[Ultimate List] Our Favorite Marketing Tools for Senior Living Teams in 2024
[Ultimate List] Our Favorite Marketing Tools for Senior Living in 2024
Is the Marketing Team Armed With the Tools They Need to Succeed?
From creating content to developing digital strategies, small senior living marketing teams are often wearing many hats and juggling several systems to keep their brands visible and support sales needs.
Thus, as experienced digital marketers and content creators in senior living we understand the struggles that operators and in-house marketing teams are facing every day.
This article is meant for those seeking reliable, effective and efficient marketing tools to transform their marketing strategy and step up their internal efforts in 2024.
Below is a list of our favorite marketing tools that have been road-tested and will cater to every member of your in-house marketing team.
What Marketing Tools Does Your Team Need?
But first, to thrive in the ever-competitive senior living landscape, it’s vital for small marketing teams to understand what systems they truly need.
So here is a list of marketing must-haves that should be part of your arsenal:
- Holistic Marketing Strategy: A well-rounded digital marketing strategy with a complimenting content framework is essential to marketing success
- Automation Platform: It should fully integrate with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
- Social Content: The ability to create and schedule out content in batch is needed to stay relevant in the ever-constant world of social media
- Creative Assets: A robust library of creative assets including graphics, photography, fonts and design templates
- Keyword Strategy: A general knowledge of keyword research, SEO optimization, and their importance in SEM and pay-per-click advertising strategy
- Project Management System: A system to track tasks, create structure, and collaborate online is crucial for today’s small marketing teams
[Ultimate List] Our Favorite Marketing Tools for Small Team Success
Leveraging the right stack of tools sets your small marketing team up for success! This list of marketing tools is based on our years of experience working on in-house operator marketing teams, and helping clients execute holistic digital strategies that get results. In this list, you will find insights and opinions about each one of these tools. The goal is to simplify the process for small marketing teams in senior living and beyond.
Tools for The Digital Marketer
Email Automation
Understanding how your CRM and automation platform work in tandem to support sales needs is necessary when developing your digital marketing strategies.
ActiveDEMAND – This marketing automation platform is perfect for small senior living marketing teams looking to scale and automate their content. Its deep integration with several senior living industry CRM systems allows small teams and operators to see a holistic view of their sales and marketing efforts in action.
HubSpot – A popular automation platform, it’s a marketing favorite. It is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. Although it integrates with fewer industry-specific CRM systems, it does support a wider stack of marketing tools. Thus, making it an equally substantial option for marketing automation.
ActiveCampaign – This easy to use software has advanced workflow widgets, a sleek user interface, and the ability to view email campaign steps from a wider lens which is especially helpful for the email marketers on your team.
SEO Management
Google Keyword Planner – A powerful ally for identifying high-performing keywords and understanding the competitive landscape. You can find this tool in your Google Ads account. (Don’t have a Google Ads account? Create one…they’re free!)
SEMrush – The SEO heavyweight that gives you an in-depth look at your website’s performance while also keeping an eye on competitors—a dual advantage that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Ahrefs – Another helpful tool for discovering gaps in your SEO strategy. See top keywords, pages, and site speed metrics – all that impact how well you rank on the search engines.
Website and Search Engine Analytics
Google Analytics – The pinnacle of web analytics. With a robust and incredibly detailed data tool, this is a must for any marketer hungry for web traffic and search engine insights.
Hotjar – This helpful heat map creation tool shows you exactly where users spend more time on your site, which helps to pinpoint your popular web traffic pages and locate areas for improvement.
Survey & Market Research Tools
Surveys are incredibly helpful for measuring satisfaction, conducting market research and managing reputation.
Google Forms – This tool is widely used for survey creation and is popular due to its easy build-out capabilities. Plus, it will compile the answers into a nifty Google spreadsheet for future review and analysis.
Survey Monkey – A great software to use when creating detailed surveys and quizzes, this tool is best for building assessments and gathering information that requires more data than a typical, surface-level survey would.
You can also create and manage surveys in many automation platforms that offer a web form builder.
Tools for The Social Media Marketer
Scheduling and Posting
Later – A simple scheduling tool that excels in unifying a brand voice across multiple channels. It helps to optimize online engagement through data insights and customized posting options.
Cloud Campaign – A newer tool on the market that works wonders for small, agile teams. Designed explicitly to foster effective engagement strategies, this tool comes loaded with features like social listening, content library, scheduling automations, and more.
Graphic Editors and Design
Canva – A favorite for every social media marketer. This is a must-have for your small marketing team. It is the perfect solution for those who need help sprucing up visual content without investing lots of time or employing graphic designers to do the job.
Canva’s new AI Magic Studio tool allows users to create compelling and original content in minutes. Text to image, AI writing, and design animation are just a few of the many exciting features marketers now have at their fingertips.
All small marketing teams should begin to embrace artificial intelligence in their work, and Canva’s Magic Media feature is the perfect place to start!
Tools for The Content Marketer
Content Research and Strategy
BuzzSumo – An advanced tool that provides insights into what types of content perform best within a specific niche or topic. By using a content research tool, you can better identify what resonates with your audiences to craft relevant and impactful content.
Copyscape – Originality is key in any well-curated content strategy. This tool ensures that the material you’re producing is entirely unique, preventing instances of accidental plagiarism that could harm SEO rankings. For small teams developing content, this is especially helpful.
Copywriting
Grammarly – Even experienced writers make grammatical errors or typos on occasion. Use this tool to catch these mistakes before publishing, and quickly refine your copy.
SEOWind – If your team is struggling with blog deployment or can’t commit the time to writing, this tool is the perfect solution. Developing quick and effective long-form content that is completely original, fit to tone, and highly optimized for SEO.
Tools for The Designers and Videographers
Illustration, Page Layout and Editing
Adobe Creative Cloud – There is no substitute for this industry benchmark of creative applications. Adobe Suite is well worth the investment if you’re looking to develop your design team and elevate your brand.
CapCut – An all-in-one video edit tool that clips that easily allows users to add in subtitles, graphics, trending sounds and more. This tool is great for the starter videographer or a team member who has an aptitude for video illustration without the deep knowledge of the Adobe systems. This tool is also a favorite for the social media marketers.
Lumen5 – We know blogs make for great storytelling, but how can marketers quickly recycle their content? This AI tool makes it easy to repurpose your long-form written content and format it into a professional, high-quality video to repurpose on your social channels.
Fonts and Stock Art
Beyond Adobe’s ecosystem, there are other great alternatives to explore when creating captivating content.
Envato Elements – This tool offers a wide selection of design templates, custom fonts, graphics, stock photography, music and more.
Storyblocks – Video templates, unique creative assets and unlimited downloads make it easier for your teams to find distinctive stock imagery that sets your brand apart.
Tools for The Traditional Marketer
Direct mail marketing, which may seem traditional compared to today’s strategies, cannot go overlooked in senior living. Despite the skyrocketing popularity of digital marketing, direct mail still boasts excellent response rates and can effectively reach demographics who aren’t as tapped into the digital world.
USPS EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) – Reach every household in a chosen zip code or neighborhood without needing individual addresses. It is one of the best and most cost-effective tools for direct marketing to a local audience.
MailBox Power – Create personal touch in your direct mail campaigns, and design and send custom cards to your prospects. It’s a perfect creative follow-up solution to an audience that prefers traditional marketing practices.
Tools for Every Marketer
Being a boutique marketing team, we’re often asked “What tools do you use to keep your workflows smooth and productive?”. Here are some fantastic productivity and collaboration tools we use that will keep your team on track.
Asana – With this tool, every deliverable is easily managed. Small teams can benefit from its functionality and ability to integrate with several other productivity tools we recommend.
Slack – Quick communication in a small team is essential. Slack also integrates with numerous other marketing promotional tools which makes it a valuable asset for any cross-functional team.
Google Workspace – A great solution for storing your office essentials such as documents, files, graphics and slide decks. The cloud storage capacity and various savvy extras, like Google Meet, make it a must on this list.
Notion – A collaboration creativity hub that is perfect for idea sharing and tracking ideas that are less process-oriented, and more creative in nature—another must for a small, synergetic marketing team.
Zapier – A digital automation tool that connects your marketing applications and services. This tool allows marketers to easily sync systems and automate repetitive tasks without
relying on coding knowledge or utilizing developers to build the integrations.
In a small but high-functioning marketing team, this tool ensures your systems are working together. These are our 10 favorite uses for Zapier in business automation.
A Quick Recap: The Tools to Simplify Your Marketing Strategy
These valuable tools have helped transform our marketing business and are designed to support your small team in their marketing success. The better your team performs, the brighter your brand shines. You can find a complete list of our favorite tools here.
