Top Marketing Mistakes That Senior Living Facilities Make

Posted by Donna Mae Scheib on June 29, 2016

Top Marketing Mistakes That Senior Living Facilities Make

Learn about these common marketing mistakes that assisted living facilities make.

Marketing is one of the necessary elements of promoting your senior living facility. If you’re like most residential care facilities, you probably have at least one or two highly productive marketing methods that you rely on to generate new inquiries. Regularly trying various marketing methods to find new residents can help your facility achieve greater success and attract additional residents.

It’s common for the marketing directors of senior living facilities to do the same thing that they have always done. They either stick to their old ways or do little marketing at all, so it’s no surprise that they aren’t getting the results they hope for. Below are some of the most common mistakes that people make when promoting assisted living facilities.

Taking a Reactive Approach to Marketing

You have to take a proactive, long-term approach to achieve successful results in marketing. If you only take care of problems as they come up and do marketing when you have extra time, your marketing activities will end up falling by the wayside. It’s important to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy and set aside sufficient time and funds for your marketing efforts.

Not Having a Realistic Marketing Budget

Today, there are many senior living facilities to choose from, so prospects have a lot of options and higher expectations than ever before. Some in the industry are still stuck in the mindset that there’s a significant demand for assisted living and therefore little need to market. If you don’t invest in marketing your services, however, your revenue base will take a hit at some point.

There should be enough marketing dollars available for you to meet your organizational goals and objectives and do well against your competitors. A limited marketing budget can prevent you from getting your message across to potential residents. Most prospective residents will take the time to research various residential facilities, but ultimately opt for a facility that differentiates itself from the competition in its marketing materials.

Not Focusing on a Specific Target Group or Niche

The fastest, most effective way to create prospects almost instantly is to target a specific customer group or niche in your marketing. This involves eliminating some prospective customers who do not meet your target profile, however. Everyone cannot be your customer. The better you understand your target market, the better you’ll be able to provide services that suit their requirements and develop marketing materials that speak to their needs.

Focusing on a target market also helps you control your marketing budget while ensuring that your marketing functions at a high level. By restricting your marketing activities to a certain niche, you can dominate that niche and avoid spending a lot of money on directionless marketing efforts.

If you try to get everyone’s attention, you’ll get no one’s attention. Just take a look at the ads of assisted living facilities and you’ll see that many of them position themselves in nearly the same way, and there are no unique qualities that distinguish one facility from the next. Targeting a specific group of people helps you stand out.

Ignoring the Internet

In the past, word-of-mouth referrals and strong name recognition might have been enough to attract residents but times have changed. Using the Internet to promote your senior living facility is crucial. One highly effective online marketing method for assisted living facilities is listing their websites on a senior living directory.

Instead of flipping through the Yellow Pages, many consumers search online directories for businesses and services nowadays. Listing your assisted living facility on online directories will enable you to reach a larger audience and increase your website’s search engine presence.

Join Senior Living Link, Our Residential Care Directory

Senior Living Link is an assisted living directory online that lists senior living facilities throughout the country. When you join our directory, you get your own member page where you can differentiate your facility and market it to prospective residents and their loved ones. Memberships are month to month and can be canceled at any time. Join us now! 

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