NURSING HOME MARKETING

HOW TO MARKET A NURSING HOME USING DIGITAL STRATEGIES

Running a nursing home is a tough business that requires a myriad of skills and expertise to succeed. Nursing home marketing is almost as challenging because marketing efforts that are highly effective one year can become quickly outdated as customer expectations shift. The biggest change in recent years is the growing power of the consumer, as the internet facilitates global connectivity on an unprecedented scale.

This change has dramatically impacted the workload for marketing executives at nursing home facilities, cementing the urgency for nursing homes of all sizes to have a robust online marketing campaign in place.

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WHO SHOULD USE DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES?

The truth is that all companies, from local businesses and local charities to global corporations, should have a digital marketing plan. The main places prospective residents and their families conduct research about senior care are search engines, social media profiles and nursing home websites. If you’re not analyzing and optimizing these on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis, you’re missing out on tons of potential clients and risking losing out to your competitors.

Digital Marketing and Customer Experience

Digital marketing has become increasingly complex as customer experience has been established as the primary driving force for business success. Potential residents have more choice than ever before, with endless directories online selling nursing homes and social media and online reviews providing an insider look at different nursing home facilities. By taking care of nursing home marketing, you’re effectively managing your online reputation and positioning your business as a clean, safe, comfortable and vibrant community for older adults — and converting more leads.

Decision-makers in nursing homes should act quickly to refine their website, listings, business page and different platforms on social media so they show up when people search for nursing homes in your area. This should be a multipronged approach incorporating optimization for Google search results, blog posts, contemporary website design, carefully managed social platforms and video content.

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WHY MARKETING NURSING HOMES IS UNIQUE?

Nursing home marketing is very different from other types of marketing and requires an in-depth knowledge of the terminology involved in senior care, in addition to an enhanced understanding of the intended audience. Not only is choosing a nursing home fraught with emotions for the person inquiring, it’s also usually very expensive. As such, potential clients often want to pick up the phone and speak to someone personally as soon as they’ve completed some preliminary research.

You should be careful to only run ads when you have staff on hand to respond ASAP and ensure you have a slick, easy-to-follow call to action on each page of your website. One of the biggest frustrations for consumers is wanting to get through to someone and not being able to. In the early stages of research, potential clients are likely to be unforgiving and flighty, so it’s crucial that you get it right from the moment they click on your nursing home’s page.

Nursing Home Industry Terminology

Our agency has worked extensively with decision-makers in nursing homes and other types of senior living facilities, so we understand the nuances of the terminology involved. We also know it can be confusing and frustrating for potential clients when the wrong language is used, so we never produce inaccurate content.

Some of the most commonly misunderstood definitions include:

  • ADLs: Activities of daily living is a term that describes tasks such as grooming, bathing, toileting, eating and transfers. This is a specialized term that can sound clinical out of context, so we’re careful about how we use it.
  • Assisted living/residential care/personal care facilities: Assisted living is a specific type of senior living facility that falls between nursing care and independent living.
  • Home care vs home health care: Home care and home health care are often confused with one another, and they share similarities. However, home care primarily provides companionship and some assistance with tasks such as shopping and cooking, while home health care is provided by trained medical professionals and includes limited health care provisions.
  • Palliative care: Some websites confuse palliative care with end-of-life care, but it’s actually just a type of care that improves the quality of life for residents and their families by relieving pain and stress associated with serious illness.
  • Resident: In most instances, it’s appropriate to refer to the older adults in a nursing home as residents or clients as opposed to patients.

These are just examples of some of the words we’ve noticed are regularly misused or misunderstood. Our team is extra-sensitive to the unique needs of seniors and their families as they go through the transition into nursing home care.

“I am truly blessed that a good friend of mine asked me couple of months ago to look into this marketing firm. Our business has BLOWN UP. I love their team effort and the level of professionalism they bring each day into my workplace. We had several different campaigns going on and they quickly streamlined everything and added massive purpose to our vision. So excited that I made the decision to let these pros handle our media campaign.”
~ Michael G., Graybar Chiropractic
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HOW TO MARKET NURSING HOME FACILITY USING DIGITAL MARKETING

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Nursing Home Website Design

A user-friendly website is the first step to refining your nursing home marketing strategy. A responsive, clean-looking website that’s mobile-friendly is nonnegotiable in today’s market. People lead busy lives and often conduct research while on the go instead of sitting down at a desktop, so your nursing home website needs to reflect this. Fast loading times are essential as consumers have grown accustomed to lightning-fast loading speeds and rarely stick around to wait for pages to load.

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Consider that your website is one of the first impressions a potential client has of your business — it’s practically an online storefront or reception room. In exactly the same way you carefully create a space that’s welcoming, clean, attractive and homely, you should ensure your website is, too.</span>

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Social Media Marketing

Pretty much everyone is on social media these days. As such, the personal reach of social media is unprecedented and provides limitless opportunities for you to attract, nurture and convert leads. It also acts as a space to show off your nursing home’s USPs, from the joyful residents to the spotless rooms and homey decor.

Let’s take a look at the different social media platforms and explore a couple of marketing ideas for each one.

Twitter

Twitter has evolved a lot throughout the years and serves different purposes for the various demographics who use it. When it comes to businesses, consumers tend towards using it as a platform for sharing their thoughts and feelings about how well a business has done, particularly if they’re not happy. As such, it’s a great place to gather genuine, actionable feedback, and it’s also excellent for sharing your content.

Instagram

Instagram is more popular among people under age 40, but it’s still a useful platform. It’s also one to keep in mind for the future as the aging population continues along its course. Consider the fact that Facebook was exclusively used by young people initially, but its audience now is much older and broader. Instagram is an excellent space to share pictures of your vibrant nursing home community and location.

Facebook

Facebook is the most widely used social media website on the internet, so it has the widest reach. Its ad system also provides a unique opportunity to put ads for your nursing home directly in front of people who are searching for your service. You can also use Facebook groups to conduct research on your target audience and post useful content to potential residents and their family members in your own group.

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Video Marketing

Video marketing is increasing in popularity as the quality of images and motion pictures continues to improve. There are several ways you can use video marketing to attract potential residents and their adult children. The first one is adding videos to your website. Whether it’s a virtual tour or a meet the team video, it makes site visitors feel they’ve had a more personal experience than they’d be able to get from text and images alone.

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Search Engine Optimization

SEO is a vast and complex process that’s influenced by the 200+ data points that Google’s algorithm uses to determine where a website should be listed on its search engine results pages. This long-term strategy requires constant analysis and refinement, as Google’s requirements change on a quarterly basis.

Keeping up with the ins and outs of SEO is practically a full-time job in itself, so we’d recommend working with an expert to get the most from it. Also, bear in mind that it’s only one part of your digital strategy, albeit a very important one. Let’s take a step-by-step look at how to kickstart an SEO campaign:

  1. Analyze your online data: By collecting all data that relates to your business and how people interact with it, you have a benchmark and a starting point. You should be able to see information, like if a call to action is converting leads and which referral sources are bearing the most fruit.
  2. Conduct keyword phrase research: Writing with keywords is much harder than it used to be as the web is populated with almost two billion websites. Long-tail keywords and highly strategic placement is now required for your nursing home site to rank on the SERPs.
  3. Create a blog post catalogue: Long-form content that provides value to website visitors is what Google is looking for. By incorporating keywords and phrases strategically into these posts, you’re creating a content marketing strategy that’ll organically raise your ranking.
  4. Optimize for on-page SEO: On-page SEO incorporates factors such as meta tags, alt text, URL slugs, subheadings, SSL, HTTPS and landing pages.
  5. Optimize for off-page SEO: Also known as off-site SEO, this includes social media marketing, online review management, guest posting, backlink acquisition and brand mentions from authoritative sources.
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Local Search Engine Optimization

Local SEO might be the most important digital tool a nursing home can use to attract more clients. This is because most people looking for a nursing home want their loved one to be located nearby. The first step in this process is ensuring your Google Business Profile page is complete and optimized, with your business name, address and contact number as well as SEO-friendly posts and geotagged images.

To get the best results locally, you should also ensure you create landing pages for the area you operate in, including unique state, city and neighborhood pages. Relevance, proximity and reviews are all taken into account by Google’s algorithm to determine where you land in the local pack and organic local search results.
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Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Once called Google AdWords, PPC marketing helps you target people who are looking for your services at the most critical times. When done correctly, PPC ads don’t cost a lot and have the potential to drive the right people to your website. You’ll need to craft ads that include the right keywords and use available data such as competition levels to continually refine your ads.

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SPECIALTY DIGITAL MARKETING FOR NURSING HOMES

Now that you’re armed with the information about how to market a nursing home, you have a few choices. You could invest your own time into making and maintaining the necessary changes, hire an entire department of digital marketing experts — or hire the SEO specialists at Lead to Conversion™ for a fraction of the cost.

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Marketing Tips for Long-Term Care Facilities

Today, approximately 12 million Americans use long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes, and the demand is growing. If your nursing home is not ranked highly in the most popular search engine rankings, you need to implement new strategies to improve the traffic to your website. Here are some nursing home marketing strategies to implement:

It may be time to give your website a makeover. There are a number of strategies you can use to increase the traffic. Your website should be easy to navigate and should be optimized for load quickly on all devices. Also, make good use of your own custom photography. It’s a great way to give visitors inside view of your nursing home and the facilities you offer. When it comes to website content, you need to use persuasive materials to build trust with potential clients. Does your content encourage visitors to spend time on your website? Does it convince potential clients to contact you?

Your Content Goes Here

An important strategy for ensuring that your website ranks higher is to utilize search engine optimization experts. Keywords help searchers find specific information. Don’t stuff your content with keywords; they should be used naturally throughout your web pages. If you’re not sure how to use search engine optimization or which keyword to use, it pays to hire a professional to do it for you.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising is just what it sounds like. You are only charged when a potential client clicks on your ad. You can set up an account using Google AdWords. It’s an affordable way to advertise your nursing home even if you have a tight budget. It draws targeted traffic, and it can easily be integrated with your social media channels.

An email drip program is a series of automated emails aimed at engaging your contacts, providing them with information about your nursing home and converting them into leads. You can use the emails to promote your new blog posts, upcoming events at your facility and the latest news about your nursing home.