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Improving Your Online Marketing Strategies to Boost Occupancy in Your

Independent Living BuildingSession #201

SENIOR LIVING NOW!

Amy Borrell and Katie Bromback

ABOUT IMAGEWËRKS…• Full service marketing

communications agency in the Twin Cities

• Leading Age & Care Providers

• 20 years experience in senior housing and healthcare industries

WHAT WE’LL COVER…� Seniors and Internet Use

� Inbound vs. Outboard Marketing

� Website & SEO best practices

� Social Media integration

� Online Marketing Strategy

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OUTBOUND VS. INBOUND MARKETING

WHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING?

• Relies on earning people’s interest

• Content is interesting, informative and adds value – positive connections

• Customers come to you via search engines, referrals and social media

• Marketers provide value “go-to expert”

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INBOUND METHODOLOGY

� Search “Senior living community [CITY STATE]”

� Where does your website rank?

� Is it intuitive & responsive?

EXERCISE

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• Crawls the internet, storing pages in its index

• Finds the right page based on your search

How Google Works

WHAT DRIVES SEARCH?

SEO FUNDAMENTALS:: ON PAGE SEO

� Page title

� Meta Description

� Content

� Navigation

� Mobile

� User experience

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PAGE TITLES & META DESCRIPTIONS

BODY OF THE PAGE

NAVIGATION BEST PRACTICE

• Clearly defined labels

• Separate pages for each service

• 1 or 2 click rule

• Segmented calls-to-action

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• 25% of traffic comes via mobile in the senior industry

• Negative effect on ranking and user-experience

• Responsive web design is a must

DON’T FORGET ABOUT MOBILE!

SUMMARY

On-Page SEO

Page titlesMeta

descriptionsContent Navigation Mobile/Usability

• Link building

• Business listing (Google+)

• Social media

• Content marketing

OFFSITE SEO

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LOCAL BUSINESS DIRECTORIES

• Free Links

• Yellow Pages

• Place for Mom

• Google+ Local

• Mantra

• All referral sources

CONTENT MARKETING

Having social buzz can help create links

Long-term solution for off-page SEO if it engages your audiences and generates third party links (referral traffic)

Remember to keep it relevant, interesting, visual

DOES IT WORK?• Increased rankings from second page to top of

first page on Google • 94.9% increase in overall traffic• Organic search traffic increased by 127%

Increase• Local search traffic increase by 199%• Predictable stream of leads

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� Humanize/personalize your brand

� Communication is interactive and two-way

� Build loyalty with current customers

� Impacts SEO

� Attract new leads

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA?

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• Increase brand awareness

• Drive website/blog traffic

• Generate leads

• Improve SEO / Links

• Be a resource

• Show what life is like

• Build customer loyalty

• Develop a diverse, authentic content plan• Events/Activities• Testimonials• Photos, videos• Senior news and trends

• Clear voice & brand• Research competitors

STEP 2:: DEVELOP CONTENT PLAN

POSTING BEST PRACTICES� Keep it visual

� Include links back to your website

� Have strong offers/calls-to-action that go to landing pages

� Add value & focus on developing relationships

� Respond to comments and engage with audience

� Post a mixture of content (tailor to what they like)

� Post when your audience is active on social media –use your insights to learn best time of day/week

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• Using page insights to learn about your followers

• Review each month and adjust content plan based on posting insights

• What posts have the highest average reach and engagement

• Traffic to website (Google analytics- leads, conversions, etc.)

PAGE INSIGHTS

• Invite friends to like your page –upload email list

• Let people know about your pages & encourage them to engage and share stories

• Make sure your email signatures include social icons/links

• Print ads should have social URLs

• Online ads should link to social media pages

• Contests/promotions

• Facebook Ads

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Why is a blog important?

• Increase SEO (long term solution)

• Drive traffic from social media to a landing spot

• Develop thought leadership through relevant industry trending content

BLOGGING STRATEGY

• Collect data through contact forms – set up an automation process

• Segment your database into categories based on collected info

• Email marketing campaigns tailored to each category of prospects

CONVERSIONS

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Set of marketing emails that will be sent out automatically on a schedule to a group of leads

WHAT ARE DRIP CAMPAIGNS?

DRIP EMAIL CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES::

• Lead nurturing:: messages for people who toured already

• Goal: Get them to retour/move-in (AC & Senior versions) • Strategy: Provide more value/resources, be personable, invite • Offline: follow-up, events, phone calls + drip email campaigns

• Lead generation::

• Example: They downloaded the Independent Living Guide Book • Goal: Get them to come in for a tour: Objective • Strategy: Monthly emails catered to their interests

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TO RECAP

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7 ACTION ITEMS::

1. Where did your website rank? Make SEO a priority

2. Review your analytics and mobile traffic

3. Conduct a website audit (content, user-experience)

4. Make sure you have page titles and meta descriptions

5. Create a Google+ local page and solicit customer reviews

6. Develop a social media strategy & content plan

7. Come by our booth to discuss having a website audit

THANK YOU!! QUESTIONS??

A M Y B O R R E L L

A C C O U N T E X E C U T I V E

A M Y @ I W M A R K E T I N G . C O M

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K A T I E B R O M B A C K

A C C O U N T E X E C U T I V E

K A T I E @ I W M A R K E T I N G . C O M

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