Archive for category: Marketing Resources

Much has happened in the last 12 months thanks to AI and its impact on search. Below, we’re offering a reality check regarding senior living search engine optimization (SEO) for 2024, including what to expect and why you don’t need to panic.

Search Generative Experience (SGE) isn’t likely to disrupt your organic search results any time soon.

Google unveiled its Search Generative Experience (SGE) back in May to much fanfare and speculation that the end of search (as we know it) was near. But to say things have fizzled since then would be an understatement.

Search Engine Journal reports the reduced frequency of SGE components in search results. It also cites possible reasons, including the problem with accuracy. So far, AI isn’t hugely reliable and is famous for its “hallucinations.” Another reason could be the public’s hesitation to trust AI.

Marketers would be remiss, however, to dismiss SGE altogether. SGE is still in its infancy, and Google has invested significantly in its development. (In November, Google announced it would roll out SGE worldwide.) Besides, the spirit of what SGE is trying to accomplish—providing robust conversational results on the search engine results page (SERP)—is something to embrace, not shy away from.

Search Engine Land says the best way to prepare for SGE is to continue using SEO best practices. This means producing compelling, authoritative content people can trust: “Generic answers and traditional search tactics aren’t enough anymore,” Search Engine Land reports. “The focus has moved towards creating content that offers a unique experience and reflects real human perspectives. Your content should also be personality-driven and thought-provoking to set it apart from the generic content most publishers are churning out, thanks to the proliferation of AI tools.”

You should also continue to optimize your site for long-tail keywords with the goal that SGE could link to your blog post or website page about that particular long-tail topic, which would help boost your site’s visibility.

Bottom line: Stay aware, but don’t panic.

Large-language models like ChatGPT shouldn’t disrupt your SEO or replace your content marketing strategy.

In the spring of 2023, people were braced for large-language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to take over content marketing. Many writers were worried about losing their jobs.

But the death of content writers has been greatly exaggerated.

So, what happened?

Well, people got taken in by how fast ChatGPT was. However, upon closer inspection of ChatGPT’s output, it quickly became apparent that the content was merely adequate (at best).

Remember, the most effective content is authentic, reflects the brand voice, and has personality. So far, AI tools like ChatGPT (yes, even the paid version), Bing, and Bard can’t produce brand-rich content that doesn’t sound wooden and generic. At some point, AI will improve in these areas. But we’re not there yet.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore ChatGPT. Large-language models are suitable for many tasks, such as the following:

• Brainstorming. Give the AI tool a headline and ask it to brainstorm five alternatives. Choose the one you like best and tweak it. Do the same for email subject lines, CTAs, and other short-form content.
• Outlining. Need a 1,500-word blog post written on a specific topic? Share the details with the AI tool and ask it to create an outline. For some tools (like Bing), you can ask it to develop some copy points and sources. (But you must remember to triple-check any sources it provides. You’ll likely need to find your own.)
• Reviewing. Give your blog post (or other content) to the AI tool and ask it to give you feedback. You’ll have your own on-demand editor.

Bottom line: Use AI to support your content marketing strategy, not replace it.

Local SEO will continue to play a pivotal role in 2024. (This shouldn’t be a surprise.)

Local SEO involves optimizing your website and online presence for a specific geographic area, such as a city, state, or region. Local SEO can help you improve your site’s ranking, visibility, and trustworthiness on search engines like Google, especially for users searching for senior living options near them.

Optimizing for local search is something you should already be doing, but if you haven’t focused on it, now is the time to step it up. Here’s how.

• Create a robust Google Business Profile. Ensure you have the correct info (address, phone number, website URL, hours of operation) and use all the features (like photos).
• Use location-based keywords on your site. Weave location-based keywords into your content and meta data, like title tags and meta descriptions.
• Monitor and manage conversations about your brand, especially at the local level. In addition to paying attention to review sites, follow conversations in local online groups. For example, join your area’s local Facebook community group and participate in conversations around senior care, aging in place, and senior living.

Want to dive deeper into this topic? Check out our podcast where we discuss local search marketing.

What works for senior living SEO in 2024 will look a lot like what has always worked.

SEO best practices rarely change dramatically. We might need to tweak our approach whenever Google tweaks its algorithm or introduces initiatives like SGE, but the overall best practices will likely remain the same since the goal is to provide quality content that helps satisfy a person’s search query.

We’re talking about content that . . .

• Speaks to people on a real, human level
• Answers questions and solves problems
• Is honest and authentic
• Demonstrates expertise and authority
• Uses keywords in a thoughtful way
• Always considers humans first, search engines second

If you do the above regularly, you’re “doing” senior living SEO right.

Of course, if you need help overhauling your senior living search engine optimization, give us a shout.

We have a team of SEO specialists who can help your team navigate the ins and outs of search engine optimization for senior living. Get in touch and let’s chat.

The death of email has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, the opposite is true: email has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years thanks to the tremendous growth of smartphone and tablet ownership, as noted by this 2021 Pew Research fact sheet. Armed with a mobile device, everyone from kids to seniors can easily access their email accounts.

For marketers, email is an excellent way to reach prospects and customers. And get this: according to Constant Contact, email marketing offers the highest and most measurable return on investment (ROI) than other types of marketing.

So, as you prep for next year, don’t forget about the power of email. Below, we’re sharing seven email marketing strategies for senior living that will level up your efforts in 2024—and beyond.

Email marketing strategy #1: revisit how you personalize and segment your email campaigns

Personalized and segmented email campaigns can increase opens, click-throughs, and conversion rates.

• Emails with personalized subject lines see an increased open rate of 26% [Source: Campaign Monitor]
• Segmented email campaigns produce a dramatically higher click-through rate than non-segmented emails—over 100% higher, according to some studies. [Source: Kinsta]
• Segmented campaigns have produced a 760% increase in revenue. [Source: Campaign Monitor]

Email marketing tips for 2024:

• Segment your email list based on demographics, interests, and behavior.
• Use personalization tokens to include the recipient’s name, location, or other relevant information in your emails.
• Create targeted content that is relevant to each segment of your audience.

Email marketing strategy #2: include interactive content to increase engagement

Adding interactive elements to your email content, like things that invite people to swipe, click, or watch, can increase engagement and lead to more opens and click-throughs. Campaign Monitor notes interactive content in email increases the open rate by 73%.

Email marketing tips for 2024:

• Include polls, quizzes, surveys, or other interactive elements.
• Use video content to capture your audience’s attention. (More on this below.)
• Create animated GIFs or other engaging visuals.

Email marketing strategy #3: send more video-based emails

Video is an interactive element worthy of its own section. Campaign Monitor shares several compelling stats about the benefits of using videos in your emails:

• Including a video (or a link to a video) in your email can improve click through rates (CTR) by 65% (for context, the average CTR is about 2.69%).
• Including a video in your initial email campaign can boost click rates by 96%.
• Including a video in a welcome email can boost open rates by 96%.

You might think YouTube is the best place to house your videos, but Campaign Monitor says it’s Vimeo (average of 8.13 CTR), with YouTube coming in second (at 6.62% CTR).

We’re always encouraging our clients to do more video content. (Our social media director, Kerri-Anne Pendergast, discussed this very point in a recent article.) The beauty of shooting just one video is that you can share it across multiple channels—YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, website, paid ads, and email.

Email marketing tips for 2024:

• Create short and engaging video content that is relevant to your audience. Think “day in the life of a resident” or a “meet our chef” video.
• Embed videos directly in your emails.
• Use nicely designed video thumbnails to capture attention.
• Email marketing strategy #4: improve (or develop) a mobile-optimized email design

As we mentioned earlier, more and more people are reading their emails on their mobile devices than ever. Backlinko reports that almost 42% of all emails are opened on a mobile device. (Super Office, however, reports that over 80% of all emails are opened and read on mobile devices.)

Bottom line: Ignore mobile optimization at your own peril.

Email marketing tips for 2024:

• Make sure all email templates are responsive and mobile-friendly.
• Use large fonts and buttons that are easy to tap on a small screen.
• Keep your email designs simple and uncluttered.

PRO TIP: Start optimizing your emails for dark mode. Dark mode is a feature that allows users to switch the background color of their devices from light to dark, which can reduce eye strain, save battery life, and improve readability. While still somewhat new, dark mode has been expanding among users. According to Mailmodo, 34% of people used dark mode for opening their emails in August 2022. Stay ahead of the curve by optimizing emails for dark mode now: use transparent images, high-contrast colors, and dark mode-specific CSS.

You should also optimize your emails for accessibility by using clear fonts, alt text, captions, headings, lists, and buttons that make your emails easy to read and navigate for people with disabilities or impairments, like poor eyesight (a common condition found in older demographics).

Email marketing strategy #5: conduct more A/B testing

HubSpot reports that testing your emails can lead to a higher ROI. Mailmodo echoes this point by citing a study showing how businesses that A/B test every email enjoy a 37% higher ROI than those organizations that never A/B test.

Email marketing tips for 2024:

• Test different subject lines, send times, and email designs.
• Track your results to see what works best for your different buyer personas.
• Make changes to your email campaigns based on your test results.

Email marketing strategy #6: increase automation with behavioral triggers and dynamic content

Automation can help you save time and resources and improve your email performance and customer experience. Benchmark Email cites research that shows automated emails enjoy 119% higher click rates than blast emails precisely because automation sends the right message to the right person at the right time. Benchmark Email cites another study from Jupiter Research where automated emails generate 18x more revenue than blast emails.

When it comes to automation, get granular. For example, use behavioral triggers to send emails based on the recipient’s action or inaction, such as opening an email, clicking a link, visiting a page, or requesting a tour.

You can also use dynamic content to customize your emails based on subscribers’ attributes or preferences, such as their location, interests, or stage in the buyer’s journey. Marketing automation software like ActiveDEMAND / Enquire MAP or HubSpot can help you create automated workflows.

Email marketing tips for 2024:

• Use marketing automation software to automate tasks, such as sending welcome emails, lead nurturing emails, and reminder emails (for an upcoming tour or event, for example).
• Create email workflows triggered by specific events, such as a website visit or a booked tour.
• Use segmentation to send targeted emails to different groups of subscribers.

Email marketing strategy #7: improve deliverability and brand authority with BIMI and DMARC

Leverage industry standards BIMI and DMARC for email authentication and brand authority. BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is a standard that allows you to display your brand logo next to the sender’s name in the inbox. BIMI can help you increase your email visibility, recognition, and trust by making your emails stand out and verifying your identity as a legitimate sender.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is a protocol that helps you prevent email spoofing, phishing, and spam by validating your email domain and ensuring

that only authorized senders can use it.

DMARC can help you protect your email reputation, deliverability, and security by preventing your emails from being blocked, filtered, or marked as spam.

Email marketing tips for 2024:

• Implement BIMI and DMARC correctly. This is essential for ensuring that your emails are properly authenticated and that your brand logo is displayed correctly in the inbox. Several resources are available to help you implement BIMI and DMARC, such as the BIMI Group and the DMARC Wikipedia page.
• Promote your BIMI logo. Once you have implemented BIMI, promote your logo to your subscribers. Include it in your email signature and social media profiles. The more people are familiar with your logo, the more likely they will recognize it in their inbox.
• Monitor your email performance. Once you’ve implemented BIMI and DMARC, monitor your email performance to see how it’s affecting your open rates, click-through rates, and deliverability.

Need help with email marketing for senior living?

We’ve helped communities of all sizes improve their email marketing. Let’s chat about the email marketing challenges facing your community.

Historically, the fourth quarter has been the most challenging time of year for growing senior living occupancy. Not only are move-ins down, but overall leads are often down as well.

Understandably, many families want to cherish one more holiday season with Mom or Dad (or other older loved ones) in the comfort of their own homes before considering a move. Unless the senior is in some sort of crisis mode—for example, maybe the person fell, and the doctor has indicated it’s unsafe for them to return home—you’ll have difficulty convincing folks to move this time of year.

All that said, there are strategic approaches that your marketing and sales teams can implement now to squeeze out some sales and make sure everyone is ready to hit the ground running on January 1.

5 tips to increase your Q4 occupancy

Tap into “solo agers”

A growing demographic in the senior living landscape is the “solo ager.” Solo agers are single older adults who may not be in crisis mode (yet) but find themselves alone because they don’t have children and are not married (either by choice or because they’re divorced or widowed). According to AARP, 12 percent of the population age 50 and older are solo agers.

Even though solo agers don’t have a medical need for senior living, many have a social need and could benefit from the right independent living community. And the holidays are an excellent time to show them what’s possible if they move into a community like yours.

• What to do: Mine your existing leads database for people who fit this demographic. Or, if you haven’t been gathering this sort of intel on prospects, begin doing so ASAP. (For example, use progressive profiling on website opt-in forms.) Invite solo agers to attend holiday events within your community. Pair them up with current residents so they can get to know people and make connections. (Remember, your happiest residents are your best form of advertising.)

Continue leveraging your existing leads database

Your senior living CRM is often an untapped gold mine. Now is an excellent time to re-engage with once-hot leads that have since cooled down (for whatever reason). Focus on those who completed tours but haven’t yet committed to a community. These individuals could benefit from a gentle nudge. And, at the very least, you’ll remain prominent on their internal radars.

• What to do: Need help? Implement our turn-key “Stay in Touch” program, which we designed specifically for re-engaging cold leads.

Invite pre-tour leads to holiday events

The holiday season provides an excellent backdrop for showcasing the warmth and camaraderie within your community. Organize fun events and extend invitations to pre-tour marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

Focus on the MQLs in the middle of the sales funnel (and the ones your sales team expected to book tours but haven’t yet—likely because of the holiday chaos).

Most senior living communities shine during this time of year with gorgeous decorations and a festive atmosphere, making it a great time to extend invitations to these MQLs and their families. While most won’t commit to moving right now, this positive engagement can progress them along the marketing and sales funnel, positioning them as prime prospects for Q1.

• What to do: Make sure you have plenty of sales reps available during these events to conduct casual, last-minute tours for anyone interested. Send your guests home with something special, like homemade holiday cookies that your pastry chef made and a calendar of upcoming events (including ones that extend into January). Then, follow up with these prospects during the first week of January.

Continue networking with professional referral sources (especially those in urgent care settings)

Forge partnerships with professional referral sources dealing with urgent cases. Hospitals, rehab facilities, and home care agencies often encounter individuals with immediate senior living needs, especially during the holidays and winter months. By establishing solid relationships with these sources, you can position your community as a reliable solution for those facing pressing decisions.

• What to do: Your urgent-care referral sources often work thankless jobs. Make it your job to thank them. Drop off cookies and cocoa to show your gratitude for the long hours they put in protecting vulnerable older adults. These professionals will appreciate your kindness—and they will remember your name (and your community’s) when they need to make a referral.

Use an incentive like a “rate lock” promotion

Remember, it’s not always about the physical move-in when it comes to senior living occupancy. It’s about a financial move-in, meaning you have a signed lease agreement and you’ve collected some revenue on the unit. The person doesn’t need to be physically in the community to count as occupancy.

Also, keep in mind that many communities are making up for lost revenue from COVID. Yearly rental increases that used to be 2% to 4% are now 5% to 8%.

Capitalize on this by using a rate-lock incentive with prospects who want to move into your community—but who want to push it off until after the holidays.

This initiative allows prospective residents to secure current rates by signing a lease agreement now, even if their physical move-in occurs in Q1. Individuals can shield themselves from potential rate hikes, making acting faster—even during the holiday chaos—much more financially appealing.

• What to do: Make it feel less like a promotion and more like an exclusive offer you’re extending to them: “Mary, I know you love our community, but you also want one more holiday season in your home. Here’s the thing: I just found out our rents are going up in January by X%. However, if you sign the lease agreement now, I can get you in at this year’s rate—even if you don’t move in until next year. You could save upwards of [THIS MUCH]. Would you like to review the lease agreement?”

Bottom line: When it comes to growing senior living occupancy, don’t let up on the gas just because it’s Q4.

While Q4 often presents challenges for growing senior living occupancy, there are strategies you can take now to possibly encourage move-ins—or, at the very least, to make sure the pipeline is primed for Q1.

Need help implementing any of the above? Get in touch. We’re a senior living marketing agency that knows how to turbocharge a community’s lead gen engine.

Some visitors to your senior living community website will be in the early stages of their buying journey. Others will be much farther down the sales funnel, giving indications of being “sales qualified,” even though they haven’t reached out to schedule a tour yet.

So, how can you tell the difference? How can you know who’s a marketing-qualified lead vs. a sales-qualified lead? That’s precisely where lead scoring comes into play.

We asked Paul Trusik, our Director of Operational Technology, to share his insights about lead scoring, including how to avoid five of the biggest mistakes he consistently sees communities making.

What is lead scoring, and why should senior living communities implement it?

The goal of lead scoring is simple: to help marketing and sales teams prioritize their website leads by creating a straightforward way to identify which leads are “high intent” and ready for a sales follow-up and which ones need more nurturing.

Even if a site visitor hasn’t directly requested a tour or a sales interaction, their actions might suggest they are sales-ready. For example, maybe the lead is opening every email you send them. Maybe they’re consuming multiple blog posts at once. Maybe they’re interacting with social media posts or clicking on paid ad campaigns. Maybe they indicated on a form that they want to move into senior living within 90 days.

Unlike the websites of two decades ago, we now have tools that provide this level of intelligence on the people who visit your site. With platforms like HubSpot and ActiveDEMAND, we can see exactly where a site visitor is in their journey. We can follow a person as they navigate through your site. We know which calls-to-action they click on. We can see which blog posts they’re reading. We can ask them specific questions on the forms they fill out.

Armed with this intel, we can apply points to different actions and answers. Over time, the numbers accumulate into a score. Once the score passes a specific threshold indicating sales readiness, we can send that lead to the sales team for follow-up.

And by “we,” we mean the marketing automation that is seamlessly doing the work in the background.

If you want to dive deeper, HubSpot has this tutorial on lead scoring. Plus, check out this explainer video, which also provides an excellent visual explanation of how lead scoring works—and how it keeps improving thanks to AI and machine learning.

How does Senior Living SMART develop lead-scoring parameters for its clients?

Our tech team has developed baseline lead-scoring parameters to use as a starting point. From there, we review the parameters with the client so they can provide feedback. We then customize the lead scoring parameters based on this feedback.

For example, the client might say, “You know what? It’s great that people are opening our newsletters, but let’s not put that high on the priority list. Let’s score that a little bit lower, because, from our experience, these people are still at the top of the sales funnel. They won’t decide any time soon, but it’s good that they’re engaged. Over time, we can nurture them.”

Or, they might point out to us a piece of content that tends to result in people booking tours—so we’d score that higher.

What are some of the biggest mistakes that communities make with their senior living lead scoring?

We regularly encounter the following mistakes:

Mistake #1: Not having enough good content and lead magnets.

You need great content on your website for people to interact with—and a variety of content that satisfies people at every stage of their journey. You must put out fresh content regularly as well. The more content you offer, the more reasons people have to return to your website.

You also need good third-party lead magnets, like live chat, surveys, call tracking, or other interactive elements that help engage people and create a “sticky” site. We can grade those pieces as part of the lead-scoring attributes we compile.

So, the more content and lead magnets you have, the more powerful your lead scoring will be.

Mistake #2: Not having enough referral sources contributing traffic to your site.

People land on websites via multiple ways, such as organic search and referral traffic from third parties, like social media sites or directory listings. All of those pieces are trackable. For example, if someone clicks on a pay-per-click (PPC) ad, we can include the action in lead scoring.

Here’s where the magic comes into play.

Let’s say you’re running a PPC campaign. People click the ad, but when they visit your site, they’re not converting into tour requests as you had hoped. This is often the biggest gripe from marketing and sales teams about PPC campaigns: “We’re running PPC, but we’re not getting any leads! What gives?”

Here’s the thing: Some people who click on the PPC ad might still be at the top of the funnel. But others might indeed be “high intent,” even though they haven’t requested a tour yet. Through lead scoring, we can identify the high-intent leads and serve them to the sales team for follow-up.

Bottom line: If your site doesn’t receive enough organic traffic, running paid campaigns can be a great way to get people to your site so that we can learn about them, score them, and send the high-intent leads to sales while we continue nurturing the ones that aren’t quite ready yet.

We can even score people who come in from more traditional marketing campaigns like direct mailers or print ads, thanks to QR codes which is a trackable element.

Mistake #3: Setting it and forgetting it.

We all love it when something is “set it and forget it.” But lead scoring isn’t one of those things. You must regularly revisit your lead scoring and refine it as needed.

This isn’t just a problem plaguing senior living marketing and sales teams, either. Some agencies can fall victim to the “set it and forget it” mentality. (We know because we’ve inherited some big messes over the years!)

Pro tip: Revisit your lead scoring quarterly, because here’s the thing: Campaigns change. Or new paid ads come into play. Or fresh content is published on the site. It makes sense to revisit your lead scoring and say, “Okay, we set this up three months ago. What’s changed? Maybe there are additions to the website we didn’t consider the first time around.”

You should also seek feedback from your sales team—they’re the boots on the ground and can provide valuable insights on lead quality.

Mistake #4: Yielding to sales pressure.

Sales teams are famous for complaining that they don’t have enough leads, but marketing teams should resist lowering lead scoring thresholds simply to shut them up.

Lowering the lead scoring threshold means you’ll be serving up more leads, not better leads. Many of the leads won’t be ready for a sales call. The sales team will end up spinning its wheels (and possibly alienating prospects turned off by the intrusion).

You must strive to maintain a balance between quantity and quality. While it’s important to keep the sales team happy and well-fed with leads, it’s equally crucial to ensure that the leads you do serve up have indicated their sales readiness based on their actions.

We spend a lot of time educating clients about this—and empowering marketing teams to withstand pressures from sales.

Mistake #5: Ignoring “negative” actions that can influence lead scores.

Just as there can be positive lead scoring, you can also include negative scores. For example, a salesperson could say, “Hey, we’ve talked to this lead before. They are financially or medically unqualified.” We can use that information as negative scoring and include that in the algorithm so the sales team doesn’t see that lead come through again.

The same goes for other actions on the website. Not everyone visiting your site is looking for a senior living community. Vendors and prospective employees will be looking as well. We can include these “negatives” in the lead scoring.

For example, we could assign negative point values if the person inquires about careers or is already in the senior living CRM and has been marked as unqualified. (Note: The latter requires bilateral integration between your marketing automation and CRM. We’re big fans of WelcomeHome CRM because of its ability to do this.)

Including negatives in the overall lead score is a powerful way to ensure that your sales team isn’t wasting valuable time on leads that aren’t going to convert. You create a more nuanced and accurate lead-scoring process by factoring in positive and negative indicators.

How do you know if your senior living lead scoring is effective?

Remember, the key to knowing if your lead scoring is hitting the mark lies in feedback from your sales team. They can share insights regarding lead quality. We can also set up reports to track leads from scoring to contact, pre-tour to post-tour, and deposit to move-in. This can provide tangible evidence of lead-scoring success.

Need help with your lead scoring?

Our marketing agency focuses only on senior living. We know how to help communities attract and convert better senior living leads. Get in touch with our teams, and let’s talk.