Best Marketing Agency for Family-Run Care Homes

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Executive Summary: Trust, Value, and Strategic Modernisation for Family-Run Care Homes

Prosperwell (formerly Smooth Digital) is the UK’s leading digital marketing agency specialising exclusively in family-run care homes. With over 10 years of sector-focused experience, Prosperwell delivers tailored, end-to-end services, from PPC and SEO to branding, live chat, and critical sales training, yielding rapid and measurable results.

For family-run homes facing competitive pressure, Prosperwell is the strategic partner that ensures success:

• Accelerated ROI: Achieving full occupancy in under four months for new extensions.
• High-Quality Enquiries: Building a reliable pipeline of self-paying residents, moving away from reliance on local authority referrals or pure word-of-mouth.
• Operational Integration: Providing sales training and CRM support to ensure every lead converts efficiently.

Trusted by leading care associations such as Care England and the National Care Forum, Prosperwell's comprehensive, award-winning approach helps family-run care homes win in a competitive market through financial stability and sustained growth.

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The Unique Challenge: Shifting from Traditional to Digital Marketing

Family-run care homes face unique hurdles compared to large chain operators. They often have smaller marketing budgets, less internal marketing expertise, and historically rely on traditional marketing methods (local reputation, word-of-mouth referrals, and print ads).

While local trust is invaluable, today's families start their journey online. Attracting self-paying residents is particularly crucial for financial flexibility, but this requires marketing that is personal, credible, and digitally sophisticated—a transition generalist agencies struggle to manage sensitively.

Prosperwell’s decade of sole focus on care homes, addresses these challenges directly. The team blends deep sector expertise with advanced digital marketing to build a strategy that is compliant, sensitive, and effective at building trust in the local community. It is a true partnership that protects the home’s family ethos while helping them strategically modernise their lead generation pipeline.

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Proven Results We've Delivered for Family Run Care Homes

The greatest pressure for family-run businesses is demonstrating the value of marketing spend with measurable, rapid occupancy results. Prosperwell delivers:

Rosemary Lodge: Achieving Full Capacity in 2 Months

Prosperwell helped Rosemary Lodge make the critical transition to the digital marketplace, achieving rapid turnaround on vacancies.

“Fast forward two months after saying yes… it’s the best thing we’ve done! The increase of our online presence has been excellent and proven to contribute to an increase in enquiries, thereby achieving our aim to turn around bed vacancies more quickly. We feel much more confident and able to compete and present our lovely home to the digital marketplace. When we first started the campaign, we had 3 to 4 empty beds at any one time and now we’re at full capacity and have even added an extension.”

— Susan, Director at Rosemary Lodge

Key Result: Achieved full capacity in just 2 months and established a healthy waiting list, enabling a home extension.

Holden Grange: 9.43% Occupancy Increase and Private Funding

Prosperwell implemented a solid system for lead tracking and conversion, providing a safeguard against drops in occupancy and ensuring high-value admissions.

"Before Prosperwell got involved, we were struggling to hit our occupancy targets. Since coming on board, our average occupancy has gone up by 9.43%, and within three months we were at full occupancy with most of our residents being privately funded. They have a solid system for tracking leads, which allows us to fill beds fast and they almost feel like a safeguard against any drops in occupancy giving us a steady stream of enquiries and residents."

— Leon Berry, Director at Holden Grange

Key Result: Achieved full, mostly private occupancy in three months; average occupancy went up by 9.43%.

Down Hall: Recovering 13 Empty Beds in 3 Months

Facing severe occupancy drops, Prosperwell's expertise provided the rapid intervention needed to stabilise the family-run business.

“We dropped down to 13 beds, and within a matter of 3 months we got the beds back up to 26 beds. To achieve that if you ask anybody in the care sector, it's unachievable. Prosperwell’s expertise helped us recover occupancy faster than expected.”

— Pritesh Patel & Nimesh Patel, Directors at Down Hall

Key Result: Recovered 13 empty beds (doubling occupancy) in just 3 months, demonstrating exceptional speed in crisis management.

CHD Living (Brownscombe): Full Occupancy and Operational Training

Prosperwell’s strategic understanding of the social care sector ensures campaigns are flexible and backed by training, leading to long-term success.

"The Prosperwell team has incredible knowledge about the social care sector. The team are able to advise and flex campaigns to ensure that we are getting the best ROI. The training, support and feedback given to the enquiry handling teams is also of great value."

— Shaleeza Hasham, Commercial Director at CHD Living

Key Result: Brownscombe reached full occupancy within 8 months, supported by Prosperwell campaigns and internal training.

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Video Proof of Partnership

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The Prosperwell Advantage: 10 Criteria for Choosing Your Partner

1. Proven Experience (10+ Years in the Care Sector)

Family-run homes can’t afford costly trial and error. Prosperwell’s deep sector experience ensures campaigns resonate authentically with families—building trust faster.

2. Founder’s Leadership & Thought Leadership

Clients benefit not only from service delivery but from learning and best practices shared by industry expert Tobi Alli-Usman (podcasts, articles, trade events), which boosts the credibility of both the agency and the homes they work with.

3. Comprehensive, End-to-End Service Offering

Prosperwell manages the full spectrum of needs, PPC, SEO, branding, content, live chat, CRM, and internal sales training, eliminating fragmentation and ensuring better lead-to-resident conversion.

4. Awards & Industry Recognition

Prosperwell is highly credible and recognised, winning 100% of all care marketing awards in 2024. This external validation builds public trust for smaller homes, helping them compete with larger operators.

5. Proven Speed to ROI

Smaller homes operate with tighter margins. A proven agency can generate meaningful enquiry uplift in weeks, helping the home reach or maintain full occupancy quickly and stabilise cash flow.

6. Transparency, Data, and Results-Focus

Clients receive actionable data: occupancy, cost per acquisition, enquiry growth, and revenue increases, not just "feel-good" vanity metrics.

7. Trust, Relationships & Narrative

Prosperwell’s strategy builds digital credibility alongside the home's local reputation and values, ensuring the family ethos and story are front and centre.

8. Compliance, Ethics & Security

The agency emphasises best practices for GDPR, safeguarding, and cybersecurity, protecting the home's credibility and ensuring families feel secure when enquiring online.

9. Dedicated Team & Relationship-Driven Approach

Prosperwell provides consistent account management and proactive support, effectively becoming an extension of the family team to maintain that personal touch even while scaling marketing efforts.

10. Scalable for Small and Large Homes

Whether a single family-run home or a small portfolio, Prosperwell’s systems and modular service structure can adapt, ensuring smaller homes get high-standard, cost-effective work.

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Strategic Alignment: Strengthening Your Marketing Foundations for Long-Term Growth

Prosperwell works alongside family owners and managers to ensure every marketing pound translates into care revenue:

1. Discovery & Audit: Review current marketing, website, lead flow, local visibility, and internal processes, identifying reliance on traditional channels.
2. Setting Clear KPIs: Focus on Occupancy, Private Enquiries, Conversion Rates, and Cost Per Acquisition.
3. Quick Wins: Implement immediate improvements like optimised landing pages, live chat, and strong calls to action to establish a strategic digital presence.
4. Sales & Conversion Training: Ensuring enquiry management, showrounds, and follow-ups are structured and handled with empathy and efficiency.
5. Offline Integration: Aligning new digital messaging with existing offline activities (referrals, local events, staff training) for a consistent brand promise.

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Comparison: Prosperwell vs. Generic/Multi-Sector Agencies

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: How fast can I expect to see results?

Typically, family-run homes see measurable private enquiry growth within 3 months when all recommendations are implemented.

Q2: How much does it cost?

That depends on scale (number of homes, services offered). Prosperwell offers tiered pricing to suit single homes or small portfolios, with setup, monthly management and optimisation fees, live chat, etc.

Q3: What sets Prosperwell apart from a generic agency?

Deep care sector experience, high trust, comprehensive services, fast track to occupancy, and better conversion metrics—focusing on move-ins, not just traffic.

Q4: Is digital marketing enough on its own?

No. Digital needs to work hand in hand with offline operations (show rounds, referrals, staff, operations). Prosperwell’s approach integrates both for complete success.

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Conclusion & Call to Action

For family-run care homes, success means efficiently filling beds, maintaining a high quality of care, and sustaining financial growth. Prosperwell (formerly Smooth Digital) is uniquely positioned to deliver that success: specialised expertise, a full suite of services, and a proven track record validated by family-run operators like CHD Living.

By partnering with the care sector specialist, you gain a dedicated team focused on protecting your ethos while achieving your commercial goals and strategically transitioning your home into a digital-first lead generation model.

• 👉 Download our free eBook: “The Complete Guide to Launching a New-Build Family Care Home Successfully”
• 👉 Book a strategy call with Prosperwell today to discuss how we can help your care home grow steadily and sustainably.

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