Oops! 5 Senior Living Branding Blunders to Avoid

Even if your senior living branding is solid overall, you might still be missing opportunities to share and reinforce it. We see this happen constantly, even when communities have slick websites.

Remember, consistency across all channels and media is critical to successful branding. Check your community’s branding against these often-overlooked spots.

The 5 most common places branding gets overlooked

Thank-you pages

You likely put a ton of effort into your landing pages. Compelling copy. On-brand design. Enticing calls-to-action. But what happens after someone hits that submit button? Do you redirect the prospect to an equally compelling thank-you page? One with as much effort put into it as the landing page?

Too often, marketers get lazy with thank-you pages. Yet people reading thank-you pages are part of a truly captive audience. Now is not the time to let your brand voice whimper or fall silent.

The biggest mistake we see with thank-you pages is that they’re too simple. They serve up whatever the prospect requested: “Click here to download the white paper.” But they don’t often offer anything beyond that.

This is a missed opportunity to reinforce your brand identity.

Items you can add to thank-you pages:

• Social proof, like a testimonial that reinforces your brand (it’s always more compelling when someone else trumpets your brand values)
• Related content (keep it ungated). Demonstrate that you’re paying attention to the person’s pain points by offering related content. If the content is typically gated, unlock the gate and make it free and clear. You already have the prospect’s email—and their attention. Don’t make them jump through hoops to access additional info that will help them. (You can use tracking URLs for analytics purposes.)
• Videos. You might not have a better opportunity to get someone to watch one of your videos. Choose wisely.

Bottom line: Give every thank-you page the same TLC you give your landing pages.

Auto-responders

Listen, we get it. By the time you get to creating the auto-responder email, you just want to be DONE and hit publish since the auto-responder is usually the final step. Don’t let up on the gas! Your brand identity needs to shine through to the end.

We’d argue that auto-responder emails might be even more important than the initial website interaction you had with the prospect since, by this point, the prospect has a vested interest in the email’s contents. They’ve requested something specific, like pricing, a guide, a checklist, a tour, or whatever it is, which means there’s an excellent chance the email will get opened, read, and clicked.

Don’t believe us? Consider this compelling stat from Benchmark Email: Auto responders enjoy a 98% open rate—and 37% click-through rate.

Social media profiles

Facebook turns 20 years old in 2024. And while your community probably hasn’t been on Facebook the whole time, it likely has had a Facebook presence for ten or more years. That’s a lot of time for your brand to evolve—and for things to break on the platform. And the same is true for other channels, too.

When was the last time you audited the “about” section on your Facebook page? YouTube? Instagram, X, Pinterest, you get the idea?

Too many communities don’t keep their profiles updated. Often, a disconnect exists between the brand being represented on the website and the brand being represented on the community’s social media profiles, especially in some of the deeper sections, like the “about” areas.

Get into the habit of auditing your social media profiles yearly (at least).

Email signature lines

Did you know a thoughtful email signature can boost brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and make it easier for people to contact you?

Wise Stamp, an email signature company, says its clients enjoy “22% more clicks, 32% more e-mail replies, 10% growth in their social media reach, and 15% more leads.” Yes, all thanks to email signatures.

Your sales and marketing teams should have email signature lines that reflect your senior living branding: not just your logo, font and colors, but also taglines, social icons, appointment scheduling links, disclaimers, and any extras like an event banner or video link. Remember, consistency is critical. Ensure everyone uses the same email signature format, and ensure the signature looks right across various devices and email clients.

And, ideally, freshen up the signatures every quarter or so.

Google Business Profile and directory listings

Your Google Business Profile is the second-most important online asset for your community after your website. If there’s anywhere online that must reflect your branding, GBP is it.

Any directory listings where your community has a presence must also be kept current. And just like social media platforms, it can be easy to set and forget these listings.

But think of the disconnect someone will experience if they see your old logo on your Google Business Profile or a directory listing before hopping over to your site with the current brand. They might even think they’re on the wrong site. These subtle missteps do matter—and they can add up, even if you can’t directly measure or quantify their impact.

Need help with any of the above? Check out our Total Online Presence Audit.

Our comprehensive audit digs into many things related to your community’s online presence, including brand consistency across channels. We’ll tell you what’s what, and we can even do the heavy lifting and fix everything for you if you want.

Learn more about the audit here. Or reach out directly if you have questions about how to make your senior living branding stand out.