Understanding where your enquiries come from and what care seekers actually need is the difference between full occupancy and empty beds. This guide shows you how to use intelligent data capture to identify which marketing efforts bring in residents, spot the families most likely to move in, and respond to care seekers in ways that build genuine trust.

“For care home marketers, the challenge isn’t just attracting enquiries – it’s attracting the right enquiries at the right time,” says Faye Thomassen, head of marketing at Mediahawk. “With unpredictable occupancy rates and emotionally complex buying journeys, traditional marketing often falls short.”

The solution? Using intelligent data to transform how you identify, nurture, and support care seekers. Here’s how to build an enquiry generation strategy that actually moves the needle on occupancy.

Identify your hidden high-converters

The challenge: Not all marketing channels deliver equal results, but many care home marketers still distribute their budget without knowing which ones actually result in move-ins. Calls, website forms, and emails are all treated separately, leaving the true impact of each channel unclear.

The solution: Combine call tracking, Sales Matching, multi-touch marketing attribution, User Journey tracking, and Speech Analytics to see the complete picture of what drives admissions.

How to do it:

• Connect your enquiry data to actual admissions. Use call tracking and Sales Matching to see which initial touchpoints – including phone calls – led to completed move-ins, not just form fills.

• Map multi-touch journeys. Care seekers rarely move in after a single interaction. Multi-touch marketing attribution plus call tracking shows how channels work together. For example, someone might find you via organic search, read a blog post, then call after seeing a Facebook ad.

• Visualise the complete user journey. Track how visitors behave before and after calling. Which pages do they visit? How long do they spend reading about specific care types? Calls add context to every visitor’s journey.

• Listen to what care seekers actually say. Speech Analytics reveals which marketing messages resonate. If families keep referencing your dementia care pages, you’ll know your content is landing.

• Segment by care type. Break down your data by dementia, nursing, or respite care – because different services attract very different audiences. Call tracking ensures enquiries are tagged by care type at the source.

• Calculate your true cost-per-admission. Divide channel spend by confirmed admissions, including calls tracked back to their source, to see your real ROI.

“The care home marketers who succeed are the ones who see beyond the last click,” explains Faye. “A family might read three blog posts, visit your fees page twice, and only call after seeing a retargeting ad. If you only credit that final ad, you’re missing the real story.”

Real-world impact: Many care groups find that channels producing fewer enquiries – like community sponsorships or local publications – actually bring in higher-quality care seekers who are far more likely to move in.

Unify multi-contact enquiries

The challenge: A daughter calls from her mobile. Her brother emails from work. Their financial advisor reaches out through a referral partner. To your system, it looks like three separate enquiries – but it’s one family, one resident, one opportunity.

The solution: Use Mediahawk’s CRM integrations to unify multi-contact family enquiries into one connected view.

How to do it:

• Integrate CareHQ with Mediahawk. Automatically link calls with your CareHQ records – no manual effort required.

• Create ‘family clusters’. When a new contact shares the same resident name or enquiry details, automatically group them so your team can see the full family history in one place.

• Get instant alerts for repeat contact. If another family member gets in touch, your team can pick up the conversation seamlessly.

• Track decision timelines. See how long it takes from first contact to final move-in across the whole family network – and identify where follow-ups stall.

“Most care decisions involve three or more family members,” explains Lawrence Cavill Grant, head of commercial at Mediahawk. “When those conversations happen across different devices and channels, it’s easy for leads to slip through the cracks. Integrating Mediahawk with your CRM gives you a single version of the truth, and ensures every family feels known and supported.”

Why it matters: Families rarely act alone. Recognising connected enquiries helps you personalise your responses, coordinate care discussions, and avoid treating one family as three separate prospects.

Mine your calls for what care seekers really need

The challenge: Your team handles dozens of calls weekly, but valuable insights often get lost in the noise.

The solution: Use Speech Analytics to automatically surface what families are actually worried about – and what makes them choose you.

How to do it:

• Flag urgent phrases like ‘hospital discharge’ or ‘immediate need’.

• Capture care types mentioned most often (for example, dementia, respite, or nursing).

• Identify common objections, such as cost, distance, or visiting hours, and build content that addresses them head-on.

• Analyse top-performing calls to create playbooks your whole team can use.

• Quickly identify call outcomes. Use call tagging and reporting to see which calls result in booked viewings, follow-ups, or high-intent enquiries so your team can prioritise and act immediately.

Did you know? 82% of consumers expect a quick, knowledgeable response when contacting a care provider. Automated insights help you meet that expectation, even at scale.

Target peak enquiry moments with precision

 The challenge: Care needs don’t follow predictable patterns. A health crisis or family emergency can create urgent demand in hours, and families often research online before calling. In fact, nearly 60% of consumers research online when choosing care providers.

The solution: Use Parameter Connect to identify micro-patterns in your enquiry data so you can act before competitors and target families at the moments that matter most.

How to do it:

• Campaign tagging. Tag all campaigns with detailed parameters, such as care type, content format, and audience segment. This shows which campaigns and sources drive enquiries for each service.

• Enquiry pattern comparison. Compare enquiry volumes against local events or hospital discharge peaks. This helps you anticipate when families are most likely to make contact.

• Day-of-week profiling. Build profiles showing when families call most often. For example, Sunday evenings and Monday mornings are frequently hotspots for family coordination.

• Trigger-based campaigns. Automatically adjust ad spend or activate specific content campaigns when searches for certain care types rise. This ensures you capture enquiries at the exact moment families are ready to act.

Turn nervous first calls into warm conversations

The challenge: First-time callers are often anxious or unsure. Many hang up before booking a viewing.

The solution: Use call tracking insights to tailor every interaction from the first hello.

How to do it:

• Implement whisper messages so your team knows where callers came from before picking up.

• Personalise greetings based on page visited, for example, callers from ‘immediate availability’ pages need a faster response.

• Track repeat callers and pick up the conversation naturally.

• Create source-specific hold messages – a small touch that reinforces relevance and reassurance.

When care seekers feel immediately understood, they’re far more likely to book a visit.

Prioritise the enquiries that matter most

The challenge: Not every enquiry deserves equal attention.

The solution: Combine call tracking and Speech Analytics to automatically score and prioritise high-intent enquiries.

“Responding within an hour can be the difference between a new resident and a lost lead,” says Lawrence Cavill Grant. “With automated scoring and alerts, your best people spend their time on the enquiries most likely to convert.”

Build a scoring model that rates calls by urgency, depth, and intent. Automatically deprioritise irrelevant calls (like recruitment or sales) and route high-intent enquiries for same-day follow-up.

Measure what actually matters

Forget vanity metrics. Focus on what impacts occupancy:

• Website visitor-to-call ratio (VCR)

This shows you how many website visitors it takes to generate a phone call. It shows whether your marketing and site are turning interest into real enquiries – a key measure of effectiveness.

• Enquiry-to-viewing rate

This tracks how many enquiries actually book a viewing. It highlights which marketing channels and campaigns are driving serious prospects.

• Viewing-to-move-in rate

This shows the proportion of viewings that result in a resident moving in. It helps you understand which care types and campaigns deliver actual admissions.

• Cost-per-move-in

This calculates how much you spend to secure each new resident. It shows the real ROI of your marketing spend – not just enquiries.

• Time-to-fill

This measures the time from when a bed becomes available to when it’s occupied. Shorter times indicate your enquiry process is effective and responsive.

• Enquiry velocity

This tracks the speed at which new enquiries come in during low-occupancy periods. It ensures your pipeline is healthy and ready to maintain target occupancy.

“When marketing can show direct impact on occupancy, conversations with leadership change,” adds Faye. “It moves from ‘how many leads did we get?’ to ‘how many residents did we secure?’”

Start seeing results immediately

You don’t need to overhaul everything overnight. Start with small steps that deliver immediate value:

• Add Mediahawk tracking to your busiest pages and campaigns. You’ll start capturing data immediately.

• Configure Speech Analytics to detect key phrases and intent signals.

• Use Sales Matching to connect your enquiry data to move-ins.

• Build an enquiry quality scorecard and refine it as you learn what drives admissions.

Because just under 70% of care home placements happen within four weeks of the first enquiry, acting fast and using insight-driven prioritisation gives you a serious competitive edge.

Each step builds on the last, revealing more insight and higher-quality leads as you go.

Summary

Care home marketing is too important – and too expensive – to rely on guesswork. Every enquiry represents a family in transition. Every empty bed represents lost revenue and missed care opportunities.

By using Mediahawk’s data-driven marketing platform, integrated with your existing platforms – including CareHQ – you’ll turn your enquiry generation from a volume game into a precision operation. You’ll spend smarter, understand care seekers better, and keep occupancy stable – even when the market shifts.

See how Mediahawk works for your care home

Book a demo with Mediahawk and see what insights are waiting in your data.