Professional marketing techniques for residential assisted living are critical to the success of your brand.
There are a series of steps owners can take to prevent brand suffering. Since 2015, an erosion in reputation and visibility scores have been on a steady decline. The causes are diverse, yet there are three reasons that stand out the most:
- Resistance to adapting to newer marketing techniques.
- Inability to change internal processes to meet present-day expectations.
- Limited understanding of the changing consumer’s mindset.
How can your assisted living business meet the challenge of 2021? Can your brand be recognized in the wide world web? What can you do as an owner to attract the right residents in the assisted living industry?
There are 8 marketing techniques that can be adopted by a professional services business owner that will catapult your business. All professional services business owners that are successful must embrace these techniques – it’s also important to seize the mindset that undergirds them.
It is not enough to simply accomplish a things-to-do list, if in the doing there is no understanding. Owners who find themselves doing, but lacking an understanding, forsake the change and revert to their old ways of marketing.
WHAT MARKETING TECHNIQUES?
Marketing techniques encompass any activity that is designed to generate business, increase visibility and enhance the reputation of your assisted living business.
Do not confuse marketing with sales – sales define a different aspect of marketing that involves customer interaction. Marketing is the mindset, the think-tank, that considers what will and what will not work in the marketplace.
Marketing techniques are sophisticated, yet simple in execution, methods that direct activity to certain markets, at certain times, with appropriate messaging that resonates.
Today, marketing techniques not only encompass in-person activities, but they are also virtual.
The advent of social media has changed the entire landscape of marketing, as well as the current pandemic. If ignored, it will be detrimental to the growth of your assisted living business.
There are key components that tend to optimize a brand, especially that of a professional services business, such as in assisted living.
These components should be acknowledged prior to considering the 8 marketing techniques:
- In-person Components Include:
- Speaking engagements
- Networking events
- Trade shows
- Virtual Components include:
- Professional website
- Search engine optimization
- Webinars
- Social Media presence and events
- Blogs
- Vlogs
8 MARKETING TECHNIQUES EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS TO KNOW
Depending on the status of the professional services brand, any of these techniques are applicable. The decision of what to do and what not to do is a result of understanding the nature of your business in the scope of the present-day industry.
It also involves where the business seeks to engage.
Let’s examine the 8 marketing techniques that can fuel a professional services business’ brand and reputation in the assisted living industry.
1. Blogs and Articles
Do you receive a newspaper at your home? Think about it. Now, guess what? Most Americans do not. Times have changed.
Newspapers are routinely being replaced by professional blogs. Skilled bloggers are invaluable in the marketplace. These individuals know how to write for the reading audience of the 21st century.
Professional blogging consists of a combination of disciplines that increase readership through keyword searches and other literary mechanics. These writing strategies also include reader-focused-writing, AP style literature, hanging bullets, layers of objective research and Q&A formats that engage web researchers.
Reading conventions changed with the rise of social media and digital media platforms. Professional bloggers understand how to stay relevant with today’s readers. As a result, while most people no longer probe into print media, blogs draw countless millions.
Much of what people learn today is not found in textbooks or manuals – blogs have filled this space, digitally. Therefore, if you seek to reach customers, you must do so by tapping into their curiosity with well-written expert content. The web feeds people’s curiosity and your business should be a source of nutrition.
More than 50-percent of consumers research products and services electronically before making a purchase. As a result, blogging offers a double benefit.
First, the products or services offered by your business are made available.
Second, blogging draws millions of people – these analytics cause search engines like Google to elevate the visibility of your website.
Therefore, securing a successful blogger can cultivate visibility and digital deliver news articles about your business into every home across America.
2. Specialization and Niche Targeting
What is specialization? What is considered niche’ targeting? Specialization is exactly as its root word suggests – specializing.
Businesses that specialize focus attention on a few services and become a master at those services. It is similar to how the Residential Assisted Living Academy earned the brand name and recognition for being the experts in senior housing.
In addition, specialty businesses become industry leaders. In some instances, specialization drives a new market for many of these businesses.
A niche market is one that is specific in nature and sophisticated in presentation.
Specialization affects every aspect of assisted living.
Every effort of the business is focused on the uniqueness of the service.
As such, all marketing efforts are geared in this area and by default the business is distinguished from every other business.
As such, a competitive advantage is created, and the business is differentiated in a powerful way.
3. Visible Experts
Visible Experts are well known industry professionals who have acquired an immense amount of knowledge in assisted living. These individuals are sought for their knowledge and experience.
In addition, visible experts can grow in popularity in such a way that enables them to shape the industry and become the industry leaders like Residential Assisted Living Academy.
Having highly visible experts makes a business strong in the marketplace. Credibility is high and leadership status is granted.
Other businesses and their leaders seek advice, time, even mentorship. An assisted living business should never shirk the opportunity to become visible experts. By doing so, these businesses have the opportunity to shape the industry, create a highly productive culture, and even drive legislation.
Visible experts in the assisted living home industry have the unique opportunity to shape how care is delivered.
In addition, these experts continue to lead in training, development, and efficiency models that make these homes more profitable.
If you have an interest in learning more about assisted living homes and what ownership in this industry is like, visit the Residential Assisted Living Academy.
These professionals are shaping the assisted living home industry, creating a culture that is productive and caring.
4. A lead-Generating website
Websites convey messages. The author of the message is made known through the website. As a result, consumers searching for certain people can find them readily, making the website a primary lead generating technique.
Websites that really attract and retain the attention of viewers:
- Are attractive with color schemes that support the product or service.
- Are easy to find.
- Have content that is relevant.
- Is capable of gathering pertinent information through offers designed to convert visitors into leads.
- Engages the viewer in a provocative way thereby encouraging them to share the URL with their friends and family.
Website visitation accounts for more than 80-percent of purchases made online.
Website visitation also correlates to over 60-percent of visitations to various professional services businesses.
Websites have become central to generating leads for businesses today because it is a powerful tool converting visitors into customers.
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a term related to a plethora of techniques designed to ensure the valuable content on your business’ website is made known to the appropriate people at the appropriate time.
Most importantly, SEO validates the content giving it additional credibility. If the content on the business’ website is truly reliable, the SEO process will validate it.
Validation is everything.
While the author must write well-written specific content, the SEO process helps to get that information to the right people.
Have you ever searched for something on Google and the following day advertisements pertaining to your curiosity appear?
Have you ever wondered how that happens? SEO. As such, SEO becomes a partner with website lead generation possibilities. It is another layer in catapulting your assisted living home from obscure to central.
Be sure to develop important, understandable, and useful content. SEO will take this information and ensure those seeking it find it.
6. Speaking Engagements
Speaking engagements are the platform for visible experts to let their light shine. Speaking engagements have the potential to be:
- Powerful
- Provocative
- Engaging
- Exciting
Attendees are already believers for the most part. Speaking engagements draw crowds who want to see the expert who they follow on a daily basis.
Speaking engagements are also great platforms for these industry experts to launch a book, where their thoughts and ideas are captured in one volume on a particular topic.
Over 25-percent of visible experts consider speaking engagements to be their top source for leads and sales.
While the pandemic has curbed many events from happening in person, they are still occurring, especially virtually.
Digital events are increasing daily.
Have you been invited to a webinar? Have you been to a closed event on Facebook?
Many visible experts have resorted to the same marketing tool that drew their popularity in order to nourish it.
Online video platforms offer many of the same benefits as face-to-face interaction.
Experts can virtually engage with people verbally, through chat features, or streaming platforms.
Interaction may vary based upon purchase or following privileges, but all see the same person and hear the same message at the same time in the same way.
It’s magical and highly effective. Some of the most popular platforms include:
- FaceTime
- Zoom
- Google Hangouts
- Microsoft Teams
- YouTube
The uses for digital platforms seem boundless in terms of speaking engagements. Examples include:
- Business overviews
- Performance appraisals
- Large/Small group meetings
- Training
- Recognition ceremonies
- Cross country or global coordination
7. LinkedIn
A variety of social media platforms have been mentioned. However, when it comes to assisted living businesses, few can match the sheer purpose and power of LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is the premiere social media networking platform for large and small businesses alike. It is the most fertile ground for influential and engaging professionals.
Employees and employers alike use this platform to communicate with potential and existing clients, employees or employers.
Recently, LinkedIn has begun to place emphasis on its “Groups” initiative. Here, industry leaders and professionals can meet and discuss challenges facing their businesses. Often, the participants are from multiple industries.
This inter-industry convergence creates a synergy that fuels multiple businesses in different industries and builds lasting relationships.
Furthermore, industry leaders have begun to blog on LinkedIn.
With such specialized like-minded individuals socially connected on one platform, LinkedIn has become indispensable for many businesses.
Sharing valuable content on this platform is a capital asset – from here, many are driven to websites where leads become dollars.
8. Develop a Signature Piece of Content
Taking the time to draft an authoritative work shows readers that you are serious.
Furthermore, writing a book of this magnitude sends a message to the world that you are positioned to support, undergird, and lead the way.
The key to writing authoritative work is making it useful and easy-to-read and comprehend. No one wants a book that is difficult to read or lacking relevance.
Make sure your book is written in the same spirit and style as your blogs. Make sure your voice and tone are clear even in print.
Consider the following:
- Are you operating a specialized business? Have you carved out a niche’ market?
- Are you considered a leader in your business? Do other business owners or leaders seek your advice?
- Have you begun to blog meaningful content that others find useful and helpful?
- Is your content being frequently visited on your website or social media site?
- Do you make public speeches? Are you a keynote at small or large meetings?
- Do you find LinkedIn to be indispensable to your business or public image?
If your answers are, “Yes,” you are poised to do something monumental.
Producing a signature piece of content, like a book, exhibits your authority in an industry, market, or business type.
In essence, you have become an expert.
LEARN THE SECRETS AND STAY CONNECTED TO A NETWORK PREPARED FOR CHANGE
The 8 marketing techniques discussed here are useful to many industries, especially in assisted living. Investors, owners, and operators of assisted living homes can greatly benefit from all of these components.
Professional services businesses have been suffering in the past five years. This information can be the difference between a successful operation and bankruptcy.
Leveraging these marketing techniques in the appropriate way is the key to success, even in the midst of a global pandemic.
Stop what you’re doing and register for the next 3-day course where you can learn everything you need to know about owning and operating a successful assisted living business.
Click here Residential Assisted Living Academy to start a new journey that will change your life for generations to come.
You’ll learn these techniques and so much more from industry experts that will give you all the key components to own and operate a successful business.
Join the winning team.
