Retirement and aged care, by the numbers
Lower cost per sale for Lifestyle Communities
44.6%
Branded search growth for Australian Unity Home Health
180%
Pipeline influenced for Lincoln Place
$12M+
Legacy leads re-engaged for Catholic Healthcare
750
Why this sector is different
Retirement and aged care marketing for two very different buyers.
One sector, two journeys
Retirement and aged care marketing serves two buyers. Downsizers choose a village or land lease home over months or years, as a lifestyle purchase with a property price. Families choose care in days or weeks, usually an adult child acting for a parent after a fall or a diagnosis. Each needs its own campaign and its own clock.
The Garden is an integrated marketing agency with teams in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland, working with high-consideration brands, and few categories carry more consideration than this one. Run either journey through disconnected suppliers and you pay the Complexity Tax: the cost of a complex customer journey crossing separate systems and teams. Here it looks like a downsizer nurtured by three different email tools, or a family who enquired on Saturday and heard back on Wednesday.
Separate playbooks for lifestyle and care
One CRM spine underneath both
Choose your side of the sector
Specialist marketing for villages and for care.
The two sides share an audience and a reputation, but almost nothing else. Each has its own playbook and its own proof.
Retirement Living
Retirement villages, land lease, over-50s lifestyle communities and premium vertical retirement. Pre-launch campaigns, profiling that tells sales who's ready, nurture for downsizers who take years to decide and a CRM that holds it all. Lifestyle Communities cut cost per sale 44.6%.
Aged & Home Care
Home care under Support at Home, and residential aged care. Search built for families researching under pressure, and a call centre that answers while the need is live. Australian Unity Home Health grew branded search 180%.
Trusted by Australia's retirement and care brands
Across the continuum
Seniors living marketing for operators who run more than one model.
Villages, land lease and care in one view
Many operators now run villages alongside land lease, home care and residential care, and a resident’s journey can cross all four over a decade. Seniors living marketing works best when one database follows that person, so the downsizer who enquired in 2021 isn’t a stranger when their partner needs care in 2026.
That’s CRM work as much as marketing. We moved ONEtoANOTHER off Village Master and onto HubSpot in 12 weeks, and connected HubSpot to Salesforce for Lincoln Place, now $12M+ in influenced pipeline. For Ingenia we audited Dynamics 365 before building nurture across 12 communities. Few seniors living agencies do this layer, and it’s where most lost sales hide.
Village Master, HubSpot, Salesforce and Dynamics
One record from first enquiry to move-in
Key services
The services behind every retirement and care engagement.
Run together as one Marketing Operating System, not bought one at a time.
Lead Generation
Community and corridor campaigns that find buyers and families in market, then profile their timing and fit.
Phone Sales
Our Melbourne call centre re-engages old databases and books tours while the need is live.
CX Strategy
The journey from enquiry to tour to move-in, mapped around the person deciding.
Media Buying
Search-led media for a category where most journeys start with a Google search.
CRM
Every enquiry, conversation and preference in one system the sales team trusts.
Marketing Automation
Patient nurture for the researchers who are two years from deciding.
How we work
One loop, run to sales and occupancy.
The Loop, The Garden's growth loop, runs weekly against the numbers operators actually manage: enquiries, tours, sales, occupancy and package uptake.
Sense
Search, sales and family signals in one view of where enquiries stall.
Decide
This week's highest-value fix: response time, tour conversion, a slow corridor or a nurture that's stopped working.
Create & activate
Creative, landing pages and nurtures shipped while the insight is fresh.
Learn & improve
Every campaign feeds the next, so cost per sale falls as the system learns.
The proof
Retirement and care results we can put a number on.
Data-driven lead generation delivered 5,891 leads for Lifestyle Communities and cut cost per sale 44.6% across a COVID-disrupted 2020.
How The Garden rebuilt Australian Unity Home Health's search program: branded search up 180%, calls up 60% and form leads up 160% year on year.
HubSpot-Salesforce integration and automated nurtures influenced a $12M+ pipeline for Lincoln Place, with email near-doubling benchmarks.
Pre-launch lead generation for Oak Tree Coffs Harbour: 116 leads in three months, 68.1% profiled, 7.65% conversion across Facebook and Google.
Launching a premium over-55s village from a standing start: 29.24% Google Search conversion and 175k+ first-month brand impressions.
Custom landing pages and rebuilt campaign structures tripled Serenitas' Google conversion rates and cut CPL 55%, with half of all leads profiled.
Retirement and aged care marketing questions, answered.
What's the difference between marketing retirement living and aged care?
Retirement living is a lifestyle purchase, usually made by the downsizer over months or years, so it is marketed like property: community by community, with profiling and long nurture. Aged care is a need-led decision, usually made by family under time pressure, so it is won on search visibility, response speed and trust. Same audience, different clocks.
Do retirement villages and land lease communities need different marketing?
Yes, because the buyer weighs them differently. A land lease buyer typically owns the home and leases the land, while a village buyer weighs entry and exit costs. Both want clear answers on cost before they enquire. Campaigns, landing pages and FAQs should explain each model plainly, so the comparison helps you rather than a competitor.
How do you measure marketing for a retirement or aged care operator?
By the numbers the business runs on. For retirement living that’s cost per sale. For care it’s enquiries, tours, move-ins and occupancy, or new clients in home care. Leads and clicks are inputs. For Lifestyle Communities the measure was a 44.6% reduction in cost per sale between April and October 2020.
Can one agency market our villages and our care services together?
Yes, and there is an advantage when it does. One partner can run both playbooks from one database, so a village resident’s family is known when care becomes the question. That needs CRM depth as much as media. We’ve migrated, connected and automated Village Master, HubSpot, Salesforce and Dynamics 365 environments for operators in this sector.
Where should we start if our enquiries have slowed?
Start with what you already own. Old enquiries are usually the cheapest sales available: Catholic Healthcare’s St Hedwig community re-engaged 750 legacy leads in a month through our call centre, producing 11 appointments and 2 confirmed sales. Then fix response speed and profiling before buying more media.
What our clients say
Don't just take our word for it.
Our clients love our work in retirement & aged care. Here's what working with The Garden feels like.
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Tell us about your communities.
Villages, land lease, home care or residential: tell us the sales or occupancy number you need to move.