"Occupancy has increased from 75% to 90% for our care homes" - Care Home Marketing And PR

Care Home Marketing Abbey Healthcare, which operates 16 care homes across the UK, approached Springup PR with three main objectives for eight of its homes.

1) Increase enquiries through targeted Google PPC and PR strategy, with a focus on self-funding families in catchment areas

3) Build awareness, and positivity in local community of each home through proactive PR (including digital) and regional press coverage,

4) Improve the online reputation of some of its homes.

At the time Abbey Healthcare’s eight homes were at 75% occupancy. and the marketing strategy up to this point had included radio and newspaper ads, listings in online directories such as Autumna and Lottie, and advertising at community events such as carnivals and Womens Institute events and sporting occasions.

Moreover, Abbey Healthcare’s care homes were facing increasing competition from other providers.

Andy Taylor, Financial Director of Abbey Healthcare

As Andy Taylor, finance director of Abbey Healthcare, explained:

“We had no-one doing marketing and we needed to drive this forward with a particular focus on 8 homes that were low on occupancy. At the time we were not doing any digital marketing or press coverage”

After a Diagnostics and the launch of a tailor-made success plan for 8 priority care homes these results were achieved after 10 months:

Digital marketing to get more enquiries
* > 90 enquiries via (21 enquiry phone calls; 61 pricing/admission live chat enquiries; enquiries via contact forms and brochure downloads)
* Minimum of 8 tracked admissions
* Ad spend ROI = 12.5 → 1

Care Home Marketing Positive press coverage/PR

– 18 “PR deliverables” with 100% success rate in media coverage, including building relationships with journalist in the areas.

👉 Overall: Occupancy in 8 homes increased in 10 months by 94 beds to 90% – totalling £4.9m in forecasted additional revenue.

Importantly, the Abbey Healthcare team were also on a concerted drive to improve occupancy particularly via local authority referrals.

Andy Taylor, finance director at Abbey Healthcare, said:

“Occupancy in the 8 target homes increased – as has private occupancy! Moreover, Springup PR was our conscience to make sure things happened. This was critical. They supported us throughout, including helping our home managers in monitoring and chasing up on enquiries.

I’d absolutely recommend Springup PR to other care home providers, especially if you want to kick start your own marketing and make a push on occupancy.

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Adam James2025-07-01T16:38:34+00:00June 30, 2025|

"Eighteen months ago we took what may be considered a strange and dangerous decision, we got rid of our in house sales and marketing experts deciding to outsource all of our marketing and manage bed sales clinically. We chose to work with Adam James and Spring Up PR and have seen our marketing targets that had previously been missed not only met but surpassed by some distance, our occupancy figures have improved to the point where our hardest task now is managing the high number of referrals and waiting lists for new admissions. Huge savings and increased income, while increasing our company profile in the best possible way. All thanks to Spring Up, Adam and his team, I would strongly recommend speaking with them"

"We’ve added £500K to annual turnover since joining with Springup PR – the KPIs have been absolutely fantastic.

“We increased occupancy to 95% and 99% respectively within 2 months. This has continued. We’re now looking to increase further the proportion of private pay residents.

“When we first approached Springup PR we faced a huge loss in turnover. But in relation to what we’ve achieved the monthly costs are negligible.

“Now when we are have a bed we can have 3 people waiting for it. It’s put the power back into our court.

“As a care provider we’re now viable and future proof. We always say we have that we have to look after the numbers to look after our residents.

“Moreover, working with Springup PR has been an absolute pleasure because they share our values.

“We are in the people business, and Springup PR is as well. As a family business it’s so important to us that our partners share our values.

“We’d highly recommend Springup PR to other care home providers.”

Liam Geach, financial director at English Oak Care Homes

By Adam James

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