Hands up if you gobbled until you wobbled last week! It’s always hard to get back in to the swing of things as we head in to the holidays isn’t it? This year we also have concerns about the virus making daily life more difficult. Not to mention the tumultuous election.
As we get back in action this week, we thought it was time to address some of the mistakes we’ve been seeing in senior living content marketing.
Are you making any of these content marketing mistakes?
Each of these is fairly common and can keep your website from being the success it could otherwise be.
As we head toward a shiny new year, let’s take a look at how you might be sabotaging your senior living content marketing efforts without even realizing it.
Avoid These Content Marketing Mistakes
- Failing to Plan: That annoying old adage that you should plan to fail if you fail to plan is spot on when it comes to content marketing. This is especially true for your senior living blog. For our clients, planning means working from a master content map. Quarter by quarter, we evaluate trends, seasonal topics, and evergreen issues that are always of interest to seniors and their families. Then we create quarterly content that blends those topics.
- Guessing What Audience Needs: Are you just guessing about which content and blog articles might be of interest to current and prospective residents and their family members? Or spending time talking with prospects and their loved ones? Guesswork is another BIG mistake senior care providers make. While there are definitely topics families are always searching for, others evolve and change. Track the questions you receive on inquiry calls and emails. Carefully document what they are. If you don’t have a CRM, a manual system will do just fine, too. Those questions are gold when it comes to creating content editorial calendars.
- Publishing Isn’t the Finish Line: We’ve talked about this topic repeatedly on our blog because it is one of the most common content marketing mistakes we see. Publishing is more like the starting line, than the finish line. You might have a well-crafted blog with rich, relevant content. But if you aren’t promoting it, you are missing opportunities. Each of our blog posts pushes out to our mailing list. It’s easy to do if you don’t already. You can use it on your social media channels and for news releases to local papers. (People actually still read those small town papers!) Collate blog posts on the same or similar topics and roll them in to a guide. The point is not to think content marketing ends once you hit “Publish.”
- Posting Inconsistently: In the olden days, you could get by without publishing fresh content very often. Google gave consideration to sites that had been around longer. That’s changed. Now Google looks for sites with recency. It helps them feel confident the information they are delivering in the search engine results is current making it more likely to be accurate.
- Writing Generic Content: We’ve all landed on websites before where the content is generic and bland. It’s often created by content mills with low paid, rookie writers who don’t have industry experience. The visitor experience is boring, uninteresting, and not helpful. Basically, this kind of content just fills up space and allows a senior living provider to publish something. What you really should be doing is writing content that targets each of your buyer personas. The adult daughter who just can’t keep up with the needs of her aging parents, her job, and her own family any more. Or the spouse who is caring for a partner with dementia. Her own health is declining because his needs and safety concerns have worn her out. Sure it takes more planning and money, but it will pay off in spades over the long haul.
Drop us a note if you have questions or need a little help planning your senior living content for 2021!
Until next time,
Shelley