To gate or not to gate assisted living content…
As more senior living providers are discovering their websites are the primary driver of leads during the COVID-19 pandemic, we find ourselves answering a few of the same questions over and over again.
One we thought was good to address here on our blog is what makes for good gated assisted living content, and which content you should keep non-gated.
Just in case you aren’t familiar with those terms, we’ll start with a basic overview of what those each mean.
What is Gated Senior Living Content?
Simply put, gated content is anything you put behind a lead capture form.
Site visitors typically have to provide at least a first name and an email address to access it.
Based on the type of content the visitor downloads, you are able to segment your email list so they receive content moving forward that is appropriate to where they are in the search for answers and solutions.
Good gated senior living content might be a guide on financing or a tool to help objectively compare one community with another.
Anything that brings true value to an adult child or elder who is searching for senior living could be gated.
By contrast, non-gated memory care or assisted living content is free to view.
Blog articles, level of care quizzes, budget worksheets, glossaries, and tools that aid families early in the search process are usually non-gated.
They help families see your community as experts and begin to build trust with your organization.
If you gate content too early—or offer largely gated content—you risk turning visitors off.
Let’s face it, we’ve all been on “those” sites that seem to ask for too much information, far too quickly.
Unless you are Harvard Business School sharing those famous case studies, you probably shouldn’t go that route.
The Controversy About Gating
Like everything else these days, there is controversy over whether or not you should gate anything.
At SCCS, we are like Switzerland…finding a spot right in the middle.
If you gate everything or too quickly in the search process, families will ditch your site and the wonderful resources you create, for a site that doesn’t.
On the flip side, if you don’t gate anything, you won’t capture email addresses specific to the resource a visitor downloaded.
Sure you can have a Subscribe button on your site, but they capture leads globally. You won’t have the advantage of knowing which level of care a family is interested in and where they might be in the search.
Gated Memory Care and Assisted Living Content
All that said, what content should you gate if you are trying to build authority and trust as an assisted living or memory care experts?
Here are a few suggestions to consider in your content marketing strategy:
- Senior Living 201: A guide that is one step up from the basic Senior Living 101. Consider sharing a basic guide non-gated, and then offer up an advanced one that is much more detailed. Not only is it a good strategy, it provides for a better family experience. Too many details all at once can be overwhelming in an industry as complex as ours.
- Money matters: We know our industry can present families with a bit of sticker shock. Create a guide that explores financing options (VA benefits, life settlement funding, etc.). Offer a companion tool that helps compare the true cost of one community against another.
- Checklists: These are pretty much a requirement for your resource library now. Don’t skip developing them on a variety of topics because “everyone has them.” Most senior living communities offer checklists because they work for capturing email addresses.
- Health and wellness: Utilize the expertise you have in your community to create guides on wellness topics. Maybe your chef can do a community cookbook or your life enrichment team can share tips for staying engaged during COVID-19? Is there a techie on your team? A guide on ways to connect with loved ones virtually can be popular too. Just make sure anything you put out there is professionally edited first.
Make sense? If not, drop us a line and we’ll be happy to answer your questions.
And if you need help creating gated content, we’re pretty darn great at doing that too!
Until next time,
Shelley