3 Cs of Digital Marketing for Senior Care Providers

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Digital marketing is a challenging new frontier for every industry, including senior living. With nearly a quarter (23%) of senior living sales coming directly from online sources (Creating Results, 2018), prioritizing the growth of a healthy digital footprint can push your leagues ahead of your competitors.  

Focusing your residence’s digital marketing efforts on supporting your business’ brand and reputation by leverage value-rich content creation and positive reviews can help you: 

Build Your Residence’s Credibility 

93% of consumers on Facebook and 90% on Google have indicated that they're at least 'a little’ suspicious of the honesty of the reviews they see (Brightlocal, 2022). Using a vetted third-party review platform can help your prospective clients and their loved ones feel more confident engaging with your residence. 

Creating and sharing educational content helps position your residence as an authority in the senior living space, inspiring trust in prospective residents, their families, and senior living professionals. 

 

Support a Healthy SEO Content Strategy 

Rich, user-generated content helps your residence show up higher in search results, making you easier to find and interact with. In addition, positive reviews and testimonials can be repurposed on your social media channels to help inspire other prospective clients to reach out. 

Collaborating with other trustworthy senior care authorities by offering guest posts on blogs or social media shout outs or offering yourself up for interviews creates a healthy network of backlinks to your residence’s website. This series of links helps search engines like Google recommend you to those searching for care providers like you. 

 

Drive More Senior Living Sales 

 72% of consumers trust businesses more if they read positive reviews about those businesses (Digital Strike, 2022). A glowing review from a current resident, their loved ones, or another senior living professional can encourage a prospective client to choose your residence over a competitor. 

A solid foundation of useful, valuable content helps future residents, and their families build a sense of trust in you as a care provider since you’ve been able to support them throughout their search for care. In addition, senior care professionals, like Senior Living Advisors, will be more likely to recommend your services to their clients if they’ve been able to find relevant information about your residence easily online.  

To maximize the efficacy of your residence’s digital strategy, there are three key marketing goals to keep top of mind:  

Credibility

79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (BrightLocal, 2020), while just 4% trust paid spokespersons or ads, to guide their buying decisions (Inc, 2019).  

Reviews posted to your Google listing or Facebook pages will help with your omnichannel positive reputation strategy, 93% of consumers on Facebook and 90% on Google have indicated that they're at least 'a little’ suspicious of the honesty of the reviews (Brightlocal, 2022).  

Using a vetted third-party review platform can help support your brand’s trustworthy reputation and help prospective clients and their loved ones feel more confident engaging with your residence.  

Platforms like Cared Upon have already established trust as a client-focused digital information hub and offer care providers a unique opportunity to proactively view and to respond reviews before they’re posted. This feature allows care providers to stay ahead of the feedback they receive to build a sense of credibility and trust with prospective residents.  

Responding to feedback early and often leaves future residents with the impression that your residence’s management team is open to feedback and committed to making meaningful changes.  

Crafting a trustworthy brand image can also be done through your existing professional network.  

Senior living professionals who are not affiliated with your care service have years of experience, and a deep understanding of your shared niche. The clientele you both serve likely already see them as knowledgeable, trustworthy, and credible senior care experts.  

Collaborating on educational content, guest posting blogs, and regularly interacting with each other on social media can help you both entrench yourselves as through leaders in senior care. A positive testimonial online from another senior living authority is another supercharged way to inspire a rock-solid sense of confidence in the care your residence provides. 

Content

If your senior living residence is not already present on a variety of social media platforms, it’s a good idea to consider branching out beyond your own website.  

Having profiles on places like Facebook or LinkedIn, and accounts on question-and-answer forums like Quora or Reddit, and review sites like caredupon.ca, may go beyond where your marketing team prefers to promote your residence, but they’re a valuable way to reach as many prospective residents as possible. 

When beginning the search for care, a handful of common concerns typically arise for seniors and their loved ones. Taking a proactive approach to the content your residence makes and shares on each online platform you’re present on can help ease these worries much earlier in prospective clients’ decision-making process.  

In addition to offering peace of mind to future residents and their families, your residence’s intentional approach to educational content like “how-to” blog posts, or lifestyle content like photos of events shared on social media, helps clients find the richly detailed information they need. (Especially when coupled with a bank of positive reviews.)  

While much of your digital marketing will be tailored for prospective residents and their loved ones, special attention should be paid to Senior Living Advisors, social workers, hospital discharge coordinators, and other healthcare practitioners.  

These senior care professionals are often the first people that seniors and their families interact with when seeking care. Ensuring that these professionals have access to rich, detailed information about your residence helps them act as a trustworthy learning resource for prospective clients. 

Consistency

It’s easy to make a great piece of content or respond to a review on behalf of your residence once, but that’s not how you’ll make the most of your residence’s online presence.  

Consider answering the following questions to develop the pillars of your content plan:  

  • Who are you as a company? 
  • How do you want others to see you? 
  • What services do you provide better than your competition? 

Returning to these questions a few times a year will help inspire you to keep creating valuable content for people looking for care, their loved ones, and for senior living professionals who will recommend your service.  

Pairing the answers to these questions with the insights you’ve attained by paying attention to feedback from your current residents will have your SEO-optimized content calendar full.  

No digital strategy is complete without a system in place to track its success. Knowing what and how to measure your strategy’s performance will keep you consistent, accountable to your goals, and a step ahead of your competition. 

As you measure your results, you’ll find that some articles, blog posts or pieces of social media content perform better than others. Take note of these and explore why they may be resonating better with your ideal residents than other things you’ve shared.  

These insights will allow you to fine-tune relevant topics, content types, and post frequency to continue to grow your digital footprint.  


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