Appealing to older people is difficult since most of your marketing needs to be in-person. And in-person marketing is expensive.
So what can you do to make sure your advertising money is being well spent both on and offline? You need to be strategic and spend your money with a plan.
Don’t know how to do that or need some help marketing your assisted living community? Read on below.
Find Your Audience
A lot of issues in marketing, in all niches, come from not knowing where your audience is. For example, you’re not going to market assisted living at an OBGYN’s office.
That just doesn’t make sense. You need to go (marketing wise) where your demographic is.
For most assisted living homes, their demographic is two-fold. There are the elderly people who are tired of doing everything themselves, and the adult children who can no longer take care of their aging parents.
Each of these populations hangs out (in real life and online) in different places. This reliable company is doing a great job.
How to Target the Elderly
Email marketing still works well with the older demographic, since many older people only have a grasp on basic internet functions. Of all the tools on the internet, email is one they probably already use to connect with friends and family.
You can put out targeted ads on Facebook, but if you find your demographic there, they’re less likely to understand how the ads work.
Facebook ads may work for name recognition, but you won’t get a high elderly click-through rate.
You’re better off sticking to email for digital marketing.
For in-person marketing, ask your local doctors offices if you can leave some pamphlets in their waiting rooms. They may allow to buy poster ad space or even buy ads on their website.
The best marketing partner you can have is a doctor who recommends your services to an elderly patient. The doctor will appeal to both your elderly demographic and adult caretakers, were they to attend the appointment.
How to Target Caretakers and Adult Children
If you’re looking to attract people who make decisions for elderly clients, you need to target to the 35-50 age range. These are adults who are beginning to notice changes in the way their parents can provide themselves care.
They may start to take care of some things themselves, or they worry that they can’t help because they’re too far away.
Since their parents provided for them and took care of them, they feel responsible to do the same in their old age. These adult children and caretakers have a lot of questions, which is why blog posts full of answers are important.
The blog “A Place for Mom” is the industry standard, it has recommendations and articles for everything. From when it’s time to put someone in a nursing home to the best cell-phone plans for seniors.
If you can afford to advertise on their site, do it! This is a great place to pick up local interest for your younger demographic.
These younger people are better at Facebook than their parents, so yes, you should invest in some Facebook ads. Stick to the late thirties to early fifties age group, when you’re creating your ad targeting.
Email marketing won’t work as well for this group, as they probably have spam blockers or are already overwhelmed with the emails they get.
Offer Tours
As part of your general marketing campaign (and as a Facebook ad to your younger demographic), you should offer tours of your facility. What better way is there to show potential clients the level of quality and care you can provide?
Offering a free tour to adult caretakers and children may be the push they’re looking for. Especially if their parents are resistant to the idea of going into assisted living care. The fact that it’s free and has no obligation is a good elderly-convincing point.
When you give tours, make sure you cater to whoever comes along. If it’s just the adult child or the caretaker, you want to focus more on what services the community provides.
How will you take care of their loved one? Will they be safe?
But if you’re giving a tour to the elderly person themselves, you want to focus on the quality of life. Yes, you’ll provide healthcare services, but how will living in your facility make their lives easier? What community resources are there?
Do they know anyone already living there? Having a friend is a big motivator for older potential clients.
Do Referral Events
Speaking of having friends in the facility, that’s where a good chunk of your referrals will come from. Put on events like book clubs or card games where people not yet in assisted living can come and socialize with their friends.
An elderly person will be much more likely to move into an assisted living facility if they already feel like they’re part of the community.
You can even play little incentive games with your current patients/residents. Whoever can get the most friends here for an event gets an extra pudding at dinner or something like that.
You don’t have to offer a big prize to get people’s competitive spirit going.
Deliver on Your Promises
Finally, don’t advertise something that you can’t or don’t regularly deliver. If you make a big deal about how you offer fitness classes, make sure you’re offering them at least once every day.
Having someone move in or move their parents in and then finding out it’s not what they expected is a great way NOT to get referrals.
Be honest in your advertising and you’ll be on your way to marketing success!
The Key to Marketing Assisted Living
As long as you’re appealing to the right audiences and placing your ads in appropriate places, you should see more interest and traffic to your website. Take advantage of your best resource, your current residents, and use them to get names and referrals.
Finally, make sure you personalize each brochure you give and only advertise things you can actually deliver. If you do all those things, you’ll be at capacity in no time.
Nothing boosts your assisted living reputation and your marketing legitimacy like a facility waiting list.
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