The Facts.

Here are the facts before we get started. When we began working with Grand Brook Memory Care (formerly Stoneybrook Memory Care), their memory care business with 3 locations, about 10 years ago (2014), and their online presence was severely lacking. 

Grand Brook had a basic website, they weren’t running any advertising, and they didn’t show up on Google search anywhere in their local area. They needed a way to generate leads from their own branded properties. Moreover, we both knew that they needed to accomplish this online, not offline. Some things needed to change.

Schedule Your FREE Strategy Session today!

Table of Contents

The Growth Mindset for a Senior Living Community Owner

Prior to delving into the campaigns we assisted them in crafting and revitalizing their online presence, we must commend Anisa Anderson and Grand Brook Memory Care for their initial open-mindedness.

From the outset, what propelled Grand Brook towards online success was their perspective on marketing: rather than viewing it as an expense, they regarded it as a catalyst for business growth. This mindset led them to confidently invest in marketing initiatives, anticipating significant returns on their investment.

We recommend one thing for senior living community owners regarding digital marketing: think about marketing campaigns as investments.

The goal should be to invest $1 and consistently yield returns of $3, $5, $10, or even $20 each time. Achieving these returns hinges on the competence of the individuals managing your campaigns. Recognizing that not all professionals are equal in this field, we consistently strive to offer case studies and exemplify how we elevate the growth of our senior living community clients. Before hiring anyone, conduct thorough research and ask plenty of questions to ensure you’re making the right choice.

The Next Steps: Outline a Plan for Senior Living

Once we understood where Grand Brook’s online presence was in comparison to their top competitors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we decided what needed to happen next to get them moving in the right direction:

  • Update website with the sole purpose to convert visitors into memory care leads.
  • Conduct a large scale local SEO Campaign to get them ranking in Google’s Map Pack and search results
  • Help them build their Online Reputation & Reviews to convert more prospects
  • Setup highly targeted Google AdWords & Bing Ads campaigns in their area
  • Setup Retargeting Ad Campaigns to bring back visitors that did not convert into leads (we eventually had to pause the effort due to healthcare remarketing restrictions)

The Website Redesign

Before

After

Numerous enhancements were implemented, but here are the key priorities that contributed to the exceptional performance of this memory care community website:

  • Complete mobile responsive – easy click to call buttons
  • Fast load speeds – ensuring we wouldn’t lose any visitors
  • Removing stock imagery, and adding actual images/videos of their team and projects they’ve worked on making them look more authentic to visitors
  • Display real customer reviews that display across key portions of the website
  • Easy to submit multi-step Free Estimate lead forms for higher conversions
  • Conversion activity more fully-implemented in GA4
  • New chat feature to answer many common questions immediately.

In the end, this beautiful design was functional, SEO-friendly, and impresses potential new resident families.

DISCLOSURE: Our team did not design the new website but we worked with the designers who turned out a much improved (and needed) website to improve digital marketing results.

Google AdWords and PPC Campaigns

Next on the agenda was establishing the cornerstone of their lead generation strategy through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaigns. It’s imperative for every assisted living, independent living, or memory care community start with PPC until their SEO and other strategies reach optimal performance. Although PPC leads may be more costly compared to those from SEO, they expedite the return on marketing investment by promptly securing tours and move-ins.

Initially, we structured the Ad Groups, segregating them based on keyword type and locations, since there were multiple locations. This segmentation was pivotal in optimizing lead flow for each location.

For instance, we targeted city-specific keywords such as “memory care” with location keywords like Dallas, Grapevine, Garland, and more. Additionally, we crafted ad groups targeting various service types including “assisted living,” “memory issues,” “memory care facility,” and others.

Local SEO Campaign

The crown jewel of any digital marketing campaign should be SEO. Getting your business ranked in Google’s “Map Pack”, which is the 3 businesses listed in Google Maps upon doing any Google search for memory care (or assisted living, etc.) terms, is worth its weight in gold.

Over 50% of all local assisted living searches done end up clicking in this map pack, so being ranked there can make or break a business these days.

When we started with Grand Brook, they were nowhere to be found in these results.

Fast forward to 2024 and they’re everywhere in their markets. Grand Brook currently targets 10 cities in medium-to-large markets. This has resulted in significant visibility for their brand, more clicks to their website, and in turn more leads directly from Google organic (non-paid) searches.

Local SEO in memory care is both competitive and very technical. You can get as much visibility in Maps as possible, but in other places in your area, you may not be able to show up just because of your physical location. In that case, we need to build out your organic search rankings below the map as well.

There are a number of things that went into this SEO campaign to make it successful and it took 12 months of hard work to get them to the very top in such a competitive metro area. These things include the following:

  • Site Structuring for SEO (Your website is the backbone of SEO)
  • Local link building
  • Business citation building and corrections around the web
  • Google My Business optimization
  • Relevant content writing to blog
  • And much more

When you combine a successful SEO campaign with a successful Google Ads campaign, the possibilities are endless for short and long term growth.

Reviews and Reputation

When it comes down to it however, even if you’re showing up in Google Ads and especially in Google Maps, potential resident families are going to want to see proof that you’re a trustworthy community.

This comes in the form of customer reviews — and specifically from Google Reviews.

Google Reviews are the ones that stand out on your maps listing. If you come up in Google Maps for the search term “memory care grapevine tx” you better have as many or more reviews as the other 2 competitors, and have a quality rating between 4.5 – 5 stars.

By working with Grand Brook, they were able to actively ask customers for reviews.

At this point of time they have 250+ (collective) Google reviews for all 10 locations and more on other platforms — giving them the necessary trust indicators they need to compete with similar communities.

In Conclusion: Steady, Healthy Growth Over 10-Years

There’s a lot more detail we can go into here, but these tactics have helped Grand Brook to scale not only their online presence and visibility, but with revenues. Since 2014, they have growth from a smaller 3-community memory care business to a 10-community, multi-state business. And they still maintain a family-focus for each resident.

And our team has helped them grow each step of the way.

If you want to see how we can use these strategies to help you overcome your local competition, why not schedule a Free lead acceleration session with us? We’ll review where you’re at, what needs to be done, and how to get there.

Schedule Your FREE Strategy Session today!