The coronavirus pandemic continues to significantly affect various major industries worldwide, and assisted living is definitely one of the hardest hit. Seniors belong among the high-risk individuals more vulnerable to COVID-19, after all. Add to this the huge restrictions that the pandemic imposed, particularly in the day-to-day operation and marketing assisted living facilities, and we pretty much gain an overview of the hurdles that administrators have to face.

If you are struggling specifically in the latter, the first logical step to take is to know your options when coming up with a solid assisted living marketing solution. We are going to say outright that you should rely more on senior living digital marketing for it is the most viable, safest, and even efficient option available to most senior care facility managers. Below are the best areas to start.

1. Make sure you have an established online business presence

A website lays the foundation for your business’s online presence so it’s highly recommended to never start any kind of digital marketing without it. Professionalism is always innately attached to websites, too, and does well to establish your brand. Take note that most boomers, the generation that currently makes up a bulk of the elderly, already rely as much on the internet as younger generations. 

These facts outline the reasons why it’s vital for you to pay attention to your website. Does it readily exhibit your credibility as an assisted living facility? What facts about your facility can you use to convince potential residents to avail of your services? Its overall persuasiveness warrants a deeper look because it is what will greatly dictate the opinion and impression of visitors. 

There is also the matter of landing pages, which are essentially where all the lead generation and conversion happens. That said, landing pages have to be attractive to the prospect as much as possible, and this often takes listing down the pain points of your clients and the advantages of your services. All the better if it uses eye-catching copy. 

As long as you can safely say that your facility is readily accessible online and is well-represented by its corresponding website, then you are already one step closer to realizing your digital marketing goals. 

2. Email Marketing

Email marketing has always been one of the longest-lasting forms of digital marketing for a reason. It’s just that effective and efficient. And what’s good is that it has also not failed to evolve over the years to include marketing assisted living facilities as well. 

The key to excellent email marketing lies in crafting messages that will hit the spot, so the speak, when enumerating and addressing the pain points of seniors and their family members. It’s not for nothing that experienced marketers will always advise you to make your messages as personal as possible. It readily transmits your genuine desire to improve their quality of life, after all, and more.

Email marketing takes perseverance because it involves taking the time to build your subscriber list and keeping them engaged with regular correspondence. You also have to be careful in your habit of sending emails because they might end up getting flagged as spam. Of course, the content of the emails should take precedence over these other factors. 

3. Search Engine Optimization 

SEO remains a no-brainer option for digital marketing agencies by virtue of its numerous advantages, once done properly. It will always be a great way for businesses to gain a steady stream of leads that they can turn into conversions. 

But, obviously, SEO takes time and money for your website to gain its much-deserved high ranking; these are investments that will prove to be well worth it once your facility’s website is already appearing on the first page of the SERPs for quality keywords. 

For elderly assisted living, it’s often best to go for local SEO more because the majority of searchers actually opt for local businesses first. The COVID-19 crisis also pretty much impacted the global reach of SEO, to say the least, so going local is the logical route for most senior care facilities. Assisted living is all about community ties and, more often than not, local consumers remain the best candidates for being long-term residents, as trends can prove. 

4. Pay Per Click Advertising

Online advertising’s ideal paradigm has always been PPC advertising because it always manages to deliver results for businesses regardless of the industry they are in. Google PPC advertising alone can give your website much leverage in search results because your ads will be positioned on top of the results. 

How will you be able to make the most of your PPC advertising capital? Well, you should definitely invest time in researching keywords with high demand. It also won’t hurt to always use effective ad copy and an impactful call-to-action message. You should also pay attention to your budget and make sure you religiously stick to it, at least, if you haven’t mastered PPC advertising yet. 

5. Social Media Marketing

The coronavirus pandemic has pretty much forced most social media networks to “level up” and start becoming a serious platform for commercial purposes. People’s social media use has evidently increased after the pandemic, too.

Facebook advertising for assisted living is but one type of social media marketing you should not fail to take advantage of simply because Facebook has proven to be the most digital marketing-friendly platform accessible to most businesses. 

What’s good about social media is that it serves as a treasure trove of data about your potential customers. With the help of its tools, you can form a lasting relationship with your audience, whom you won’t have a hard time reaching out to and engage every time. 

Conclusion

Results-driven online marketing for the senior living community involves adopting a comprehensive strategy that relies on more than one digital marketing method. This way, you won’t be putting all your eggs in the basket. It also opens up plenty of opportunities for testing which ones work best for your facility. 

Of course, you have to be equally dedicated to doing the testing, analyzing, and introducing further revisions to your marketing plan for a senior living community. Digital marketing demands no less and doing it for your senior living facility is no exception.