How does a care home group increase occupancy from 78% to 89% across three priority homes – and potentially add £1.2 million in forecast annual revenue?

That was the real-life case study revealed in our latest Springup PR webinar.

The provider operates eight care homes across England, but three homes were identified as priorities because of lower occupancy and enquiry levels.

Ten months later, occupancy across those three homes had increased from 78% to 89%, representing a potential £1.2 million increase in forecast annual revenue.

(Watch this exclusive “How 1 care home group went from 78% to 89% occupancy in priority homes in 10 months – and got £1.2m more revenue.” video ⬇️)

So, what can other care home providers learn from this?

1. More Enquiries Can Mean Higher Occupancy

The underlying principle is – if you want to increase occupancy, in most cases you need to increase the number of enquiries.

For this provider, enquiry generation became a genuine priority – with buy-in from owners and directors.

Over the 10-month period, enquiries increased by 60%, with 35% of all enquiries coming through the digital marketing programme.

Importantly, existing enquiry sources remained stable.

Digital marketing was therefore adding enquiries rather than simply replacing enquiries from elsewhere.

2. Google Ads Can Be an Enquiry-Generating Engine

Google Ads played a key role in the strategy.

Over 10 months, the three homes generated:

  • 27,000+ Google Ad impressions
  • 3,400 website visits
  • 36 genuine care enquiries
  • £430 average advertising spend per enquiry
  • A minimum of four confirmed admissions

With an average resident calculated as being worth approximately £101,000 in lifetime fees, the webinar calculated a minimum 26:1 return on ad spend.

The purpose of the advertising was also important – reaching families actively searching online who may otherwise never have discovered the homes.

3. Turn Your Mobile Website Into an Enquiry Generator

Getting people onto your website is only half the battle.

Around 75% of website visits from the Google Ads programme were on mobile phones.

One of the biggest opportunities highlighted was brochure downloads. Up to 50% of Google Ads enquiries can come through brochure requests, while 80% of brochure downloads are made on mobile devices.

Why?

Downloading a brochure is an easy, low-commitment action for a family researching care.

Your mobile website should therefore make actions such as “Download Our Brochure” highly visible and incredibly easy.

4. Use Real-Person Live Chat

Another takeaway was the importance of real-person live chat – not AI or bots.

Across the three priority homes, live chat generated 46 enquiries over 10 months.

Families researching care often have immediate questions. Giving them somebody to speak to there and then can turn anonymous website visitors into genuine enquiries.

5. Track EVERYTHING!

If you don’t track your marketing, how do you know what’s actually working?

Care homes should be tracking enquiries generated through:

  • Phone calls
  • Brochure downloads
  • Contact forms
  • Book-a-visit forms
  • Live chat
  • Email

The same applies to offline campaigns.

Dedicated phone numbers and QR codes can help track leaflet campaigns and other activity.

The biggest takeaway?

Don’t rely on hope to increase occupancy. Have a strategy.

More enquiries, effective follow-up, strong websites, accurate tracking and full buy-in from owners, directors and managers can give care homes a much stronger foundation for increasing occupancy.

And the care group featured in this webinar achieved these results without employing an in-house marketing person.

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