Aged care marketing tips  

At Evergreen, we find ourselves reminding marketing teams to explain up to the executive management the critical importance of the entire marketing funnel for advertising a brand. That goes for both a nationally resourced provider and one with only a local-area marketing need.  

If the audience understands who you are and what you stand for, then it’s easier and faster to be on the radar during the consideration and conversion stage. 

If you have a small budget, think smarter.

Among enquiries about digital media services of late, a common question we hear is “Do you do Facebook ads, as we have vacancy issues.”   

Although Facebook is important as a local-area marketing tool, it should only be a small part of the overall toolkit. 

Use proper mapping tools to find out the areas where your target audience is more likely to live. For aged care, customise by end-user versus influencer.

Letterbox is still one of the most powerful and cost-effective mediums to get noticed, and it works well when part of an integrated media campaign.  

Other local media ideas that work well in combination to reach your target audience include outdoor, transit and community papers, the highly trackable broadcast video on demand, Facebook, YouTube, and medical centres.

The following map shows households more likely to have residents aged 60+:

Larger brands are getting noisier

Aged care and retirement advertising has never been more competitive. According to Nielsen data, many providers are investing circa $250,000 per quarter excluding search. 

In a category of comparable products and services trying to sway the same audience, it has never been more important to employ a differentiating creative idea, so you stand out and leverage your media investment. 

Money talks

Use an integrated media strategy to reduce cost per lead. By applying a properly funded, full marketing funnel to aged care or retirement living, the brand will benefit from an integrated media approach including buying search, social and programmatic platforms aligned with location.  

Specific, dynamic creative regularly results in an increase in number and quality of leads, and importantly a decrease in the cost per acquisition.  

This multi-channel approach provides the level of brand awareness required to assist quality lead generation for your care catchment, village or home. 

Below is a simplified overview of the aged care marketing funnel:

It is important to note that every customer journey, entry point and experience will vary.

The aim of the marketing funnel is to deliver quality leads throughout. This ensures you are receiving a consistent flow of leads with the ability to convert faster, as they are exposed more directly to your brand experience and costing your business significantly less.

Consider the example of 10 quality leads, an average of five tours and one placement – all while you were building your brand, not someone else’s. 

Show value with accountability, transparency 

If you invest in campaigns, then ensure you have a properly curated dashboard showcasing your live campaign elements – including tracking of clicks, leads and web traffic – that provides you with full transparency.

This dashboard can also provide transparency for click-to-call with the correct tracking in place. It’s important to know where your customer has entered the funnel, media wise, as it helps refine your goals and allows you to optimise your campaign accordingly. 

Being able to display full accountability of your media investment to stakeholders, across web traffic numbers, enquiry uplift and conversions, helps everyone understand the value of your marketing spend. 

Gill Walker is managing director of Evergreen Marketing & Advertising 

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