In working with numerous senior living communities that vary in both number of locations and service line offerings, Linkmedia 360 is ultimately tasked with driving qualified inquiries that turn into residents to reach occupancy goals. Getting there and showing tangible results as soon as possible is what often times is the challenge we mutually encounter. Each senior living community comes to the partnership with different levels of digital marketing experience, website visibility, website user experience and website conversion potential. Common senior living digital marketing challenges we look to solve out of the gate with our client partnerships include:
Immediately upon entering senior living client partnerships, we mindfully map out where clients are with their digital marketing sophistication, and where we need to take them to meet and exceed their resident acquisition goals. The purpose of this approach, or maturity model, is to support the resident journey with strategic digital marketing initiatives. There is nothing more rewarding in our work than advancing a client’s digital operations and community profitability – and proving it through analytics and insightful reporting. Timetables to generate results vary widely, but as long as there is ongoing knowledge sharing, transparency and a collaborative effort, results will manifest quickly.
While most of our new client partnerships fall under the novice or practitioner levels, we also are sought after by advanced community marketers to efficiently deliver upon niche components of a digital marketing strategy. As an agency, we are set up with dedicated expert resources that are up to date on the digital marketing industry, so your team can focus on branding, story telling or public relations.
Novice – Stagnant, Chaotic, Siloed, Ad-hoc, Reactive
Practitioner – Managed, Experimental, Reactive, Process Emerges
Expert – Conversion & Revenue Focused, Quantitatively Measured, Proactive
The areas listed below are the strategic initiatives for senior living marketing, that when done in a holistic and integrated fashion, will lend toward success and movement in the maturity model. Here is our take on the importance of each one:
Strategy
Having a documented plan that is connected to outcomes (and is measured along the way to show success, failure, opportunities and so on).
Your Team
This is critical, whether it is internally, with agency partners, contractors or consultants. Without a team-first approach, nothing is achievable. Just having a website or a software solution doesn’t automatically solve all of your lead generation, messaging, or operational challenges.
Technology
This is the infrastructure that powers your digital presence. This involves your website hosting, mobile website, analytics and other tools that help further optimize digital marketing efforts.
Branding
Branding is an area that needs to reflect your mission, values and daily actions for your residents. This involves the messaging, look, feel, emotional connection and also how that is represented in areas like Facebook and review websites.
Visibility
Visibility is one of our favorite strategic areas in digital marketing. Our goal is to get our clients prime real estate in search engines and other important digital channels that drive new and qualified traffic to your website – which then turns into leads. There are a lot of ways to create new visibility, but it is critical to focus on sustainable methods that will continue to work harder for you and get you ahead of competitors in your local market.
Engagement
Engagement is how we capture our website visitors, email subscribers, and social media followers to stay active and informed. Are you there to help in their times of need, or early on in their research efforts? Accounting for engagement on your website is achieved through great content, decision guides, videos, interactive floor plans, live chat, blogs, and articles.
Conversions
Once we have engaged our audience online, where are we ultimately driving them? If the phones aren’t ringing more frequently, or the website inquiries aren’t coming through, or your emails aren’t getting opened, then all of the other strategic activities are meaningless. With conversions, it is critical that we track and analyze all touch points and events on your website to continually improve the content and user experience.
Although our client partners usually reside in sales and marketing departments, we often work with other stakeholders of communities. It’s not uncommon for us to have joint or separate campaigns or workstreams that include HR, Giving, IT, or PR/communications.
When working with internal clients that have connections to sales and marketing, it’s important to:
Our Senior Living Digital Marketing Checklist will provide direction on all the things your senior living digital marketing operation should be accomplishing. Below are some of our recommended ways to advance your efforts to go from novice to practitioner and practitioner to expert.
Action Items:
Action items:
Action Items:
Setting aside all the tactical digital marketing components that need to happen to advance your operation, our best advice is to keep this simple framework in mind. Analytics are necessary to show success, but they are even more valuable when you have insights and experience behind them that can execute an action plan in agile fashion to drive new visibility and leads in the markets surrounding your senior living community.
Download Our Senior Living Maturity Model Checklist to start producing more quality online leads that turn into residents!
If you see an opportunity for Linkmedia 360 to help you in your senior living digital marketing journey, contact us today!
