The first step should be to define your care homes mission, vision, and values or more succinctly put – your care home business objectives. These should be clearly aligned with your desired care home residents (customers) and how you envisage delivering care (services) within your care home. Your subsequent marketing strategy should encompass these objectives.

1. Brand Guidelines

Your brand guidelines will underpin all your care home marketing and ensure a consistent voice to your prospective residents. Typically, you would want a brand story, company logo, colour palette, typography, image guidelines and tone of voice. This is not an exhaustive list but it is essential that you define your brand and deliver a consistent message about your care home.

2. Website/Chat

A website is a significant investment in your marketing strategy (80% of major purchases start with online research). Often this can be the first touch point for a prospective resident or a family member/friend. A distinctive look and feel of your website are essential to deliver your brand story and ensure you stand out from you competitors.

It is important to have a distinct landing page for each individual care home, as prospects will usually search by the actual care home’s name. The key purpose of your website should be to get your website prospects to visit your care home, so plenty of call to actions (CTA’s), to create an immediate interaction and response. C4B, managed sales chat is the perfect way for your prospect to chat directly with your care home team in real time. This is whilst your online prospect is in ‘buying mode’ and thus your team are able appoint them to visit your care home.

3. SEO/PPC

Now you have defined your brand and built your amazing website it is essential that your care home website can be located online. 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of organising your website’s content by topic to improve the likelihood of your care home appearing as high up on the first page of the search results.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an online advertising model in which a care home pays a publisher every time an advertisement link is “clicked” on. Alternatively, PPC is known as the cost-per-click (CPC) model. … Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Twitter Ads are the most popular platforms for PPC advertising.

Google analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. It is important to measure and track this investment, so you can fine tune and adjust accordingly.

4. Social Media

Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2020, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.

The most popular social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is predominantly a business (B2B) social media platform. Facebook is seen by many as the most popular consumer (B2C) social media platform.

It is great to tell a story that is deeply meaningful to the audience, it can provoke their emotions and build a strong connection with your care home brand.

5. Open Days

An open day is a great way to show case your care home with potential residents and their families. You may also want to invite business associates and community members. Creating an event around evening drinks or afternoon tea, whilst benefiting a local charitable organisation, can often be a good way to attract visitors to your care home open day.

6. TV/Radio/Newspaper

Your local press is always looking for stories. A good news care home story is often a favourite with local press. Approach your local journalists and build a relationship with them. Exploit natural PR opportunities and become the local press’s go to care home when the care sector is in the public eye. Making sure your care home is either mentioned or linked to the press story.

7. Referral programme

There is nothing better than an existing resident and their family recommending you to a prospective resident and or their family. Have a great referral programme which encourages and rewards a referral. Remember to well publicise the programme (care home newsletter) and make sure it is open to you care home team too.

8. CRM

Now you have created these new resident enquiries it is important to follow these up in a timely manner. It is quite usual for several care homes to be considered. You want to keep your care home at the top of the list.

Therefore, it is important to track all these enquiries and consider utilising a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. The main thing is to ensure every care home enquiry is followed up quickly and correctly.

9. Your Team

Your care home team are your biggest asset and therefore it is imperative to get them involved with your new resident process. Inform them of the referral programme and get them involved. Ask them to share your social media posts and see if their social media contacts will follow your care home social media pages.

As they work in the care sector your team will often be seen as experts in their industry, with family and friends asking for their advice. Everyone in the care home can be a salesperson but is important to inform and motivate them in the process. Keep the team updated with new residents coming to your care home and where the care home occupancy rates are at.

C4B – Here to help.

This is a considerable list of ideas but in no way exhaustive. Whilst you and your team will be able to manage many of these skills, it can also seem quite daunting. You may want to seek some further professional assistance.

At C4B we know many professionals in the care sector and are happy to assist you. If you would like some advice or further information, please check out our website https://www.c4b.live/ or email me at marcus@c4b.live.

Happy marketing and good luck.

C4B – We Power Chat that Drives Sales