Top 8 Ways to Increase Online Leads For Your Assisted Living Community

The math reads simple. To increase your senior living occupancy rates, you need to increase the leads you generate online. The execution however is anything but. Close to 8 in 10 do their homework on assisted living communities online, as per Google data. This goes to show that facilities stand to get most of their business online compared to other traditional avenues. If you’re here to find out what’s getting in the way of your facility’s lead generation and how to get things revving, this article is for you. Here’s what you need to do posthaste: 

Be clear with pricing information from the get-go

Is your assisted living community upfront with its pricing or do leads have to go the extra mile to find out for themselves? Chances are you’re putting off many of your leads if you don’t put your pricing details online. 

It’s understandable why communities aren’t eager to make financial details clear at first glance, as it’s usually a good strategy to usher them down the sales funnel first. But most of them won’t even get to that point if you’re not visibly transparent with your pricing. You’d be surprised how many of your leads rule themselves out for a misperception that they’re priced out of your community when they are not.  

It’s all in the tour so make it count

Did you know that 8 out of 10 assisted living seekers will visit at least one facility but typically more? Moreover, 50% of prospects tend to tour upwards of 2 facilities. That goes to show just how much competition you’re up against. If you’re dishing out tours by the day and the number of leads you close is simply not a reflection of it, it’s time to shake things up. 

Here are a few tour-revamping tips: 

  • Lead a discussion, not a one-sided presentation
  • Features are great but lead with community benefits
  • Outline the next steps after the tour
  • Talk about pricing
  • Introduce residents and staff

Also, don’t forget to follow up after the tour, because 18% of facilities never do.

Blog about what they need to hear

More emphasis on theirs. Most senior living communities, and all businesses really, tend to get caught up in producing self-serving content. However, a better strategy is to put out content around your target market’s problems. This way you may even get a lead into your funnel who wasn’t quite there yet in terms of looking up a facility. 

So be sure to blog about issues families living with seniors struggle with. That could be dementia care tips, bathing pointers, and relatable things along that line. Then front your community among the possible solutions to explore.

Consider sending out email newsletters

It’s best to build an email list from content offers on your websites. This is the best way to get qualified leads. When done right, an email newsletter can be the lead-generation magnet you’ve been yearning for. 

One digital marketing service, namely Genexod, shared a few tips on how they make successful email newsletters:

  • Use a catchy subject line: Vary them, optimize for mobile, and throw in an emoji
  • Include the name of a real person as the sender. It’ll seem less “spammy”
  • Make your newsletter scannable by way of bullet points and subheads

Cast your net wider

If we may ask, what are your current lead sources? For most facilities, referrals and call-ins are often the big generators. These are undoubtedly a great way to qualify leads and ensure none slip through the cracks, but it’s important to diversify your sources

For instance, over 50% of seniors (65+) today are on social media. PPC ads can also be extremely effective especially if you’re struggling with low traffic. Overall, there are many ways you can go with digital marketing for eCommerce to grow your assisted living leads. So don’t be afraid to explore what’s out there. 

Make your website senior-friendly

While their families often take charge of looking up senior living options online, many seniors still like to take charge of the process so they can make their own decisions. The first touchpoint for many senior living communities is their website, which needs to tick the right boxes with this category of users. Here’s how to make your website senior-friendly: 

  • Leverage color to distinguish unvisited and visited links
  • Use large texts and spacing for hyperlinks
  • Implement large text fields & simple forms

A digital marketing agency should be able to handle this for you. 

Be smart about it

Dynamic content, otherwise known as smart content, is a great way to also finetune the messaging on your website according to who’s reading. You can adjust content depending on whether you’re appealing to a senior or a much younger family member so that your CTAs and arguments have a greater lure. 

This personalization data can stem from first- or second-party data collection, and once more, a digital marketing service can help you cash in one of the hottest digital marketing trends for assisted living today. 

Referral partnerships are great

It may be 2022, but the power of referrals has never weaned over the years. If anything, with the right referral partnerships, your assisted living community can catalyze inbound lead generation like crazy. 

Some suitable partners to think about for your business include but should not be limited to:

  • Rehabilitation centers
  • Senior centers
  • Local churches
  • Insurance companies
  • Libraries and hospitals
  • Elder law attorneys, and many more 

When choosing referral partners, it helps to personalize your outreach, perhaps talk about why you feel you’d both be a great fit. That would entail a matching of certain standards and objectives. Incentives are also known to go down really well. 

A digital marketing agency for eCommerce may be of help

Working with an agency, especially one with assisted living experience and expertise, may also be just what you need to get your lead generation going. When you do this, you can concentrate not on educating the agency but your leads. You are able to hit the ground running with your campaign and the right digital marketing company that has on-site experience and leverages the right tools to meet the exact needs of your specific type of community. Stop by the Genexod website for an experienced assisted living partner.