The guide
Start by finding the point where families drop away, then change one thing there. Enquiries can stop at four places: families never see the home, they see it and do not get in touch, they get in touch and do not visit, or they visit and do not choose it. Each has a different likely cause and a different first change, so the fix for one is wasted on another.
Updated October 2026
What to do, in brief:
Find the gap
Follow one family from first sight to move-in and note where the numbers fall away. Four checks, in this order, will usually show it.
Is the home appearing when families search, on the directories you pay for and in your Google Business Profile?
Of the families who look, how many ring, message or fill in a form?
Of those who enquire, how many book a visit and turn up?
Of those who visit, how many choose the home?
You will not have exact figures for every stage, and that is fine. A rough count from the enquiry diary, with your manager's memory filling the gaps, is enough to see which stage is thinnest. The Care England and Log my Care study of 1,000 people arranging care, published in April 2026, found that 97% found arranging care difficult, so how the home responds at stages two and three matters as much as how it appears at stage one.
Side by side
Match what you are seeing to the likeliest cause and change that first. This is a starting point for a conversation with your team, not a diagnosis. If two rows fit, start with the later stage, because a family who has already enquired is the warmest you will meet.
| What you see | Likeliest cause | First change |
|---|---|---|
| Few people see the home at all | Thin visibility: an incomplete Google Business Profile, a listing that says little, or no activity beyond it | Complete and refresh the profile and listing, then look at how families in your area could meet the home before they search |
| Plenty of views, few enquiries | The home does not yet feel like a place worth ringing about | Show real daily life and real people, and make the next step obvious on every page |
| Enquiries, but few visits | Slow or unclear follow-up | Agree who answers, how fast and what the caller is told, and offer the visit before the call ends |
| Visits, but few move-ins | The visit itself, or the follow-up after it | Walk through a visit as an anxious family member would, and follow up within a day |
| Good numbers everywhere, still empty beds | Timing, the room available, or the type of enquiry | Look at who is enquiring, and give it more time before changing anything |
Where to start
Change how enquiries are answered first, because it costs nothing, it is quick and it applies to every source. Then change one other thing, and wait. Changing five things at once makes it impossible to tell what worked.
Mediahawk's spring 2026 call tracking data, published through Care England, found care home calls and website visitors both up 9% year on year while the visitor-to-call ratio fell 7.5%. In plain terms, families are reading more before they ring, so the first call is often a better-informed and more anxious conversation than it was, and it is worth preparing for.
Before adding anything
Three habits hide the real problem and use up time you could spend fixing it.
Clicks, views and reach are easy to count and rarely the point. Ask what happened to the enquiries.
A new website, a new advertiser and a new profile in the same month leaves nothing to learn from.
The Care England and Log my Care study found families use directories (55%), online search (40%) and word of mouth (38%). Directories and Google work, with a ceiling, and families combine routes.
Timing
Give each change the time its channel needs, and no more. A reworked profile or listing can show a response within weeks. Paid social can bring enquiries within weeks once the content behind it is ready. Search visibility, including being mentioned in AI answers, builds over months.
Mediahawk also notes that calls dip in summer and winter each year, so a single quiet month is not a verdict.
Be honest about it
Marketing cannot cover a concern about care, and it should not try to.
Look elsewhere first
A concern about care needs resolving, calls go unreturned for a day, or nobody can give an hour a week to enquiries. Fix that first and the marketing will have something to build on.
Where we fit
We help care homes show families the real home through family-story films, manager films and daily-life footage from one shoot day, run in Meta campaigns aimed at families in the surrounding area, with the enquiry page built alongside. The details are walked through on a call.
If you are not sure which stage is thinnest, that conversation is a good place to start. Our guide to filling empty beds faster covers how quickly each lever works, and the occupancy guide is the wider picture.
Common questions
Judge each part of the work on its own timetable. Advertising and profile changes can show a response within weeks, while search visibility builds over months. A single quiet month is not a verdict, because enquiries dip in summer and winter, but three months with no change at the point where families drop away is worth acting on.
Not before finding where the enquiries stop. If the agency can show you what happened at each stage and the problem sits with how enquiries are answered or how the home is presented, a new agency would meet the same problem. If reporting stops at clicks and nobody can say what happened next, a conversation about changing is reasonable.
Check the enquiries first. If families are calling and visiting but not choosing the home, look at the visit and the follow-up. If few families are calling at all, look at visibility and how the home is presented online. Marketing cannot cover a concern about care, and it should not try to.
How the next enquiry is answered. Agree who picks up the call, how quickly it is returned and what the caller is told, and write it down. It costs nothing but attention, and it applies to every enquiry from every source.
