11 Marketing tactics to improve senior living occupancy

Senior Living Occupancy

Senior living marketing could sometimes feel overwhelming as you don't see the results of your hard work. However, it is essential to have a proper strategy before jumping in. You need to know all the marketing trends and the competition's steps and have well-guided support from a top digital agency like CodeDesign.

Regardless of this difficulty, whether seniors are the lowest internet consumers on the web makes you think it is difficult to reach them through digital marketing. Fortunately, these tactics maintain their effectiveness even if the age group. Besides, another factor favoring the senior living industry is that your market- and almost all of us- is aging, and sooner or later, we all want to spend quality time in a senior living community. But to clarify this, why don't we look at statistics about the senior living market? 

In a Gitnux blog about 2023 senior living statistics, we found that the retirement communities industry is estimated to have a market size of $94.2bn by 2023. Meanwhile, the global adult daycare services market will reach $65.34 billion by 2025. Experts expect this industry's revenue will grow by 4.9% from 2020 to 2025.

Average assisted living customers can be 87 years old, most of whom are females, representing 71% of the population. This insight can be valuable for any assisted living owner, as they can better adapt their facilities to these women's needs, but we'll explain more of these further. Adding to all these statistics is fear, saying that by 2030, 20% of the US population will be 65 or older. 

But this can go even further if you think that the 2060 aging population is projected to reach 95 million by 2060, which means there will be much more demand for these communities in future years. This means that those that are now Gen X or Millenials could be your clients of the future.

Still, this continuous growth doesn't stay just in the future because as we live in "the now," we can see how assisted living and independent living properties both experienced significant growth in occupancy rates, accounting for more than 80% and 70%, respectively. Another side effect of this industry's development is the multiple employment generation. Approximately 649,200 people started working in the senior living and care industry in 2020, so chances are this can get any better for people within your industry.

You could work with us, CodeDesign, the leading digital marketing agency to grow your business.

And as COVID-19 is more a past trouble, and all population, including seniors evidently, we can say that it is an excellent time to take advantage of all this growth for your industry, so we share with you the best marketing tactics to improve your senior living occupancy.

Let me start by isolating three quick tips:

• Read this article on a customer feedback loop and marketing tactics to improve the business.
• Find the top events for senior living business owners in 2023. 
• Find these new trends and how to engage with them through social media.

1. Use your current residents' reviews to spread a positive outlook about your business.

Get reviews

If you already have residents who enjoy being a part of your community, you could ask them to give reviews, make online videos, and ask them for honest feedback on why they think your business is the best. When you promote your business online using these videos and reviews, you generate confidence and optimism in the minds of your potential audience. We already know how crowded the digital space is and how less is people's attention span on the internet. What is Digital Marketing VS Advertising?

When you use videos, other potential customers see them as testimonials from fellow companions, unlike an organization's advertisement. Ensure that you provide the right services to your customers so they are always ready to spread word of mouth. Read how meme marketing is used to grasp the audience's attention.

The customer journey of a senior resident goes from many reviews rather than just websites and social media posts. As we all know that no business we'll talk badly about their own company, but customers can. 

Nevertheless, there is another factor when choosing a senior living facility, and that is its closeness to their family. Because of this, many customers will look for communities in their area, and when they see one with many good reviews, they will get the most chances to be the one.

Now, if you are asking how to get reviews besides asking your loyal customers, know that it isn't a huge deal. We will show you how.

Digital Marketing agencies like us help customers get as many positive reviews as possible. It is all the job of the customer relationship. 

Usually, for senior living, the best tip to get reviews is to ask for them as early as a new guest enters. 

Even when you are in a meeting stage, you have to present a positive view of your community so customers will be more up to give a good review if they go out happy from the first meeting. At this moment, it is the best time to tell them how important their opinion is for your business and how they can help improve your services by leaving a review.

Nevertheless, suppose they forget to send a review. In that case, you should always have at hand families emails to send them any reminders or more information about your community, its facilities and events.

Now, where should you get reviews?

Getting reviews on Google My Business is the first aim as it is the most popular search engine and where people look more for your services.

Then another platform that senior living owners tend to overlook is Yelp. While Google it's more popular, there could be a chance that someone could look at your business on Yelp, as it is a platform that only works for this type of service; the thing with this platform is that they have a robust algorithm that filters out many reviews. 

Finally, if you want to invest in marketing through online directories, your listings should have reviews because these are the main attributes for customers to call you or contact.

Then we have Facebook, another key place where people can look for your industry. In our Social Media Marketing for Senior Living, we mentioned that the best social media platforms for Senior Living Clients are YouTube, Facebook, and even Pinterest; you can look at them for more information on this topic.

2. Put apt and sufficient information about your community so that people can trust you

senior community

When a resident plans to move away from their homes and live in a community, they have to think a lot and need answers to many questions. In this business, your customers make a life-changing decision and would have questions at every step of the marketing channel. Read this guide on how to improve website traffic and get relevant customers.

Content marketing could be the best approach to nurture your leads constantly and be open and transparent with community information.

Luckily for you, Senior Living is full of content ideas as it is an industry full of valuable information like aging, elderly health care and how to live a better life in the final stages, while also, you can throw some light on people on complex topics like memory loss, any mental problem or how to live with someone who is losing their knowledge.

In any case, you must add more valuable content on your channels that can give practical, insightful and even calming answers to the most common questions.

Among the best content formats you can use are:

• Blogs: Easy to consume, and you can speak professionally about any topic that you think is important for families and residents to know about. Check out this article on
   creating a blog for Senior Living Customers and families.
• Videos: where you can use the same format as blogs to share insightful information, but in this case, it is easier to consume, and it is the most preferred by many internet users.
• Social media posts: Easier to stay in contact with customers and reach a wider audience within these digital platforms.

Read on how to use user-generated content to promote senior living business.

Capitalize on the new trends in the senior living business.

3. Your marketing campaign must have a clear call to action

Have a clear call to action

Your marketing campaign must have a proper call to action, and you must ask for the sale at the right time and frequency so that you don't feel too pushy and get an idea about when your customers will move in. Most of the time, the customers are not ready to decide whether to buy. 

For this reason, the marketers and the business owners need to strategize how to convince the customers about the excellent business services to decide to move in. You should constantly ask your potential customers when they could be moving in or if they have any potential move-in dates that you could keep in the schedule.

4. Your potential buyers should feel comfortable while being at your website or while encountering your marketing campaigns

See, you need to understand that if the seniors feel comfortable with moving in, only then they would make a decision. The senior living occupancy business needs transparency and includes every possible information like monthly fees, care levels cost, and other expenses so that the adults and their children have all the information they need to choose your community over the competition.

Ideally, you want to be as straightforward as possible, where with one glimpse of your website or any other platform, customers can get a glimpse of what you can offer. When you submit all the valuable information, they can schedule a call with your business, and you can close the deal front in front once they attend to your place.

How can you use QR codes for your digital marketing campaign?

5. Keep on improving your SEO score and online visibility to get direct leads constantly

Think about the statement from the perspective of where you go to get answers to any of your queries. The first answer to your mind was search engines, especially Google. Similarly, your potential customers always search for their unlimited queries on Google. 

Most of the time, the businesses that optimize the website for these search queries to nurture their potential leads are on the winning side. As discussed in the senior living occupancy business scene, where the seniors constantly look forward to getting all their doubts cleared, it makes a lot of sense to focus on search engine optimization and be heard in this competitive space.

Like when we talk about content and blogs, you want to answer those critical questions from your audience's professional perspective, so people can start looking at your Senior Business as an authority within your area. For example, some vital questions about Senior Living can be:

• How to find the right Senior Living Community?
• Tips for choosing a Senior Living Community.
• What is the difference between assisted Living and a Senior Living Community?

As you create more quality content and aim for the right keywords in your niche, you can add an extra paid strategy like PPC or Social Media Ads to target and find the right customers for your Senior House and augment your occupancy. If you want to learn more about this topic, check out SEO for B2B businesses.

Senior Living SEO.

6. Online Reputation Management plays a very crucial role

Online Reputation Management

The good thing about this online space is that you send your business message directly to your customers using several digital marketing channels. However, each market responds differently to marketing initiatives. Also, sometimes the business becomes the prey of cyberbullying or harassment from the competition or the haters.

Therefore, keeping an eye on what is discussed about your business online is important. If you are getting negative reviews, it will destroy your brand's image, and hence you should have an instant response plan in action. Online reputation management is one of the most important parts of winning customers and getting their trust.

7. Your website should be amazing, and there are no alternates to that

The website is the first place where your target audience would land. Hence, you need to design a website that is easy to navigate for people who are not tech-savvy, as in this case, your target audience is retired people. It would be best to add several images of your community so that people could experience what it would feel like to be at your place. 

You could also opt for virtual tours. Investing in your website would be the best use of the budget as all the online experience begins from here.

8. Have a clear understanding of what are the needs of your potential resident

Your potential residents would have different needs from one another. Try to focus on the areas that matter to your potential customers. A personalized approach is the key to success in this hyper-competitive and overcrowded digital space. Even if you opt for an email marketing campaign, ensure that the email is not generic and is meant to add value to each recipient. 

Divide your email group into various categories based on their individual needs; this way, they could add the most value to your recipients. The only way to succeed is to add value to your customers and appear as the best option in the pool.

To learn more about your senior audience, we bring you some key insights about Senior Customers that can help you understand what you must outline and even some services you could be missing.

Citing the same article we discussed initially, experts confirm that 52% of senior Living residents require assistance with at least two daily living activities. This means that it should be good to show what kind of activities you offer, like:

• Swimming and water aerobics classes.
• Paths or trails for walking or bicycling.
• Community dances
• Flower arranging
• Origami
• Pottery
• Woodworking
• Photography

Show all the activities you offer, and if you can show them in your social media content, it adds more points to your strategy.

Notably, almost 80% of senior Living residents have at least one chronic health condition.

Approximately 80% of senior Living residents have at least one chronic health condition, and 41% of other users could have Alzheimer's or Dementia. Because of this, customers and, most of all, family members must know that your community counts on medical and psychological services 24/7 for any inconvenience. 

Besides,  you can offer talks about the prevalence of chronic health conditions among seniors and the importance of providing adequate support and resources to those living with them. In that case, generating more trust in your business is a great option.

Now, a curious fact that we found is that the average stay of a Senior Resident is about 22 months long. You can use this information to decide on what services you can offer while also making sure that all of your community is comfortable and have excellent care while they live in your community. 

This information can help determine your financial viability, as more extended stays can increase your overall revenue.

Now when we talked about the services you could be missing, this statistic is necessary for this, and 75% of seniors prefer it over other options. While we are talking about Senior Living communities, it is also a good option for your business to diversify its offer to this care modality, as you can see that there is a broad audience that prefers this type of service, maybe because they still want to be close to their loved ones.

Ultimately, the idea is to expand your business to as many services as possible.

9. Use the CRM system for everything else

Use CRM tools to track every interaction of your salespeople with potential leads. A customer relationship management tool is an effective way to look at the impact of the marketing tactics you have been using. 

At the same time, it is also important to link the results from marketing and sales initiatives to the CRM database so that your sales team has enough data to personalize the follow-ups with the prospects.

Today it becomes increasingly important to personalize the experiences online and in the person of all your users, and technology allows you to do it quickly. In your work area, you will get guests with different characteristics. For example, some will still be in full swing and are just looking for a nice place to stay, while others may be entering because their condition no longer allows them to continue in their home, and that is where you must offer an experience adapted to all the needs of this. If you want to learn more about personalization in marketing, read this article.

10. Use Social Media Platforms to create a digital community and build relationships with new guests and their families.

All existing niches can get the right audience on social networks, and it doesn't matter if even your guests are not the ones who use them the most. In our article on Social Media Marketing to increase senior occupancy, we cited a Pew Research study that shows how adults aged 65+ have increased their presence on social networks by 45%.

These are still the lowest user population within these platforms, but you can still get them and interact with them through these channels.

The channels most preferred by seniors are YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook, so it is better to save time trying to contact someone through TikTok since they only represent 3.4% on this platform.

The ultimate idea is to follow a content creation strategy and community management that encourages interaction among your entire community of followers in networks to increase your relevance within them and even reach more people who, either by recommendation or Because they got your networks thanks to your good management of SEO. So you can increase your occupancy even more.

11. Hire a top digital marketing agency like CodeDesign to work with you and help you excel

CodeDesign- The leading digital marketing agency

CodeDesign has helped multiple B2B and B2C brands connect with the right audience and improve sales. We have a dedicated team, years of experience, a portfolio to showcase, and client reviews and testimonials to justify our expertise. You would be amazed to know that we have a client recommendation score that is 376% higher than the market average. 

We have a winning culture and a team composed of elite-level digital marketers to help your brand excel and win big.

Feel free to contact us to see the unprecedented growth of your business.

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