January 29, 2010 |

Online advertising sources for senior housing: A starter’s guide

by Dave Beltramini, Director of Paid Advertising, G5 Search Marketing

There are scores of ways to reach prospective Senior Housing residents online, but here’s a look at the most effective channels.

PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising)

If your locations have vacancies, PPC is mandatory. PPC picks up where SEO leaves off and allows you to cover the long tail. For example, if you’ve used SEO tactics to properly optimize your site for the term “memory care,” what happens to the hundreds of thousands of searches for “dementia”? They go elsewhere. PPC can fill in that gap.

Additionally, PPC can serve as a branding tool. Working with an Advanced PPC management team allows support for the different stages of the purchase process with different ads, different search terms, and different, relevant landing pages.

E-mail marketing

Done wrong, email marketing is spam. However, if done well, it can be a cost effective marketing tool. Provide relevant content in a concise, timely manner and you will have a profitable email program.

Do not go out and rent a list; you don’t have a relationship with anyone on that list. Collect your targets from places where they have interacted with you—such as your website.

Online directories and listing services

In theory these are impartial places where you list your business. If the directory has a positive reputation and quality information, you may benefit. However, these are extremely costly on a per-lead basis.

Social community rating sites

Sites like Yelp and CitySearch are typically associated with restaurants, not Senior Housing. But be forewarned: These sites will automatically create a profile for your business if you don’t. So it’s imperative that you create your business profile; negative reviews can be devastating and you want to have the ability to influence that content with your message.

Online video marketing

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world today. What better way to project a warm feeling about your location, staff and residents than with a nicely produced video?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Appearing in the top of the search engine results pages requires a lot of work. So much work that our next blog will be devoted to the SEO process.

There are many tools in the online marketing arsenal; the list above is merely a starting point. In a business sector like Senior Housing, which demands a level of personal interaction and caring, your on and offline marketing efforts must first focus on creating trust and respect.

I Advance Senior Care

I Advance Senior Care is the industry-leading source for practical, in-depth, business-building, and resident care information for owners, executives, administrators, and directors of nursing at assisted living communities, skilled nursing facilities, post-acute facilities, and continuing care retirement communities. The I Advance Senior Care editorial team and industry experts provide market analysis, strategic direction, policy commentary, clinical best-practices, business management, and technology breakthroughs.

I Advance Senior Care is part of the Institute for the Advancement of Senior Care and published by Plain-English Health Care.