Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to your senior living community’s marketing department, you’ve probably heard about “content marketing.” This ‘new way of doing things’ is getting attention as the latest and greatest way to reach and convert target audiences — in some cases replacing traditional advertising and as a complement to social media marketing.

Content marketing is particularly important when you consider that 60% of the sales decision is now done before a buyer ever contacts a vendor. Today’s savvy consumers are increasingly blind to ads, and the senior living decision cycle can take months.

“Content is necessary to educate, build trust and credibility, and answer questions consumers have,” said Brandi Towns, director of content strategy at GlynnDevins, in Caring.com’s recent content marketing webinar attended by over a hundred senior care professionals. Her tip:

Have you tried content marketing yet? Here are some best practices to help you get started or to refine the results you’re already seeing from this new marketing focus.

1. Understand your audience — to identify the best opportunities for content and to add real value for those you’re trying to reach. Holiday Retirement, for example, understood that when an elder needs senior living, it’s very common for their family members to help in the search, often doing the research on the Internet. So Holiday conducted an online survey of family caregivers to identify any senior living misconceptions or concerns. Holiday then turned the survey results into a helpful e-book to quell anxieties about senior living, offer actionable tips, demonstrate topic authority, and ultimately engage families in considering Holiday’s communities for their elder loved ones.This was an excellent example of content marketing in senior living. First, they identified an important target audience and where they search for senior living communities. Then they gathered information to better understand the prospects’ needs, and lastly used that information to deliver relevant, useful content matched to those needs.

   Not every senior living community, though, has the budget or resources to do extensive research. The good news is there is already a lot of data readily available about who family caregivers are and what informational needs they have. Organizations like Pew Research Center, National Alliance for Caregiving, Administration on Aging, and others regularly release research reports about older Americans and Baby Boomers — such as this one about family support in graying societies — that offer insights about your target audience(s) and can help guide you to the right ways for reaching them.

   You can also peruse online discussion forums or conversations on Facebook pages to get a sense of the top-of-mind questions and concerns that family caregivers and older adults are having — whether it’s not knowing the right time to consider assisted living or trying to understand the difference between the senior living options. Caring.com’s monthly “content sparks” for the senior care industry also offer ideas for what to write about to reach family caregivers and older adults.

2. Craft quality content that’s optimized for search engines and social sharing. Once you’ve figured out the right messages at the right time in the right places, you’re ready to create some quality content that gets found via search engines, can be read and enjoyed on smartphones, and is spread to as many people as possible in the target audience(s).

   Hopefully you have staff who can write compelling articles for your blog or website, or a content budget to work with an agency. Take a look at other senior living blogs to see what’s working: for instance, Atria Senior Living’s blog is one such example of stellar senior care content that’s presented well. Google also offers your team content creation tips, and some sites like Caring.com have reprint and original content programs you can take advantage of as well.

   Remember though:

   “Content alone isn’t going to work. If you publish content, they will not come to it magically,” says search engine optimization (SEO) expert, AJ Kohn of Blind Five Year Old.

   To help your articles rank on search engines: don’t forget page titles, keyword-rich meta-descriptions, and other SEO basics. You’ll also need to make sure your content pages are easily accessible and load fast on smartphones.

   Reader comments is another way to get the attention of search engines for pages on your site. Rather than try to build and manage a commenting platform yourself, though, consider using a third-party service. Or include excerpts of consumer reviews you get on Caring.com or SeniorHomes, as another form of user-generated content that’s attractive to search engines.

   Also, make it easy for readers to pass the content to friends and family via email and social networks, by using social sharing plugins (see “for developers” sections of the major social networks) or via a third-party service like ShareThis or AddThis.

   And make sure you have great photos on the page — that can make a significant difference with social sharing and engagement. The inbound marketers at HubSpot report that “content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images.”

3. Collaborate with other authoritative experts. Ever heard of the “barnacle” strategy in SEO?

   Like a barnacle attaching itself to a ship, you can hitch onto sites that have invested significant time and money into successfully ranking on search engines.

   One way you can do this is by guest blogging on their site, and including at least one link to your website. Not only does this help get your brand and senior care content in front of that website’s audience, it was also recommended by AJ Kohn in an SEO best practices webcast because it connects your website to other authoritative sites matched with your senior living expertise. Conversely, you can achieve this by having senior living experts from other organizations, such as local social workers or geriatric care managers, guest blog on your site.

4. Content marketing is an exciting opportunity to connect and convert prospective residents (and their families) to your community, and I hope these best practices and tips will help you get started or ramp up your efforts.