THE HEARTS OF SENIORS

by katie truelove

It must also be optimized for mobile phones, as research shows that 92.1% of internet users access the internet through their mobile phones

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. Aim for page one of Google search

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.

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. 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.

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

Videos are a great way to engage potential residents and show them what life at your facility is like. 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:

• Creating marketing videos

• Creating resident testimonial videos

• Creating virtual tour videos

• Uploading videos to social media platforms

• Embedding videos on your website

6. 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.

7. 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

katie truelove Chief Creative Guru & Solutions Hero of ktcreative; a boutique marketing agency

Making decisions about late-in-life care can be challenging, and the options are sometimes confusing. Unfortunately, as we well know, so many people often confuse assisted living and skilled nursing. This mischaracterization affects our industry in many ways, from the media lumping ALFs in with a story on skilled nursing to legislators not understanding the nuances of our business models to families being confused about what long-term care option might be best suited for their loved one’s unique needs.

The term “nursing home” has been used for many years to describe senior residences offering health care, even though it’s often used more broadly than intended. And while assisted living has been part of the senior care industry for more than 30 years, it’s still a relatively new concept in the continuum of care. That means it’s up to us as assisted living providers to educate the public and other important stakeholders about the key differences between assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.

The most significant difference between our communities and nursing facilities is that our residents only need some assistance; they truly don’t need the skilled nursing care offered in a nursing home. Our communities fall in what used to be a significant gap between a senior living at home and not needing any assistance and a senior who needs