Sonida, Beztak, Priority Life Care Pivot To Local Marketing, Shifting Relationships With Referral Partners

Senior living operators are shifting their internal marketing strategies this year in an effort to generate more organic leads – and in some cases, they are changing their relationships with third party aggregators to do so.

Dallas, Texas-based Sonida Senior Living is one such operator. In 2024, CEO Brandon Ribar said the company is going bigger on internal marketing strategies. Website and local referrals make up 56% of the company’s leads today, an increase compared to 2022, when 41% of the company’s leads came from local referrals or its website.

The effort stems from a desire to make information more clear and become an “information provider” for potential residents, Ribar said.

“You just want to be trusted. You want to be a place that people can feel like they’re getting information that is based on experience [and] outcomes,” he told Senior Housing News.

While Sonida is decreasing its reliance on third-party aggregators like a Place for Mom and Caring.com, others, like Farmington Hills, Michigan-based Beztak, are setting out entirely on their own.

The company recently cancelled all of its contracts with A Place for Mom going into the new year as it continues to push occupancy higher with other efforts, according to Jason Kohler, executive vice president of senior living at Beztak.

The company plans to further grow its sales and marketing efforts in 2025, including by recently hiring a dedicated social media manager and adding more video content to marketing materials.

Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Priority Life Care is also increasing its internal sales and marketing efforts in an effort to better cater to the “more tech-savvy” adult children, according to Vice President of Sales and Marketing Jill Record.

“I believe the senior living industry may gradually shift towards internal marketing and referrals, but it’s likely to maintain a balanced approach,” Record told Senior Housing News.

Shifting reliance on referrals

Senior living operators have not been shy over the years of their reluctance for working with large third-party referral partners. As Ribar has noted on past Sonida earnings calls, some referral partners are providing leads to a greater number of communities at a time, impacting conversion ratios. Additionally, he noted the rise of smaller boutique referral partners.

“Given this growth in referral partner companies, we oftentimes receive leads from two or more referral companies, sometimes after we’ve already obtained those same leads on our own,” Ribar told Senior Housing News last November

In light of those issues, operators including Sonida are retooling their relationships with those kinds of companies in order to maximize their leads. How they are undertaking those efforts differs depending on their needs.

Nearly half of Priority Life Care’s referrals, 45%, come from its website. Another 40% come from referral sources.

To generate more organic leads, Priority Life Care has revamped community websites, enhanced search engine optimization (SEO) and collected website user data. As a result, the operator’s user engagement has increased by 43.3%, while the company’s cost-per-click has decreased by 7% in 2024 compared with 2023. Move-ins have increased by 63% in 2024 compared to 2023.

Beztak has seen a very slight increase in the total leads it has sourced: 3,487 leads in 2024 compared to the 3,482 it had in 2023. Of those leads, A Place for Mom consists of 465 with 12 move-ins generated from those efforts. However, Kohler noted those third party referrals also make up 8% of total lost leads.

Beztak’s occupancy currently averages 91.3%, which Kohler attributed to recent efforts to shift marketing focuses toward internal leads and referrals. The company also added a digital marketing manager in the last year with an eye on growing its presence on social media, Kohler said.

Beztak has had greater success with local paid referral partners who “know the communities” and have higher closing rates than online partners, Kohler said.

Although Ribar is distancing Sonida from third-party referral partners, he doesn’t want to stop using them entirely. Third-party aggregators “have to deliver great value for operators” given the long demand runway ahead, he added.

Pivoting to internal marketing

As they change how they work with third-party referral partners, operators are pivoting to more local marketing strategies.

For example, Sonida leans on its local efforts and regional sales staff to inform its marketing decisions, according to Maribeth Neelis, vice president of marketing.

“We’ve really focused on local outreach and making those relationships in the local marketplaces, but even in a digital sense, we can do that,” Neelis told SHN.

Sonida is upping its tech spend in 2025 by as much as 30%. The company is seeking to optimize its organic search rankings by posting locally sourced content and providing more information on its website.

Sonida is also in the process of implementing AI to analyze its calls with prospects in order to glean information that can be used to help train sales teams. Sonida also is tailoring campaigns and sales approaches to what prospects need with a focus on eliminating pain points, Neelis said.

In 2025, Beztak plans to expand its efforts in social media and video advertising and marketing, including through campaigns on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube.

“Overall, we’re bullish,” Kohler said. “We’ve been on this journey for a couple of years now, and we’re seeing the rewards. It’s good timing for us to make moves like this when it comes to paid referral sources.”

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