The guide
A care home should expect an agency to explain the work and the costs plainly before it starts, to ask for your team's knowledge of the home, to show you what happened to enquiries and not only clicks, and to be honest about how long each part takes. The first month is mostly listening, setting up and one visible first piece of work.
Updated October 2026
What to expect, in brief:
The first month
Mostly preparation, ending in something you can see. Four things should happen, usually in this order.
A proper conversation with the manager and owner about who the home suits, why families choose it and what they ask on a tour.
What will be tracked, how enquiries are recorded, who at the home receives them, and the consent arrangements for anyone who appears on camera.
A film, a rebuilt page, a tidied profile or a first campaign, depending on what you agreed.
What is live, what has come in so far, and what happens next.
If the first month produces only a presentation and an invoice, that is worth raising early.
Reporting
An agency should report on what happened to the enquiries, not only on how many people saw or clicked something. Mediahawk's spring 2026 call tracking data, published through Care England, found 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 a click count alone no longer shows whether the marketing is working.
A useful report answers four questions. Where did the enquiries come from? Were they suitable for the home? Did visits happen? What happened next? The last three can only be answered with your team's help, so reporting is a two-way job: an agency cannot see inside your phone calls unless you tell it what came of them.
Both sides
A good agency asks a lot of your team, and that is a good sign.
What it needs from you
The Log my Care and Care England study of 1,000 people arranging care, published in April 2026, found 97% found it difficult and that reputation was the factor ranked highest in the final decision, at 30%. Reputation is built by your staff and residents' families, so the agency needs access to them.
Expect to give time to an opening conversation, a filming or photography day if content is involved, prompt answers to enquiries and a regular review.
Side by side
The clearest difference between a good agency and a poor one shows up in specifics, not in the pitch. Use this with any agency you speak to, including us.
| Area | A good sign | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Before you sign | They ask about your residents, your team and how enquiries are handled today | A standard proposal arrives without any questions about the home |
| The first month | A clear plan and one visible piece of work | Vague activity with nothing to look at |
| Reporting | Enquiries, suitability, visits and outcomes, discussed with your team | Impressions, reach and clicks only |
| Enquiry follow-up | A shared view of who handles enquiries and how quickly | Nobody owns the call after the form is submitted |
| Pricing | A plain explanation of what you pay for and why | A quote that cannot be explained line by line |
| Ending the agreement | Clear terms, and clarity on who owns the films, pages and accounts | Vague terms, or work you cannot take with you |
How long it takes
It depends on the channel, and an honest agency tells you which is which. Changes to a directory profile or a Google Business Profile can show within weeks. Paid social can bring enquiries within weeks of going live, once the content behind it is ready. Search visibility, including being mentioned in AI answers, builds over months.
Be wary of anyone who promises a date for the next admission. The decision belongs to a family, usually led by an adult child but often another close relative, and it follows its own timetable. Mediahawk also notes that respite enquiries peak in summer and winter, when enquiries overall dip, so a quiet month is not always a verdict on the work.
The quote
There are four common ways, each with a different spread of risk. The useful question is where the risk sits.
None of these is wrong. A retainer suits ongoing work that needs regular attention; a results-based fee suits a home that wants the agency to share the risk. Ask for the model to be explained in writing, and do not compare quotes by headline price alone. Our own pricing is walked through on a call. For more on the models, see results or retainer and how much care home marketing costs.
Where it goes wrong
Most problems come from four gaps, and each can be spotted early.
The numbers look healthy and nobody can say whether a family visited.
The agency generates interest and the call goes unreturned for a day.
A film or page that could belong to any home does little for yours.
Occupancy depends on the care, the room available and how enquiries are handled, so a guaranteed number is a reason to ask more questions.
Who it suits
An agency suits a home with good care, a team able to answer enquiries promptly and a wish to be found by more of the right families. It is worth waiting if enquiries currently go unanswered, if a concern about care needs fixing first, or if nobody can give the agency a few hours a month. Marketing cannot cover a care concern, and it should not try to.
We make family-story films, manager films and daily-life footage in one shoot day, run them in Meta campaigns aimed at families in the surrounding area, and build the enquiry page alongside. We explain the work, the costs and what we need from your team before we begin. Our guide to choosing a care home marketing agency sets out the options fairly, and our care home marketing agency page explains how we work.
Common questions
Expect a real conversation at the start, a filming or photography day if the work involves content, and a short regular review afterwards. The agency needs your team's knowledge of why families choose the home, so the manager's time matters more than the owner's.
No honest agency can guarantee an occupancy figure, because occupancy also depends on the care, the room available, the location and how enquiries are handled. Look instead for clear commitments about what the agency will do, what it will show you and how its fee relates to results.
Agree it in writing before you start. A regular review, commonly monthly, is reasonable, provided it covers what happened to the enquiries and not only clicks, views and reach.
Check what is included, who controls the advertising account and budget, who owns the films, pages and accounts you have paid for, how long the agreement runs and how you can end it. Ask for each answer in writing.
