The Non-Linear Customer Journey in Senior Living Marketing

The Non-Linear Customer Journey in Senior Living Marketing

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When marketers discuss the prospect’s journey, they often talk about three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. In senior living, you must also consider three other stages: whether, where, and when.

Below, we dive deeper into each stage, including how they should influence your senior living marketing efforts.

The “whether” stage

In the “whether” stage, prospects are thinking about things like whether they should consider using home care instead of moving into a community, whether they can afford senior living, whether they have to sell their home before moving in, whether they can get the family on board, and so forth.

They’ll often turn to the internet to research these questions. If they land on your website and download a resource, like a ‘home care vs. assisted living’ guide, they might gain a general awareness of your community. But awareness isn’t their goal—at least, not yet. They’re looking for answers to questions.

How the “whether” stage should influence your senior living marketing efforts:

  • Develop a solid strategy for scoring and segmenting leads. Most people in this stage are not ready for a sales interaction. Instead, they should be entered into an appropriate long-term lead nurturing workflow.
  • Create a deep library of engaging content. The sales cycles for independent living and assisted living are long. Prospects might require upwards of thirty “touches.” The content you offer on touch #22 must be as engaging and helpful as the content you offer on touch #1.
  • Use marketing automation. Marketing automation sends the right message to the right person at the right time—an essential tool when dealing with sales cycles that last months or even years.

The “where” stage

The “where” stage coincides with the consideration stage. People in this stage are looking at senior living options. They’ve accepted—or come around to the idea, at least—that senior living is the best option for their situation.

They’re still researching—but now they’re doing it with a singular focus. Where is the best place for them to move into? They’ll have a much more critical eye when reviewing senior living websites. They’ll check out reviews, pay attention to what people say on social media, and click on targeted paid advertising.

How the “where” stage should influence your senior living marketing efforts:

  • Provide compelling specifics about life in your community. The “general” content got them to your website in the first place, like the ‘assisted living vs. home care’ guide we mentioned earlier. Now, they’re eager to learn the specifics about your community, including what makes it unique. Real photos of the spaces, residents and staff, plentiful videos, and transparent pricing are all excellent ways to show your community’s unique attributes.
  • Pay attention to your community’s reviews. People read reviews, full stop. Make sure you claim your profile on popular review sites for senior living. Keep your Google Business Profile updated as well. (Overwhelmed? Hint: We can manage all of this for you.)
  • Embrace paid digital advertising. Pay-per-click advertising can be highly effective for senior living communities—and cost-effective to boot since you only pay when someone clicks on the ad. In particular, remarketing (those ads that follow people around online after they visit your website) can help keep your community top of mind. Native advertising on social media can also be an effective way to encourage people to return to your site.
  • Invite people into your community. Ultimately, you want to get people off their computers and into your community so they can experience it first-hand. Inviting people for a complimentary lunch, a resident backyard BBQ, and other events is a great way to help people in the “where” stage envision themselves in your community.

The “when” stage

The “when” stage happens alongside the decision stage. Prospects have narrowed their choices, zeroed in on the “winner,” and are deciding when to move.

Sometimes, people are contemplating two contenders who are neck and neck—this is where your teams (marketing and sales) might need to develop other programs/collateral to help people get off the fence.

How the “when” stage should influence your senior living marketing and sales efforts:

  • Offer incentives. This is the best stage to offer an incentive to create urgency—to move sooner rather than later (and to choose your community over another).
  • Provide a visual. You already know who your competitors are in the area. Create a nicely designed comparison chart that highlights your community’s offerings. Your sales team could deliver it to the prospect with baked goods from the kitchen.

Bonus: Events for each stage

Check out our article about senior living marketing events for each stage. And, of course, if you need help scoring and segmenting leads—or implementing marketing automation—get in touch.

What the Best Senior Living Websites Do

What the Best Senior Living Websites Do

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People who manage the best senior living websites don’t get hung up on overall website traffic. Instead, they make sure they have the right balance of first-time visitors vs. returning visitors.

Why? Keep on reading.

Below, we discuss the following:

  • Why returning visitors are crucial to the senior living sales cycle
  • What percentage of your traffic should be returning visits
  • Which areas to review (and fix) to improve returning visits
  • What to do if you need help

Why returning website visitors are crucial to the senior living sales cycle

People visiting your senior living website for the first time aren’t going to convert into move-ins on the spot. That’s not how the industry works—not even close.

The senior living sales cycle is LONG and can stretch from months to years. It can take anywhere between 20 and 30 touchpoints to get people through their journey from start to finish. That’s A LOT of touchpoints, each one needing to be just as engaging as the last.

Don’t get us wrong: We’re not trying to downplay the importance of initial website visits. You must get the right people to your website in the first place. But you also need to give them a reason to return repeatedly. If you spend time and money getting people to your site, but your site is simply a glorified brochure that people can consume in one sitting, you’ll have difficulty staying on their radar during their journey.

  • What the best senior living websites get right: The best sites deliver an engaging experience. “Engaging” can mean different things to different people. But straightforward navigation, accessibility, custom design, helpful information, and interactive options like live chat, quizzes/self-assessments, 3D tours of apartments, and videos can hold people’s interest while they’re on the site—and entice them to come back for more.

What percentage of your traffic should be returning visits

A healthy senior living website will have around 70 to 75 percent new visitors and 25 to 30 percent returning visitors.

How people return:

  • Some will return thanks to your nurturing efforts. They converted on something during their first visit, like a download, and you can nurture them through email marketing moving forward.
  • Some will go to your site directly. They’re familiar enough with your name—maybe you impressed them so much on your first visit, or all those remarketing ads have paid off and they know your brand. And they type it directly into their browser.
  • Some will return from your Google Business Profile, social media sites, or directory listings. So make sure your info is up-to-date on those places as well.

As mentioned earlier, many prospects require 20 to 30 touchpoints during their journey. If most of your traffic is new, you’re not giving people the necessary touchpoints. You’re NOT going to close someone on their first visit. But someone who’s visited your site multiple times and consumed the content along the way will be much easier to nudge into a tour or participation in some other sort of event, like a webinar.

  • What the best senior living websites get right: The best sites are a component of a robust marketing automation strategy that get leads to return to the site. At its simplest, marketing automation delivers the right message to the right person at the right time, and often that message is a piece of content on your website. If you attempted to do this manually, it would be a nightmare!

Which areas to review (and fix) to improve returning visits

Perform an overall website audit

A website audit will give you and your team an overview of what’s working and what’s not, especially from a technical standpoint. For example, it’s loading slowly, or it isn’t rendering well across mobile devices.

Once you have the audit results, you can tackle what to fix. Hint: We offer a thorough, cost-effective total online presence audit of your website. Your team can run with the results—or have us make the fixes.

Perform a content audit (website and emails)

Great content answers people’s questions, gives them important points to consider, and allows them to interact with your community online (for example, through interactive assessments or floor plans). You need a good mix of content types to keep people’s attention and inspire them to return. Think short articles, longer articles, guides, charts, videos, and visuals that tell stories.

Perform an audit of your Google Business Profile—and other review sites

Is your Google Business Profile fully optimized? Before saying yes, ensure you understand everything you can do with your Profile. Here are some tips for optimizing your Google Business Profile. Or ping us if you need help optimizing your GBP.

As for reviews, monitor, monitor, monitor! Reputation management is critical. No one is expecting a perfect 5-star record. A 3.8-star average record WILL be a problem, though. Another issue? Prospects want to see recent reviews, not ones from three years ago. Get in the habit of regularly soliciting reviews from happy residents and their families.

  • What the best senior living websites do: The best sites don’t operate in a silo. Sure, your site serves as the primary hub. But plenty of other sites—Google Business Profile in particular—can serve as secondary websites and encourage people to visit your site, provided those secondary sites are also engaging.

What to do if you need help?

We can help you get your website performing as it should be. Get in touch and let’s do this!

Senior Living PPC Why You Must Think Beyond Clicks Elder Woman searching on her mobile phone

Senior Living PPC: Why You Must Think Beyond Clicks

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It’s easy to think that effective senior living PPC campaigns are all about clicks. But what happens after people click? You still need to convert people into leads, right? And you must have a way to nurture leads over the long term since the senior living sales cycle is long.

While clicks are important, the most effective senior living PPC campaigns also pay attention to landing page optimization and marketing automation.

Below, we discuss each from a paid advertising standpoint.

Effective senior living PPC campaigns need good landing pages

A landing page is a web page on your site designed for one specific purpose, like having someone fill out a form or book a tour. When it comes to senior living PPC, we want to keep the landing page for the ad as narrowly focused as possible.

For example, let’s say someone types in “assisted living near me” into Google, and your Google Ad pops up. In the ad copy, you include the starting rates per month and mention a free brochure. The person looking at the ad says, “Yep, that rate sounds good,” and is interested in getting more info. They click on the ad and end up on your landing page.

That landing page has to deliver on what the ad promised. In this case, the landing page should reinforce the starting rates and make it easy for someone to get the brochure.

This is often where many advertisers stumble. They spend so much time focusing on the keywords and ad strategy that they overlook the landing page, or it becomes an afterthought.

Here are some PPC landing page best practices:

Use a separate landing page for each PPC ad

This is necessary to measure conversions and ROI. If you have three ads pointing to the same landing page, you won’t know which ad + landing page combo produces the best conversions.

Optimize each landing page for mobile devices

How a landing page renders on a smartphone will differ from how it renders on a desktop. We find that most PPC website traffic for senior living is mobile now. If someone is on their phone and clicks on your ad but ends up on a landing page for a desktop, you’ll likely lose that person. That’s unfortunate because you just paid to have that person come to your site.

Put the most crucial info at the top of your landing page

If your ad promised a brochure, consider putting the form front and center at the top—make it easy for the person to get what they’re looking for. Reinforce what they’ll be getting, and the benefits of it, through your copy.

Use A/B testing to refine your landing pages

Making small changes to a landing page can improve conversion rates. For example, changing the color of a button from red to blue (or vice versa) or changing the words on the button from “Submit” to “Get the Brochure” might boost conversions. With A/B testing, you can try different strategies, and the data will reveal which version works best.

Effective senior living PPC campaigns need good marketing automation

Many businesses focus only on the conversion rate when it comes to paid advertising. For some businesses, this makes sense. Companies that sell consumer products, for example—sneakers, bikes, or makeup—are looking to move products quickly. If someone clicks on an ad and buys directly from that ad, that’s a great conversion since it’s an actual sale.

Senior living sales don’t work like that, though. People don’t click on an ad for senior living and convert into a resident on the spot. There’s a process for how selling works in senior living. Even someone with an urgent need—getting mom into memory care ASAP—still has to go through a process that might take days or weeks.

Our goal in senior living PPC is to convert people into leads with the understanding that leads can turn into move-ins over time.

While we still pay attention to conversion rates (for senior living PPC, a reasonable conversion rate is between eight and 15 percent), the work doesn’t end once you convert someone into a lead.

Senior living sales cycles have gotten longer for most levels of care (memory care is the exception). Independent living leads can take two or more years before moving in.

This means that most senior living leads need numerous touchpoints throughout their journeys—some as many as 20 or more. The only way to efficiently manage so many touchpoints among your leads is with robust marketing automation. Otherwise, you’ve wasted your ad budget if you don’t have a plan for nurturing those clicks that convert into leads.

To avoid this fate, do the following:

Score and segment leads appropriately

Not all leads are ready to buy. Some are—and those sales-qualified leads (SQLs) can be sent to the sales team for follow-up. But the not-ready-to-buy leads should be entered into lead nurturing campaigns.

Use marketing automation

When set up correctly, marketing automation sends the right message to the right prospect at the right time. This frees up your team to focus on other things, like reviewing analytics, making necessary tweaks, and doing other marketing tasks.

Monitor results

The word “automation” can sometimes fool people into thinking they can “set it and forget it.” Don’t fall into this trap. You must review analytics and let the data guide you on changes and how to improve.

Do you need help managing your senior living PPC?

At Senior Living SMART, our paid advertising team only works on paid advertising, so you’ll get a much bigger bang for your advertising dollars. Get in touch and let’s discuss your senior living PPC campaigns.

Senior Living Marketing Budgets Brainstorming around the table

Senior Living Marketing Budgets: 4 Key Steps

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Budget season is here! As you develop your senior living marketing budget for 2024, make sure you’re asking the right questions and looking at the most relevant data.

Struggling with where to begin? This article will help.

Below, we discuss the following:

  • The four main steps to developing a senior living marketing budget
  • The biggest challenge marketers face when developing their budgets (and how to overcome it)
  • Budget presentation tips
  • What to do if you need help

The four main steps to developing your senior living marketing budget

Marketing isn’t a static exercise. So many things can affect what works and what doesn’t in any given year, many of which are beyond your control. (Pandemics, anyone?) As a result, marketers must be equal parts proactive and responsive, which isn’t easy.

This reality could leave even the most optimistic marketer or COO feeling hopeless when developing a marketing budget that makes sense.

The best way to do it is to let the data guide you.

But which “data” exactly?

We recommend following this four-step process:

  1. Consider your current budget for each channel (e.g., organic, paid, social, etc.). Remember, the best way to inform future strategy is through current performance.
  2. Review each channel’s results. And not just contacts and leads—you must know which channels are producing tours, deposits, and move-ins.
  3. Identify any gaps. What don’t you have in your marketing stack? For example, if you haven’t launched a new version of your website in three years, you probably need a new one or a significant refresh at the very least.
  4. From there, reallocate your budget accordingly. Put more dollars toward what’s delivering the most tours, deposits, and move-ins.

Four steps might sound too good to be true, but remember what marketing is all about. It’s supposed to bring in leads with the best probability of turning into sales. Or, in our industry jargon, senior living marketing should deliver the leads that have the best chance of turning into move-ins.

You use various marketing channels—and campaigns within those channels—to attract those leads. Some channels and campaigns inevitably work better than others (and this can and will change over time). Your job is to know what’s working best year-to-year and to put more of your marketing budget toward those channels and campaigns.

It’s not rocket science, but that doesn’t mean this four-step process doesn’t have challenges, which brings us to our next point.

The biggest challenge marketers face when developing a budget (and how to overcome it)

The most challenging part usually involves the collection and interpretation of data. You must have accurate data to make an informed decision.

The issue: Too often, a lack of bidirectional visibility exists between sales and marketing regarding data and analytics.

If your martech platform isn’t connected bilaterally to your senior living CRM, you’ll end up with two systems that are blind to each other. One system will house initial source attribution (and possibly prospect behavior before people convert, depending on how sophisticated your system is). But once the leads are handed over to the sales team, the marketing team will be out of the loop because all data collected moving forward will be housed within the CRM.

Suppose you’re struggling with these marketing vulnerabilities. In that case, the best thing you can do for yourself, your team, and your overall marketing efforts is to choose a CRM with a related marketing automation platform that’s capturing social, paid, organic, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), event registrations, and so forth. This centralized marketing portal should allow you to create custom dashboard reports that you can easily filter by location, portfolio, region, and investor group.

If you don’t have this ability and you’re simply rolling up everything into global numbers, you’ll lack the business intelligence to make informed decisions. You’ll also need to go to each channel individually and manually export data. For example, you’ll need to go into GA4 to get organic data. Then, you must go into your Google Ads account to get details about spend, clicks, conversion rates, and cost per lead. From there, you go into each social media platform—and so on and so on.

This can take a lot of time, depending on the number of channels you use, the number of campaigns you run in any given year, and the number of properties in your portfolio. You’re bound to miss critical data points somewhere along the way simply because there’s too much data for one person to reasonably monitor and manage on their own.

Another issue marketers can face is this: They might have a martech platform bilaterally connected to the CRM, but one or both systems haven’t been set up correctly. Hint: We can help you determine the systems and integrations you need. We can also help you set them up to capture the right data at the right time and produce dynamic custom dashboards with real-time insights.

Budget presentation tips

Keep it simple with PowerPoint. Create slides that walk stakeholders and decision-makers through the key points:

  • This was last year’s budget.
  • These are the channels we invested in.
  • Here’s the number of contacts, tours, and move-ins each channel generated.
  • Here’s the recommended budget for next year—and how we’ll allocate it. (You could break it down into what you’d do if you use the same budget numbers vs. what you’d do if you had more budget.)

Be prepared to justify your recommendations. The slides themselves can present the visuals.

Remember, at the end of the day, budget time is all about negotiations. If you go in with your must-haves vs. your nice-to-haves, you’ll know what you must fight for… and what you can walk away from if necessary.

Is budget season giving you a headache? Get in touch

If you want to discuss how to approach your senior living marketing budget, schedule a complimentary 30-minute session with our CEO, Debbie Howard. She’ll be happy to review your data and help interpret it.

20 Minute Marketing Skill Builders: Web Form Case Study

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A panel of senior living marketing professionals will share strategies and tactics for lead generation, nurturing and conversions given current restrictions regarding tours, events and community visits.

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3 Senior Living Marketing Analytics Every COO Should Know

3 Senior Living Marketing Analytics Every COO Should Know

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As a senior living COO, you’ve been tasked with overseeing the daily operations of your communities. You work closely with leadership at all levels, capital partners, vendors and suppliers. You are responsible for developing and executing a clear operational plan that often includes a multi-year vision for your organization.

You likely have a keen financial intellect and a strong understanding of analytics in general. But you’re also acutely aware that you can’t always know what you don’t know, especially when it comes to digital marketing analytics.

Don’t worry—we got you!

3 senior living marketing analytics every COO should know

1. Google Analytics: Traffic and Traffic Sources

You don’t need to get into the weeds since you’re paying your marketing team to manage your Google Analytics account, but smart senior living COOs should still have a working knowledge of website traffic and traffic sources (and how not to get fooled by the “more is always better” trap).

Website traffic: focus on quality over quantity

It’s certainly good news to see website traffic increasing, provided the lead quality and conversions correspond accordingly.

Remember, the ultimate measure of quality website traffic is conversions, so if your site is bringing in a lot of traffic but it isn’t converting, this indicates a disconnect. Maybe the site isn’t optimized for the right search terms and is bringing in visitors who are not looking for senior living at all. Maybe the site doesn’t have compelling content that entices people to act. Or maybe the site performs so poorly technically that visitors leave before engaging in any way.

When we optimize our clients’ sites for the first time, we explain that it’s OK if overall traffic goes down as long as quality lead conversions increase. (Then, from there, we focus on attracting more of the right traffic. Which means traffic should trend up from that point.)

Traffic sources: which ones convert best?

As for traffic sources, you’ll want to know which sources—organic, paid, social, direct—yield the best leads since this will guide your budget. For example, why spend valuable dollars on a social media platform like TikTok if it doesn’t move the needle?

  • KEY TAKEAWAY: Asking your team to provide regular updates about website traffic, sources, and lead conversions will give you a solid snapshot of the site’s overall health and ability to generate quality leads.

2. Paid Advertising: Conversion Rate and Cost Per Lead

Paid advertising, especially Google Ads, can be an excellent way for senior living communities to compete—provided the ad strategy is sound.

We’ve written an article that takes a deep dive into Google Ads, but here are the highlights you need to know:

What’s a good conversion rate for senior living PPC ads?

A conversion rate for pay-per-click (PPC) ads is the percentage of people who convert after clicking your ad.

The definition of “convert” will vary depending on the advertiser. An e-commerce store running ads for sneakers will consider a sale to be a conversion. In senior living though, there’s a much longer sales cycle. We don’t expect someone to click on an ad and convert into a resident. Instead, our goal is to convert the person into a lead.

For example, if someone clicks on a senior living PPC ad, they might go to a landing page to download an educational guide in exchange for their name and email address. That’s the conversion point.

Senior living PPC conversion rates can vary depending on geographies and a community’s budget. Generally, we like to see conversion rates between 8 to 15%.

What are some benchmarks for costs per lead?

Reminder, we’re publishing this post in July 2023. Numbers will fluctuate.

Independent living

  • Low end: $18
  • Upper end: $45 to $50

Assisted living

  • Low end: $38 to $40.
  • High end: $80 to $100

Memory care

  • Low end: $100 to $120
  • High end: $400+

Memory care is the most expensive because it’s the most competitive. People searching for memory care are often ready to convert due to an urgent need.

  • KEY TAKEAWAY: When it comes to paid advertising, ask your paid ads team about conversion rates and lead costs to ensure they align with current benchmarks in senior living.

3. Customer Lifetime Value (aka Resident Lifetime Value)

The resident lifetime value is the revenue you can expect the average resident to generate throughout their stay.

You will have different resident lifetime values for different levels of care. For example, maybe your memory care resident stays 14 months on average, while the average resident in your CCRC community stays eight years (96 months).

The way you calculate the average resident lifetime value is straightforward: Length of stay (in months) multiplied by the monthly rent (plus the entrance fee, if applicable).

  • EXAMPLE: Going back to our memory care example above. Let’s say the monthly rent is $6,000. The resident lifetime value for MC, in this case, would be $84,000 (14 months x $6000/month).

Knowing the average length of stay is incredibly helpful for forecasting occupancy. And knowing the resident lifetime value can help predict your return on investment (ROI), potential lost revenue, and return on marketing investment (ROMI).

For example, let’s say the average length of stay for assisted living in one of your communities is 24 months. Now, let’s pretend you have six AL residents who move in the same month. In 24 months, you could face six vacancies on top of your “normal” vacancies.

Knowing this, you can reverse-engineer your marketing budget and marketing tactics in anticipation. For example, let’s say you know that you successfully convert AL leads from Google Ads. You could budget for an increase in paid advertising in the month or two before the six apartments are due to open up. And you can justify why when reporting to leadership/capital partners.

  • KEY TAKEAWAY: You can’t create accurate marketing budgets if you don’t have a handle on the lifetime value of a resident or the average length of stay. Remember, you must calculate these numbers for every level of care across every community in your portfolio.

Ready to look like a marketing rock star in front of the leadership team?

We love working with senior living COOs and making them look smart in front of leadership and capital partners. Let’s explore how we might work together.

Should I Be Using Threads for Marketing Senior Living

Should I Be Using Threads for Marketing in Senior Living?

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Threads, the latest app owned by Meta, was launched to the public on July 5th, 2023, and has already amassed an outstanding 100 million active users within just five days. What is Threads, and what do I need to know about it for senior living marketing?

Threads for marketing: what to know

Threads can be described as a modified version of Twitter. Like Twitter, Threads allows users to post threads, reply to others, and follow profiles they find interesting. Users can include short text (up to 500 characters), links, photos, videos, or a combination of these media types in their posts.

Mark Zuckerburg, Meta’s CEO, has made it incredibly simple to create an account, allowing it to be the fastest growing app in history. If you already have an Instagram account, creating a Threads account is an easy click of a button using the same login credentials.

Despite its rapid growth, Threads still lags Twitter in certain aspects. Unlike Twitter, users cannot modify their settings to view only Threads from the accounts they follow. Even if you don’t follow a particular account, you may still see its content if the Thread is popular enough. Meta did state that the functionality would be added in the future, but there is no estimated time frame.

Threads is exclusively available for mobile users. While you can read content on threads.net, creating threads is only possible through the mobile app. Additionally, there is currently no option to remove your Threads account without also removing your Instagram account. The two accounts are directly connected, so if you regret creating a Threads account, you’ll have to wait until this feature is addressed.

Unlike Twitter, Threads does not offer a tab to see trending topics or the ability to search for specific topics or posts. Although these limitations are likely to change as the app grows, for now, users will have to rely on scrolling through content. Furthermore, Threads is currently only available in certain countries such as the US, UK, Canada, Japan, but plans for expansion are likely underway.

Notably, Threads lack certain features popular on Twitter, such as the ability to direct message someone or utilize hashtags for social listening and trend tracking.

Why are people leaving Twitter?

Twitter experienced a significant loss of users when Elon Musk took over as CEO, with 1 million users (equivalent to the population of Delaware) leaving the platform in just one month. It is projected to lose 32 million users (about twice the population of New York) by 2024, many of whom are transitioning to Threads. People are leaving Twitter due to increased hate speech and technical problems associated with Musk’s tenure.

How do you use Threads?

Before Threads, there was no major competitor to challenge Twitter. Twitter is known for its virality, acting as a news source and enabling users to consume information in bite-sized portions. Although not primarily photo-based, Twitter allows users to attach various media like images, videos, and GIFs. If you are already familiar with Twitter, learning to use Threads will be a breeze since it shares a similar format of sharing thoughts, responding to others, and reading content.

How is data from your Instagram account used on Threads?

When using Threads, your Instagram account data is utilized, including:

  • Instagram login info
  • Instagram account ID
  • Instagram name and username
  • Instagram profile information such as your profile, bio, and links
  • Instagram, followers
  • Age on Instagram

What are the demographics of Threads users?

Most Threads users belong to Generation Z. Males make up approximately 68% of the user base, while females account for the remaining 32%. Among males, the largest age group is 23-25 years old, constituting 28% of the male user base. Additionally, 11% of males and 5% of females fall within the 18-25 age range. Users aged 45 years and above represent a smaller portion with only 2% of females and 3% of males in this age group.

What industries should be using Threads?

Threads can be a valuable platform for any industry to engage in conversations with their audience. If your target audience is on Threads, it is crucial to actively communicate with them. However, Threads is not designed for selling products or services. Instead, it is better suited for introducing new ideas, sparking conversations, and providing insights and perspectives.

Should I be using Threads for marketing my senior living communities?

From a though leadership perspective, Threads can be a suitable platform. However, for marketing senior living communities, it may not be ideal. Before deciding, consider whether your target audience uses Twitter. If they do, it is likely they will also be active on Threads. If you wish to establish a presence in your industry and your target market is receptive on Threads, it is worth diving in early. You can repurpose existing content and offer fresh perspectives or insights to stimulate conversation. Threads thrive on starting conversations, so if your audience is absent or you anticipate a one-sided dialogue, it might be best to focus on the platform where your audience is most active. For guidance on best practices for your preferred platform, refer to our guide to social media success.

Is memory care lead generation different from other lead gen? Yes. Here's why.

Memory Care Lead Generation: How It’s Different

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We asked our CEO, Debbie Howard, to discuss an important topic: memory care lead generation.

Below, she answers the following questions:

  • How does memory care lead generation differ from lead gen for assisted living or independent living?
  • Who are the buyer personas?
  • What kind of messaging resonates with memory care leads?
  • Are specific marketing channels are particularly effective for generating memory care leads?
  • How important is local community outreach in memory care lead generation?
  • Do you recommend marketing to potential referral sources?
  • Any final thoughts that you want to communicate about memory care lead generation?

How does memory care lead generation differ from lead gen for assisted living or independent living?

Debbie Howard: There’s a greater sense of urgency with memory care leads. An interesting study came out during the pandemic that showed how Covid affected the sales cycle for different levels of care. The only sales cycle that wasn’t affected was memory care. It was the shortest sales cycle then, and it remains the shortest sale cycle today, which makes sense since it isn’t something most people plan for or are proactive about. Even though the disease is very predictable, people still don’t want to deal with it until they absolutely must.

People looking for independent living and assisted living don’t typically feel the same pressures. Most of those folks are being proactive. People looking for memory care are often in crisis mode.

Who are the personas in memory care lead gen? What do we need to know about them?

Debbie Howard: The buyer personas include the adult child and the spouse. The adult child tends to take a more intellectual approach initially. They try to quickly learn as much as possible because they want to make informed decisions. But the emotional aspect does enter into the equation eventually. After all, this is their parent, and the adult child is entrusting their mother or father to strangers. Moving a loved one into memory care is never easy, even if it’s the right decision.

For the spouse, the trajectory tends to be the opposite. They start off needing trust first and education second. Many spouses have resisted moving their loved one into memory care for so long. They made a vow to care for their partner for better or worse. Moving their partner to memory care often fills them with guilt, angst, and regret.

It’s important to remind the spouse that it takes an entire staff working round the clock to care for and manage people through this disease process. Eventually, it becomes impossible for one person to do it alone—even with outside help.

What kind of messaging resonates with memory care leads?

Debbie Howard: The emotional aspect is vital to both personas. Too often, communities focus only on providing education. If you only connect with people rationally—like ‘Here are 10 Things to Look for in Memory Care’—it will take longer to connect emotionally with the prospects. And you might lose out to a community that does focus on connecting on an emotional level.

Connecting emotionally means acknowledging the not-so-pleasant parts of this disease process. This can be extremely hard for marketers since many believe all marketing must have a positive spin.

But it can be extremely powerful for a salesperson to hold a prospect’s hand and sincerely say, “I know this is killing you. I know this is the hardest decision you’ve ever made. You’ve done so much, and you’re exhausted. I’m so sorry you’re in this position.”

You don’t have to stay negative. Acknowledge how challenging the situation is. But also recognize and honor what they’ve done for their loved one—how they’ve gone the distance. There comes a point when the person with dementia can no longer safely be managed in the home, and their own quality of life is greatly diminished. When the person moves into memory care, they receive round-the-clock care from a full-time staff, which allows the spouse to return to the role of a spouse rather than a caregiver. The spouse can come in and have a date night with their loved one. They can visit daily. They can stay overnight. Showing the spouse what can be—and that there are some bright spots—can be a way to find a more positive angle.

You shouldn’t ignore the negatives just because they’re hard to discuss, though. Empathetic marketing is extremely important in senior living, especially with memory care leads.

The same is true for adult children: They’ve often missed days and weeks of work, given up vacations, and missed important events in their own life as they’ve juggled their parents’ care, so acknowledging their sacrifices is also essential.

Meet them at the emotional level—acknowledge how hard this decision is and recognize and honor all they’ve done. Then, turn it around by showing them how your community’s memory care neighborhood helps each resident succeed.

Are specific marketing channels or tactics particularly effective for generating memory care leads?

Debbie Howard: People searching for memory care are doing just that—they are actively searching.

  • Use paid advertising. Paid ads, like Google Ads, hold the prime real estate on the search results pages, but keep in mind memory care is highly competitive. Regarding cost per lead, the lower end of memory care is about $100 to $120. The higher end of memory care can be as high as $400 or more.
  • Make sure your website is optimized for relevant keywords. You want to ensure your senior living website is optimized for organic search. Dedicate a section to memory care, and optimize each page for memory care phrases people are searching on. Make sure you include your locations.
  • Pay attention to reviews. Make sure you’ve claimed your Google Business Profile, which serves as a mini website for your community. Monitor reviews. Respond to reviews as needed. You should also claim listings on other popular review sites.
  • Have a plan for responding to third-party leads. Remember, third-party leads are shared leads. You must be able to respond quickly to memory care leads from lead aggregators or else you risk another community converting the lead into a resident. This is especially true for memory care since the need is often urgent, and people are in crisis mode.

How important is local community outreach in memory care lead generation?

Debbie Howard: It’s definitely important because word of mouth is one of the best forms of marketing. Tap into skilled nursing facilities, rehab centers and hospitals. Target their social workers, case managers, care managers, and discharge planners. ERs are also good places to ensure the staff is aware of your memory care community because they often see folks from unsafe environments.

Home care agencies can manage the disease process from the early through middle stages, but when it gets to a later stage, they can’t safely manage that client anymore. So you should also focus on networking with people who run home care agencies.

Consider area agencies on aging. Even the local fire department can be a good resource. Many fire departments keep a list of homebound at-risk older adults that they often help. Reaching out and educating them about your community is also a good idea.

Do you recommend marketing to these groups and other potential referral sources?

Debbie Howard: Yes. You should have a marketing program for your referral network so that your community remains top of mind.

Make sure your referral sources have . . .

  • Current brochures about your community, specifically memory care
  • Business cards for relevant salespeople
  • Info about upcoming events—lunch and learns, support groups and open houses

Remember, you want to make their lives easier.

  • Offer to speak at their events for free.
  • Create turnkey programs about popular topics that you can deliver to churches, support groups, etc.
  • Sponsor their walks and other events (like Alzheimer’s walks).
  • Position yourself as a go-to resource regarding memory care support/services.

What final thoughts would you like to communicate about memory care lead generation?

Debbie Howard: Remember, marketing can’t solve an operational issue. Before worrying about getting quality memory care leads, make sure you have a quality memory care program.

Suppose there’s a video circulating of a staff member abusing a resident. In that case, the best marketing in the world can’t help because the problem has to do with operations, not marketing or sales. But a high-quality memory care program with happy residents and positive results, can almost speak for itself.

Bottom line: The best way to generate leads is to have a great memory care program.

Need help generating quality leads?

Contact us, and let’s discuss your lead gen efforts.

Senior Living Leads: How Much Should Google Ad Conversions Cost You?

Senior Living Leads: How Much Should Google Ad Conversions Cost You?

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We asked Chris Zook, Director of Paid Media & Strategy at Senior Living SMART, to sit down for a Q&A on all things Google Ads. Chris also did a podcast on this topic with our CEO, Debbie Howard. If you’d rather listen than read, here’s their conversation about Google Ads.

Otherwise, keep on scrolling for the text. Or click on the links below to jump to a specific section:

What are Google Ads, and how do they work?

Google Ads are pay-per-click (PPC) ads. With PPC ads, advertisers only pay for an ad if someone clicks on it.

Here’s some context on how this works: Google runs an auction that allows advertisers, like senior living communities, to bid on specific keyword phrases. For example, phrases like “assisted living,” “memory care,” or “dementia care.”

When someone searches on one of those phrases in Google, the auction determines who the top bidders are. Google will then list the PPC ads of the winning advertiser bidders on the search engine results page (SERP), starting with the highest bidder.

Again, advertisers don’t get charged unless someone clicks on their ad, so there’s value in having your PPC ad display even if no one clicks it. Someone might still glance at it and see your community’s name, which can help with name recognition down the line.

Google isn’t the only PPC option in town, either. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer PPC options, as do competing search engines like Bing.

It’s also worth noting that we’re discussing this in July 2023. Google recently announced its Search Generative Experience (SGE), which reimagines search and search results. Google makes money from advertisers, so it remains committed to showing ads. However, stay tuned since this is a fluid situation.

How can a senior living community just starting with PPC see meaningful results? Aren’t Google Ads highly competitive?

Here’s why PPC advertising is so effective for myriad businesses, large and small: You can bid on all kinds of keywords with whatever budget you have, and there’s almost always going to be an opening for you.

It’s not simply the tyranny of the big guy, although that can happen for certain industries. Even with modest budgets, we still see plenty of PPC opportunities for senior living communities.

Keep in mind that if a community finds that they’re not getting any clicks, at least they’re not dumping a ton of money into ads, because again, Google only charges you if people click on your ads.

How does Senior Living SMART optimize Google Ads to get clicks?

We follow PPC best practices and combine them with our knowledge of senior living in general and our understanding of a community’s brand, including the types of prospects they want to attract. (Learn more about prospect personas.)

We maintain a list of keywords that people search throughout the United States when researching independent living, assisted living, and memory care. We have an excellent grasp of these phrases because they’re fairly universal. It’s how everyone everywhere talks about senior living. Think of phrases such as “senior living near me” or “assisted living near me.”

From there, we get to know the client’s community, particularly the location and region. Every time we research a different region, we discover nuances and quirks of how people research assisted living, independent living, and memory care that we hadn’t seen before. This enables us to further refine the keyword list.

For example, we don’t use only “memory care” in our targeting because not everyone looking for memory care will necessarily call it that. We’ll use words like Alzheimer’s, dementia, and memory support. We’ll also pay attention to how people search in different markets.

We can target ads based on criteria like the person’s location, too. For example, let’s say we have a client who has a senior living community outside of Austin, Texas. We can target people within a 10- to 15-mile radius of Austin who are doing searches on things like “senior living near me,” or “assisted living near me,” or “senior living Austin.”

Why can’t you use financial criteria in the targeting?

It’s true that you can’t use financial criteria in your ad targeting. This is because of federal and state fair housing laws, which state that we cannot target housing based on people’s income. At the end of the day, senior living is a form of housing. For example, we can’t run ads where the criteria include targeting people interested in senior living in Austin who also have a yearly income of $300K.

But what we can do is help people self-qualify. Within the ads, we can include something like “Rents starting at $5,000/month”. Someone reading the ad can decide, “Yep, that works.” Or “Nope, I can’t afford that.”

Another tool we can use is “negative” keywords. Essentially, you’re telling Google that it shouldn’t show ads to people who use specific keywords. For example, consider people who search for “at-home assisted living.” We’d indicate “at home” (and various combinations and synonyms) as negative keywords, and Google wouldn’t show our ads to people who use those search terms.

What’s the definition of a PPC conversion rate, and is there a good benchmark for senior living?

A conversion rate for PPC ads is the percentage of people who convert after clicking your ad.

The definition of “convert” will vary depending on the advertiser. An e-commerce store running ads for perfume will consider a sale to be a conversion, but in senior living, there’s a much longer sales cycle. We don’t expect someone to click on an ad and convert into a resident. Instead, our goal is to convert the person into a lead.

For example, if someone clicks on an ad, they might go to a landing page where they can download a brochure in exchange for their name and email address. When a person takes that action, they become a senior living lead. That’s the conversion point.

If 100 people click your ad, and 10 become a lead, that’s a 10% conversion rate. We consider this a good conversion rate in our industry.

Conversion rates can vary depending on geographies and a community’s budget. Generally, we like to see conversion rates between eight to 15% for senior living.

Of course, clients will often say, “The conversion rate is only 10%? That means I lose 90% of the prospects clicking on the ad.”

On the surface, that might be true, but effective advertising is as much about allowing people to self-qualify out of your sales funnel as it is about bringing them into it. As much as you want to bring lots of people into your sales funnel, you also don’t want to waste anyone’s time on leads who will never become residents in your community, no matter what you do. And, that other 90% isn’t lost forever. Those folks can always come back and convert at a later date.

What are landing pages, and why are they super important in PPC campaigns?

You could be targeting the best keywords and have great ads that people click, but what if there’s a disconnect on the landing page—the place on your website that the Google Ad click sends them to? What if the landing page doesn’t deliver on what the ad promised, or it’s confusing, or it doesn’t function properly, and someone navigates away before converting? Well, you’ve just wasted money on that click.

To improve landing pages, we’ll conduct A/B testing. Sometimes, the smallest change—like changing the color of a submit button, for example—can improve conversions. We’re constantly monitoring landing page performance to achieve that desired conversion rate of 8 to 15%.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that what happens to the leads after they convert matters, too. This is where lead scoring and marketing automation come into play. High-intent leads can go onto the sales team, while leads that aren’t ready for a sales interaction can continue to be nurtured through automated lead nurturing.

What are the cost per lead benchmarks for senior living PPC?

The lowest cost per lead right now is for independent living. They can be as low as $18 per lead, or as high as $45 to $50.

Assisted living is higher. Typically, we see the low end around $38 to $40. The high end is in the range of $80 to $100. Again, this depends on location. A densely populated metro area will likely be more competitive and more expensive.

Memory care is a moving target and is constantly getting more expensive since there’s so much competition. This isn’t surprising, either. Every community that offers memory care already knows it’s an urgent need and a lucrative source of move-ins. The lower end of memory care is about $100 to $120. The higher end can be $400 or more.

How does Senior Living SMART work with a client to develop their PPC budget?

We start by having a very open conversation with each client about goals for leads this year and how that breaks down per quarter and month. For example, the client might want ten leads a month, eight of which come from paid ads.

From there, we’ll do keyword research using the seed list of keywords as our base and review the geography. Google wants you to spend money, so it’s incredibly transparent about how much keywords cost in different geographies.

Using our ideal conversation rate as a guide—so again, for senior living, we’re happy if we can land in between 8 to 15%—we can do some reverse-engineering with the numbers.

For example, if we get a hundred clicks on assisted living keywords that cost X amount, and the goal is to convert 10 of them, what does that mean in terms of the cost per click? How do we spread that cost over 30, 31, or 32 days? PPC platforms operate on a monthly basis, but they parse your budget on a daily basis. And because of that, we use either 31 days—or if it’s a month with 31 days, we use 32 days to make sure we don’t go over budget—to figure out our daily budget.

Once we’ve reviewed these scenarios, we can recommend a budget to the client. If the budget isn’t what they had in mind, we can adjust while resetting expectations about leads. Instead of expecting eight leads a month coming in from PPC ads, they might need to adjust their expectations to five leads a month due to their budget constraints.

Can clients do PPC work on their own?

The question isn’t “can they.” In theory, anyone can run paid ads if they have money. The question is, should they? Effective paid advertising requires more than simply tinkering with the ad platform and entering a credit card. The paid ads team at Senior Living SMART are specialists with years of skill and expertise—and a track record of getting the results our clients seek.

We monitor campaigns and make tweaks so that we can optimize a client’s budget and get them the quality leads they’re looking for. It’s a dynamic process—setting and forgetting ads won’t yield quality long-term results. So having a partner like SLS to set up and manage your ads is one of the best investments you can make.

Need help getting better senior living leads through PPC campaigns? We can help.

Let’s discuss how we can turbo-charge your paid advertising strategy.

30 Minute Marketing Skill Builders: Let’s Talk Content

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A panel of senior living marketing professionals will share strategies and tactics for lead generation, nurturing and conversions given current restrictions regarding tours, events and community visits.

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