(860) 251-9004
You are here: Home / Archives for Home Care

4 Ways Senior Living Communities Can Speak In Their Consumer’s Own Language.

August 12, 2013 By 3 Comments

We recently ran a survey here at SeniorMarketing.com about the words we use to describe senior living. Our survey results prove, prospect’s feel disconnected by the typical language used by a community. It’s usually a much different language than they normally speak.

So if the typical language is offending and disconnecting seniors, how can we learn to use the language our consumers are using to connect with them emotionally?

Traditionally, this required focus groups and surveys, but today much of your research can be done online. Following are 4 simple ways you can use today to discover the language your prospects use.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Assisted Living, Home Care, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Nursing Home, Senior Living

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

May 2, 2013 By 2 Comments

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…]

Filed Under: Assisted Living, Email Marketing, Home Care, Marketing, Nursing Home, Retirement Community, Senior Housing, Senior Living, Skilled Nursing Tagged With: , ,

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

April 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

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/

Filed Under: Assisted Living, Home Care, Marketing, Nursing Home, Retirement Community, Senior Housing, Senior Living, Skilled Nursing

4 Rules For Senior Living Search Engine Marketing Campaigns

April 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This is a guest post I wrote for Carebuzz.com 

There’s no denying having a strong internet marketing presence helps grow your senior living community or senior care business. With more and more adult children and seniors using the internet, it’s hard to survive without an online presence.

Over the past few years, there has been a flurry of marketing and referral agencies popping up in this industry. Some provide an honest service, and I would recommend testing their services, while others may not be so honest. Because these referral companies are very good at internet marketing, is using their service the only way we can gain search engine real estate?

This is where having a strong search marketing campaign can help. And pay per click marketing is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to reach seniors and caregivers the moment they need your community or care services. With pay per click advertising, you bid on “keywords” which are phrases people are searching on a search engine, and anytime someone types one of these phrases your ad will be displayed. The best part is you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

If your website is Google compliant, you can have a campaign running by this afternoon bringing you qualified leads.

However, as powerful as pay per click marketing is, if you do it wrong you can lose your shirt. And today’s pay per click systems have as many dials and knobs as a commercial airplane.

I’ve written this article to list out the 4 most important areas a senior living community or senior care company needs to pay attention to when building out a campaign.

Full article at: http://carebuzz.com/rules-for-senior-living-senior-care-search-engine-marketing/

Filed Under: Assisted Living, Home Care, Marketing, Pay Per Click, Retirement Community, Senior Housing, Senior Living, Skilled Nursing

5 Ways To Get Raving Reviews On Your Senior Living Google Places Page

December 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Google places is a great way for a senior living community to get free exposure on Google. If you're not familiar with what Google places is, they're the listings with the raindrop icon next to them when you do a local search. 

Google allows users to leave a review, and the number of reviews gets displayed beside the listing. The more reviews your community has, the higher the number displayed, and the higher the chances a potential new resident or adult child will see the listing.

Here's a story of how powerful a highly reviewed Google places listing can be.

I recently visited my sister in Brooklyn NY who lives in the trendy Williamsburg area. We spent a Saturday exploring new areas outside of Williamsburg, and ended up in an unfamiliar area. It was late and we were getting hungry, so we wanted to find a new restaurant.

I did a search on my phone for restaurants near by.

Below is a screenshot of the search results for “restaurants in Brooklyn”. Notice the restaurant with 1,870 reviews and a Zagat score (restaurant review site) of 26/30.

Can you guess which restaurant we went to? The amount of positive reviews separated it from everyone else on the page. It did not matter if this listing was the last one on the page either. What I was looking at was the reviews from honest people.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Google Places, Home Care, Marketing, Senior Living
« Previous Page