Using informative content to engage your audience is one of the most effective marketing tools for senior care companies.
By Katie Roper
I went through my email inbox and counted up the following so far this month:
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12 email newsletters talking about content marketing
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7 emails promoting blog posts on content marketing
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4 invitations to upcoming webinars on content marketing
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3 companies trying to sell me tools for content marketing
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1 option to nominate companies for the 2016 Content Marketing Awards
So why is Caring.com, a Senior Housing Forum partner, doing yet another article on content marketing?
The answer is that using informative content to engage your audience is one of the most effective marketing tools for senior care companies for three reasons:
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Changing purchase behavior. We’ve cited this study many times, but it is worth bringing up again: Google and the Corporate Executive Board found that up to 60% of any sales decision is done before a buyer ever contacts a vendor. People increasingly do their own research online and draw conclusions based on the information they find there. If you don’t have valuable information they can find, you may not even be considered.
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Longer decision cycles. Many of our partners are looking for prospective residents who are active and healthy, because they will be in your communities for a long time. But these senior housing decisions are not driven by immediate medical needs – they can take a while. You need to stay in touch with prospects and their families for months – or even years. You can annoy them with phone calls every few weeks or you can delight them with helpful, engaging content. As a side benefit, this frees up your salespeople to work harder on fresh leads.
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Increasing ad blindness. As ads get more and more prevalent, people are getting less and less aware of them. DVRs let people skip your TV ads (and yes, people over 50 use DVRs!). Ad blocking software hides your digital advertising. Podcasts and other digital audio options detract from drive-time radio attention. But content – as long as it is helpful – is still a means to get your message out and to keep you top of mind with your prospects.
We’ve talked about content before, but frequently hear from our partners that they don’t know how they could do effective content marketing without spending a lot of money to hire experts. They don’t have time to create a monthly blog post, let alone the weekly cadence most blogging authorities recommend. And, they don’t know how to gauge the effectiveness of their content.
As part of our award-winning Digital Marketing Academy, Caring.com is excited to announce the launch of the Content Made Simple, a content marketing program for senior care companies. If you’re a senior housing or in-home care marketer, all you need to do is connect with our Digital Marketing Academy team each month to get:
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Content ideas for local senior care provider blog posts – three new “content sparks” every month
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Tips on how to optimize your content for search and sharing
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Guidance on how to measure the effectiveness of your content
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“Expert Rolodex” opportunities to share your employees’ and experts’ names with journalists looking for content experts for stories on senior care (Caring.com clients only)
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Options to republish articles from Caring.com on your own website or for use in your digital newsletters (Caring.com clients only)
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Unique, original articles written by Caring.com journalists for publication on your website or blog (limited availability, Caring.com clients only)
We’re officially launching this program in our next webinar on February 11th, at 11:00 Pacific/2:00 Eastern. We’ll talk about what exactly IS content marketing, why you should be doing it, how to gauge its effectiveness, and how to sign up for our new content marketing program. Merrily Orsini of corecubed, an agency that specializes in content marketing, will join us to lend her expertise.
Register now! https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7514055139423705090
