Gaining Long-Term Care Placements with Digital Ads

Transcription

1 Gaining Long-Term Care Placements with Digital Ads Case studies from assisted living, Alzheimer s care, & nursing home facilities a white paper from healthcare search marketing

2 1 Introduction In the world of long term care and assisted living facilities, a unique opportunity exists for the adoption of new marketing strategies. We're all familiar with how labor-intensive the traditional methods of gaining leads and increasing admissions can be. A digital marketing strategy that uses closely targeted PPC (pay-per-click) ads is one of the most efficient ways to increase leads...at a very low cost per acquisition. Many long term care facilities haven't implemented digital strategies yet, so this allows early adopters to easily jump ahead of competition and capture more leads at lower cost. Did you know? A poll conducted by Pew indicates that over 77% of online health seekers start with search engines

3 2 What Is PPC? PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is one of the most effortless ways to be seen on the top of search engine results for relevant keywords, using channels like Google AdWords or Bing Ads. This lets you reach people researching facilities, retarget people who've already visited your website, and even appear for people looking for your competitors. The results are instant, and within minutes you can already be in the top position. How Does It Work? It s simple: people who are interested in finding a long-term care facility search on Google. Your ad is on the first position, so they visit your website, then either call or you.

4 3 Case Study 1: Large Assisted Living Campus Client: large continuing care campus Area: Small city of ~100,000 in United States Ad Budget: $3,500/month This client has a large continuing care senior campus which offers rehabilitation, long term nursing care, and also independent and assisted living apartments. Conversion tracking was set up in order to directly track the performance of calls and s. After creating an AdWords campaign, the following results were reached in under 3 months: Calls Conversion Rate Cost Per Lead Total Ad Budget % $73.16 $18,632 At each location so far we've been able to directly tie one admission from someone clicking on an ad. So thank you. It's encouraging! Linda, Director of Business Administration

5 4 Easily target specific demographics As a marketing expert in the assisted living industry, you know who your most important targets are. With Google AdWords, you can target specific demographics directly: for example, middle-aged people researching facilities to place their aging parents. If you've already narrowed down your audience, you can serve ads directly towards year old women searching for phrases like "assisted living in Palo Alto" or "Alzheimer's care in Florida". The good news: 80% of people in these demographics use Google to search for these options. Another 16% see Bing + Yahoo ads. You should use both of these channels to advertise! Don t forget the power of Bing Although it might not be the most popular search engine, there is a unique advantage in setting up Bing ad campaigns in tandem with your Google campaigns. The cost can be far lower. Additionally, a large number of older users tend to use Bing since it is the default search engine on Windows 10 computers. This makes it perfect for reaching an aging audience!

6 5 Case Study 2: Small Assisted Living & Memory Care Facility Client: small assisted living & memory care Area: Rural town of ~9,000 in United States Ad Budget: $1,800/month This client has a very small facility providing assisted living and memory care in a small, rural town. Conversion tracking was set up in order to directly track the performance of calls and s. After creating an AdWords campaign, the facility got their first patient in the first month! Users Conversion Rate Cost Per Lead Total Ad Budget % $72.39 $1,349 Discosloth has made a big difference and I have noticed a significant increase of inquiries since it started. Facility Manager

7 6 Competitive cost per acquisition The average cost of an assisted living facility in the United States is $3,750 per month, or $45,000 per year 1. For a nursing home, that number is even greater at $8,121 per month, or $97,452. With an U.S. average nursing home stay of 835 days (just over two years) 2 the average lifetime cost is $211,255. This makes PPC the perfect solution for facilities with reduced marketing budgets: even a single admission can give a positive return for all costs involved with implementing a digital strategy. Long-term care ad costs We have compiled our results and data from managing long-term care campaigns. Our research shows that these are the average costs for engagement in these campaigns (will differ by region and niche). Avg Cost Per Lead Avg Cost Per Click Avg CTR $72.80 $ %

8 7 Case Study 3: Metro Region Memory Care Facility Client: large memory care facility Area: city of 2.8 million in United States Ad Budget: $3,500/month This client has a facility in a large US metro area offering memory care in a secure setting. Conversion tracking was set up in order to directly track the performance of calls and s. After creating an AdWords campaign, the following results were reached in under 3 months: Impressions Click-Through Rate Cost Per Click Total Budget 21, % $8.67 $1,857 [The marketing director] is giving me rave reviews of the results you guys are getting. Matt, Facility Website Developer

9 8 Messaging & Wording As a healthcare professional, you're probably familiar with the extensive (and sometimes onerous) messaging requirements for health care facilities. Although these vary from state to state, the benefit of AdWords is that it works best when you use wording directly from your website. Google AdWords relies on Quality Score, which is an algorithm that looks at your ad copy and compares it to your website to check for relevancy: a good Quality Score helps decrease your cost-per-click and improves ROI (return-on-investment). Since your website marketing copy has already been approved by legal, it can be very straightforward to build an advertising campaign without using the wrong terminology.

10 9 About Discosloth Discosloth is a search marketing firm with a strong focus on healthcare marketing. We ve managed over $1,000,000 in advertising spend for clients on 6 continents. Among our clients are long term care networks, medical non-profit organizations, and aid organizations like Samaritan s Purse and Doctors Without Borders. Our primary focus is on creating positive ROI for customers. Learn more at About the Authors Gil Gildner Business Development gil@discosloth.com Anya Crijanovschi Data & Analytics Strategy anya@discosloth.com