Take your knowledge of the senior living industry to the next level with G5’s newest State of Digital Marketing report for the first half of 2020. We tackle the topics that keep you up at night and provide thoughtful solutions for how to use digital marketing to address them.

Here’s a chapter-by-chapter look at what you can expect from the report.

Chapter 1: COVID-19: Market & Economic Impact

With COVID-19 top of mind for every senior living operator, it is essential to monitor the rapidly changing economic conditions and understand the role marketing plays to overcome the challenges ahead.

Economic & Market Impact

Senior living operators are facing:

  • Decreased Move-ins
  • Increased Move-outs
  • Lower Occupancy

While the full extent of COVID-19’s impact is yet to be known, many economists are predicting a financial fallout that will surpass the Great Recession. There is good news though. Today’s economy is much more robust than the one that preceded the Great Recession and is likely to rebound at a much quicker rate.

Marketing in Uncertain Times

During the first month of the shelter in place orders, G5 research data showed senior living lead volumes dropped more than 30% across the entire promotional mix with digital channels seeing a 19% hit.

It is important for senior living operators to be more strategic and purposeful with every marketing dollar spent.

Five Ways Senior Living Operators Can Market with Purpose

  1. Get the most from your digital marketing. Identify your highest performing messages and channels and then optimize accordingly.
  2. Build brand awareness. This is the time to tell your story.
  3. Nurture and educate – virtually. Use video to connect with future residents and their families.
  4. Try new technology. If trials and pilots are an option, now is the time to try it out.
  5. Measure your efforts. For each new tactic, set a way to measure its effectiveness.

We take a deep-dive into the factors that are driving these challenges and explore how efficient marketing strategies can help you overcome them.

Chapter 2: Senior Living Market Insights

The next several months will likely significantly challenge senior living, but many of these challenges can be addressed with strategic marketing. Understanding the business impact of current market trends enables operators to make smart, forward-thinking decisions that will ultimately lead to better occupancy and more revenue in the year ahead.

These are the top challenges facing the senior living industry:

  • Decreased Occupancy
  • Tighter Marketing Budgets
  • Compromised Brand Trust
  • Low Staffing Numbers & Recruitment Barriers

Chapter 3: Data Insights

For digital marketing to efficiently generate new leases, senior living operators need to know seniors and their families. That means using data-driven insights to identify when, where, and how they want to engage with a brand. It is also important for operators to be aware of how search behavior is changing and how that varies by submarkets.

Prospects searching for senior living spend, on average, 16.7 days, actively searching before reaching out to communities to schedule a tour, making it essential for operators to engage with them across all relevant digital channels. Organic search has remained steady, but with a slight drop in ad click-through-rate, it is clear that maintaining a strong presence in organic results is important. G5 data shows that 39% of people use organic search to re-find a community, so implementing an SEO strategy that ensures that your community can be found easily is key to building awareness.

An overall drop in ad impressions (-8%) and an increase in cost-per-click (+8%) indicates tighter competition in the market. The solution is to shift away from manual ad campaign planning and allow automation technologies to take the reins. For example, G5 Advanced Call Tracking uses innovative attribution and call tracking technology to capture the right conversion data, modifying campaigns and keywords to improve digital advertising performance.

Chapter 4: Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends for 2020

To efficiently and effectively turn marketing into move-ins, senior living operators need to embrace new marketing trends and tactics. These are the top trends expected to have the biggest impact in 2020.

  • How predictive marketing will help you spend more efficiently and attract the highest quality leads
  • Why reviews are the new word-of-mouth
  • The reason you need to take website accessibility more seriously than ever before
  • What call scoring is and how it will change the game for marketers forever

To overcome challenges this year, it is imperative to implement strategies that make your marketing more effective and more efficient. These are the steps you can take today to continue to attract new residents:

  • Reevaluate your 2020 goals and how they align with your current marketing strategy.
  • Audit the performance of your strategy to identify opportunities for improvement.
  • Understand how seniors and families are interacting with your brand online and develop a plan to
    increase engagement without burdening on-the-ground staff.
  • Work closely with all of your partners to ensure you get the greatest return on your investment.

Ready to read the full report? Download it now. And for more information on how a qualified digital marketing partner can help you, schedule a conversation with G5 today.