Fact #3

Facebook is the most popular social media platform among baby boomers. 50% of U.S. adults ages 65+ and 73% ages 50-64 say they use Facebook (Pew Research). Facebook is the best advertising platform for promoting senior living communities at every level of care. Boomers primarily use this channel to connect with their friends and family. If you are marketing to seniors looking for their own future living options, position your offering as an opportunity to grow their in-person social network. If you are promoting assisted living and memory care to younger boomers looking for their parent’s care, focus on your skilled staff, promote offers and discounts, and show how your community offers seniors in your care a level of independence and fulfillment.

Fact #4

Recent stats show 83% of adults ages 50-64 and 49% of adults 65+ watch YouTube (Pew Research). YouTube has become the platform of choice for boomers looking for product information, to learn something new, or to be entertained (Think With Google). 

1. 1 in 3 boomers watch YouTube to learn about a product or service.
2. Boomers are 1.3 times more likely to watch a YouTube tutorial video than to read instructions.
3. 68% of boomers say they watch YouTube videos to be entertained.

YouTube is a powerful channel for reaching boomers. When you advertise on this platform target your audience by their keyword searches in Google. This strategy optimizes your investment as the audience is more likely to click on your ad and visit your website. When creating ad content for this platform, showcase your community’s amenities, services, and community environment. Boomers pay attention to product offering specifics over testimonials when watching YouTube to learn about a product or service.

Fact #5

86% of online seniors spend at least 6 hours a day online and own an average of five devices. These digital users primarily spend their time among the following three online activities: staying in touch with friends, organizing their finances, and improving their health. These behaviors aren’t limited to the recent events of the pandemic. 70% of seniors say they will spend the same amount of time when the pandemic is no longer a concern (Think With Google). Consider aligning your content marketing strategy to address these three activities.

Fact #6

Watching TV is still a popular pastime for boomers. 59% of boomers spend more than 20 hours watching TV and 21% of boomers stream TV on a personal device (Ipsos). Over half of all older consumers are already subscribing to at least one streaming service (Rev). As more and more of this cohort switches to streaming on connected TV platforms, new opportunities open up to target seniors. Unlike traditional TV advertising, Connected TV offers more granular targeting capabilities, can result in direct clicks to your website, and offers post-view website visit attribution.

Fact #7

Baby boomers are no stranger to making online purchases. According to AARP, the 50+ market makes up 39% of all online purchases, spending nearly twice as much online as Millennials. People ages 50+ are also responsible for over 50% of all consumer spending. Boomers are used to sophisticated online shopping experiences. When selling to them online, make sure your website delivers a modern and feature-rich experience. Use virtual tours, live chat, and image or video-heavy product pages to live up to their growing expectations for online shopping-focused website experiences. 

Fact #8

96% of baby boomers use search engines, 95% use email, and 92% shop for products and services online rather than shopping in stores and shopping malls (Forbes). Think about the online search process for seniors as a multichannel approach. Create paid search campaigns to ensure boomers discover you, deliver value and information on your website, and collect contact information to remarket to them with email. 

Fact #9

74% of Baby Boomers think email is the most personal channel to communicate with brands (HubSpot). The senior living buying cycle can take months or even years. Email marketing is critical to the senior living marketer’s playbook as it establishes a direct and personalized experience with boomers. Use email to promote offers, events, and tour experiences. Follow up with lead nurturing campaigns and personalized sales messages to maintain a high-touch brand experience.

Fact #10

Last but certainly not least, when you market your senior living community to boomers online, ensure your brand reputation meets their expectations. Boomers are selective when it comes to making purchase decisions when a brand has lower online reviews. Only 7% of consumers older than 55 would use a business that has less than 3 stars (Bright Local). Frequently monitor Google, Facebook, and Yelp to protect your brand reputation. Actively seek out positive reviews from residents and their families if your star rating falls below four stars. Reviews can be the first result a searcher sees on Google or Facebook so it’s important you don’t neglect this aspect of your brand presence when developing an online marketing campaign.

Key Takeaways

Boomers are the most digitally savvy seniors the senior living industry has encountered. They are actively using social media, search engines, and websites to research products and services and make purchase decisions. Boomers watch video ads on Facebook and YouTube and actively search for video content related to products and services when making purchase decisions. This group prefers to read and watch product content that is straightforward and speaks to the features and benefits of a service. When creating content marketing and event campaigns to connect with this audience match your strategy to help them make friends, organize their finances, and improve their health. Once a boomer engages with your brand online, use email to maintain your relationship throughout the customer lifecycle.

The post 10 Facts You Need to Know About Marketing to Boomers appeared first on Conversion Logix.

Signing a contract to move into a senior living community is an emotional decision for seniors and their loved ones. Everyone involved in making a decision has questions and concerns during the sales cycle. Seniors and their families aren’t relying on one in-person visit to make decisions about care. They often turn to online channels to gather information before making a commitment.

Communication resources like Live Chat can help your community navigate these online conversations any time of the day, freeing up your team to deliver an incredible tour experience and personalized follow-ups. Read on to find out the seven reasons why our clients find Live Chat to be such a valuable addition to their sales and marketing efforts. 

1. Live Chat Offers 24/7 Communication

Not every senior living inquiry is happening within business hours. A 24/7 live chat team can help address questions for your community day and night. The team can act as an extension of your sales team, ensuring you respond to customers when your team isn’t available. As more research occurs after hours, live chat can help your community capture prospect opportunities outside of business hours and encourage prospects to further engage with your team via a tour or phone call.

2. Live Chat Improves Response Time

Our Live Chat team’s average response time is five seconds. Even when sales teams are onsite during business hours, their response times to website inquiries aren’t likely to be as fast as a Live Chat team. On-site teams’ first priority is responding to in-person requests. They are often away from their desk, giving live tours, busy hosting prospect events or focused on processing contracts and following up with prospects. Most staff don’t respond immediately to requests that come through websites via contact forms or email, which can lead to a missed opportunity. A dedicated live chat team can provide instant feedback and capture a prospect’s interest before they move on to contacting another community. 

3. Engage Prospects Earlier in the Customer Journey

Unlike scheduling a tour, placing a phone call, or walking into a building, Live Chat offers prospects an engaging and lower commitment opportunity to speak to someone about your community. This anonymous and convenient communication channel can make prospects in the information-gathering process, who may not be ready to set an appointment with a salesperson, more comfortable asking questions, increasing prospect engagement at the top of the funnel. After speaking with a live chat representative, this type of prospect may be more likely to move on to the next stage in the customer journey.

4. Live Chat Teams Deliver More Empathetic Experiences

Intelligent bots can be great for answering super-simple questions. In the senior living space, most prospects are looking for solutions to difficult and emotional situations. They are seeking advice and information about a decision that will have a big impact on their loved ones. Unlike the robotic nature of bots, real people can answer questions empathetically, read between the lines when prospects are asking sensitive questions, and offer caring and reassuring answers to difficult questions. This helps humanize your senior living community and enables you to develop deeper relationships with prospects.

5. Higher Lead Conversion Rate

Our team’s average prospect-to-lead conversion rate is over 75%. Website visitors who engage in a Live Chat conversation are more likely to give their contact information than any other engagement. By securing contact information before the conversation ends and asking if the prospect would like to be followed up with, Live Chat teams warm up prospects for the onsite sales team. 

6. Better Lead Qualification 

Live chat conversations can be recorded and easily passed along to onsite sales teams. The back-and-forth conversational nature of Live Chat allows teams to gather relevant information quickly. A trained live chat team can incorporate lead qualification questions more naturally in a conversation than a bot or prompt by timing the questions to align with the stage of interest of the prospect. This can increase your sales team’s chances of having more valuable conversations with prospects, increasing your chances of converting a lead to a move-in.

7. Brings Value Beyond Lead Generation and Sales

While Live Chat offers an incredible opportunity to convert prospects into leads, appointments, and sales, its full value is larger than these offerings alone. Live chat can act as a customer service tool, helping residents’ families find information, an HR tool, connecting prospective employees with staff members and addressing job inquiries, and a translation tool by translating prospect and customer inquiries communicated in foreign languages. It truly acts as another resource for your team, freeing staff to focus on day-to-day operations while building your brand reputation as a responsive and customer-service-oriented company.

Learn More About Live Chat with Conversion Logix

Conversion Logix®, LLC provides senior living leaders with a comprehensive suite of marketing software and services that enable communities to capture, connect, and convert prospects throughout their customer journey. We advise, plan, and execute digital marketing strategies to help communities maximize ROI. Our suite of software and services allows teams to easily integrate with common CRM applications and scale lead generation across multiple properties. 

Our team of Live Chat specialists has years of experience serving the senior living industry and offers 24/7 sales and customer support. To learn more about how our live chat team helps communities reach their occupancy goals, schedule a call with us today.

The post 7 Reasons to Add Live Chat Technology to Your Senior Living Website appeared first on Conversion Logix.

The senior living market comes with its own interesting set of challenges and opportunities. Since COVID impacted the industry in 2020, communities have had to change their strategic approach to marketing and sales. As a digital marketing agency with over ten years of senior living marketing experience, we know what it takes to promote a community online. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the marketing strategies we’ve used to help hundreds of senior living communities maintain their occupancy goals.

Create a Google Ads Campaign

Google keyword data reveals there are over 22,000 searches a month for “senior living communities” in the United States. Google has become an undeniable resource for families looking for senior care at all levels. If your community is brand new and just getting started with advertising, Google Ads is the best place to start. Google Ads has evolved to give advertisers powerful features that allow marketers to target senior living searchers by keyword, location, and likeliness to click on an ad or convert on a website.

Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Local searching has been on the rise over the past few years as more Google searchers utilize Google’s location tracking to identify businesses near them. There are, on average, over 49,000 Google searches a month for “senior living near me”. As you can see from the Google Ads keyword data below, monthly searches for local senior living options have increased dramatically from 2017 to 2021.

One of the best ways to capture this local search traffic is through a Google Business Profile (GBP), a free tool businesses can use to build up an online presence in Google. 

GBP listings are prioritized when Google users search for location-based searches, particularly on mobile devices. The listing presents your community’s name, location, imagery, and reviews.

Many communities miss opportunities to stand out in GBP listings. To get the most out of your profile, you’ll want to do the following: 

• Upload imagery and a video 
• Post offers, events, and announcements weekly using GBP Posts
• Link a self-scheduling tour option, and make sure you maintain up-to-date hours and contact information.

Promote Your Community with Facebook Ads

50% of U.S. adults 65 and older and 73% of adults ages 50-64 use Facebook (Pew Research). Facebook is one of the best places to promote a senior living community to both seniors and their adult children. While this platform is a great place to reach adults looking for senior care, posting to a Facebook page on a daily basis isn’t the best way to maximize your community’s reach. The average organic post on Facebook reaches only 5.2% of page followers in 2021 and yields a 0.25% engagement rate (Hootsuite). For this reason, Facebook Ads have become the best way to reach the prospects in-market for senior care.

Retarget Website Visitors with Display Ads

Because the buying cycle for senior living can vary, it’s a good idea for communities to incorporate a retargeting strategy. This allows you to remarket to prospects who searched for their community early in the buying cycle. One of the most cost-effective ways to do this is through display advertising. Display ads present banner ads to your target audience as they spend time on online publications like news sites and blogs. Retargeted display ads target prospects who visited your community’s website and present them with a banner designed to encourage them to come back to your community’s site and take the next step in the customer journey.

Target Senior Living Searchers with YouTube Video Ads

83% of 50 – 64-year-olds and 49% of 65+ adults watch YouTube (Pew Research), making it the second-best social media platform to promote your senior living community. One of the things that makes YouTube such a powerful ad platform is the fact that it is owned by Google. This allows advertisers to target Google searchers in the YouTube platform, making it possible for your community to promote video ads to a very specific audience with high purchase intent.

Build Brand Awareness with Connected TV

Another way to maximize your community’s reach across digital video platforms is connected TV advertising. Video ads on YouTube that are longer than 6 seconds are skippable by viewers on the platform. Connected TV, on the other hand, presents non-skippable video ads to viewers watching TV shows and movies across a huge range of online media channels. According to eMarketer, 51.5% of boomers in 2018 streamed or downloaded digital video content, and 47% of those ages 55 to 64 had a video subscription service in their household. The widespread use of video streaming among the boomer population makes connected TV ads a great channel to build brand awareness in senior communities.

Conclusion

We hope you found this guide helpful in creating a marketing plan for your senior living community. If you need further assistance in implementing digital advertising or adding lead generation technology to your website, schedule a call with a Conversion Logix senior living marketing specialist.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Senior Living Marketing appeared first on Conversion Logix.

Reaching the right target audience in the assisted living market can be challenging since the decision-makers can be various family members in addition to the senior. This is why strategic targeting plays such an important role in assisted living advertising. Marketers need sophisticated advertising platforms to meet families at the right place and time in their journey. We’ve partnered with assisted living care communities to increase leads, tours, and move-ins for over a decade. In this time, we’ve found these five advertising channels to be the most effective for reaching families looking for assisted living care.

1. Google Ads

The best place to reach families looking for senior care online is Google. Nearly 75% of baby boomers use Google to research senior living care information.

When searching for a loved one, baby boomers were more likely to search for skilled nursing or assisted living communities. More specifically, Google’s research showed that these searchers were researching care types and medical services offered at communities in addition to how close the nearest hospital was and what the staff-to-resident ratio looked like.

To ensure you reach family members searching for care, we recommend using Google Ads to consistently display at the top of search engine results. This ad placement tends to have the highest click-through rates and lead conversion rates across media channels in the industry.

2. Facebook Ads

69% of U.S. adults use Facebook, making it a great place to reach adult children in the market for senior care. To reach this audience, we use a combination of age and interest targeting to identify those in the senior care search process.

These ads offer a combination of visuals and copy for advertisers to communicate the community’s unique selling points while showing what onsite amenities and facilities look like. For assisted living, one of the most successful Facebook ad strategies is to promote service quality since that is a high priority for adult children looking for this care level.

We’ve used this channel to promote various messages, from resident testimonials to exemplary staff care, virtual touring, and standout amenities.

Regardless of the focus of the ad, it’s a good idea to call out assisted living care level messaging in a visible place in either the headlines, description copy, or subheadlines to pre-qualify those in the senior care market based on the type of care they are looking for.

3. Display Ad Networks

Another way to leverage intent-targeting to reach adult children looking for senior care is display advertising. Through display ad networks, senior living communities can target a nationwide audience that is in the market for assisted living with banner ads across thousands of websites.

When running these ad campaigns for our senior living clients, we often lead with an offer in the ad headline since copy space is limited. The goal is to deliver a concise and refined message that entices them to click on the ad or search for the community later on.

4. YouTube Ads

Often overlooked, YouTube offers senior living advertisers the opportunity to engage a highly targeted audience through video. Since YouTube is owned by Google, ads in YouTube leverage the same search data in the Google platform. This allows you to target adult children who have specifically searched for assisted living care in your area.

Since this is both an audio and visual platform, video walkthroughs of what your community looks like and voice-overs can help prospects feel like they are visiting your community in the ad. Make sure to add text overlays in places of the ad to communicate the location of the community and the care levels offered to establish relevance early in the video.

5. Connected TV Ad Networks

With the rise of cord-cutting and the ever-growing usage of TV streaming services, Connected TV advertising is an up-and-coming channel for reaching senior living prospects.

This form of advertising is similar to traditional TV advertising as the ads aren’t skippable and take on a short video format, however, they differ in their targeting, engagement, and tracking capabilities.

You can reach prospects across a range of streaming services and popular channels with similar intent-targeting capabilities to what is offered in Display ad networks. Another advantage is that Connected TV users watch TV across their mobile devices, laptops, and smart TVs. These ads are also clickable, unlike traditional TV ads, and can link to your senior living website. If a viewer watches your ad and then searches for it later, this interaction is measured as a post-view action, helping you tie digital marketing capabilities to a TV ad format.

Conclusion

These five top digital advertising channels make it easier than ever before to reach high-intent prospects in the senior living industry. As a full-service marketing technology company, we have years of experience managing hundreds of assisted living advertising campaigns across the U.S. Reach out to us today if you’re searching for an experienced provider to elevate your senior living marketing strategy.

The post 5 Top-Performing Assisted Living Advertising Channels appeared first on Conversion Logix.

Getting prospects to visit your website is only half the battle. 97% of website visitors leave webpages without ever converting. That is a lot of missed opportunities for senior living communities trying to fill their units. Here are some helpful tips to make sure you are maximizing webpage conversions and getting the most out of your online presence.

Helpful Content

When someone visits an assisted living website, they are coming for information. Your website must be able to accommodate them. Having plenty of helpful and relevant content on your site will build trust between you and website visitors, leading to more conversions. Examples of content you can create include blogs, e-books, and newsfeeds.

Mobile Friendly

With 70% of internet traffic coming from mobile phones, having a website optimized for mobile users is a must for staying competitive.  80% of smartphone users are more likely to purchase from companies with mobile sites or apps that help them easily answer their questions. Those questions can be answered with all the helpful content that you now have on your site.

Reviews

Do you remember the last time you made a significant purchase without reading the reviews for the product/service? Reviews are the best way to build trust between a brand and a website visitor. Having customer reviews on your site creates transparency, and makes visitors feel at ease knowing others have had positive experiences. You may be worried about negative reviews but these actually add to your brand’s image as long as the positives outweigh them.

Easy to Navigate

When someone visits a website, they do not want a steep learning curve. Have someone that isn’t familiar with your site go through it to try and find various resources. The same goes for the mobile version of your site. 57% of mobile users won’t recommend a brand with a poorly designed site. One way to improve the design of your website is to use software such as Schedule Genie to make it simple for your prospects to schedule tours and contact you.

Help Options

Speaking of a prospect’s ability to contact you, make it easy for visitors to get the help they need. This is key for boosting the quality of your customer! Having a chat service on your site where visitors can quickly ask a representative questions will make them feel important and more likely to convert. Using a live chat service is generally preferable as older generations prefer speaking to actual humans over a bot.

Unique Offer

The Senior Living market is crowded so making sure your site sticks out is a must. A great way to accomplish this is by offering a deal or discount on your website. Generally, when a prospect visits a Senior Living community’s website they are not ready to commit for several weeks, if not months. A compelling offer can help you capture a lead’s contact information so you can remarket them in the future. You can use a tool like Concession Manager to promote your offer on multiple pages of your website and help you capture your website visitors’ lead information.

Video Content

Including video content on your site is a must. Video is more effective at converting leads than any other form of content. Very few assisted living communities have implemented video in their marketing. This is a huge opportunity for those that do it sooner rather than later.

Conclusion

Nothing is worse than losing a potential future resident due to a poorly created webpage. Luckily, if you implement some or all these tips, you’ll see your conversion rates jump in no time.

The post 7 Easy Ways to Increase Senior Living Website Conversions appeared first on Conversion Logix.