Guide to Increasing Occupancy for Assisted Living Communities

In my experience as an ALF Administrator, I’ve always given a lot of thought to the perils of keeping occupancy at a healthy level.

Senior citizens are now more fit, active, and healthy than ever before. They want to continue living an active lifestyle that will keep them fit and healthy for years to come. 

That’s why they spend a lot of time searching for different communities and settle on only the ones that focus on promoting a healthy lifestyle, great food and provide lots of activities to enjoy every day. 

So if your community doesn’t offer compelling amenities, then it will be more challenging to reach your ideal occupancy.

However, increasing occupancy in this day and age isn’t really that hard. And that’s what I wanted to write about today:

 How you can increase occupancy for your assisted living community!

In this quick guide, you’ll get all the answers you’re looking for. We will discuss everything you should know about the best ways to increase occupancy using both online and offline resources.

Offline Promotional Tips

With dozens (or even hundreds) of local options to choose from, every potential resident will ultimately ask the same question: Why should I move into your community?

 If you’re up on your competition and can provide them with enough reasons to convince them that your community is truly worth joining, then that’s all you have to do.

But how do you know whether your community is actually the best fit for them? Many Administrators and Owners I speak with (especially new ones) are confused about the answer to this question. I’ve given this some thought and the answer is, again, quite and simple:

If your community offers everything they’re looking for, whether tangible or intangible, then it’s the best fit for them. But that again brings another question:

How can you be sure you know what they’re looking for?

There are way too many characteristics, features and benefits to list them all here. But, here’s what I have found to be at the top of prospects’ list. We’re assuming most ALFs are aware of the true necessary offerings they must have, such as quality care, competitive pricing, and a healthy reputation with few to no complaints. Here are the top things many facilities forget to incorporate in their offerings OR forget to actively promote when marketing or during a tour. This is what your community must offer: 

1) Quality Food 

Food is one of the biggest and most common concerns for prospects. Senior citizens are highly conscious about what they eat and they’re typically not willing to make compromises in their diet.

When prospects visit your community, it’s common to serve them a meal. If this meal isn’t up to their expectations, then this could definitely be a deal breaker. 

When it comes to food, you have two options:  

Outsource food or hire a team of great cooks to prepare in-house food. Although sometimes more expensive, research shows that communities who outsource food are far more successful than those who don’t. We’re talking about ROI, here!

But how you provide your food is up to you. Either way, make sure you’re promoting the fact that the food you’re offering is nutritious, delicious, and clean. Additionally, it helps to know what cuisine your residents are accustomed to as it relates to culture and make sure this is being promoted. Otherwise, you will be driving away lots of potential prospects.

2) Social Interactions

Modern day seniors thrive on social interactions and we have to make sure we play this up when touring and in our marketing material. When they’re looking to join a community, they want to interact with their peers to make connections, so make sure they know what’s offered at your community.

They love communities that encourage people to spend time interacting with each other.

With today’s technology, they can get in touch with their family whenever they want. But talking to someone on a phone isn’t the same as talking to someone sitting right in front of you. Likewise, talking to family isn’t the same as meeting new people from different walks of life.

It’s highly important for them to talk with peers who are living in the same community. So it’d be in your best interest to make sure you let prospects know that your community members interact with each other to feel like they’re part of a family. A quality community will have a team member facilitate this around the clock. This quality community would also provide the budget to bring in entertainers who appeal to each and every resident in the community and who appeal to the prospects who visit.

3) Lots of Options

What’s a one word description for Independence? What must you get over to prospects, knowing independence is what they’re reluctantly giving up?

Promote CHOICES! 

Most modern day seniors opt for communities that offer them a wide variety of choices in every important aspect of their lives because it makes them feel more independent. They want different food options, activity options, social outings for dining and shopping and physical workouts, as well as dining time options, different care levels to age in place, transportation options, floorplan options, entertainment options, open times for family and friends to visit and much more. The list goes on and on…

These were 3 things that almost every prospect is looking for in an assisted living community so they all should be promoted at every chance. It’s really the bare minimum if you want to succeed at having 100% occupancy with a waiting list.

But outshining your competition may take a bit more. What you need to do to make your service truly stand out is to offer something that others simply won’t.

Here are a few amenities you can provide to make your community truly stand out from the rest:

●      24 hour nursing

●      Gourmet dining options

●      On-site psychiatric services

●      Deficiency-free state surveys

●      Gardens and swimming pools

●      Entertainment trips and bucket list-type activities

And last but not least, you need to give them an experience to remember. Do everything you can to make sure they feel comfortable and have a great experience in your community while touring.

If one resident enjoys his or her stay, then you can bet that he or she will remain with you and will also recommend your service to others. So the happier people are at your community, the higher the retention rate. Even before an improvement in online lead-generation, high retention leads to a quicker occupancy increase.

But what if you’re already promoting these benefits but your competition around the corner is as well?

Here’s where Active Online Promotion plays a huge part because many in the senior living industry simply have not mastered “letting internet surfers know they exist and want to earn their stay with them”.

Online Promotional Tips

As the population continues to increase and the baby boomers age, the demand for senior assisted living communities increases. However, developers and investors alike are all preparing for this so construction and facility openings are increasing as well. It’s really a classic case of supply and demand. This increase in supply has naturally led to more competition. This makes it a bit tougher to successfully promote your community, which is why so it’s oh so very important to make sure you have a strong online presence.

As we mentioned earlier, there are some simple ways inside the facility to stand out from the crowd, to get and keep prospects’ attention. But that was only part of it. With the majority of the population beginning their ALF search online, you must leverage the internet to be relevant.

According to this study, 87% of adults are online and about 75% log on a daily basis. They’re savvy enough to surf the web using search engines such as Google. 

Have no idea how you can promote your community online? Let us walk you through the process:

1) Create a fabulous website:

This should be the first thing on your to-do list. You can easily find lots of great resources on how to create a great website through a simple Google search. 

Make sure your website is designed and built with the specific audience (senior citizens) in mind. It should be easy to navigate and user-friendly.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your website is a place for blatantly promoting your business. 

That’s a no-no.

Your site should be built on the premise of providing users exactly what they’re looking for. This builds trust and promotes your community as authentic and reliable.

Here are some great ideas for making your website authentic:

●      Create a blog to provide useful information.

●      Add engaging videos and beautiful photography of your community.

●      Ask your residents to be your brand ambassadors to promote your community and add their testimonials on your site.

The list of things you can do to make your website more authentic and appealing is endless. So it’s up to you how much effort you believe is worth putting in to your website.

Once you have your custom site set up, it’s time to start promoting.

2). Leverage Social Media:

You’ve heard of it! But do know the true power of it? Before Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, we had parties, business networking functions, family gatherings, the employer breakroom, etc. to provide an environment to be social. In these environments, we shared photos, talked about what was happening in our lives at that moment, and the best place to find seafood. That latter is where you can benefit.

Your industry is already being talked about among your peers, customers, the competition and future prospects. Make sure you’re a part of the discussion either by liking and commenting, or simply by posting…daily. 

This could include pictures of activities taking place, a delicious-looking meal, entertainers who’ve visited, upcoming events, well-deserved facility acknowledgement from the community, etc. You can even post weekly advice to those looking for a great ALF in their area. You’d be really surprised at how well social media can work for you!

3) Rank On The 1st Page Of Google

When it comes to online promotion, nothing beats being ranked on the first page for important keyword phrases that indicate someone is looking for an ALF. And the way to achieve that is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Why SEO? 

Let me demonstrate with an example: If someone is walking down the street with the purpose of taking a relaxing walk, and they look to the left and see your ALF, they may or may not go in to tour. However, if they’re walking down the street with the sole purpose of finding an ALF, and they look to the left and see your ALF, they’re coming in!

Imagine someone searches Google for “assisted living community in Dallas TX” and your ALF is the first one they see. You’ve hit a gold mine.

Since over 90% of the Google search clicks will be on the 1st page only (almost no one clicks over to the 2nd page), the 1st page is prime online real estate if you want to put your facility in front of people who are already searching.

I performed a search phrase analysis for another city in the US and found a combination of 9,000 searches monthly for hundreds of search phrases. If you’re on the 1st page of Google, do you think this could equate to several calls per day to your ALF? It’s where all businesses want to be and where a few of your competitors already are. You can be there too!

How? By creating an effective SEO strategy.

It’s simple to do, really, but not always easy. Search engine optimization requires a lot of time and effort. Here’s the short and simple version of what you should to do for your website:

●      Get high quality backlinks to rank higher—this tells Google your website must be important.

●      Plan out everything and do extensive competition and keyword research.

●      Make sure that all the content on your site including text, images, and videos, is optimized for search engine ranking.

●      Adding fresh content regularly also helps

And then you have to monitor everything on a consistent basis because as you improve, so does your competition. You have to stay on top of the latest search trends if you want to be ahead of the game and beat your competitors.

In short: it’s a lot of work. And learning all the ins and outs of SEO may not be the best way to go about it for you and your work schedule. The best way is to hire a team of SEO experts that will do the work for you. Here's what to look for in an Agency:

A good agency will have a plan. Implement it. And rank your website for you. In return, you pay them according to your agreement. When hiring, please hire intelligently, because wasting your marketing budget on agencies who don’t deliver is the last thing you need.

So make sure that the team you hire is legit and worth the investment. Discuss the plan with them and ask them to clear up any doubts you may have. Don’t spend 3 – 6 months waiting and hoping. Ask for some sort of assurance that your budget won’t be wasted.

Are You Organically On The 1st Page Of Google? 

If you’re not, get your Free Website Audit right now, to find out why.