(860) 251-9004

Why The Search Engines Are Giving Away Top Advertising Spots To Senior Living and Senior Care Businesses



According to search Engine Land, 43% of searches have a local intent on Google. This means people are using the major search engines to find local businesses and more information locally.

This is huge and the major search engines have been taking action on this recently.

Mobile searches are even higher. 50% of searches have local intent.

This is important because in senior living and senior care, everything is local. Unless you’re a luxury destination CCRC, your market is mostly local.

Especially when our prospects search for us online.

[Read more…]

How To Value Your Residents, Form Realistic Marketing Budgets, And Cut Expenses By Understanding The Lifeblood Of Smart Senior Living Marketing.



Stop Money Sucking, Mind Numbing, Wasteful Marketing Strategies

The definition of the word investment according to dictionary.com is as follows:

Investment – The investing of money or capital in order to gain profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.

Imagine for a moment, that I were to approach you with an amazing investment opportunity. I’d tell you about how much money you’d make, and all you’d have to do is give me a couple thousand dollars.

But there’s one catch….

During the life of that investment, we would have no clue how it performs, no way to track it, and we would only know how much money was made after the investment was sold.

Would you invest in that?

Of course not.

Marketing Absolutely Must Be Viewed As An Investment!

If you were to invest $5,000 in a marketing campaign, and you get 2 new residents out of that campaign, then obviously those residents are going to be worth more than $2,500. On average, the value of those residents are worth anywhere from $60,000-$70,000. Talk about a great return on investment!

This is where the lifeblood of smart senior living marketing comes into play. At SeniorMarketing.com we focus exclusively on senior living and home care, and the fundamentals of everything we do is based on the lifeblood of smart marketing. We eat sleep and breathe it!

[Read more…]

How to Capture Online Prospects in the Senior Living Buying Cycle



This is an article I wrote for Retirementhomes.com

Just like our eyes can capture only a sliver of the full spectrum of light, the keywords our prospects type into search engines are a sliver of a conversation inside their heads.

Understand this conversation and you’ll be able to beat out your competition the majority of the time. The rest of this article is to help you uncover this conversation.

What Do Keywords Have To Do With The Buying Cycle?

When your prospects begin searching for senior living, they may or may not be educated in the market. Very rarely are they going to make one search, call your community and become a member.

They will do many searches! And their searches are going to reflect their level of education into senior living.

Keywords tell a story within someone’s head at that very moment. And what a valuable moment it is for us when they’re searching for senior living.

I want you to stop for a minute and think about the conversation inside someone’s head when they make a search for senior living. Really imagine the emotions they’re going through when they are typing into the search engines.

Maybe their parent just had a fall and they need a rehab community, or maybe a person is so overwhelmed caring for their spouse that they can’t handle it anymore. They’re in pain, tired, fed up, looking to get their relationship back with their loved one, and not be the caregiver any more.

Here’s what your prospect’s search patterns may look like. An adult child in Middletown CT may start searching “different types of senior living communities.” Later, once they’re a little more educated, they may come back and search for “assisted living in Middletown CT”.

Then, they may come back and search “skilled nursing in Middletown ct,” and then even later, when they realize their parent with dementia needs a community with specialized care, “dementia care Middletown CT.” Once they have found a specific community, they may end the process with “The Community name” they want to schedule a tour with.

[Read more…]

What Chinese Water Torture and Email Marketing For Senior Living Have in Common.



And Why A Monthly Newsletter Is Not Email Marketing!

Imagine you’re a captive in a Chinese prison during the 1800’s. You have valuable information – the government wants it.

The prison guard throws you into a chair. There’s a large bucket apparatus overhead. You see gloom in his eyes as he straps your arms and legs so you can’t move. Here comes the blindfold. You mind is racing of the terrors that lay ahead.

You’re heart is pounding – you’re not sure what’s going to happen. He steps back for a minute, then yells to his assistant to turn on the apparatus.

A few seconds go by…

You begin to feel a cold drop of water on your head. You’re not sure what to think. It’s not bad at first.

A few minutes go by and drip…drip…drip…

Eventually an hour….two…three…pass!

Drip…drip…drip…

Now soaked from head to toe, you’re freezing. The cold water is slamming on your head like a sledge hammer. Nothing else exists at this point. You desperately want it to stop.

You yell for them to stop – you beg them to stop – you scream!

Eventually, you give in and are defeated. You never thought a little drop of water could have so much power.

A Properly Executed Senior Living Email Marketing Campaign Should Work Like Chinese Water Torture.

I’m going to be blunt here….

Leads and prospects in the senior living industry are costly. The actual cost of generating them is costly, the cost of qualifying them is expensive, the time to sit with them and give a tour is costly, and follow up is costly.

In today’s environment, it take more exposures to convert a prospect into a resident. One of the biggest problems we see today is a serious lack of follow up on senior living prospects.

If all your doing to follow up with prospects is calling once in a while and sending them a monthly newsletter than you’re missing the boat. When a prospect or caregiver gets a monthly newsletter, it’s usually salesy, it’s corporate feeling, and worst of all it’s impersonal. Worse, the majority of email newsletters never even get opened.

[Read more…]

A Big Misconception About An “Important” Senior Living Marketing Metric



This is a recent article I wrote for Retirementhomes.com

There’s a mistaken belief within the senior living industry I want to dispel. Particularly, with regards to internet marketing. Many people have been conditioned to believe there is an important metric to focus on in their marketing efforts. However, if you happen to be only measuring by this metric, you’re shooting blind with your senior living marketing. Worst of all, the results can be downright dangerous!

[Marketing]

The misconception I’m referring to is the idea of measuring the success of a marketing campaign by cost per lead.

Here’s why that’s important…

LEADS DO NOT PAY BILLS, YOUR RESIDENTS DO!

What seems like a low cost per lead can actually be very costly to your business. And what seems like a high cost per lead can actually be a very profitable avenue.

Anybody can generate many leads for you. Whether or not they’re quality leads, that will actually turn into a paying customer is a different story. Cost per lead is an incomplete number to your business. It’s only a piece of the sales process and an arbitrary piece at that.

I can generate a ton of low cost leads to your community tomorrow if you want. What I can do is host an event at your community and run a direct mail promotion. I will give away a $100 Visa gift card, free lunch for prospects and their family, and have a carnival with face painting. The problem with this is, while I will generate a lot of responses they’ll be responding to the $100 gift card, the lunch, and carnival. The actual amount of qualified leads will be low and new residents will be costly.

Full article at: http://www.retirementhomes.com/library/a-big-misconception-about-an-important-senior-living-marketing-metric/