Free or near-free
1. Claim and fully optimise your Google Business Profile
Still the highest-leverage free thing you can do. Primary category correct, every field filled, 50+ photos, weekly posts. Most UK care home profiles are 40% complete and have the wrong primary category. Fixing this alone routinely moves a home into the local map pack within 6-8 weeks.
2. Build a structured Google review request process
Ask after every admission, every six-monthly family review, every milestone. Send the link by text the same day. Aim for two new reviews a month. Reply to every one. This is the single biggest trust signal a family weighs when shortlisting.
3. Keep NHS Capacity Tracker live every weekday
Five minutes a morning. Hospital discharge coordinators filter by live bed count, and a home showing zero beds for two weeks drops out of their shortlist even when beds open up.
4. Publish a fee range on your website
Hiding fees behind a "call for a brochure" form costs you self-funders. The families with the budget to pay £1,500-£2,200 a week shortlist online before any phone call. A clear "from £X / week" figure on every service page lifts enquiry quality dramatically.
5. Write one long-form article a month answering a real family question
"How much does dementia care cost in [region]", "What to ask on a care home visit", "How NHS Continuing Healthcare works". Each is a search with hundreds to thousands of monthly UK searches. Answer them properly and Google sends you the family asking. Twelve articles a year compounds into a permanent enquiry engine.
6. Build a referrer relationship calendar
Hospital discharge teams, district nurses, GP surgery managers, dementia advisors, local Age UK. Pick five names. One coffee a month with one of them, rotating. A relationship-led referral converts at 40-60% versus 5-10% for a cold web enquiry.
7. Pitch one local press story per quarter
100th birthdays, war veterans' anniversaries, charity fundraisers, Outstanding CQC ratings. Human stories with photos and consent. One feature a quarter builds local authority and a permanent backlink from a trusted news site, which helps SEO.
Low-cost (under £500 a month)
8. Run a professional photography day twice a year
Real rooms, real residents (with consent), real food, real staff. Stock photography is obvious and actively hurts trust. A single half-day shoot every six months keeps your website, Google Business Profile and carehome.co.uk listing visibly current.
9. Run one open day per quarter as a campaign, not an event
Three to four weeks of promotion before. Capture every visitor's contact with consent. Follow up within 48 hours. Measure tour bookings and admissions, not headcount.
10. Sponsor one genuinely local thing
A village fete, a charity 5k, the local dementia café. Visibility matters less than relationships: the people who run these events are often the same people who advise families.
11. Send a monthly family newsletter
Photos, activity highlights, menu changes, recruitment news. The families of current residents are your strongest referral source if you keep them engaged. A simple Mailchimp template, four updates a month, takes an hour to produce.
12. Build a "near me" page for every nearby town you serve
If your home in Bath also takes residents from Bradford-on-Avon, Keynsham and Saltford, write a short page targeting each. Real content about transport, family visiting access and local GP coverage, not just keyword-stuffed boilerplate. Each page can rank for its own town's searches.
Mid-budget (£500-£2,000 a month)
13. Hire a part-time specialist marketing coordinator or agency
Most care home managers do not have the bandwidth to run this consistently alongside care delivery. A 10-15 hour-a-month specialist (in-house or agency) who owns the Google Business Profile, content calendar and review programme pays for itself many times over against the cost of an empty bed.
14. Run targeted Google Ads for urgent vacancy filling
Specific town and service ("dementia care home Bath", "respite care Bristol"). Cap monthly spend, measure cost per admission, turn off as soon as occupancy is back above target. Useful as a tactical lever, not a foundation.
15. Invest in a fast, mobile-first website
Most family searches happen on a phone. If your site takes 5+ seconds to load on 4G, you lose enquiries before they reach you. A clean, fast WordPress or modern stack site with one strong page per service is enough; you do not need a £40k bespoke build.
Higher-investment
16. Commission a short professional video tour
Three to four minutes. The home manager walking through, a real resident speaking (with consent), one family member, one team member. Used on the website, Google Business Profile and YouTube, this is the single highest-converting asset on a care home website for self-funder enquiries.
17. Build a referral partnership programme with local solicitors and financial advisors
The advisors handling Lasting Powers of Attorney, deputyship orders, equity release and Inheritance Tax planning are often the first professional adults adult children speak to when a parent needs care. A formal, compliant referral relationship with three or four of these in your catchment compounds quietly over years.
How to think about the list
You cannot do all 17 at once and you should not try. Pick three from the free section to ship in the next 30 days, add a mid-budget item once those are running consistently, and only move to the higher-investment ideas once your foundations are solid. Marketing that compounds beats marketing that sprints.