Feb
What Are The Challenges of Assisted Living Facilities (ALF) Marketing?
With a value of almost $92 billion in 2022 driven by almost 70 million baby boomers in the United States turning 65 between 2011 and 2030, the assisted living industry is poised to continue growing in the coming years. Despite the ever-growing demand, assisted living facilities (ALF) find that they must stand out from the competition in order to gain the attention of potential residents. Add to that a sizable portion of people surveyed expressing a lack of trust with assisted living stemming from the time of the pandemic and you have quite the challenge for any ALF looking to cater to their portion of an increasingly aging population.
What Are The Types of ALF Marketing Strategies?
This is where having an effective marketing plan for your ALF comes in. This includes creating a strong and memorable brand identity representing your facility’s goals and values in its logo, slogan, and mission statement. You’ll also need to optimize your website not only with strategically placed Calls-To-Action (CTA) but also with an intuitive and mobile-friendly interface. Your blog and social media should offer relevant and noteworthy content that leans toward the concrete rather than the inspirational, with transparency being key. Companies and even nonprofits have also been utilizing periodic newsletters or e-mail marketing campaigns, video marketing, and the like in their marketing plans; however, we’d like to take your ALF marketing efforts one step further by highlighting some strategies in this post that would help differentiate you from your competitors.
Copyright Andrea Piacquadio
Who Are Your Audiences for ALF Marketing?
First we need to identify the audience for your ALF marketing. The seniors are of course top of the list, but don’t just limit yourself to first-time residents; there might be residents of other ALF’s that aren’t quite happy with their present arrangements and might be looking to transfer to other facilities that could meet their needs. Seniors value not only the accommodations that would be presented to them but also the amount of independence they could enjoy during their residency, so don’t forget to highlight the activities and socialization your ALF offers aside from facility features.
The children of the potential resident (and in some cases, their spouse, other family members, or guardian) are most often involved with making the decision on which ALF to choose for their loved one. While some seniors have adapted to using computers and smartphones, their children thrived in the digital age and would most likely be looking and researching online for the ALF that best suits the needs of their parent, valuing more the safety and care offered by the facility. Thus, being transparent and specific in your messaging on what service and accommodations your facility offers would help in gaining the trust of the children of the prospective resident.
Although they might not be decision-makers, doctors, social workers, and organizations concerned with senior care are also keeping an eye out for facilities to recommend to their patients considering assisted living. Your ALF marketing would register on their radars. By fostering a credible and well-deserved reputation built on trust and quality service, you can land and keep your facility in their shortlists.
Copyright Andrea Piacquadio
What Advanced ALF Marketing Strategies Target New Residents Most Effectively?
Now that we’ve identified our audiences and generically discussed some strategies typically used in a marketing plan, let’s talk more specifically about some advanced ALF marketing strategies to help you stand out from the rest.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – You’ve optimized your website with high-quality content and images, but if it’s not primed for search engines, you’re missing out on generating leads. By using relevant keywords on your website pages and blogs, your website can rank better in search results to make it to the top of the search page. This will help in making your ALF stand out as reputable and an expert in the field.
You can start by researching keywords used by people searching for ALF in your local area. Use common keywords over industry terms — instead of using “assisted living,” prospects might be using “nursing home” or “retirement home.” We also recommend building your website on WordPress, WIX, or similar platforms that offer SEO plugins to help track and measure traffic to your site and give you an idea of which keywords are working best. Look into utilizing Google Analytics for staying on top of your website traffic and conversion, then adapt or adjust your pages and strategies according to those insights.
Paid Digital Ads (Google Ads, Facebook) – Another advantage of using keywords is that you can use them for targeted marketing efforts such as Google paid ads and social media, such as Facebook and Instagram. Using paid digital ads in combination with SEO will help maximize the visibility of your ALF by bringing it closer to audiences who might not have otherwise learned or heard about your facility through traditional means.
Aside from uncovering relevant keywords that potential residents and their families are using, you would want to start targeting local prospects. You can target outside your local area, but this works better if your region offers a unique quality not found in other places, such as warm weather. Seniors and their families would most likely prefer moving into a facility close to one another, for easier and more frequent visits, among other reasons. Targeting local people would be key in solidifying both your ALF’s online and local presence — a baseline to consider before expanding to targeting other areas.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, your target demographic isn’t limited to seniors only, as your campaign can also include ads appealing to their immediate family members or guardians. Your Google or Facebook ads would need to be engaging, appealing, and relevant to your target audience for better lead conversion. You might want to utilize ad types that grant you more control options over location and audience targeting.
Your ads need to sell what sets your ALF apart from other local choices. You might even want to offer incentives like a free tour or consultation to get people to sign up and provide their contact details. Digital advertising won’t be a one-time process, so you might need to tweak your ads from time to time as you learn more about what works and what doesn’t.
Copyright RDNE Stock Project
Referrals/Reviews/Testimonials – Convert into potential leads all that goodwill and outstanding reputation you’ve built on a foundation of good service and trust by asking the family and friends of the resident to pass along some good words about your facility to anyone they think is looking for ALF’s. Or better yet, why not ask them for a testimonial you can add to your website — either in written form or an embedded YouTube video? Maybe they could leave a positive review about your ALF on social media or similar platforms. You might also consider implementing a referral program with incentives like discounts or gift cards for the loved ones in your care, or networking with doctors, social workers, and the like, by giving them brochures or leaflets about your ALF. Positive word-of-mouth is just as effective and powerful as any traditional or digital marketing tool you can utilize.
Promote Your ALF on Senior-focused Platforms – Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and even YouTube offer avenues for engaging and attracting prospects with interesting content and updates, while LinkedIn allows your ALF to widen its professional network. However, there are some senior-focused platforms that your marketing can tap into that other ALF’s might have overlooked such as healthcare websites, senior lifestyle blogs, or local community forums. Seniorliving.org has provided a great list of websites dedicated to seniors that is worth checking out.
Community Involvement – Demonstrate corporate social responsibility by getting involved or giving back to your community by volunteering or sponsoring events. You might even want to consider partnering with other businesses or even a nonprofit with similar values. Not only does your ALF benefit from the positive publicity and word-of-mouth, but it also builds relationships and goodwill in the community.
It should be noted that referrals, senior-focused platforms, and community involvement don’t target prospects the way media do, but they allow the ALF to obtain leads and then assess or vet ideal matches for their facility from this pool . In some cases, they might even be able to refer certain personalities that don’t fit with them to other ALF’s that are better suited to their needs, generating goodwill not only with other facilities but also with the seniors and their families, contributing to a reputation that the welfare and well-being of the resident are far more important than monetary gain.
Copyright Andrea Piacquadio
Of course, you can also partner with Cascade Strategies to develop an optimal and effective marketing plan for your ALF. In addition to audience segmentation and brand development, Cascade Strategies can also help you formulate an effective marketing plan that includes SEO and paid digital ad marketing. Backed by over three decades of market research experience serving a veritable honor roll of leading US and international companies, Cascade Strategies can help your ALF accomplish a better job of targeting new residents in the changing and growing landscape of the assisted living industry.
Aug
Nursing Homes Close as Need for Care Grows
jerry9789 0 comments Brand Surveys and Testing, Brandview World
Nursing Home Challenges
According to a report by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) in April 2022, more than 1,000 nursing homes have closed since 2015. This breaks down to 776 closures before the COVID-19 pandemic and 327 closures during the pandemic.
The same report also projected 400 nursing homes to close in 2022 based on financials at the time. While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported 135 nursing homes closing in 2022, it is believed the number could be higher. This is due to possible discrepancies between the time a closure plan is submitted by a facility and its full execution to be listed in the federal database.
Staffing shortages and low reimbursement have long been recognized as factors for nursing home closures even before the pandemic. Rising wages and increased operation and maintenance costs in recent years exacerbated the situation, especially in rural areas.
The Impact of Nursing Home Closings
These closures resulted in former residents transferring to another facility, which in most cases, was farther from home. Some even must move twice after the first nursing home they transferred to subsequently closed. The process could also take weeks as social workers look for placements so a patient might find themself staying in a hospital in the meantime. Conversely, some nursing care facilities are keeping beds vacant because they don’t have enough workers.
Amidst these challenges, the need for long-term care grows with baby boomers joining this group.
Copyright Kampus Production
Nursing Home Alternatives
While the pandemic put a spotlight on the difficulties faced by the nursing care industry, it also opens opportunities for reforming and improving nursing homes. It also paves the way for exploring nursing home alternatives, such as in-home care for seniors. However, home care may prove to be the more expensive option and while it offers more personal and tailored assistance, you might have a senior who prefers or thrives more in a group setting like the one offered by assisted living communities.
Then there are group homes and family-style nursing homes, which are both small-scale options for assisted living. While a typical nursing home holds over 100 resident beds on average, a group home can house between five to 10 people (or 20, depending on the state) while family-style homes host 10 to 20 beds. These setups allow for more personalized care and a higher staff-to-client ratio in a sociable, homelike setting with home-cooked meals.
Due to being smaller in scale and not as advertised as regular nursing facilities, most group homes might slip past the radar of older adults or their loved ones seeking assisted living. With well-developed branding, however, smaller-scale assisted living communities can stand out even from the shadows of larger facilities and get their message across better to the seniors most suited for the living arrangements they offer.
Cascade Strategies can help you develop your branding, thanks to an array of services such as Brand Development Research and Segmentation Studies backed by over three decades of experience. Whether you are a smaller residential care home trying to get the word out or a larger assisted living community looking to reach the ideal senior or even the skilled nurses you need, we can help you find the right market research solution for your branding needs.
Aug
How Can Healthcare Companies Identify Who Needs Remediation Programs?
jerry9789 0 comments artificial intelligence, Burning Questions
What Is Remediation?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines remediation as “the process of improving or correcting a situation.” Remediation programs are commonly employed in teaching and education wherein they address learning gaps by reteaching basic skills with a focus on core areas like reading and math. And as pointed out in an understood.org article, remedial programs are expanding in many places in our post-COVID 19 world.
In healthcare, there’s a wide range of remediation programs, or “remedial care,” diversified based on their end goal which may include smoking cessation, anti-obesity, weight reduction, diet improvement, exercise, heart-healthy living, alcoholism treatment, drug treatment, and more. But how do you identify the people who need remedial care the most?
Who Needs Remediation?
You might say you can tell who needs remedial care by just looking at the physical aspect of the prospective patient, but this is a shortsighted answer to the question. And what about those who need remedial care for a heart-healthy lifestyle? Surely you can’t tell a likely candidate for this remediation program with just one look alone.
It goes deeper than that. What if you, a healthcare representative, could only devote remedial care to a select few individuals given limited resources and time but you want to make sure that the whole remediation program is successful by achieving its intended goals? Just imagine all that time, effort and resources spent only for the patient to relapse back into their old ways not too long after program completion- or even in the middle of the remediation process itself.
Deep Learning and Remediation
This is where deep learning comes in. Also known as hierarchical learning or deep structured learning, Health IT Analytics defines deep learning as a type of machine learning that uses a layered algorithmic architecture to analyze data. In deep learning models, data is filtered through a cascade of multiple layers, with each successive layer using the output from the previous one to inform its results. Deep learning models can become more and more accurate as they process more data, essentially learning from previous results to refine their ability to make correlations and connections.
Deep learning models handle and process huge volumes of complex data through multi-layered analytics to provide fast, accurate, and actionable results or insights. When applied to the scenario we mentioned beforehand, deep learning filters through that multitude of patient data and prioritizes those who need remedial care the most.
You can also align its findings to effectively identify individuals who will not only return monetary value to your healthcare brand, but at the same time are most likely to “engage” or participate in programs offered by your company, such as wellness, diet, fitness or exercise. They can also be the best people to commit to avoiding poor lifestyle choices, such as overeating, smoking, and alcohol, helping guarantee the success of the remediation program.
With a combination of three decades of market research experience and conscientious use of AI, Cascade Strategies has been helping healthcare organizations develop advanced models to handle, filter and identify the likeliest of candidates for their program purposes. Cascade Strategies helps industry professionals not only recognize their ideal customers but also reach out to them with some of the most effective and award-winning marketing campaigns, thanks to our array of services such as Brand Development Research and Segmentation Studies. To see more examples of how we help leading worldwide companies achieve their goals, please visit our website.
Here are some of our suggestions for further reading on deep learning and healthcare:
https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/machine-learning-healthcare
https://research.aimultiple.com/deep-learning-in-healthcare/
https://healthitanalytics.com/features/types-of-deep-learning-their-uses-in-healthcare
Jun
Great Research Can Help Assisted Living Facilities Attract the Right Clients
jerry9789 0 comments Brand Surveys and Testing, Brandview World, Burning Questions
Is your loved one’s home not as clean and tidy as before? Do they have an empty refrigerator or is it filled with spoiled food? Frequent bruises? Same clothes every day? Do they appear to become forgetful, depressed or exhibiting strange or inappropriate behaviors?
These are just some questions that HelpGuide.org has gathered when looking for signs that an older adult might need assisted living. And when these questions start crossing the minds of their loved ones, they are likely at the point they’ll begin discussing and considering this option with them.
How to properly brand your ALF
As a healthcare professional specializing in assisted living, how do you ensure that you clearly brand yourself, the services you offer and the demographic that you’re serving? How do you differentiate yourself from retirement communities designed for seniors who can generally care for themselves or nursing homes with round-the-clock medical care and supervision? How do you reach out to the right audience, the active and social older adults needing help with daily living?
The first step towards attracting the attention of the right people is making a distinction from the other types of senior living. According to Forbes.com, assisted living facilities can be freestanding communities but also part of a retirement community, nursing homes or hospitals, so it’s certainly understandable why some would be confused and lump these services together. Hence the importance of highlighting that you cater to older adults who — while independent — need assistance doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, going to the bathroom, managing medicines, or even traveling to appointments.
As noted by HelpGuide.org, assisted living offers the safety and security of 24-hour supervision. However, you will need to point out that help requires a phone call since assisted living encourages privacy and independence. In fact, some good assisted living facilities can develop a personalized plan that keeps in mind the needs, challenges and disabilities of an older adult, while still allowing enough freedom for them to do as they please with their time.
You’ll also need to be clear about the type of assisted living facility that’ll be hosting the client. Will they be moving into a residential type that’s either a converted home, apartment complex or even a renovated school? Or do you offer apartment-style living with scaled down kitchens? And if you just provide bedrooms, do they need to share a room or have the option to pay for their own at a higher cost? Does your facility host a group dining area and common areas for socialization and recreation?
How market research can help you attract the right clientele
These are critical questions that can be answered by well-designed and executed market research. And there are even more questions that you’ll discover as you develop your brand and identify how to best reach out to your ideal clients.
Copyright Marcus Aurelius (Pexels)
You’ll need to be ready to answer questions about staffing, or proactively make information like this readily available for anyone looking into their options for assisted living. How many staff do you employ that are responsible for residents’ care? How many of them are working at any given time? Do you have enough members to cover one that goes on leave? Is staffing different at night? What are their duties? Do they interact with residents? Do you have registered nurses on site? Are they able to handle or trained for emergencies?
The same goes for questions about the facility. What is the housekeeping schedule? How do you ensure the safety and security of residents? Are the bathrooms easy to access and do they have grab bars? In case of an emergency, how do residents contact the staff? How good and nutritious is the food? Can you provide information on menu options? Can a resident eat at their room? What hobbies or activities are offered onsite? Is there transportation available? What amenities are included?
More importantly, people looking into assisted living facilities are most likely going to value an environment that seems friendly, safe, and comfortable. The facility is also expected to be clean and well-maintained. And while what feels like home is subjective, being able to answer as many questions or provide pertinent information as you can puts you closer to the ideal resident.
Copyright Cottonbro Studio
Otherwise, you can help those that weren’t a good fit at the very least to understand better what they are looking for or what they need to help them in their search to find the best facility for them. They might even realize that another type of senior living might be better for them.
How Cascade Strategies can help
Cascade Strategies has been helping healthcare companies sort out issues like these for over 30 years. Thanks to an array of services such as Brand Development Research and Segmentation Studies, we are able to help healthcare companies make their brand stand out and become more profitable in addition to enlightening them on their customer types and how to best address their needs. Please see our website and case histories.
Here are some suggestions for further reading:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/senior-housing/assisted-living-facilities.htm
https://www.seniorliving.org/assisted-living/
https://www.forbes.com/health/senior-living/how-to-find-the-best-assisted-living-facility/
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