How much does your care home marketing team know about potential customers?
When consumers search for a dentist, garage or taxi firm, their need is usually immediate, or maybe desperate. But things normally move at a slow pace with nursing and residential homes.
Older people and their families may express an interest over weeks, months or years. What starts as casual curiosity and ‘something to think about for the future’, might translate into a carefully-planned move-in or turn into an urgent call for help in the middle of a health crisis.
The issue for care home marketers is: How closely do you want to be involved in the ‘consideration’ phase of the buying process? And how can you build better relationships with prospects – so choosing your home becomes the obvious choice when the time feels right?
There are clues in the behaviour of prospects that you can use to your advantage.
When people consider care homes, they’ll often be following guidance from the likes of Which? magazine and tips from Age UK. They’ll be advised to check the results of your care inspections, read your brochure, and visit your website.
They’ll also be hunting through your web pages, videos, guides and social media posts on a wide range of topics. They could be trying to find out how care needs are met by your staff, about in-home activities, having visitors and how fees are calculated. They’ll suddenly become more interested in your magazine adverts and direct mail.
So when someone suddenly calls up with questions or wants a tour, wouldn’t it be helpful to know their journey? It could make a big difference in keeping them interested and guiding them towards a purchasing decision in due course.
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