elder care marketing industry report


FROM THE AUTHOR

Fellow elder care marketer:

Much has been written about the growing senior population. Companies are scrambling to introduce goods and services that improve quality of life and provide peace of mind to the families of aging parents. However, our market is still in its infancy—providing an incredible opportunity for those who can connect unique offerings with the families who need them.

If you’re responsible for marketing, you’ll find this report especially interesting. Our team worked hard to look beyond the obvious and bring out the insights that illustrate the state of senior care marketing today. One hundred sixty-six of your peers contributed to provide the new insights contained in this report.

Whether you are already marketing elder care products and services—or are considering doing so—my hope is that these insights will help you better allocate budgets, refine strategies and connect with your customers.

I hope you enjoy the report! Social media is all about sharing, so I also encourage you to share the report with friends and colleagues. Feel free to share your comments on ElderCareMarketer.com and don’t hesitate to ask any questions you may have about the report.

You can find the original page for the report here:

http://www.eldercaremarketer.com/industry-marketing-report/

All the best,

Ryan Malone Elder Care Marketer

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RyanMalone

Copyright Statement: All content © 2010 by SmartBug Media, Inc. Copyright holder is licensing this under the Creative Commons License, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ (In other words, you can post this on your site, and share it all you want, but you cannot sell it).

http://twitter.com/home/?status=RT+@RyanMalone+Elder+Care+Marketing+Industry+Report+(Free,+must+read!)+http://bit.ly/aNh9f6+%23srmktreport



TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................4 KEY FINDINGS.........................................................................6 EFFECTIVENESS OF MARKETING TOOLS ...................................8 SUPPORTING THE SALES EFFORT ..........................................13 SOCIAL MEDIA ......................................................................19 DEMOGRAPHICS....................................................................28 ABOUT THE AUTHOR..............................................................31


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The market for senior care products and services has long been dominated by large companies. The attention paid to aging Baby Boomers is creating an environment of innovation, and the market remains highly fragmented. As a result, many new businesses are entering the market. These businesses are senior care providers, technology companies, offer unique service models and may represent different philosophies of care. These smaller companies represent the future of elder care.

We conducted this survey of senior care marketers to better understand how they market, what tools they use and what the general impact of social media is on their business.

The results demonstrate a number of key findings around the evolving nature of the industry and the mainstreaming of social media for businesses who sell to other businesses (B2B) and businesses who sell to consumers (B2C). The report covers three primary themes:

• Marketing management: The tools marketers use and how effective they are, how they get their work done and what responsibilities fall into their marketing role

• Sales Management: The length of sales cycles, how salespeople track and manage leads, how often they measure the effectiveness of their lead generation activities and how they measure customer satisfaction

• Social Media: The social media tools elder care marketers find most popular, which tools they want to understand better and what benefits social media is bringing to their marketing

Using this Report

This report seeks to look past the obvious and provide insights that will benefit your business. Where significant, responses are frequently broken out by age of the respondents, size of their companies and whether they offer B2B or B2C services or products.

As an elder care marketer:

• See what your peers are doing to market their businesses and to leverage social media in that mix

• Assess how your efforts compare to the typical marketer and identify areas to strengthen and new tools to apply in the coming year

• Take a look at how other businesses are managing their marketing efforts, what matters most and what they are forecasting in the coming year


• Identify ways to competitively position your business and strengthen your message to this industry


KEY FINDINGS

Marketing Management

• Smaller companies outsource less of their marketing activities. However, opportunities exist for both project-based consulting and teaching elder care marketers how to improve their trade

• Referral or affiliate programs, search-engine optimization and informational seminars are viewed as the most effective vehicles in meeting marketing objectives

• More traditional marketing vehicles, such as telemarketing, radio ads, magazine ads and newspaper ads are viewed as the least effective in meeting their marketing objectives

Sales Management

• Sales cycles average between 1-3 months

• Competitors are tracked on a monthly or quarterly basis

• The average product/service sale price varies greatly, but appears generally less than $50,000

• Twenty-one percent of respondents have no formal process for managing, distributing and tracking the effectiveness of sales leads

• Sales performance is measured only 20-40% of the time

• B2C companies indicate greater sophistication in managing leads, with a higher percentage for both CRM tools (36% versus 32% for B2B) and Excel or spreadsheets (42% versus 28% for B2B)

• B2B companies use a broader range of methods to manage, distribute and track the effectiveness of sales leads than B2C businesses

• B2C companies used email far less than B2B companies to manage, distribute and track the effectiveness of sales leads


Social Media

• Small companies (1-50 employees) are twice as likely than big companies (50-500+ employees) to use social media in their marketing

• Overall, LinkedIn and Facebook are the most popular for marketing purposes

• Marketers spend an average of 6.6 hours per week on social media and would like to learn most about Twitter and blogs

• Interest is high in learning more about social media tools, which reflects the overall recognition of social media as a marketing vehicle

• Small businesses used a much broader base of social media tools than large businesses for marketing purposes

• Both B2B and B2C businesses benefited most from social media through increased mailing lists, traffic and subscribers, generating leads and creating partnerships. B2C reported a high increase in search rankings and B2B businesses reported a higher benefit for identifying new products more often

Demographics

• Average survey participant is 47 years old

• 57% are female

• 45% have a Bachelor’s degree and 27% have a doctorate

• Typically they have less than 3 years of experience in marketing elder care products and/or services



EFFECTIVENESS OF MARKETING TOOLS

Marketing Tools

When asking marketers to rate the effectiveness of marketing vehicles (Figure 1) in meeting their objectives, referral and affiliate programs were identified as the strong leader across all respondents, rating 3.93 out of 5 overall (5 being most effective).

Figure 1

This preference held constant when accounting for both company size and whether the firm considered itself B2B or B2C (Figure 2). Search-engine optimization (SEO), informational seminars and press releases followed in effectiveness, with social media rounding out the top 5 among our respondents. The senior care market is still highly reliant on referrals and affiliate programs. In residential care communities, this is even more so the case. As this market matures, expect residential care providers to increase their market ability and reduce their reliance on lead referrals.

In contrast, what could be characterized as traditional marketing vehicles such as telemarketing, radio ads, magazine ads and newspaper ads, are viewed as the least effective in meeting their marketing objectives. This trend holds true among the break-outs of small versus large as well as B2B versus B2C companies. No matter the type or


size of company, traditional tools no longer hold the same value in the marketing mix – marketers are clearly looking for something to help them stand out.

However, when looking specifically at social media, our results showed significant contrast in how big companies (50-500+ employees) versus small companies (1-49 employees) use it in their marketing. For big companies, online events and social media were considered least effective (2.13 and 2.22, respectively) in meeting marketing objectives, but small companies (1-49 employees) rated these same tools very effective (3.33 and 3.42, respectively). These results are consistent with general social media trends as large companies try to understand how social media fits into their broader marketing efforts.

Figure 2

B2B and B2C companies (Figure 3) rated social media essentially the same, which is indicative of the acceleration of social media into business marketing as much as the consumer environment. A slight contrast is seen by B2B companies which value email marketing higher than B2C companies. This is most likely attributable to a more easily identified population and the availability of email addresses for business campaigns. B2C companies gave informational seminars a slightly higher score than B2B companies, which reflects the need to cast a wider, less defined message for consumer marketing.


Figure 3

Outsourcing

Respondents were asked how often they outsourced marketing activities (Figure 4), and the majority indicated that these functions are primarily performed internally. Additionally, 30% of respondents said that they never outsourced their marketing activities and another 40% said that they outsource only 1-20% of the effort. Only 1% indicated that they outsourced 80-100% of their marketing, and 5% put the volume at 60-80%.

Figure 4


Areas of Responsibility

Not surprisingly, the respondents’ responsibilities include a wide range of marketing disciplines (Figure 5) with brand building being the most frequently mentioned.

Figure 5

Lead generation, public relations (PR) and customer service/satisfaction were also among the most frequently cited responsibilities, indicated by close to 70% in each category. Responsibilities were consistent across size of company (Figure 5). However, marketers at large companies were more likely to have responsibility for brand building than smaller companies (79% versus 71%). This is expected given the larger marketing budgets available at larger companies.


Figure 6

New products, pricing, competitive monitoring and market research all fell to the bottom of the list, with less than half indicating any one of these as a key responsibility (Figure 6).



SUPPORTING THE SALES EFFORT

The length of sales cycles (Figure 7) varied broadly among respondents with a generally even spread ranging from less than a week to up to two years. The largest number of marketers said their typical sales cycle averages between 1 and 3 months in duration—measured from first contact until the product or service is purchased.

Figure 7

Not surprisingly, more than 10% of respondents were not sure of the length of their sales cycle. This is low given that 21% have no formal process for managing, distributing and tracking the effectiveness of sales leads. Only 36% use professional CRM tools to handle this critical function, and another 35% manage it manually with spreadsheets (Figure 8).


Figure 8

B2C companies indicated greater sophistication in managing leads (Figure 9). They had a higher percentage for both CRM tools (36% versus 32% for B2B) and Excel or spreadsheets (42% versus 28% for B2B).

Figure 9

For B2B companies (Figure 10), the number without a formal process to manage, distribute and track the effectiveness of sales leads rises to 20% and peaks at 24%


among B2B service providers. Looking at the break out of B2B and B2C product and service firms, the cluster appears around the use of Excel or other spreadsheet programs for this activity.

Figure 10

Average Sale Prices

The average product/service sales price (Figure 11) varies greatly, but generally it is less than $50,000.1 ASPs generally range from $1,000 to $50,000 for all companies. Large companies trended higher with a range extending into $250,000-$1,000,000 with their largest percentage in the $10,000-$50,000 range. Smaller companies’ ASPs grouped most frequently in the $2,500-10,000 range.

1 This question sought to measure the total value of a single purchase. The question read: What is the average purchase price for your product or service? Example A: you make a one-time sale of $500, your answer is straightforward and should be: $500. Example B: you sell a service at $500 for 24 months, your answer is slightly more complicated and should be: 500 x 24 = $12,000.


Figure 11

Lead Generation

Measuring the performance of lead generation activities (Figure 12) such as the ROI, close rate or cost per lead occurs to varying degrees among the respondents. The largest percentage (24%) said that they never do it at all. Additionally, 19% said that they measure performance less than 20% of the time, and16% said that they measure 20-40% of the time. A committed 19% of respondents said that they measure the performance 80-100% of the time.


Figure 12

Monitoring the Competition

Respondents are generally attuned to the competitive environment (Figure 13). A large number of respondents track competitors on a weekly (25%), monthly (26%) and quarterly (21%) basis.

Figure 13


Measuring Customer Satisfaction

After a sale, the majority of respondents indicated some activity in measuring customer satisfaction (Figure 14). The most popular methods include online surveys and email support. With each chosen by 27% of the respondents, this highlights both the cost effectiveness and the immediacy of such tools in soliciting and collecting data from customers. Less popular are third-party phone surveys (6%), Blog forums (9%) and focus groups (13%). A surprising 27% indicated they do not measure customer satisfaction at all.

Figure 14



SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media has emerged as a marketing tool for businesses across sectors and sizes, and elder care marketing is no exception. In fact, adoption of social media as a marketing tool (Figure 15) sits at a solid 69% among respondents with only 3 in 10 saying they do not include it in their marketing.

Figure 15

This powerful marketing channel consumes a relatively small portion of marketers’ time each week (Figure 16). The average marketer invests 6.37 hours per week in managing their social media efforts.


Figure 16

Marketers at bigger companies spend marginally more time utilizing social media (6.33 hours) than do marketers at smaller companies (6.21 hours). By contrast, marketers at B2C companies spend about 5% more time managing social media than their counterparts at B2B companies (6.7 versus 6.4 hours). Marketers at B2C Services companies lead their peers with 7 hours per week committed to social media.

Respondents were asked about their use, the benefits, and their desire to learn more about a wide range of social media. This included Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and video-sharing sites, social bookmarking, online forums, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Mixx and FriendFeed. Among the listed media, LinkedIn and Facebook ranked most popular among respondents (Figure 17) as chosen by 83% and 80%, respectively. Twitter followed closely and is being utilized by 69% of all companies. MySpace ranked least popular with only 5%. This is likely a result of MySpace’s younger demographic not crossing over to elder care.


Figure 17

GenX marketers are more active in social media than Boomers across nearly every category (Figure 18) showing strong adoption in LinkedIn (100%), Facebook (92%) and Twitter (84%). They are also using Blogs, Video and Forums for marketing to their customers with greater frequency. Boomers reflect similar preferences in social media—only lower adoption rates.

Figure 18


By size, smaller companies are much stronger in their use of social media (Figure 19) showing twice the use of big companies in many of the services.

Figure 19

This reflects the broader trend of using social media in smaller organizations. By leveraging the emerging media, they level the playing fields in communications and relationships.

By type of company (Figure 20), B2B marketers trended higher adoption in social media than B2C, but the popularity of the various sites is consistent across respondents.


Figure 20

Because of their use of personal relationships in the business environment, B2B marketers seem to find using social media more natural..

The benefits of social media continue to evolve and be redefined. Among our respondents, the benefits ranked high among lead generation, increasing traffic and learning about the industry (Figure 21). Across all groups, increasing mailing lists, traffic and/or subscribers ranked as the strongest benefit from their social media efforts as indicated by an overall 57%.

Figure 21


Both large and small businesses (Figure 22) benefited most from social media by creating partnerships (45%), learning about their industry (49%), increasing their search rankings (46%) and generating leads (45%). Only 9% of big companies reported that they reduced marketing expenses. This is most likely due to the relatively small percentage that social media marketing represents in their overall budgets.

Figure 22

B2B companies generate more benefits from their social media efforts (Figure 23) than B2C companies. They ranked each of the benefits as having a greater percentage than their B2C counterparts.


Figure 23

Marketers are eager to learn more about the various social media tools (Figure 24) such as Twitter (42%), Blogs (37%) and social bookmarking sites (30%).

Figure 24

Across the board, GenXers are far more interested in learning about social media than Boomers (Figure 25).


Figure 25

Between big and small companies (Figure 26), big companies are almost exclusively focused on a few media – Twitter, Blogs, and LInkedIn – while small companies are spread across the spectrum evaluating every advantage.

Figure 26


B2B companies are the most eager to learn more (Figure 27) about social media. They responded with a greater percentage than B2C companies and showed interest across more social media channels.

Figure 27



DEMOGRAPHICS

The average survey participant is 47 years old (Figure 28).

Figure 28

The majority of respondents were female (Figure 29).

Figure 29

An overwhelming 72% of respondents hold at least a four-year college degree (Figure 30).


Figure 30

Work experience (Figure 31) was fairly evenly distributed among the respondents.

Figure 31

Nearly three-quarters of respondents were from companies with less than 50 employees (Figure 32).


Figure 32

Forty-percent of respondents manage a quarterly marketing budget of less than $10,000 (Figure 33). Nearly a quarter (24%) of respondents declined to state their quarterly budget while the remaining respondents were evenly distributed in budget size.

Figure 33



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryan Malone is the founder and president of Elder Care Marketer, a leading inbound marketing company focused on the senior care market. Elder Care Marketer helps companies increase leads, customers and influence through marketing services that are 100% focused on ROI. Elder Care Marketer was created to help connect useful products and services with the businesses and families who need them.

After his mother had a stroke in 2005, Ryan quickly learned that many families were unprepared for elder care and wrote the groundbreaking By Families, For Families Guide to Assisted Living. The book is distributed by large assisted living providers and is utilized as curriculum in high school civics classes. As a result of his research, Ryan released the Assisted Living Family Attitudes and Preparedness Report, a first-of-its-kind look at the concerns, desires and fears families have regarding elder care and assisted living. His blog, Inside Elder Care, provides families an insider’s view of senior care to help them create a foundation for a new of happy memories.

Prior to his focus on senior care, Ryan was a 15-year marketing veteran with experience in both large public companies and early-stage startups. As vice president of marketing at Apani, Malone was responsible for the marketing strategy that enabled partnerships with healthcare companies such as Cigna and the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Prior to Apani, Ryan led the marketing efforts at Zetera, obtaining over 220 media placements with publications including Business Week, Forbes, the New York Times and ABC News. His work with industry analysts garnered several industry awards and led to Zetera being called “the most important invention since this disk drive.” Prior to Zetera, Ryan led product marketing and product management for a division of Seagate (NYSE: STX), building a $240M product portfolio. Prior to Seagate, Ryan was a senior consultant at Deloitte & Touche.

Ryan sits on the advisory board for the Consumer Consortium on Assisted Living (CCAL) and on the board of directors of Youth Employment Service (YES), a non-profit organization that provides job and financial skills to underprivileged youth.

Ryan holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Maryland (GO TERPS!) and an M.B.A. from the University California Irvine Paul Merage School of Business. He resides in Southern California with his wife and daughter.

Follow Ryan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RyanMalone

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmalone

Email: [email protected]

http://www.eldercaremarketer.com

http://www.eldercaremarketer.com

http://www.insideeldercare.com/guide-to-assisted-living.com



http://www.insideeldercare.com/family-survey/


http://www.insideeldercare.com

http://www.ccal.org


http://www.yesworks.org

mailto:[email protected]