Active Day
The Client
Active Day, Inc. was founded in 1995 with the goal of creating a nationwide network of community-based health care services to meet the needs of the elderly, disabled adults and their caregivers. Since then, Active Day, Inc. has created the largest network of adult day health services centers, in-home personal care companies and outpatient rehabilitation facilities in the country. This network provides adult day health services to more than 3,000 clients per day.
The Challenge
Active Day sought to increase overall awareness and generate more inquiries though an enhanced digital presence. The company’s website was outdated, didn’t effectively differentiate Active Day from the long-term care masses and lacked the functionality and design to drive action. For years the company has relied strictly on traditional forms of marketing and word-of-mouth to drive traffic to the site. They needed an integrated campaign that could help increase traditional outreach at the local community level and gain greater awareness on a more global basis
The Strategy
Walker Marketing developed an integrated campaign that was designed to leverage the digital channel to build brand in each Active Day market and reach those individuals with a specific need. The components of the initiative included a new corporate website, which included a private resource center for key staff, and targeted SEO and SEA campaigns.
Website
The website was developed to effectively communicate the advantages of adult day care and benefits of Active Day as well as provide specific navigational paths based on audience type and position in the sales cycle. The cover page featured a sectioned content design to help conveniently steer the various site visitors down navigational paths based on their specific needs, whether that was an introduction to adult day care to learning about enrollment or the location of the nearest Active Day center. Subsequent pages were designed to provide key information about Active Day or inquire further. Since the site was launched, direct inquiries from the site have increased 66 percent.
PR Resource Center
Designed by Walker, the PR Resource Center not only empowered center directors and streamlined media outreach, but also gave Active Day a controlled and uniform approach to how it distributed news and sought coverage in multiple media markets. Active Day center directors work closely with Walker Marketing PR practitioners to promote adult day health services through a variety of public relations tactics and tools which are housed on the Resource Center. Customizable letter templates, predesigned presentations and educational fact sheets are among the items that allow Active Day staff to effectively market to a variety of audiences on a local level. The resulting successes are displayed on the site and shared among all center branches.
SEO/SEA
The organic and paid search campaigns were integrated to synergistically build a dominant presence around critical keywords and to reach a captive audience to drive qualified inquiries.
Given the amount of competition for organic page rank, we adopted a deep, focused approach to search engine optimization to ensure we achieved a meaningful increase around our most important keywords.
After optimizing the site around our keyword sets, we developed a comprehensive external audience engagement campaign that included:
- Conversation participation (social media)
- The creation and distribution of original content
- Link building to national and state associations, government agencies and various industry websites
By focusing initially on the phrases that most closely align with Active Day services, we were able to achieve significant page rank traction around the most valuable keywords and the keywords that offered the greatest conversion rates.
Our paid search campaign was designed to support our organic campaign and provide a presence with keywords which had a lower organic ranking. The goal of the campaign was to generate as many qualified clicks for the lowest cost possible. Therefore, our media spend was directly aligned with the perceived value of the visitor, and cost-per-click budgets were weighed based on the value, or conversion rate, by keyword group.
The Results
Increased Internet Awareness
In addition to significantly increasing Active Day’s awareness within key markets, we achieved the following results to date through digital efforts:
- New client acquisition through the website
- Organic increase of the keyword phrase ‘adult day care’ from zero ranking in the first three pages of Google Search to a page one ranking in key metro areas
- A 66 percent increase in Web inquiry forms (soft conversions)
- A 82 percent increase in click volume and 35 percent decrease in the cost-per-click
Increased community awareness
The PR Resource Center provided Active Day centers directors with the tools they needed to spread the word about the company. More than 40 elected officials participated in Adult Day Services Week in September 2009 via on-site visits at Active Day locations and through public proclamations. As a result, Active Day has a higher visibility with a growing client base and greater market share in each of the communities it serves.
Surge in media coverage
Utilization of the PR Resource Center has created an increase in newspaper and internet-based articles, radio and television coverage throughout Active Day’s markets, including front page stories in Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina and Indiana and lengthy interview segments on local television stations in numerous markets.
