Your Senior Living Community’s Guide to Marketing

The internet has changed the way that people live their lives, and that includes the way they find senior living communities. In the past, most seniors and their families would choose a community based on word-of-mouth recommendations or traditional marketing channels.

These days, prospective residents and their families are much more likely to conduct an online search when they’re looking for a new community. That’s why it’s so important for senior living communities to have a strong digital marketing plan.

When you invest in digital marketing, you’re investing in your community’s future. By creating a website that’s optimized for search engines and full of valuable content, you can attract more prospective residents to your community. And by staying active on social media and creating targeted online ads, you can reach even more people.

Digital marketing is an essential part of any senior living community’s marketing plan. If you’re not investing in digital marketing, you’re missing out on a crucial opportunity to reach prospective residents and their families.

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At Dreamscape Marketing, we understand the unique challenges that senior living communities face growing census in a modern, digital-first marketing world. With a complex and lengthy new-resident journey, it’s more important than ever that a marketing plan provides a holistic solution. Our experienced team works in partnership with your sales and marketing teams to create a bespoke strategy to generate highly-qualified new-resident opportunities and nurture them through the decision-making process and conversion.

Because understanding the building blocks of digital marketing is essential to creating a successful senior living community marketing strategy, we’ve created the guide below to help you get started.

Table of Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You can have the most beautiful, user-friendly website in the world, but it won’t matter if no one can find it. That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. SEO is the process of optimizing your website for Google and other search engines. When you invest in SEO, you’re making your website more visible in search results.

SEO is important for any website, but it’s absolutely crucial for senior living communities. That’s because the majority of prospective residents and adult child decision-makers will start their search for a new community online. If your website isn’t optimized for search engines, you’re missing out on a lot of prospective residents.

There are a number of reasons why SEO is such a vital component of senior living marketing campaigns. These include but are not limited to:

Reach a wider audience

When you invest in SEO, you’re making your website more visible to prospective residents and adult child decision-makers. This can help you attract more people to your senior community.

Improve your website ranking

Google and other search engines use complex algorithms to determine where your website will appear in search results. By investing in SEO, you can improve your website’s ranking and make it more likely to appear at the top of search results.

Increase traffic to your website

The higher your website ranks in search results, the more traffic it will receive. This can lead to more prospective residents visiting your website and learning about your community.

Stand out from the competition

If you want your senior living community to stand out from the competition, you need to invest in SEO. Many senior living communities have websites, but not all of them are optimized for search engines. This gives you a chance to make your website more visible and attract more potential residents.

Get more leads and make more conversions

When you invest in SEO, you’re not just attracting more traffic to your website. You’re also making it more likely that that traffic will turn into leads and conversions.

Building a strong SEO campaign takes time and investment. But once you get started, that investment will pay off, especially when your senior living community marketing is handled by the professionals at Dreamscape Marketing.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a type of digital marketing that focuses on creating and sharing content online. This content can take many different forms, including blog posts, infographics, videos, and ebooks.

Content marketing is crucial for senior living communities because it helps you highlight your differentiators and share your value proposition. With a long, complex decision-making journey, your content is an opportunity to stand out with prospective residents and adult child decision-makers by telling your unique story.

Keyword Research

As you get started with content marketing for your senior living community, it’s important to keep keyword research in mind. Keyword research is the process of finding and using keywords that prospective residents and their families are searching for online.

Why is keyword research so important? Because it helps you match your target keywords with the way your ideal prospective residents and adult child decision-makers are searching online.

When selecting which keywords to target from your research, keep in mind how your ideal prospective residents and adult child decision-makers will be searching for your senior living community services online.

Backlinking

Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. They’re a critical part of SEO because they help improve your website’s ranking in search results. The more backlinks you have, the higher your website will rank.

Backlinks are also important for content marketing. When other websites link to your content, it helps to increase its visibility and reach. This can lead to more traffic and more prospective residents and adult child decision-makers learning about your senior living services.

If you’re not already investing in backlinking as part of your senior living community marketing, now is the time to start. Backlinks will help you improve your website’s ranking in search results and get more traffic to your content.

Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is a free listing that appears on Google when someone searches for your business. It includes your business name, address, phone number, website, services, and hours of operation. Your Google Business Profile can serve as an additional social media platform where you can cross-post updates and events. It also shows reviews and ratings from Google users.

A Google Business Profile is critical for senior living communities because it helps you attract more prospective residents and adult child decision makers to your website. When your business appears in search results, it gives you an opportunity to show off your best features and stand out from the competition.

Creating a Google Business Profile is easy and only takes a few minutes. But if you want to get the most out of it, you need to put some time and effort into optimizing your profile.

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Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns

Paid search campaigns are an important part of any senior living community marketing plan. They allow you to target prospective residents who are actively searching for senior living options in your area.

When someone searches for keywords related to senior living, your ad will appear in the search results. If they click on your ad, they will be taken to your website where they can learn more about your community.

Pay-per-click campaigns are a great way to attract prospective residents and adult child decision-makers to your website and are an important component of a balanced digital marketing strategy.

Website Design

Your website is often the first impression prospective residents and their families will have of your community. That’s why it’s important to make sure your website is optimized for performance and designed to reflect the brand of your community.

A top-performing website must be user-friendly, properly structured, provide valuable content, and be responsive as more and more people are using mobile devices to search online.

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Mobile Responsiveness

It is more important than ever to make sure that your website is optimized for smaller screens. In fact, according to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing, and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead.

A mobile-friendly website is essential for two reasons: first, because it ensures that prospective residents can easily find and navigate your site, and second, because it helps you rank higher in search results. Google favors mobile-friendly websites, and so do online searchers

Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool for senior living community marketing. It allows you to connect with prospective residents and their families, build relationships, and create a sense of community.

Platforms like Facebook, and Instagram also give you the opportunity to show off your community and highlight the things that make it special.

Dreamscape can help you set up and maintain profiles on platforms like:

LinkedinInstagramSnapchatYouTube

If you’re not already using social media to market your senior living community, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity.

Retargeting

Retargeting is a type of online advertising that allows you to show ads to people who have already visited your website.

For example, if someone searches for senior living options in your area and clicks on your ad, they will be taken to your website. If they don’t take any action on your site (such as filling out a form or calling your community), you can add them to a retargeting list. Then, when they visit other websites, they will see ads for your community.

Retargeting is an important part of the marketing mix because it allows you to stay in front of prospective residents who may not be ready to make a decision right away. It’s also a great way to increase brand awareness and build familiarity with your community.

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Email Marketing

Email marketing is integral to any digital marketing campaign for senior living communities. Here are a few reasons why:

It’s Cost-Effective

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels available. It’s affordable to set up and maintain and doesn’t require a large budget to be effective.

You Can Reach a Wide Audience

With email marketing, you can reach a broad audience with your messages. There are no geographical restrictions, meaning you can reach people worldwide with your marketing campaigns.

You Can Target Your Messages

Email marketing allows you to target your messages so that they’re relevant to your audience. You can segment your contact list and send targeted messages to specific groups of people. This ensures that your messages are relevant and that they’re seen by the people most likely to be interested in them.

It’s Measurable

Email marketing is one of the most measurable marketing channels available. You can track your open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates so that you can see how well your campaigns are performing. This allows you to make necessary adjustments to improve your results.

It’s Easy to Automate

Email marketing is easy to automate, which saves you time and effort. You can set up automated email campaigns that are triggered by specific events, such as subscribing to a mailing list or making a purchase. This allows you to stay in touch with your audience without putting in a lot of extra work.

Overall, email marketing is a powerful tool that should be included in any digital marketing plan for senior living communities. It’s cost-effective, easy to use, and it allows you to reach a wide audience with your messages.

Hosting and Tracking

As you implement your senior living community marketing plan, it’s crucial to track your progress and measure your success. This can be done through website analytics, which provides data on website traffic, page views, and bounce rate. Call tracking also allows you to see how many people are calling your community due to your digital marketing efforts.

Hosting

Your website is the foundation of your online presence, and it’s important to choose a hosting platform that will support your site. A good hosting platform will be reliable, scalable, and secure. It will also offer features that are specific to senior living communities, such as lead capture forms and community calendars.

At Dreamscape, we rely on two dedicated servers to host our clients’ websites. This ensures that there is always enough server space and bandwidth to accommodate high traffic levels.

Call Tracking

To track your progress and analyze your results, you need to set up tools to track your website traffic. It is also essential that you have a way to track the phone calls you receive. Call tracking lets you see which marketing channels are driving phone calls to your practice.

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Analytics

Analyzing analytics is critical to understanding how your marketing campaign is performing. Analytics allow you to see which channels are driving traffic to your website and where that traffic is coming from. You can also track conversions, leads, and sales to see which marketing activities result in the most leads and sales.

Overall, hosting, tracking, and analytics are essential components of any effective marketing campaign for senior living communities. Without these tools, it would be difficult to track your progress or understand what’s working and what isn’t. If you’re not already using these tools, now is the time to start.

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