At The Creative Collective, we’ve been working extensively in the Not for Profit space for some time now, and recently we’ve seen a big increase in the level of interest for people wanting assistance in marketing
their Supported Independent Living (SILs) accommodation to fill current vacancies.
There are many reasons why vacancies arise at SILs properties. Clients who have been at a property long term can pass away. A client’s medical requirements can change, making the property no longer suitable. Family members who live nearby may relocate and want to move their loved ones closer to them.
Whatever your reason for having current SILs vacancies (or planning ahead for when you do!) we are here to help you find clients to fill your supported independent living (or specialist accommodation) vacancies as fast as possible, through our range of innovative and efficient marketing approaches, tailored to clients with SILs and specialist accommodation properties!
The marketing assets you’ll need in place and in shape to effectively market SILs and specialist disability accommodation
From our perspective, there are a number of things you will need to have in place BEFORE we can commence an effective marketing campaign. Firstly, we need to evaluate how ‘market ready’ you are, and if you’re not quite there yet, establish the items you don’t have, which you may need, or get existing assets ship shape to maximise your marketing dollars. Things we will assess and discuss with you include:
- BRAND – Do you have a modern, relevant brand which you can use in the campaign? Do you have various versions of the logo (ideally including working files such as .eps or .ai) and a brand style guide?
No? Start with a brand redevelopment and/or brand style guide.
Yes? See our packages below…
- WEBSITE – Do you have a modern, mobile friendly website with a dedicated page per property you wish to market, including all available features and amenities of the property with a vacancy?
Do you have an online enquiry form which effectively captures details from interested consumers, their carers or referrers, which deposits into your company CRM ready to follow up?
No? Start with a website or website support package.
- SOCIAL CHANNELS – Do you have established social media channels i.e. Facebook, Linkedin or Instagram and do you post on them regularly with a boost budget?
No? Start with a channel set up/channel revamp.
Yes? See our packages below… - FACEBOOK ADS – Do you have an established Facebook Business Manager account with a credit card attached that you can access and invite others to?
No? We will need to establish this for you.
Yes? See our packages below… - LINKEDIN ADS – Do you have an established Linkedin Ads account with a credit card attached that you can access and invite others to?
No? We will need to establish this for you.
Yes? See our packages below… - GOOGLE ADS – Do you have an established Google Ads account with a credit card attached that you can access and invite others to?
No? We will need to establish this for you.
Yes? See our packages below… - GOOGLE ANALYTICS – Do you have an established Google Analytics account that you can access and invite others to?
No? We will need to establish this for you.
Yes? See our packages below… - IMAGES OR VIDEOS – Do you have professional images of the property, ideally with people in it to showcase what it is you have on offer?
No? We will need to establish these for you.
Yes? See our packages below…
How to approach the marketing of a SIL property
Whilst we acknowledge there are distinct differences, we believe there are a lot of commonalities between marketing a SILs property and marketing an AirBnB listing or a property which is for rent or sale. For anyone to evaluate if the property is suitable for them or their loved one or client (and move them to enquire) as part of any campaign you are going to have to:
- Build awareness that you have SILs vacancies for the relevant target market be that people in a set location, or with a set medical condition i.e. mental illness, physical disabilities or otherwise
- Send web traffic to a dedicated SILs page on your website or better yet individual SILs pages per property (we don’t recommend an email or a flyer – that is so 1990s!)
- Make the landing page or listing compelling, to generate enquiries for your SILs vacancies
- Have some well crafted copy + potentially a digital flyer per listing with further information on your general SILs offering + the property in question. This can be used to send out to potential referrers and enquirers through an activity we call outreach.
The ideal scenario
Whilst the above may sound like a lot of hard work, we are so proficient in the marketing of SILs, we can take on the labour and resource of these activities with ease! In our experience, organisations with SILs have quite a few properties and therefore at times can have a number of SILs vacancies which can come at a great loss for the company from a commercial standpoint.
Don’t have any current vacancies? Even so, we would recommend that you establish a plan so that when vacancies arise, you can quickly and easily turn a campaign on, so your down time with a vacancy (and the associated loss of income) is minimised.
What do we mean by this? Well over time, we could have a series of ad sets established for you on platforms such as Google Ads, Linkedin Ads or Facebook Ads, so that the moment you let us know you have a vacancy at XYZ property in XYZ location, we can switch the ads on, therefore generating immediate awareness, website traffic and hopefully, enquiries for your vacancy. Sound good? Read on…
Your available budget to market your SIL accommodation also comes into it…
A question we commonly field is ‘how much should I spend on the marketing of our SILs property?’ Our question right back would be ‘how much is it costing you for it to be vacant?’ Noting that it can be as much as $200k per person, per SILs package per annum, this breaks down to $16,666 per month that you have a vacancy. That’s a lot of lost income! We would suggest that you need to spend as a total roughie, 5-10% of the annual income to market any given vacancy i.e. $10k – $15k, but of course other factors come into it such as how compelling your SILs offering is, how good your website converts, how well your team converts via phone or email when they receive enquiries and so on. If you for instance have had a vacancy (or several) for a while, you may want to get on to marketing these with a reasonably healthy budget asap to avoid any further loss.
To help you out, we’ve created a few dedicated SILs marketing packages below which are flexible in nature and completely customisable too, but which will allow you to see the sorts of activities we may look to set up to get you the SILs enquiries you need.
SILS Starter Package
Suitable for organisations with a very limited budget, very limited vacancies at just 1 location, and all necessary marketing assets already in place. See list of optional add ons if you do not have these assets.
Inclusions:
- 3 month social media content campaign – posting on x1 network of your choice 2-3 times per week (stories or posts) with up to $300 boost budget per month (this is deducted from your company credit card as per the networks billing methods)
- 3 month social media ads campaign on x1 network of your choice with up to $1000 ad spend per month targeting up to x3 locations or audiences
- X1 monthly email broadcast to your database
= $5000/month ($1300 ad spend, $3700 marketing fees)
SILs Standard Marketing Package
Suitable for organisations with somewhat of a budget, vacancies at just 1-4 locations, and all necessary marketing assets already in place. See list of optional add ons if you do not have these assets.
- Monthly social media content campaign – posting on your channels 2-3 times per week (stories or posts) with up to $400 boost budget per month
- Monthly social media ads campaigns on up to x2 platforms with up to $2000 ad spend per month targeting x4 locations or audiences
- Monthly Google ads campaign with up to $1000 ad spend per month targeting x4 locations or audiences
- X2 monthly email broadcast to your database
= $7500 a month ($3400 ad spend, $4100 marketing fees)
SILs Solid Marketing Package
Suitable for organisations with somewhat of a budget, vacancies at up to x6 locations, and all necessary marketing assets already in place. See list of optional add ons if you do not have these assets.
- Monthly social media content campaign – posting on your channels 2-3 times per week (stories or posts) with up to $500 boost budget per month
- Monthly social media ads campaigns on up to x3 platforms with up to $3000 ad spend per month targeting up to x6 locations or audiences
- Monthly Google ads campaign with up to $2000 ad spend per month targeting x4 locations or audiences
- X2 monthly email broadcast to your database
- Conduct outreach via a nominated Linkedin Profile + via your Facebook page – up to 4 hours/month
$10,000 a month
SILs Serious Marketing Package
- Monthly social media content campaign – posting on your channels 2-3 times per week (stories or posts) with up to $1000 boost budget per month
- Monthly social media ads campaigns on up to x4 platforms with up to $4000 ad spend per month targeting x4 locations or audiences
- Monthly Google ads campaign with up to $3000 ad spend per month targeting x4 locations or audiences
- X2 monthly email broadcast to your database
- Conduct outreach via a nominated Linkedin Profile + via your Facebook page – up to 8 hours/month
$15,000 a month ($8000 ad spend, $7000 marketing fees)
OPTIONAL EXTRAS
- Half day photo shoot at x1 location – from $1900+GST. Final price subject to final brief.
- Full day photo/video shoot at x3 close proximity locations – from $2500+GST. Final price subject to final brief.
- Website updates – see our Support packages – from $150+GST/hour. Number of hours subject to final brief.
- Graphic design of digital flyers etc – from $150+GST/hour. Number of hours subject to final brief.
- Social media channel revamps – from $750+GST
- Establish Facebook Business Manager, ad account, billing method, audiences etc = $750+GST
- Establish Linkedin Ads Account, audiences, billing method etc. = $750+GST