Literally billions of people are searching for services online in 2021, and the internet is generally the first place consumers who need senior living and senior care services look for information and care.

 

The internet is a good starting point, but the reality is consumers also want to speak with a representative on the phone before making an appointment for a consultation or tour due to the personal nature of caregiving. 

 

A data-driven approach is the best way for marketers to understand the customer journey and modify their sales funnel to align with sales call conversions.  

 

To that end, we’ve got the top home care marketing statistics and assisted living marketing statistics in 2021 to keep you on-trend and in the know. 

COVID-19 Decreases the Demand for Senior Living Services

No one could have foreseen the global pandemic or the effects it would have on the senior care services industry. Just like the pandemic itself, changes in the senior care industry were swift and pervasive.

 

Here’s how the statistics shake out:

 

• COVID-19 prompted seniors and their loved ones to give safety a high priority when seeking senior care services. As a result, senior living service sales declined by 41% after the onset of the pandemic. 
• Initial in-person tours for senior living facilities declined by 27%, signaling the need for senior care providers to create and offer virtual tours. 
• The move-in rate for senior living providers decreased by 22% after COVID-19 began to spread. 

 

With the demand for senior living services on the decline, marketers need to tap into the potential of every possible conversion. 

 

Phone calls are still a key element in the senior care services journey, and it’s wise to consider how to best incorporate them into your marketing plan.

Senior Care and Senior Living Marketers Need to Align with Post-COVID Trends

• The lockdowns due to the pandemic drove consumers and businesses to increase digital technology. Online activity increased at 5-10 times the projected rate. The momentum is likely to continue into 2021 and perhaps beyond, as communities continue to battle the first strain of coronavirus and the new Delta variant. 
• A strong focus on the customer experience was important before the pandemic, and it’s even more so now. Adobe says, “Empathy is the future of experience.” Senior living providers that can show they understand their customers and their needs will differentiate themselves from other brands. 
• The need for hiring caregivers is and will continue to be on the upswing. 
• Turnover rates are increasingly high. In some cases, they’re exceeding 70% in skilled nursing facilities. 1 of 5 skilled nursing facilities reported having severe worker shortages. 
• Caregivers are struggling to manage their home and work lives as demanding schedules make it difficult for them to care for homebound children, educate them, and keep health and safety measures in place. 
• To meet the needs of hiring caregivers, senior care providers will need to boost their marketing efforts to ensure they have the staff to meet hiring needs now and in the future. 
• Baby boomers continue to enter the senior phase of life. This is creating the largest demand for in-home care services, assisted living care, and nursing home care. Forbes research says 67 million people over the age of 60 will soon need senior care on some level. 
• Over the next 20 years, 65 million more Americans will enter the retirement phase, and the number of seniors needing long-term care could increase to 15 million by 2050. This means marketers need to be futuristic in their thinking to be successful. 
• Data-driven marketing efforts will help to improve the quality of life for employees and seniors. 

 

Information Gathering for Consumers of Senior Living and Senior Care Services Switch to Online Sources

As in nearly every other industry, consumers in the senior care industry are increasingly turning to online sources of information.

 

Senior Living and Senior Care Marketing Stats:

 

• Only a small percentage of senior living consumers take a non-internet approach to research senior care services. 75% of this population starts their quest for information online.  
• Searches for keywords like “senior living” increased by 15% over the last year. As younger, digitally nuanced adults get older, this percentage is sure to increase. 
• Every hour, the internet gets 6,000 online searches in relation to senior care in the U.S. as of 2017, and the numbers are likely much higher now. Marketers that are experts in SEO strategies have the edge over novice marketers.  
• 68% of marketers in the senior living space said they get the best results from their website. They find that consumers perform an initial search query and then start shopping around on other websites to get more detailed information. Consumers have the best chance of finding your company when you optimize your website to improve leads and conversions. 
• The average cost per lead in the senior living industry in 2018 pales in comparison to other major industries at approximately $431 per lead. For the record, the industry standards are $229 for business services, $106 for software, $235 for manufacturing, and $85 for home improvement. 
• In the senior living industry, the average rate per conversion is 30%. At over $400 per lead, it’s a big investment considering the majority of leads won’t convert. 

The Senior Living and Senior Care Consumer Journey Is Changing Shape

After doing careful research, consumers in the senior care sect are increasingly placing a higher level of priority on in-home care services vs. assisted living care services as the following statistics indicate:

 

• For independent living consumers, the average sales cycle is 120 days. By comparison, the cycle for assisted living consumers is only 70 days. A good inbound marketing strategy can help shorten the sales cycle. 
• There are 6 important stages in the senior care living customer journey including awareness, research, consideration, evaluation, selection, and narrowing down the final choice. 
• Mapping the customer journey is essential for helping align your processes, data, and systems to yield the best possible results. 
• 64% of senior care providers use a customer journey map to represent the customer experience. 
• Mapping the customer journey is essential for helping align your processes, data, and systems to yield the best possible results. 
• Only 26% of senior care providers are forward-thinking in mapping out the customer journey. 
• 19% of buyers want to speak to a salesperson during the research stage of the buying process.
• 60% of consumers want to speak to a salesperson during the consideration stage after they’ve established a shortlist of providers. 
• 20% of buyers want to speak to a salesperson when they’re ready to make a decision. 

Increasing Conversions for Senior Living and Senior Care Marketers Requires Focusing on Inbound Phone Calls 

• Customers expect more personalized experiences with senior living brands. 73% of B2B executives agree that customers are looking for a consistent omnichannel experience including inbound calling. That was in 2017, and the quest for a consistent omnichannel brand experience continues to elevate. 
• Senior care providers are lacking in the area of phone call professionalism. 19% of incoming calls to senior housing communities never get picked up according to a 2018 report. That doesn’t even include the vast amount of calls that get sent to voicemail. 
• Senior care and senior living providers get 60% of the leads for tours of their facilities from inbound phone calls. 
• 39% of people moved into a senior living facility as a result of an initial inbound phone call. 
• Over 92% of the interactions with customers happen over the phone according to Salesforce.
• 41% of salespeople believe that the phone is their most effective sales tool.
• More than half of web traffic comes from mobile devices. 
• Marketers are investing more of their marketing dollars in targeting their audiences through smartphones and other mobile devices, and conversions result when consumers call in. 

Tips for Senior Living and Care Marketers to Drive High-Quality Calls

To round things out, we’ve got some great tips to help senior care and senior living marketers to drive calls that convert. 

 

• Use call extensions on Google Ads, add “call now” CTA buttons to your website, and add a call option to your web contact forms. The idea here is to make it easy for consumers to contact you. 
• Identify the source of phone calls from the marketing source to the final sale to help you understand the entire customer journey. Make changes to shorten your sales funnel and enhance the customer experience along the way. 
• Integrate call data with your marketing tools to get accurate data on the entire customer journey. 
• Pursue past callers and lookalike callers by creating the right ads and using the right tools. Use call data to identify these leads. 
• Analyze calls to evaluate your unanswered call rate, long hold times, abandoned calls, locations, etc. Share the data with your call agents and coach them based on your results.

 

Finally, and we can’t emphasize this enough – optimize your campaigns, analyze the results, and repeat these steps over and over again. It’s the best way to scale your process and work out the bugs that are impacting your ROI. 

 

At SeniorCareClicks.com we want you to have the most current information on senior care marketing trends so your marketing efforts are successful. Want to know more? Contact us at 954-401-9058 for a FREE consultation.