Housing and social service experts believe senior living communities can be markets with untapped potential. As a senior living marketing professional, now is the time to open up new opportunities for reaching potential residents, engage with sponsors, and create content.
As the senior population continues to grow, so does the need for senior living communities.
Here are five strategies that can help drive growth in your community:
Lower the Barrier of Communication.
Secrets to Engage Residents in Advertising.
Direct Mail Dos and Don'ts.
Event Marketing for Assisted Living.
Reposition Your Brand Around Engagement.
Takeaway: Marketing strategies are changing, and they need to change with them. They need to work even harder to stay relevant. They need to apply their knowledge to local, organic ideas.
Lower the Barrier of Communication
Finding a way to break through communication barriers is critical for brand marketing and sales success. We must reassess online and traditional approaches to ensure the message we craft is getting out to the right people.
When we reduce the time it takes for the family and prospect to "touch" the brand, we increase sales.
Review the communication channels your residents use, which might be underused. If so, take action to increase the number of messages received by prospective residents. Next, review the medium of your resident's families. Your residents may not be living that TikTok lifestyle, but are their adult children?
Make sure longer and more complex messaging comes in through channels such as email. Always include a "value add" when approaching a prospect with something to read or do. Make sure that all of your collateral nurtures that lead. A blog is a great place to put longer-form information. (Source: www.clearpivot.com)
Takeaway: Set-up weekly or monthly reporting for all communications which detail ‘click numbers’ and ‘responses’ to your messaging across all platforms. Be ready to pivot your messaging based on platform engagement. (Mark - you know what I am trying to say here?)
Secrets to Engage Residents in Advertising
Connecting digitally isn't enough. Your website may be good, but communicating face to face with your prospects means connecting them to your community.
Actively engaging in wider community events will help embed your brand in the minds of locals. Keep your eyes on local events, and make sure you have a representative present, looking sharp and engaged. Don't just put out a local newspaper. Helping your residents get out to more events helps sales, not just engagement.
Using current residents as brand ambassadors provides a twofold benefit. They've already bought into your brand and are engaging with their local community. If they attend an event or function as a group, then the social element of your community will ring true.
Can you engage your residents in creating content? Posting on your blog lets your readers see your residents' experiences and trust your voice. Senior living communities are well aware of seniors' issues and will find your brand caring and engaged. (Source: www.clearpivot.com)
Who do you think your blog reader will call when searching for active or assisted living options - the one they've never heard of before, or the one whose content they'd been reading for months or years? (Source: www.clearpivot.com)
Takeaway: There are many faces in your community. Engage them to reach out to prospective residents.
Direct Mail Dos and Don'ts
Being successful with Direct Mail marketing requires time and effort. Read on for important information on how to get the best possible results from your project.
Follow the 80/20 rule. Spend 80% of your time writing the calls to action and opening lines. Only spend 20% of the time on the copy. Focus on simplicity. Keep it easy; keep it going with a compelling call to action and a word statement. Don't waste time and effort on fancy language or design unless necessary.
Digital marketing isn't always necessary. You've got plenty of ways to get your message in front of your audience.
Don't waste money on online digital marketing if paper is the platform your seniors prefer.
Ensure adult children and their parents have all the information they need to make the right decision. (Source: www.plantemoran.com). Make sure you have this information ready to distribute in various forms, digitally and paper-based.
Event Marketing for Assisted Living
Your Engagement Department in your community can be a robust marketing tool for your facility. By connecting Marketing and Engagement, your community can become a closed loop with no one left out. Senior Living Marketing isn't just about Marketing; it's about what living means in that community.
A strategy your Engagement Department can use is driving people to the awareness of your facility through sharing an event. Creative ideas for these events need to be fresh and varied to make engagement fun for residents.
Partnering with engagement consultants like LE3 Solutions can be a win-win for everyone, both Marketing and Sales. While your Engagement Department may know your residents, consultants and strategic partners can help you develop events that show how much you care.
As a community, it can be essential to focus on team wins that help you manage and use resources across your community each year.
Reposition Your Brand Around Engagement and Wellness
Senior living isn't just about housing; it's about community, engagement, and caregiving. In 2022, the modern consumer doesn't just want to know about your head chef. They want to know how your organization views wellness, community, and engagement.
The In-Home Care market can provide lots of care without requiring the painful relocation when a senior leaves their home. Senior Living marketing professionals need to think differently about the traditional definition of a senior. Today's senior is four times as likely to be an active and engaged adult who wants to lead a full and active lifestyle. They will want to continue that lifestyle in your organization.
Making your engagement program visible and public will create opportunities for consumers and you.
Active aging leads to better health and longer lives, and activity professionals AND marketing professionals are BOTH vital to providing this to their communities. (Source: www.welbi.co)
The topic of rethinking senior living resident engagement during Covid-19 is a hot button. Communities under lockdown can become isolated drastically reducing external interactions.Lack of external interaction can lead to poorer health outcomes for residents. (Source: seniorhousingnews.com)
Resident Engagement can and should be considered one of the key revenue drivers of the senior living industry. (Source: www.linkedsenior.com)
Now it is time to show how you engage your residents in community events and individual engagements.
Technology and senior services know-how can enhance residents' participation in older adults who are not interested in moving into a facility. (Source: www.linkedsenior.com)
Can Ways 2 Wellness help you win hearts and minds?
Clients of Ways 2 Wellness have a wider variety of opportunities to connect their Engagement and Marketing departments than other organizations. Working with our toolset of publications and resources provides a simple way to keep your engagement and marketing teams working together.
We publish a wellness program that we customize for the brands we serve. Delivering weekly publications that engage seniors in fun, wellness-themed puzzles and games provides continuous value delivery. We prefer when those publications have your branding and service information because your organization can provide the next level of service.
"In our experience," says Dr. Mark Ulett, "marketing professionals in senior living were hungry for better conversation starters, trust-building gifts, and wellness-related content. That's why our white label program provides value across the whole organization."
Our monthly guide also includes community event ideas designed for you to splash on social media. Created by our consulting partners in LE3 Solutions, these events are sure to delight your current and prospective residents.
It's easy to send Ways 2 Wellness publications you use in your new email marketing campaign or next blog post.
Conclusion
As the population of seniors in the United States continues to grow, so do the needs of senior caregivers. To meet these needs, senior living community marketing departments must be able to show how their community is better than staying at home. Plan your campaign well to capture every chance that comes your way. Every Marketer shouldn't just be thinking about Occupancy and their "offering"; instead, they should be working to understand the wellness needs of the prospect and learning how to manage the expectations and wellness goals of the prospect.
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