The August 19, 2010 edition of ALFA Update featured a case study focusing on social media, where two top senior living executives shared their tips and strategies for implementing a successful social media campaign. As both pointed out, social media is now an important component of word-of-mouth marketing, and it shouldn’t be ignored.

Tricia Lilly Ourand, Director of Marketing for Brightview Senior Living, points out that staying focused on the objective is the first key to using social media effectively as part of your overall marketing strategy. Determine what you want to gain from using social media, and why your audience is using social media. You might be using it to gain visibility or brand recognition, to make sales, or even to recruit staff.

Your audience is probably seeking information — what do they want to learn or discuss? Do they already have knowledge of your assisted living facility or nursing home, or are they being introduced to your organization for the first time? From this point, Ourand says, you can create your strategy by developing policies that outline who can post content to what social sites, and ensuring that your posted content is search-engine friendly by using keywords.

Laura Ellen McAvoy, Operations Manager for The Arbor Company, recommends designating a specific social media point person who is in charge of posting regular updates, growing connections, and engaging your audience. She recommends setting your pages up with photos, details, and information before ramping up your fan base. Finally, utilizing family and friends who are already members of your social networks to start conversations is a great way to encourage initial interaction on your pages.

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The 2009 National Survey of Consumer and Workforce Satisfaction in Nursing Homes, conducted by My InnerView, reveals some interesting findings in support of word-of-mouth marketing. The fifth report produced by the company, the 2009 survey reflects the opinions of an astonishing 233,000 nursing home consumers (approximately) consisting of residents and families, and an additional 283,000 (approximately) employee opinions. Overall, the findings encompass one in three nursing homes nationwide. Pretty impressive.

This report is of vital importance to assisted living and nursing home marketers, because it demonstrates the importance of a balanced marketing plan. Acquisition is only half the battle; satisfied residents comprise an equally important piece of the successful marketing campaign, because word-of-mouth is the most effective form of advertising. It also helps administrators and executives choose where to allocate funds: the never-ending battle of acquisition vs. retention.

While this comprehensive survey stands on its own, there are a few key findings worth pointing out:

• Employee-consumer relationships have a big impact on consumer satisfaction. Therefore, addressing employee satisfaction (which ultimately leads to higher-quality resident care) directly is as important as focusing on resident satisfaction.
• Overall consumer satisfaction rose steadily from 2005-2008, and has remained steady since. Geographic areas and non-profit status were not influential on consumer satisfaction.
• 85% of consumers would recommend their nursing home facility.
• States with pay-for-performance systems have higher rates of consumer and employee satisfaction.
• Two factors drive consumer satisfaction: care and competency of staff.
• The third most important factor driving consumer satisfaction differs between residents and families. For residents, choices and preferences are most important (below care and competency of staff), but for families, nursing care is more important.

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The data keeps piling up that seniors are accessing the internet more than ever. The Assisted Living Federation of America (ALFA) discusses the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which indicates that 42% of individuals age 65 and older are now regularly accessing the internet; a figure that has grown 50% since the 2000 Census data. This population uses the internet to read email and access news online, but they don’t typically watch online videos or participate in instant messaging.

An AARP Bulletin Poll from December 2009 also examines Internet Use Among Midlife and Older Adults. The survey sample included more than 1,000 adults in the U.S. age 50 and older. 32% of respondents reported that they don’t use a computer at all, but 60% say they access a computer at home, while another 26% access a computer at work.

Of those who reported using the internet, 74% said they use it daily, and 38% said they access the net several times each day. In addition to reading online news and emails, purchasing products online, online banking, and travel reservations are among the most common internet uses for this population.

How long respondents have been using the internet varies. 42% have been using the internet for more than ten years, 32% between six and ten years, 20% between one and five years, and 4% for less than one year. Interestingly, most of those who reported that they’ve never used the internet aren’t interested in learning (71%). That figure is skewed by age; those over 65 are less likely to report being interested in learning how to use the internet (78%) than those between the ages of 50 and 65 (63%). It will be interesting to see how market saturation of web-enabled mobile devices impacts these figures in the coming years.

As the current 50-65 popualation continues to age, the number of individuals who are either already accessing the internet on a regular basis or are interested in learning how to use the internet will increase. Not only do assisted living providers and retirement communities have better chances of reaching seniors online, but those offering computer and internet access along with opportunities to learn technology will be more attractive to this technologically-savvy senior population.

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Assisted living facilities frequently make the mistake of segregating their online and offline marketing efforts, considering them two entirely separate entities. Learning how to integrate your online and offline efforts delivers a more cohesive and consistent message, enhances your brand recognition, and boosts your ROI (return on investment).

An obvious way to integrate your marketing efforts is to include your facility’s website url on business cards, letterhead, and other printed collateral. It’s also very important to ensure that your messages are complementary; for example, if you send out a mailer to promote a community event, your website should reflect the same information. Why? Word-of-mouth is still a powerful component of marketing, and news of your event may spread throughout the community. Someone without a printed mailer will probably visit your website for the details, and might get frustrated when they don’t find what they’re looking for.

An even better way to integrate using this example is to send out a teaser mailer, and direct people to your website to get the rest of the details. Why? You’re creating a trail, in a sense:

1. Mailer directs them to your website.
2. Your (professional, frequently-updated) website has all the details, and they look around (seeing pictures and descriptions of all the fun and exciting happenings at your facility).
3. They visit your facility for the community event you’re hosting.

Now, they’ve had three separate contacts with your facility and you’ve begun to build a relationship. Those visitors shouldn’t be directed to your home page, however, unless you’ve customized your home page to emphasize information related to this promotion. If possible, create a custom landing page for the purposes of your promotion that lets your visitors know they’ve reached the right place. Display the necessary information and then lead them to explore other areas of your website.

This is, of course, the tip of the iceberg as far as ways to integrate your online and offline marketing campaigns. When developing your marketing campaign, consider all components as one cohesive unit and plan how it will all tie together.

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Despite the widely held belief that senior citizens aren’t making use of the internet, recent data shows otherwise. Inside Elder Care cites a 2004 study by Pew Internet that indicates that seniors’ online habits are much like those of the younger generations. Two-thirds of seniors (66%) use the internet for product research, almost half (47%) purchase goods online, and 100% visit government websites.

The Pew Internet study is a few years old, but indicates promising future trends. In 2004, 22% of seniors were using the internet — a figure that jumped 47% in the four years prior to the study. More recent data shows that the rising trend continued; a 2009 report from CTAM (cited on the AARP Global Network) finds that 77% of seniors (65+) shop online, a whopping 94% use email, 71% seek out health and medical information online, and 70% rely on the internet for daily news.

Inside Elder Care notes that both seniors and caregivers can benefit from being online. For one, long-distance caregiving can be easier with the use of daily email communication. Caregivers have peace of mind, and seniors who are able to connect with their families more frequently are less likely to be depressed. Making use of all the internet has to offer can maintain cognitive function, not to mention the sense of accomplishment that comes with mastering technology.

Senior care marketers take note

This data is also great news for senior care marketers. We’ve known that caregivers are using the internet to find information, which we discussed in a related post, but the fact that seniors are also researching online means they can play a more active role in making decisions regarding their care.

Marketers should be aware that online strategies should be designed to appeal to two audiences:

1. The caregiver market — the families, children, and spouses of the aging or disabled who have traditionally made care decisions.
2. The senior market — the seniors themselves, who are now also actively researching health and medical information online.

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In December 2009 and January 2010, Econsultancy, in cooperation with ExactTarget, conducted a survey of 1,000 marketers from the United States and the United Kingdom. The study aimed to identify marketing budget increases for 2010 and the allocation of marketing budgets across media channels. They found that nearly half of respondents (46%) planned to increase their overall marketing budgets in 2010, and two-thirds (66%) planned to allocate more funds to digital media.

More interesting, though, is the number of marketers who reported plans to actually shift some of their budget from traditional to digital channels — 28%. Why? Well, for one, it’s easier to track results from digital media than from traditional advertising. It’s significantly less complex to obtain definitive numbers of leads generated from an online ad, using simple tracking mechanisms, than it is to determine how many leads were generated from a print ad.

The study also found that companies who consider their brand reputation an important measure of marketing effectiveness were the most likely to be shifting more marketing dollars to digital media.

The blog Online Marketing cites several studies, all of which also indicate a shift to online media usage. For example, Strong Mail’s 2010 Marketing Trends survey showed that 90% of 1,000 respondents planned to increase or maintain their online media spend in 2010, with social media marketing and email campaigns topping the priority list. Among offline marketing tactics, trade shows and events are still considered strong contenders.

Our prediction? We’ll continue to see marketers shifting their traditional advertising dollars to the more controllable and measurable online marketing tactics as companies learn how easy and effective internet lead generation can be.

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Websites have come a long way from the standard brochure-style sites of the past. Websites now have the capability to be engaging and interactive — and it’s these sites, known as “sticky” websites, that tend to keep visitors around and coming back. It’s possible that many of your competitors still feature the standby, brochure-style site offering essential information on an attractive (or unattractive) background. Adding a little engaging content is all it could take for your website to stand out from the crowd.

Here are a few easy and inexpensive ways to ramp up your content:

1. Host a blog. Your blog can be hosted on your domain, or on a free platform, like Wordpress or Blogger. It’s generally a better idea, from an SEO perspective, to host your blog on your own domain, because the constantly updated content and any links that are attracted will boost your site’s rankings. If your website is designed using Wordpress or Joomla, hosting a blog within your own domain is easy. If you have an HTML site, you may need the assistance of a web developer to set it up, and if you don’t want to deal with that, you can simply sign up for a free Wordpress or Blogger account and link to it from your main website.
2. Feature articles on topical content. Many website owners make the mistake of providing information related to their business, but not their industry. People browse the web searching for information — give it to them. The more keyword-rich content your site has, the better your search engine positioning. And guess what? The next person looking for information on “paying for assisted living” could come to your website, have their question answered, and learn about your facility in the process.
3. Let your visitors make your content viral. Use a service such as Add This to create buttons for your visitors to share your content (all that topical content from #2) on Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and more. If your content is good, your visitors will literally build backlinks for you while driving traffic to your site.
4. Don’t be afraid to link out to relevant sources. Linking snippets of your content out to relevant, reputable, and valuable resources isn’t bad. Many website owners get hung up on the importance of inbound links and become fearful that outbound links will hurt you. Choose your outbound links carefully, with the mindset that your goal is to provide value to your site visitors, and link only to relevant pages. Outbound links to the appropriate sources can actually help establish your credibility and authority.
5. Link your content to relevant pages within your own website. This practice makes it easy for your web visitors to quickly navigate around your site as they read and look for information. If one of your pages is optimized for the key phrase ”activities of daily living“, and you use the phrase in another article, use the phrase as anchor text and link it to your optimized page. Links from within your own site don’t carry as much weight as links from another website, but they don’t hurt you, either.

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We showed you in an earlier post that your target audience is using social media. SocialMediaExaminer.com’s 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report provides similar information and further outlines exactly how marketers are using social media to grow business.

The report reveals that over 90% of marketers are using social media, and among them, 56% are spending more than six hours per week and 30% are spending eleven or more hours per week on social media, although many have been using it for only a short time (a few months).

The report answers many of the common questions marketers have about using social media, but perhaps most importantly, names the benefits of social media from a marketing perspective. The benefits include:

• Increased exposure
• Increased traffic or subscribers
• Forging new business partnerships
• Improving search engine rankings
• Generating leads
• Sales
• Reduction in marketing costs

Increased exposure, lead generation, and improved search engine rankings are arguably the most important benefits for senior living marketers. 85% of respondents said that social media helped to increase exposure for their business. 54% said it helped to improve their search engine rankings, and 52% said social media helps generate qualified leads. Increased exposure is somewhat intangible, but search engine rankings and leads are concrete benefits that are pretty easy to measure.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs led the pack of most-used social media tools. For marketers who have been employing social media for years, YouTube and other online video also becomes an important component — and 73% of overall respondents said they plan to increase their online video usage in the future.

Follow-up is a critical factor in the success of your marketing efforts, particularly when you’re dealing with internet leads. The reason? It’s likely that your prospective residents have inquired with a number of facilities. You and your competitors likely offer the same basic services and accomodations. You might (you should) have a unique selling proposition (USP), but if your competitor shares their USP first, you might have lost the referral.

How soon should you be following up?

If you’re like most marketers, you’re not sitting idly by the phone and email waiting for leads to come your way. You’re out actively networking with the community, giving tours and completing move-in paperwork with other residents. Follow-up times within one or two minutes might be impossible, if not a bad idea altogether. You want to be prompt, but you also don’t want to appear overzealous. It’s a good idea to respond to a lead within one to two hours of the initial inquiry. When it comes to senior housing, it can easily end up being a first-come, first-serve basis, because many families don’t have much prior knowledge and go with the first option that meets their needs.

Even if you happen to be sitting in front of your computer when the lead comes in, wait five to ten minutes before calling. It leaves the impression that inquiries are very important to you, yet you’re busy enough that you aren’t desperate.

After the initial contact

 The importance of follow-up doesn’t end with the first contact, however. If you’re dealing with a family who plans to shop around before making a decision, you’ll need to stay on top of the relationship in order to stay top-of-mind. The key is to find the balance between being an annoyance and being proactive. It’s also possible that the family was making inquiries, yet decided not to make a move right away. Make a contact every so often, but have a reason.

Call to let them know about a new program your facility is offering that you thought might interest them, to invite them to an open house, or even let them know about a community event. It’s the simple things that can leave a lasting impression, and maintaining a friendly contact takes minimal effort yet could earn you an admission months down the road.

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May is Older Americans Month, set aside to recognize, honor, and appreciate the elders in our lives. Whether you care for an aging loved one or work in an elder care setting, this month should remind you to celebrate the many rewards you’re given in exchange for what you do.

According to the Administration on Aging, this year’s theme is “Age Strong! Live Long!”  Many senior centers, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and other elder care providers will be hosting events to show their appreciation for the older generation.

Here are a few ideas facilities can use to celebrate Older Americans Month:

• Host a free blood pressure, stroke, or memory screening
• Provide a picnic lunch or special meal for residents
• Choose a resident each day and highlight his or her lifetime achievements
• Take a few residents on a group outing to the movies, park, or zoo
• Start a group exercise class with modifications for different ability levels
• Ask the residents in your facility to share how they’ve remained strong throughout the years (family? exercise? hobbies?)
• Coordinate a health fair or festival, inviting local vendors to share their services and ideas to help seniors stay strong and healthy
• Invite a local junior high school class to participate in a “senior prom” or “sock hop”