Senior Living Center Marketing

Why Effective Digital Marketing Attracts Senior Living Residents

A recent survey revealed that 76% of consumers first look at a company’s online presence before visiting them in person. Think about that: your senior living center depends on digital marketing to sign three of every four of your potential clients.

That means if you don’t have the right digital marketing in place, chances are they will look for another senior living center. So what digital marketing channels are the most effective at finding new residents for your senior community?

For over 15 years, eProphet Media has utilized every available digital marketing channel to help businesses grow. Let us examine the most popular digital marketing channels among senior living centers and explain what works best, what doesn’t, and why.

The Most Popular Digital Marketing Options for Senior Living Centers

The choices may seem endless when it comes to digital marketing for your senior living center.

However, the most effective ways of attracting clients can basically be narrowed down to two channels: Paid ads and search engine optimization (SEO).

To help you identify which one provides the best ROI for your marketing dollars, we’ll show how they work and explain the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Paid Ads: A Bitter-Sweet Marketing Method

Scroll Facebook or navigate the internet, and you’ll see small ads placed in front of you. These ads are for all kinds of products and services, but they all have the same goal: compelling you to click on them.

But these ads don’t just appear on their own; rather, companies pay for them to bombard the public with their offer or message in an effort to attract qualified leads or new customers.

The instant visibility of paid ads lets businesses get their offer in front of tens of thousands or even millions of people. Here’s some of the most common paid ads that senior living centers may use:

Online Display Ads
Online display ads are a type of paid ad that may feature text, images, or animations, or videos. These ads often appear at the top of a website or app, but may also require users to scroll past them to continue viewing more content. 
Their ultimate goal is to be clicked, leading the user to a specific website URL.

Social Media Ads
Social media ads can appear as posts, stories, videos, or images in users’ feeds or timelines. Often designed to look like a post from someone a user is following, these ads may be labeled as “sponsored” or “promoted”, indicating that they are paid content. Much like display ads, there is either a link in the image itself or embedded in the description that leads to a website URL.

Paid Ad Advantages
Since companies can pay to place an ad showing whatever they want a user to see, paid ads offer businesses the ability to achieve instant awareness of who they are and what they offer.

These paid ads also target users based on a variety of factors, such as the user’s demographics, interests, or location. That means they can instantly place their message in front of a certain type of user that is more likely to be interested in their offer. Additionally, the more a user sees a paid ad, the more they will recognize a company or business, further improving brand recognition.

Why Paid Ads Provide Limited Benefit for Senior Living Centers
While paid ads can be effective with certain types of businesses, they are not the best way for a senior living center to attract clients.

Here’s the biggest reason why they don’t work:
Signing a new senior living resident is a time-sensitive process. As you’re likely aware, families don’t just randomly decide to look for a senior living center for their family member after seeing an ad for these facilities.

Instead, it’s a process that starts when a family member needs the care provided by these facilities. This time-sensitive need is what moves the family to search for the right facility.

That’s why a senior living center who only pays for ads in hopes of randomly finding a family in need of these facilities at just the right time is statistically ineffective.

Google Search Ads: Pros and Cons

Enter a search term into Google, and you may see a variety of different items displayed at the top of the page: location suggestions, an AI-generated summary, or Google Search Ads.

These paid ads are different from the display ads mentioned above in a significant way: they appear at the top of a Google search, and not in places like the banner of a website or a social media feed.

As a result, Google users who enter specific search terms will first see results that say “Sponsored” next to them. This allows businesses paying for these ads to instantly appear at the top of Google searches.

However, the disadvantage comes from the lack of results, as well as the cost.

The fact is, users have become accustomed to seeing “Sponsored” next to low-quality ads or content. As a result, users often scroll right past these ads and only look for the organic search results, as shown in the image below.

Additionally, these ads can be incredibly expensive to run if they are centered around a competitive keyword. The businesses paying for them pay each time a user clicks them – not each time they sign up a new client. That means they may pay thousands of dollars each month, but have no new clients to show for it.

What’s Needed for Your Senior Living Center to Be Highly Visible Online

The biggest piece of any digital marketing strategy is having a professional website that’s optimized for search.

If you need help knowing what that involves, feel free to contact our digital marketing agency today.

However, there are other important pieces of the puzzle that compliment a website optimized for search.

For example, there are online tools such as Google Business Profile that complement your SEO marketing efforts. This helps potential clients find quick information about your facilities, such as reviews, location, images, and visiting hours.

Additionally, you can make sure your facility’s listings are up to date in other directories. Doing so will also allow you to receive more online reviews, which provides further social proof that your facilities are the best choice for seniors.

Still Have Questions About Digital Marketing For Your Senior Living Center?

Effectively marketing a senior living center is an ongoing effort. Additionally, marketing questions and problems often arise. We get it. That’s why we are here to help.

For over fifteen years, we’ve helped businesses cut through the marketing clutter and choose the best digital marketing strategy that allows them to attract specific audiences in the most affordable way possible.

This lets businesses such as senior living centers use the most cost-effective digital marketing to level the playing field against bigger competitors. Instead of relying on expensive paid ads, we develop a long-term strategy that provides a lower cost per lead.

The result is helping senior living centers like yours attract and sign new residents.

For example, our digital marketing helped Waterford Oaks Senior Care sign 16 new residents in just three months. Let us use our insights and experience to help you with any marketing issues you’re facing.

Our Internet Marketing Agency Has Been Helping Attorneys Since 2007

Our digital marketing agency has helped dozens of attorneys capture the leads that are looking to hire their services – which is no small feat, since lawyer marketing is fiercely competitive.

See for yourself how we increased qualified leads and signed clients by 300% within the first month for one attorney, or how we have provided 10+ years of growth for another law firm.

This experience has provided us with important insights into the digital marketing world, enabling us to help other businesses – including senior living centers – show up right when they’re needed, helping them sign new clients and grow their business.