Senior Living Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2025

Last year, we asked our fabulous team members to dish on senior living marketing trends and predictions for the new year. We’re officially making this “ask” a tradition.

Here’s what our team has to say about 2025.

Hint: AI dominates the conversation.

Deborah Howard, CEO

AI will ramp up in senior living marketing.

Debbie sees 2025 as the year AI will gain a strong foothold in senior living marketing across all channels.

Here are just some of the AI opportunities that Debbie’s excited about.

Building comprehensive buyer personas by lifestyle and role. Debbie explains, “The goal will be to get AI to identify each community’s ideal resident and create customized marketing campaigns to attract new prospects that align with their ideal buyer.”
Integrating all prospect engagement touchpoints to create personalized brand experiences. “Many new conversion tools, such as virtual sales assistants, assessments, chat, and financial calculators, have been introduced over the last several years,” Debbie says. “While each has some value individually, there is far more value when the information is integrated into the prospect journey.”
One word: Video. “AI video is getting better every day, which makes the development of meaningful video content more accessible and affordable,” Debbie says. She also notes that video consistently outperforms across all channels in senior living marketing. “AI video will be a game changer.”

A bigger focus on post-sale marketing will boost reviews and referrals.

Debbie cites a recent study of 1500 prospects researching senior living. Personal referrals had the most impact, while professional referrals also played a crucial role.

To encourage more of these all-important referrals, Debbie predicts that 2025 will be the year operators really focus on building consistent brand experiences from first brand engagement through move-in.

“Marketing will not end with delivering a sales-qualified lead to the community team,” she says. “Operators looking for a differentiator will need to create a consistently positive brand experience that will result in positive reviews and increased participation in resident and family referral programs. The experience of transitioning successfully into a community sets the stage for the rest of the relationship. Social proof like testimonials, reviews, and personal recommendations are today’s currency.”

Eliminating blind spots will provide better visibility into the prospect’s journey.

Debbie says one of the goals for senior living marketers in 2025 should be to eliminate blind spots in the prospect journey and ensure there are no “dead ends.”

Debbie explains, “In the past, sales and marketing data were typically siloed in different reporting platforms that weren’t connected. Marketing only had visibility into how prospects engaged with marketing channels. This led to a disconnect when the prospect advanced to tours, deposits, and move-ins, making it difficult to evaluate which marketing channels and campaigns generated the best results.”

Meanwhile, aside from the attribution source, sales had no visibility into prospects’ behavior before receiving the lead.

Luckily, there’s no reason for things to operate like this now.

“Today, we can integrate sales and marketing data and touchpoints to eliminate these blind spots,” Debbie says. “This gives us full visibility into the entire prospect journey, from first-touch attribution through move-in. Improving the alignment between marketing and sales increases conversions from prospect to resident.”

Andréa Catizone, President & COO

Andréa is doubling down on two predictions in our 2024 article: the need for more personalized content and voice search optimization.

Better voice search optimization

Andréa says as more seniors adopt voice-activated devices, optimizing content for voice search has become essential to improving accessibility and visibility.

“Senior care providers can enhance their voice search performance by targeting long-tail keywords and ensuring their websites are fully mobile-friendly,” she explains.

Paul Trusik, VP of Operational Technology

Paul agrees that AI is going to be huge in 2025, especially for senior living, but he’s coming at it from a different angle than some of his SLS colleagues. “My focus will be more from an integrative approach vs. ideation and predictive enhancements,” he says.

Leveraging HubSpot’s AI-driven lead scoring could help do the following:

Prioritize prospects most likely to convert based on their interactions, such as visiting the pricing page, filling out a survey assessment, or requesting a tour
Focus sales efforts on high-value leads, which will help improve conversion rates

“For example,” Paul says, “adult children who engage with multiple blog posts about senior safety and family decisions might be flagged as high-priority leads for follow-up.”

He says there’s also a lot of opportunity with HubSpot’s conversations tool, including AI-powered chatbots that can:

Qualify leads by asking questions about care needs or timelines
Offer instant answers to common inquiries (e.g., “Do you provide memory care services?”)
Schedule tours directly through the chatbot

“A prospect visiting the site late at night can interact with a bot to explore services, book a tour, and even receive a follow-up email.”

Additionally, Paul and his team are exploring how to use AI to summarize the prospect’s journey, marketing touchpoints, and intent before updating sales teams. “The idea is to help paint a picture about potential leads and provide a more custom experience for families,” Paul explains.

Doug DeMaio, Director of Client Success

More AI predictions . . .

Doug says broader use of generative AI should allow for more specific and contextual lead nurturing at scale.

“Think more personalization and more connection to different buyer personas at different points throughout the buyer’s journey,” he says.

A shift toward aspirational marketing

Aspirational marketing involves positioning senior living as a desirable choice rather than a decision made out of crisis.

Doug says he expects more communities to embrace this approach. “This shift will include focusing more on a younger demographic and bringing the ‘me’ generation into well-appointed communities that match their wants just as much as their needs,” he explains. “This will help populate communities with long-term residents who are enthusiastic about where they live, which can be positively transformative for communities.”

Kerri-Anne Pendergast, Director of Creative Services

Kerri-Anne says that she and Lois Warden (one of SLS’s digital communications specialists) think we’ll see an uptick in user-generated content (UGC) from the boomer generation since they’re more tech-savvy.

“Because of this, communities can really push for post-sale marketing to make those new residents into influencers and brand ambassadors,” Kerri-Anne explains. “People who love their community tend to write reviews and make referrals.”

Kerri-Anne also believes creating strong brand experiences is going to play a bigger role. “Communities should look at their brand experience through the entire journey,” Kerri-Anne says. “From first touch to post move-in.”

Finally, Kerri-Anne notes that short-form videos will continue to be the most engaging and important form of content while Facebook continues its reign as king.

Christopher Zook, Director of Search

Chris is our search guru. He’s also an expert in paid ads and AI. So, it’s no wonder he has predictions about these three areas.

Will Google remain king?

Chris says, “SearchGPT is the first earnest challenge to Google’s domination of online search in history. With it, we may see SEO transition from a Google-centric strategy to multiple platforms.”

What about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising?

“With the advent of SearchGPT, it’s reasonable to expect that some form of advertising will come with it, similar to Google Ads,” Chris explains. “Again, this presents a major market challenge to Google.”

And about that elephant in the room, AI . . .

Chris says that unless AI is regulated at some governmental level, it will continue its rapid expansion, growth, and self-improvement to enter an enormous amount of business and consumer verticals.

“OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are naturally at the forefront,” he says, “but this also entails open-source AI software that individuals can use, refine, and further develop. As a result, the people who learn how to use AI—and adapt their processes to include it—will likely thrive while non-adaptive competitors struggle.”

Need help with your senior living marketing next year? Get in touch.

We love helping communities increase occupancy through strategic and proven marketing initiatives. Reach out and let’s talk.