How to increase care home occupancy with actionable insights from Mediahawk

In the care home market, the length of residents’ stays can be hard to predict, and occupancy numbers can change at a moment’s notice.

It means marketers are constantly under pressure to maintain a consistent stream of enquiries ready to convert to move-ins, even when occupancy is high. They also have to be able to pivot their strategies at the last minute and have multiple tactics to fall back on when occupancy levels fall unexpectedly.

In our recent blog, we explored how crucial a solid foundation of data is to navigating these challenges and what type of data care home marketers should focus on.

Now, we’ll show you how to capture that data, turn it into actionable insights, and use it to increase enquiries and boost occupancy.

A unique market that involves complex enquiry management

Unlike many other markets, the care home market faces some unique challenges in managing enquiries and understanding data.

As Natalie Sawford Smith, Client Success Manager at Mediahawk, explains: “One of the biggest challenges comes from just how complex the enquiry to move-in process can be. A single resident can have multiple family members contacting about their care through every step of the process.”

Even more complex, those families could all be contacting through separate channels or even through different agencies, making it incredibly difficult to connect every step of the customer journey together.

Enquiries also differ significantly. For example, enquiries about distinct types of care – such as residential, respite, dementia, and palliative care – all have unique needs and require different levels of service to convert to move-ins.

“In a market that’s all about gaining the respect and trust of your care seekers, it’s essential to understand who they are and follow them through their journey,” adds Natalie. “However, many marketers have no way of capturing and logging this information – it’s often spread across disparate spreadsheets and systems.”

That’s where Mediahawk will help.

“In a market that’s all about gaining the respect and trust of your care seekers, it’s essential to understand who they are and follow them through their journey,”
– Natalie Sawford Smith, Client Success Manager, Mediahawk

How to capture the data you need to boost enquiries and occupancy

Using a platform like Mediahawk, you capture the data you need and bring it together in one place to connect the dots between your enquiries.

From this point, you’ll be able to generate actionable insights that can help you take the guesswork out of your marketing strategy and generate the enquiries you need to boost occupancy levels.

Learn more about your enquiries with call tracking

Calls are such an important part of the enquiry to move-in process, and they can tell you a lot about your potential residents.

By tracking calls with both static and dynamic numbers using Mediahawk, you can gain instant visibility into where your most valuable enquiries come from. You’ll also be able to accurately attribute 100% of your move-ins to the sources that generated them, helping you identify the channels, campaigns, and tactics working in your marketing strategy.

Using call tracking in the care home market is particularly valuable, because you’ll be able to identify where multiple contacts are engaging about the same resident and understand everything about their interactions.

Get more from your budget with call tracking

Dormy Care Communities, an award-winning residential care group in the UK, uses dynamic call tracking in its paid ads to help its team understand whether its budget is being spent as effectively as possible.

“With the trackable numbers in our paid ads, I’ve been able to drill down in much more detail and see how many calls we get from ads in particular publications. We’ve been able to see what interest we’re getting from different demographics and whether we want to continue running certain adverts or not.”
– Director of Sales and Marketing, Dormy Care Communities

Know what channels to lean on when occupancy falls

When occupancy falls, many marketers’ default reaction is to increase spending on paid search. In fact, our recent report showed that spending on PPC is continuing to grow in the care home market and the space is only becoming more competitive.

However, in some cases, there could be better places to invest your budget during these urgent moments.

Using Sales Matching, you can understand the full journey of your enquiries and accurately link revenue to channels and campaigns. By doing this, you’ll be able to understand which tactics generate specific types of enquiries and prioritise based on the types of residents you’re trying to attract in moments of urgency.

For example, if you notice a sudden fall in your residential care occupancy and need to generate new enquiries fast, this is where data from Sales Matching could help. You’d be able to see which campaigns specifically attract high-intent residential care enquiries – rather than enquiries around services such as respite care – and invest more budget in those tactics temporarily.

Build a true picture of how hard your budget is working

Care home marketers are pressed for time, and many rely on outsourcing marketing work to agencies. But sometimes, it can be incredibly difficult to validate agency results.

Using Parameter Connect, a reporting feature in Mediahawk, you can mix and match your marketing data to compare data sets in a single report.

The reporting feature can show you which of your agencies generate the most enquiries and encourage move-ins, all alongside your own marketing efforts. You’ll be able to validate the results your agencies share with you and rearrange your budgets based on the insights.

Combined with Sales Matching and call tracking, you’ll also be able to understand more about the enquiries you and your agencies generate. For example, by setting up the right parameters, you’ll be able to easily distinguish between potential residents and irrelevant calls such as sales.

“UTM tagging is especially important when it comes to tools like Parameter Connect,” says Faye Thomassen, Head of Marketing at Mediahawk. “By tagging your URLs effectively, you can splice your marketing data to work more effectively for you and show only the insights you want to see. There are dozens of possibilities.”

Understand your enquiries’ needs to build trust and respect

Putting a family member into care is an emotional journey for many people. And often, it requires marketers to gain trust from their enquiries.

This is no easy feat, but it’s an area where tools like speech analytics can be incredibly useful.

Using speech analytics during your phone calls, you can gain deeper insights into what your enquiries are saying by automatically capturing keywords and phrases they mention. When applied effectively, you’ll be able to easily capture their needs – such as the type of care a family member requires – and what they’ll need to convert to the move-in stage.

It’s also valuable for capturing insights that help your customer service and care teams deliver more attentive care and attention to potential residents.

You could set speech analytics to capture particular concerns from enquiries and ensure that information gets to your move-in team. That would mean that when a resident arrives, the team will already be equipped with insights into their needs and able to deliver a more effective service.

Summary

Care home marketers are in a fortunate position, as they have a wealth of data – and potential insights – available at their fingertips. Being a highly telephone-based market, there are dozens of opportunities to learn more about your care seekers and use that information to guide marketing strategies.

Using Mediahawk, you can build a strong foundation of data to guide your marketing efforts. You’ll be able to see where your budget can work the hardest for your business, and how you can generate more enquiries and move-ins.

Book your demo today to discover the insights Mediahawk could unlock in your business.