Best Content for Email Marketing to Baby Boomers

This blog was originally published on 3/21/2023 and updated in August 2025.

Baby boomers aren’t “next” in the sales funnel—they’re here. The oldest are heading into their 80s. The youngest are heading into their 60s.

If you’re in senior living marketing or sales, Boomers are now your core audience, and email is still one of the best ways to reach them.

In fact, 74% of boomers say email is the most personal way to hear from their favorite brands. And with most users checking email multiple times a day, your message can have big impact, provided it’s done right.

So, what content should you include in your email marketing to baby boomers? Let’s break it down.

The Best Content for Email Marketing to Seniors

Below, we’re sharing content ideas that can work in automated lead nurturing workflows, emails sent directly from sales reps, and community newsletters. What you use (and when) will depend on the goals and what you’re trying to accomplish.

Give them content they can’t find anywhere else.

This is good advice regardless of industry or persona. But when emailing boomers, it’s a must.

Don’t waste time sending them generic articles “about” senior living. Or how to evaluate senior living. Or what to look for in a senior living community. That stuff is played out. No doubt, you’ve likely covered some of these topics on your blog (which is OK).

You want to make the content in your emails so irresistible that they have no real choice but to read and click through.

Some quick-hitting examples:

• 10 dishes our chef made this week with veggies grown in our own garden
• Sunsets over [NAME OF YOUR COMMUNITY] – Real pics of gorgeous views captured by our resident photogs
• 3 things our resident action committee improved in our community this year
• How Ruth found unexpected romance with Tony
• Did you know? 25 fun, little-known facts about our community

None of the above are things that someone can find anywhere else simply because the articles are specific to your community.

And notice how most of the topics deal with emotions. Emotions help push our logical brains into making buying decisions.

Not only that, but these topics hit on authenticity, validation, and/or surprise—all of which tend to resonate with boomers.

For example, if a divorced woman in her early 60s is wondering if it’s possible to meet someone special in your community, your article on Ruth and Tony might give them hope.

Or how about that topic talking about residents improving your community . . . another surprising, yet authentic topic. No community is going to be perfect, right? And no one reading the email expects it to be. So many folks are skeptical of advertising and marketing because of the “spin.” But an article that talks about how residents improved your community (which suggests it’s not perfect and/or there was something “wrong”) shows reality, but it also shows how that reality can change for the better.

Talk about a powerful selling point!

Share authentic slice-of-life vignettes. (Via videos, ideally.)

The videos don’t need to be professionally shot. In fact, we recommend avoiding videos that seem too slick or highly produced. Recording on a smartphone is fine.

• Share the spontaneous 30-second clip of the sing-along that broke out in the pub the other night that a resident captured on their phone.
• Do a time-lapse video of a resident completing an oil painting in the courtyard.
• Do a quick interview with the chef on the latest addition to the dinnertime menu.
• Share a video of residents with their cats, dogs, fish, or birds.
• Show the layout for a popular apartment—but show how different that layout looks based on the way 3 or 4 residents have their apartment decorated or set up.

Again, people won’t be able to find this content anywhere else because it shows REAL LIFE in your community. That’s the stuff people want to see because THAT’S the stuff that allows them to relate (or not) with the vibe.

DID YOU KNOW? At a recent Aline Innovation Summit, we learned this interesting nugget: What is most frequently cited by both adult children and older adults as a condition that would ease their decision-making process? Having a clearer picture of life in the community.

And what better way to capture life in your community than via video?

So, record those videos and include them in your lead nurturing emails, newsletters, and follow-up correspondence from the sales team.

Dig deeper into food-related content.

Listen, food matters. We don’t have to tell you that.

But it’s NOT enough to talk about the “delicious” food in your community or that everything is made from scratch. Most communities promote the heck out of those things already.

You need to dig much deeper with your food-based content.

Here’s a quick brainstorm . . .

• How do you support vegans, vegetarians, and gluten-free diets?
• Where are your ingredients sourced from—any special stories?
• How has the menu and dining experience evolved in your community over the years? (It’s OK if it has—talk about why! This will demonstrate that your community is nimble and responsive to feedback.)
• Talk about different approaches to meals in senior living communities in general, and why your community settled on its approach.
• Talk about relevant specifics that could influence a person’s decision—are there other options aside from communal dining?
• Can residents opt to have full kitchens (or not) in their homes?
• Do you have a registered dietitian on staff that residents can meet with?
• How do residents influence menu-making decisions?
• How are celebrations (resident birthdays/anniversaries) handled?
• Do you have something that truly differentiates your community from others in the area? Maybe you have a part-time sushi chef, or maybe you have a coffee house on-site that hosts karaoke, comedy nights, and poetry slams.
• Do a timelapse video of Sunday brunch.
• Do a closeup of menu production—how is it developed, who provides input, how is the physical menu created (do you include calories and nutritional information, for example)?
• Do fun surveys – the top three ways our residents like their eggs.
• Pancakes vs. French toast – what always wins in our community.
• Plant-based meats: How we’re incorporating this into our menus.
• Waste not, want not: Our approach to recycling and composting.
• A chef’s recipe and video demonstration of a current favorite dish or dessert among residents.
• Survey results on the top three favorite restaurants that residents like visiting in the area.

There’s no shortage of food-related content, and food is such a big part of everyone’s lives. Whether you’re doing lead nurturing, direct follow-up from sales, or newsletters, we can almost guarantee that an interesting food-based story will get clicked on.

PRO TIP: We’re not suggesting you create a long email about each topic, like what goes into producing the weekly or monthly menu. Use your blog to create a meaty article and then repurpose that content by sharing blurbs in your emails with a call-to-action to read the full article (which gets people back to your site).

Think of ways to tie email content into a fun offer.

For example, riffing off the survey results for the “top three favorite restaurants that residents like visiting in the area.” You could add an offer to this that says: “Book a tour with us by this date, and we’ll give you a $20 gift certificate to one of these restaurants.”

Do occasional picture-based emails.

We wouldn’t recommend only doing picture-based emails since this often requires an extra step on the recipient’s part if they have to tap/click to download the pics before they can view the email.

But occasionally providing an email filled with nothing but visual eye candy (with links to the complete story behind the photo) can be a great way to engage people and draw them to your site or social channels.

Reminders: email marketing best practices.

Pay attention to the layout. Think bite-sized, mobile-friendly blurbs.

More and more emails will be read on mobile devices rather than desktops. You need short sentences and even shorter paragraphs. (Think fewer than 75 words in a single paragraph.)

Spend time on your subject lines.

Subject lines are arguably one of the most important elements in every email you send (if not THE most important). Don’t treat them as after-thoughts. Keep up with what’s working and what isn’t for subject lines. (We recommend following email marketing guru Jay Schwedelson.)

Experiment, conduct A/B tests, and do more of what works, but don’t become complacent, either. Because what worked six months ago might stop working (and that’s perfectly normal).

Pay attention to meaningful metrics.

Certain metrics, like open rates, continue to be a moving target thanks to changes companies make around data privacy. (We’re talking about you, Apple Mail Privacy Protection.)

This doesn’t mean you should stop paying attention to metrics and analytics. You’ll simply need to pay attention to different ones.

HubSpot has a good article on this topic, along with KPIs to focus on, including clicks and click-through rates, website traffic and leads, unsubscribes, and spam reports.

Basically, you WILL know if your email marketing is moving the needle and having an impact because you’ll see upticks in things like website traffic, leads, tour requests, and downloads. And, of course, with good marketing automation software, you’ll be able to drill down into each email you send to get nitty-gritty results on what content resonated.

DID YOU KNOW? Our latest book is dropping this fall, and it’s all about marketing to boomers. Follow us on LinkedIn to make sure you’re first to hear about when it’s available.

Need help leveling up your email marketing?

We love working with clients on developing the best content for email marketing to boomers. Get in touch and let’s create a plan that gets the results you’ve been looking for.