The last few years have been a roller-coaster ride for senior living digital marketing strategies. Within the senior living industry, occupancy rates plummeted throughout 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And while they’ve been improving over the past several quarters, they’re still nowhere near peak pre-pandemic census.
With so much uncertainty around congregate living arising during the pandemic, especially for seniors, many prospective residents chose to put off the move-in decision. The census wasn’t only impacted by a decline in new resident move-ins: in 2020, 44,000 older Americans gave up their senior living space.1
At this point, nearly two-thirds of those once-abandoned units are occupied. But there’s still a ways to go until occupancy rates in the senior living space return to their pre-pandemic levels.
To make the most of the opportunities this recovering market offers, it’s time to re-evaluate your senior living digital marketing strategy. You’ll want to confirm that it’s optimized to attract and convert prospective residents!
Senior Living Digital Marketing Strategy Tips
Here are four senior care marketing tips to incorporate into your digital marketing strategy and help you connect with your ideal audience.
1. Include a Virtual Tour of Your Senior Living Community
Virtual tours have been a mainstay of business websites for several years. The hospitality and real estate industries were early adopters of this technology, and experienced excellent results after including virtual tours in their marketing plans. Today you can take a virtual tour of businesses ranging from dental offices to dorm rooms.
At the height of the pandemic, virtual tours were a lifeline for many senior living communities. In several states, public health emergency regulations prevented communities from welcoming non-residents and their families inside.
Virtual tours were a safe and accessible alternative for prospective residents and their families to explore the communities they were considering, and helped those communities stay top-of-mind during a lengthy new resident journey. These interactive videos give a realistic glimpse into life inside your senior living community.
And when you feature a virtual tour on your website, users stay five to ten times longer increasing the likelihood they’ll convert.
2. Use Social Media Strategically
Most senior living digital marketing professionals know how much their target audience uses social media. (But in case you weren’t aware, nearly half of seniors use social media.)3 Facebook is their favorite platform, and they’ve been the site’s fastest-growing demographic for many years.
Social media is a powerful senior care marketing tool, but you should use your social accounts thoughtfully. About three-quarters of social media users say they’re tired of seeing social media ads.4 Everywhere seniors look, whether they’re watching TV, using their smart device, or even just gazing out the car window, companies are bombarding them with ads.
Your target audience has advertising fatigue. Keep in mind that your senior living new resident opportunities don’t want a sales pitch. They want a conversation.
So tone down your social media use. Scale back some of the ads and pitch-like posts. Instead, use social media as a place to build your community and get to know your market better.
3. Highlight Testimonials
Your prospective residents aren’t just making a simple purchasing decision when they select your senior living community. They’re choosing a new living space, lifestyle, peer group, services and programs and amenities, the list goes on. Your prospective residents are choosing their new home.
In addition to knowing what kind of wellness options you offer and the floorplans of your rooms, your leads want to know what living in your community is really like. One of the effective uses of reviews in senior living digital marketing is to paint a truthful picture of resident life through testimonials.
Including the personal experiences of residents on your website, social media, or other digital assets is a great way to boost public confidence and build your brand. Your current residents are your best ambassadors. Who can tell the story of your senior living community better?
Research shows testimonial content has a significant impact on consumer decisions. Ninety percent of consumers say watching positive review content influences them to move forward.5
4. Manage Your Reputation
One of the most popular places to find reviews about businesses, including senior living communities, is Google. Your Google Business Profile is the foundation of your online reputation. You need to pay close attention to the health of your Profile to ensure Google reviews represent your community in a positive light.
Just over 80% of customers check Google reviews before contacting a business.6 So monitoring your profile to ensure the reviews are positive and accurately represent your senior living community is important.
Respond to every review, no matter what. Starting a conversation with a positive reviewer simply reinforces the great things they’ve said about your community. And publicly resolving an issue with a negative reviewer demonstrates your transparency and commitment to providing excellent service.
Need to revamp your senior living digital marketing strategy to keep up with the newfound demand? Dreamscape Marketing can help. Call 888.307.7304 to schedule a strategy session today.
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