content marketing

With the level of competition increasing in the senior care industry, a high ranking on search engines is a necessity for every home care agency. When you have the right strategy for content marketing, you’ll rank high on internet searches and that means you’ll get more customers and be able to recruit quality caregivers.

When you hear the term content marketing, it seems like it should be pretty self-explanatory. The term content marketing is composed of two simple words in the English language, but digital marketers know that there’s a whole lot behind them. Content marketing is a very important term in marketing for the senior care industry, and it covers a wide variety of marketing activities.

SeniorCareClicks is an expert in content creation services and content automation for home care and senior care agencies. If creating engaging content on a regular basis is more than you can do on your own and still run your business successfully, SeniorCareClicks can get the job done with pricing that meets your advertising budget.

How to Define Content Marketing?

What exactly is content marketing? When you think of the word content, you probably think of written text. That’s correct, and it encompasses much more as well. In its entirety, content marketing is actually an online marketing strategy where you can create and distribute text, images, and videos that are relevant to your business to attract a target audience. 

The goal of content marketing is to drive qualified leads to your website and convert them into customers. The challenge of content marketing is to create content that people are actively looking for and that they’re so enticed by it, they just can’t wait to learn more about it.

Content is a main component of the many factors that Google considers as part of its search algorithms. In your quest to get Google to boost your ranking, you have many choices to make as to the type of content you use to get the best results. It all starts with the right content creation strategy.

Keep these three things in mind to get you on the right track:

1. Defining your target audience segments

2. Establishing relevant content themes

3. Developing a successful SEO content marketing plan

A content creation process that puts these three factors first tells future customers and their families about your mission and your commitment to serving them. With that in mind, let’s look at how to make content marketing work to your advantage.

Define Your Target Audience

Before writers pen the first word, they’re already thinking about their audience. Some things that should excite you about branded content marketing for the home care industry is that there’s no shortage of people looking for home care services, and there’s a limitless variety of senior care topics to write about.

If that’s not enough on its own, between your website, blog, and social media platforms, you have multiple opportunities to implement your content distribution strategy.

Hopefully, you have a general idea of your target audience. To get the best results, you need to segment your general audience into specific buyer personas. The way to do that is to write descriptions for specific customers.

For example:

·   A couple in their late 50s looking for home care for their elderly parents

·   A senior individual seeking care for themselves

·   A certified caregiver that’s just completed training

·   A caregiver with years of experience in the senior care industry

When you know exactly who you’re writing to, it’s easier to gear your content to their needs.

Define Your Main Content Themes

As a home care agency professional, you have a pretty good idea about what your customers know about home care services and what you’d like them to know.

It’s worthwhile to spend some time brainstorming ideas for the most important topics for content in the senior care industry. In the field of digital marketing for senior care, you have 3 basic target audiences:

  1. Recent retirees
  2. Personal caregivers
  3. Professional caregivers looking for a job

Put yourself in the shoes of one of these 3 categories of audiences, and consider the types of blog posts that you might be interested in and plug them into your content marketing strategy.

Some of the best content marketing strategies start with basic content information like:

·   What you need to know as you near retirement

·   What to expect for senior living

·   Is it time to consider assisted living?

·   What to expect from memory care

·   How rehabilitation care can get you on the path to recovery

·   Content announcing local events

·   Maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle for seniors

Articles on Alzheimer’s disease, respite care, living as a retiree, and companionship are good ways to attract the attention of recent retirees and personal caregivers. If one of your goals is recruiting professional caregivers, you might post blogs about how to get various certifications or heartwarming stories about caregiving.

Develop lists of topics for each of your target audience segments including seniors, their loved ones, and caregivers. Next develop a range of titles for specific blog articles, social media posts, infographics, and other marketing strategies.

Keep adding to your list of ideas whenever a topic comes to mind.

What Are Some Examples of Content Marketing?

If you pay attention, you’ll find plenty of content marketing examples all over the internet. While there are numerous types of content marketing strategies to choose from, we’ll focus on the most common types of content marketing for now:

  • Landing Pages
  • Blog
  • Facebook
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Reviews
  • Case Studies
  • FAQs
  • eBooks
  • Press Releases

Landing Pages Are a Key Senior Living Marketing Strategy

A landing page is also called by a few other names like these: 

  • Lead capture page
  • Static page
  • Destination page
  • Single property page 

No matter what you call it, a landing page is a web page that site visitors land on when they click on an SEO term, online ad, or marketing promotion. You can put almost any type of content on your landing pages including blog articles about the services you provide, informative videos, or other content about the quality of your services.

Content is important, because if people like what they read and see, they’re likely to continue browsing your site, and they’ll eventually convert.

Adding a Senior Care Blog to Your Content Creation Strategy

While your target audiences will certainly benefit from informative content on the topics they’re interested in, your home care agency also gets the benefit of increased traffic via organic search, social media, referral links, and email.

People like to read blogs and when you can grab their attention with interesting, educational content about senior care, you’ll develop brand loyalty among your current clients. As an added value, blogs lead to a higher search engine ranking which will also draw people to your home care agency that have yet to discover the compassionate services you provide.

Just as in real estate, location matters is of great significance to search engines. When you focus on local SEO within your content creation strategy for your senior care blog, Google gives you an even greater boost in the rankings.

People within your community have lots of questions about how your agency might deliver care for them or their loved ones. Blogs that answers their questions about the value you provide in your local community have great value.

Here’s what they want to know:

·   How to talk with a senior about home care services

·   Home care services that are available in your community

·   The right time to transition to senior living

·   What to expect for socialization in an assisted living community

By publishing content that’s stimulating and engaging, you’re demonstrating that you’re truly an expert in senior care at the local level.

Your expertise within the industry has given you a wealth of wisdom about the worries that your customers have as they transition to senior home care services. Use this knowledge to your advantage as you develop content that your blog and website visitors can’t get enough of.

The Best Content Marketing Strategy Incorporates Facebook

Regardless of which target segment you’re developing content for, you have to recognize that they’re all on social media. Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites on the web. Seniors, family members of seniors, and caregivers are all on Facebook every day.

It’s essential to set up a business Facebook page for your home care agency and start posting on it on a regular basis. When you share your blog and website content on your social media sites, it does double duty for you. Be creative with your content creation process. Use it in various forms to add short or long content to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Take it a step further by adding icons for your social media platforms on every site. One of the greatest things about sharing your social media content is that the platforms are designed in ways that make liking, following, and sharing content as easy as one click. Beyond that, your followers also have an opportunity to give you rave reviews on social media sites, just like Yelp and Google.

In short, be active and engaging on social media.

Infographics Say a Lot in a Small Space

If you’ve ever visited a website and read a colorful vertical graph splashed with statistics, graphs, and charts, the graphic is actually called an infographic. Infographics make good content or websites because they provide factual information in an engaging way. 

It takes a bit more effort and creativity to design an infographic than a standard ad. You’ll need to do a bit of research to get accurate statistics to display. You’ll also have to include short bits of content and a bit of expertise on how to use color and design to attract your target audience. You may find that it’s more cost-effective and profitable to enlist the help of content marketing services to create informative and engaging infographics. 

One of the great things about infographics is their versatility. In addition to using them to enhance your website, infographics make engaging ads for Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Another thing to consider is that infographics lead to organic backlinking and that will strengthen your SEO strategy and establish your agency as a leading authority in senior care services.

Videos Provide a Powerful Way to Demonstrate Compassion in Home Care

While you can’t deny the importance of creating engaging content, seeing is believing. Caregiving is a personal issue. Often, the way to attract customers in senior home care is by invoking their emotions. Videos are an important part of content creation strategies because they help to make a warm connection between you and your customers.

Hubspot offers up the following statistics to demonstrate the power of using videos in content marketing.

·   6 of 10 people prefer short videos over television ads

·   55% of people view online videos every day

·   YouTube is second only to Google

·   75% of all videos are viewed on mobile devices

·   92% of video watchers on mobile will share them with others

Compelling, isn’t it?

Besides being hugely popular, videos are a versatile form of content marketing. Consider the following ways to showcase the quality of senior living that your home care agency offers:

·   Video blogs

·   Ads

·   Customer testimonials

·   Interviews

·   Live videos of holidays and special events

·   Presentations of your services

·   Special programs

·   Socialization and daily life

·   Compassionate caregiving

Keep your videos updated so visitors know that your content is current. Target the questions that are keeping your prospective customers up at night and utilize them to assuage their fears. Short videos allow prospects to get an inside view of your home care agency. By giving them a realistic vision of the services you provide, you’re helping them envision themselves or someone they love under your compassionate care.

Podcasts Are an Innovative Content Marketing Strategy

If you’re not familiar with podcasts, they’re a huge collection of audio recordings you can download and listen to whenever you want. A podcast consists of a digital audio file that you can download to any electronic device. You can set up  podcasts so that subscribers receive them in their inbox automatically. Podcasts provide a convenient source of content because people can listen to them while they’re working,  commuting, or doing chores around the house. Podcasts provide an innovative way to put content in front of your target audience.

Showcase Star Reviews on Your Website

You’ve worked hard to earn your reputation as a quality home care provider. Why not share proof of genuine star reviews on your website? Star reviews send the message to prospective customers and their families that you’ve proven your worth in the home care industry. That’s the beginning of building a trusting relationship.

Genuine reviews from current and former clients and their families speak volumes. Real testimonials give your home care agency credibility. They extend reassurance to new customers that they can expect the highest quality of care. Highlight reviews on a separate page dedicated to testimonials or sprinkle them throughout your site. Either way, they make a grand impression.

Content Creation: Documenting Your Customers’ Journey

Stories are convincing. Anytime people are dealing with some kind of transition, it’s a little scary. Elderly people are already feeling vulnerable. Something you can do to ease their path is to help them understand what their journey will look like as they transition to home care services.

The stories of your current residents, for those who are willing to share it, along with anonymous case studies show your prospects what they can expect moving forward. Storytelling offers a way to ease their anxiety and envision themselves as happier when they get the right care for their circumstances.

Dedicate a Website Page to FAQs

Before a prospect picks up the phone to ask you questions, they’re usually doing as much research as they possibly can online. A popular page for website visitors is the FAQ page. Your prospects have lots of questions and an FAQ page gives them the answers to the most commonly asked questions. A question and answer format works nicely here.

eBooks: A Content Marketing Strategy that Inspires Credibility

The internet has made it easy and affordable for almost anyone to self-publish an eBook. EBooks give you an additional content marketing strategy to inform your target audience. There’s an even greater benefit of publishing eBooks. As an author of an eBook, your agency can list itself as a credible author that has knowledge and expertise in the field of senior care services.

Using Press Releases as a Content Marketing Strategy

If you have some breaking news to announce, a press release is a great way to engage your target audience. Whenever you’re offering a new service or bringing someone new on staff, you’ll want to shout the news out loud. A press release gives you an opportunity to do just that. In fact, press releases have proven to be highly effective for attracting audiences when you use them strategically. 

A press release offers a strategic way to attract readers that may be interested and a new offering from your agency and help you build a list of high-quality leads.

In summary, the best content marketing strategies require a thoughtful approach to be successful. Your content creation strategy should include a combination of blogs, social media, and videos to hit all communication channels in the most engaging way.

There is no question that these content marketing strategies require an investment of your time and other resources. The best news is that you don’t have to do it alone. Why not leave your digital marketing needs to SeniorCareClicks, an expert digital marketing for senior care services? Contact SeniorCareClicks today to help you set up and implement a comprehensive digital marketing strategy for your senior care agency, and let you get back to the business of providing senior care services today.

Call us now at (954) 401-9058 or contact us today to learn more.