Capture the
Unreachable Lead.
A coastal Maine community. A 61% occupancy crisis. A metro audience that didn't know they needed us yet. This is how we changed all three.
A Beautiful Community.
Nobody Knew Existed.
St. Andrews Village is a full-service senior living community offering independent living, assisted living, memory care, and skilled rehabilitation nestled along the Maine coast — stunning views, exceptional care ratios, a tight-knit staff team that had been together for years. The kind of community — independent cottages, assisted living, memory care, skilled rehab all on one 60-acre campus — that, once families visited, they never considered anywhere else.
The problem: nobody was visiting. Occupancy had fallen to 61% — a number that threatened the community's financial stability and put long-term staffing at risk. Their marketing was a listing on a senior care directory and an occasional ad in a local newspaper serving a town of 4,200 people.
The families who needed St. Andrews most — adult children managing the care of aging parents from Boston, Portland ME, and Providence — had no idea the community existed. That was the problem we were hired to solve.
ENCRYPTED_DATA_FEED_ACTIVE
At 61% occupancy across all care levels, St. Andrews was operating at a $420,000 annual revenue deficit against full-capacity projections. Every unfilled unit represented $4,200/month in unrealized revenue. The community had an 18-month runway before budget cuts would force staff reductions.
Building the
Destination Funnel.
The Destination Funnel is our proprietary framework for senior living communities in remote or tertiary markets. Instead of competing for Lincoln County's thin local audience, we inverted the model — targeting high-intent decision-makers in Boston, Portland ME, and Providence.
The insight: 68% of assisted living decisions are made by adult children, not the residents themselves. Those adult children often live 2–4 hours away in Boston or Portland — with money, urgency, and zero awareness of what Boothbay Harbor offers.
AUDIENCE MAPPING
Custom audience profiles targeting adults aged 45–65 in Boston, Portland ME, and Providence metro areas who had recently searched for senior care, estate planning, or caregiving resources.
COASTAL IDENTITY CAMPAIGN
Repositioned St. Andrews not as a "facility" but as a destination — leveraging the coastal Maine setting, 60-acre campus, and proximity to Boothbay Harbor's charm as emotional selling points against generic urban care facilities.
MULTI-CHANNEL DEPLOYMENT
Facebook and Instagram video ads. Google Search campaigns. Retargeting sequences nurturing leads from awareness to scheduled tour over a 14-day window.
VIRTUAL TOUR CONVERSION
A dedicated landing page with virtual tour, staff videos, and a frictionless contact form. Removing the "I need to visit first" barrier was the single biggest conversion unlock.
90 Days.
Every Move Documented.
Audit, Research & Asset Build
Full digital audit — website, listings, review profiles, competitor analysis across southern and mid-coast Maine. Four staff interviews. Two resident family interviews. Landing page built. Community video shot. All ad accounts and pixel tracking configured before spending a single dollar.
Campaign Ignition & A/B Testing
6 ad creative variants launched across Facebook and Instagram targeting Boston and Portland ME metro audiences. Google Search campaigns live across 34 high-intent keyword clusters. Rapid A/B testing — underperformers paused within 72 hours, budget reallocated to winners.
Optimization & Lead Nurture Activation
Two winning creative concepts identified. One hero keyword cluster driving 74% of qualified leads. Spend scaled 40% on proven winners. 14-day email nurture sequence activated — converting 22% of cold leads into tour bookings through storytelling and urgency triggers.
Conversion Push & Occupancy Milestone
Tour-to-move-in process streamlined with St. Andrews' admissions team — average decision time cut from 19 days to 11. Day 87: occupancy crossed 90% for the first time in 14 months. Closed at 94% — 31 net new move-ins against a goal of 22.
The Numbers
Don't Lie.
Every metric tracked, every dollar accounted for. Here's what 90 days of surgical execution delivered.
We'd been struggling for over a year. Every local avenue felt exhausted, and we were starting to have hard conversations about what cuts would look like. Within 60 days of working with this team, our inquiry pipeline was fuller than it had been in three years. They didn't just bring us leads — they brought us the right families, people who genuinely connected with what we were offering. I can't overstate what this campaign did for our team's morale.
What This Case
Taught Us.
Geography is not destiny
Remote communities assume their market is their zip code. The Destination Funnel proves that with the right audience targeting, a coastal Maine community can compete for Portland families as effectively as a community down the street.
The decision-maker lives in a city
Marketing to the senior directly is often the wrong move. Adult children in metro areas are actively searching, emotionally invested, and have the financial means to act. Target them first.
Virtual access breaks distance barriers
A family in Boston will not drive 3.5 hours for a tour without emotional investment first. A well-produced virtual tour showcasing the 60-acre campus, cottages, and care facilities removes the friction of distance and converts from a Boston living room.
Speed of follow-up is everything
Leads contacted within 5 minutes of form submission converted at 3.8x the rate of leads contacted after 1 hour. We built an instant-response protocol that became a permanent operational change.
See What This
Could Mean for You.
Adjust the inputs to model what a Destination Funnel campaign could deliver for your community. Based on real data from the St. Andrews engagement.
Every number is derived from actual campaign performance — not projections built to impress.
Your community
could be next.
We work with a small number of senior living communities at a time. If your occupancy has room to grow, let's find out exactly what's holding you back — for free.
START YOUR FREE AUDITNo commitment. No sales pressure. Just data.