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Senior Living Sales: Creating a Great Schedule-a-Tour Page

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Before we dive into the anatomy of a great “Schedule a Tour” landing page, we have a quick caveat. If your tours suck, it won’t matter how great your “Schedule a Tour” landing page is. (Just keeping it real, folks! 🙂)

Here are some questions to ask:

  • What are people saying about your tours? Check post-tour surveys, online reviews, and other available feedback. Are there any common negative themes that the sales team needs to address?
  • Are the sales reps crushing their tours? It’s easy to become complacent and go through the motions. Investing in training—even if it’s just the occasional half-day session—can have a big ROI.
  • Is there a straightforward tour-day process that everyone understands? For example, each morning, your front desk should receive a list of people who’ll be touring that day. Front desk staff should know what to do and who to call when someone arrives. Do they escort the tour attendees to a warm, inviting room with coffee and tea? Do they offer to take coats or show people where the restroom is? This is where your front desk staff can truly shine as concierges.
  • Do you have a solid post-tour strategy in place? What happens after the tour matters. Some people will be ready to move forward with your community—yay! But what about the others? You must be proactive and develop a plan for prospects who stall or go silent.

You can learn more about creating a red-carpet tour experience here.

OK. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

For this article, we’ll assume your community already gives fabulous tours. (But if it doesn’t, start there. Then, come back to this post.)

Below, we share tips for creating a great “Schedule a Tour” landing page.

Empower prospects by having them choose the day and time for the tour.

If possible, allow people to schedule a tour directly on the page. This doesn’t have to be a hassle from a back-end perspective. Calendar integrations (like Calendly) can make it easy for people to select currently open blocks on your sales reps’ calendars while keeping everything in sync.

The benefits of doing this are many:

  • You’re empowering the prospects. They choose the day and time that’s convenient for them.
  • You eliminate unnecessary back and forth. Nothing is worse than playing phone or email tag.
  • You lose fewer qualified prospects to competitors. While the prospect is waiting for a call back from your community, they can book tours with many of your competitors right online.

PRO TIP: If your website and workflow can’t accommodate a calendar integration, revisit your calls-to-action (CTA). If your CTAs currently say, “Schedule a Tour,” you might want to do A/B testing using the phrase “Request a Tour.”

Sure, “Schedule a Tour” and “Request a Tour” essentially mean the same thing. However, the former suggests someone can book online while the latter prepares the person (even if only subconsciously) that they’re merely “requesting” at this stage.

It’s possible your A/B testing won’t show any noticeable differences in conversions. But you can’t know for sure unless you test and measure.

Don’t treat your “Schedule a tour” landing page as an afterthought.

After the home page, the “Schedule a Tour” landing page is one of the most important pages on your site. What does yours look like? Is it light on copy with simply a calendar or a form and maybe your community’s address?

Talk about a missed opportunity!

While you want to make it super simple to schedule or request a tour, you should also make the entire tour experience special—and it begins with this landing page.

Create a robust “what to expect when you visit” section.

Include the following info:

  • Tour length
  • Who’ll be giving the tour (if you have multiple sales reps, highlight their faces, names, and short bios)
  • Where people should park
  • Where people should enter
  • Where should people go after they enter
  • Tour highlights
  • Any special considerations (how to cancel a tour, what to do if the weather is bad, etc.)

Think videos

For our regular readers, we likely sound like a broken record. But video marketing works, and consumers expect to see brand-related videos.

Here are some ideas:

Community overview: Sharing a short (90 seconds, max) video highlighting the grounds and the community can be a great way to give people a feel for the place before visiting.

What the area has to offer: Create a montage or snapshot of all the cool places in the area and some of the outings that residents go on.

Meet our staff: Create meet-and-greet videos with staff members, especially the folks who residents interact with regularly, like dining staff, housekeeping, etc.

Share user-generated content (UGC): Encourage people who attend tours to take pictures, share on social media, and tag your community. Highlight some of the user-generated content on the Schedule a Tour page (get permission to use the photos, of course).

Add FAQs

People skim pages, so it can’t hurt to reiterate points you’ve made elsewhere (like where to park) in easy-to-read FAQs.

Create solid pre-tour communications. 

We talk a lot about post-tour communications, and for good reason. But the pre-tour communications you send via email are just as important.

After all, you want the person to show up, right?

At a minimum, make sure you have the following workflows set up. (Remember, marketing automation is your friend.)

Tour confirmation email

Automatically send an email confirmation once the tour has been scheduled. This email should include the confirmed date, time, and (ideally) the tour guide’s name. It should also include helpful information, like directions, parking, and other relevant instructions.

Most of all, it should sound warm and friendly. “We can’t wait to meet you, Rose, and show you around our community. Tours typically last 30 minutes, but you’re welcome to stay after the tour to check out things on your own. Some places you might want to visit include our wonderful library, hair and nail salon, and café where you can enjoy a treat on us and experience our chef’s yummy sweets.”

Countdown-to-tour-day emails (a.k.a., reminder emails)

Again, use marketing automation to set up these email workflows. If the tour is a week or less away, you can simply send one email along with a day-of reminder (more on this in a moment). But if the tour is a few weeks away, you can send more reminders, provided these emails deliver value.

Each reminder should have that warm, friendly feel and reiterate vital info (tour date, time, guide, etc.) Then, use the email as another opportunity to share:

  • Resident stories – specifically on why they chose your community
  • Reviews
  • Videos

Remember, people are straddling the consideration and decision stages while waiting for the tour. Give them information that will get them even more excited to see your community.

Day-of-tour reminder email

This email should go out in the early AM hours of the day the tour is scheduled. Again, you want to aim for a warm and friendly tone and remind people where to go when they enter the building.

⮚      PRO TIP: Keep in mind that sending email should be a given, but as more and more Boomers enter the mix, you’ll also want to add text reminders to your marketing mix.

Need more tours, deposits, and move-ins?

We have a proven system for getting more high-quality leads and turning them into more tours, deposits, and move-ins. Get in touch and we’ll explain how we do it.

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Content Brainstorming: Match It to the Prospect Journey

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When it comes to content brainstorming, the biggest mistake that senior living marketers make is overlooking the “why.”

Don’t create content just to create content or to check off a box. A chaotic approach like that might have worked fifteen or even ten years ago. But it won’t get you far in an ultra-competitive landscape.

To succeed with content marketing today, you must have a thoughtful strategy guiding your content creation, one that aligns with the buyer’s journey.

Below, we approach content brainstorming by matching it across the three stages of the buyer’s journey: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. (In senior living, we also talk a lot about the “where, whether, and when” stages since the journey is rarely linear.)

Content Brainstorming for the Awareness Stage

In this stage, people are just starting to become familiar with senior living. Maybe an adult child is looking into options for a parent. Maybe an older adult is thinking about downsizing. Or perhaps an urgent medical condition—a fall or dementia diagnosis, for example—has forced someone to begin researching.

They’re learning what senior living is, what it isn’t, who pays for it, and the different levels of care. They might have had a hazy understanding before entering this stage—maybe in the past they knew someone who lived in a community—but now they’re looking at senior living with a fresh eye.

This is an important stage since people often encounter your community for the first time. Helpful, educational content is critical.

But what if you’ve been writing educational content and feel you’ve already answered every question under the sun?

Here’s where to look for fresh content ideas.

1. See what’s trending—literally—with Google Trends.

Google Trends allows you to see what topics are hot across Google Search, Google News, and YouTube.

We like using the Explore function in Google Trends and occasionally plugging in broad terms like:

  • Independent living
  • Assisted living
  • Memory care
  • Senior living
  • Retirement

You can certainly come up with plenty of other topics, but if you regularly check the ones above, you might spot a trend worth exploring content-wise.

For example, we explored “independent living.” Here’s what’s trending in related topics.

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Notice the query “what is palliative care” is up 150%. We went to Semrush and plugged the phrase into the keyword tool. That query alone is highly competitive, with a monthly search volume of 33K. But when we sorted by keyword difficulty, we got the following, which shows this could be a great long-tail keyword phrase to focus on. You could create an informational blog post or guide (or both) that answers some of these less competitive keyword phrases and discusses how palliative care fits into senior living.

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Nope, “what is palliative care” isn’t the sexiest of topics, but consider this:

  • It’s a topic people are searching on.
  • It’s absolutely related to what your IL community is selling. What happens if someone becomes seriously ill while living in your community? How does palliative care fit in?

Don’t like that topic? No problem. Look at one of the other related topics, like “cost of independent living.” Maybe it’s time to revisit existing assets about funding IL or develop a new guide altogether.

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2. Check out AnswerThePublic.

With AnswerThePublic, you can uncover what questions people are searching for in Google. Then, you can create content that answers those questions. Content formats can include:

  • Blog posts
  • Social media
  • Videos
  • FAQs
  • Lead nurturing emails
  • Relevant website pages

By creating a free account on AnswerThePublic, you unlock three daily searches. Here are the results for “senior living.”

Sure, you’ve likely already answered some of these questions in your content. But these questions serve as a reminder that certain queries are evergreen. There will always be people wondering how much senior living costs, whether Medicare covers it, who qualifies for senior living, etc.

Revisit evergreen topics and produce fresh takes.

  • You could do something like “Fact or Fiction Friday” on Facebook and set the record straight on some of these common questions.
  • You could group a bunch of the Q&As into a blog post.
  • You could add them to your FAQ page.
  • You could create a one-sheet that the sales reps share with tour attendees.

3. Visit Quora for more authentic conversations people are having about senior living.

Pay attention to how people answer questions on Quora and who’s answering them. You’ll likely see comments from current and former senior living employees, residents, and families.

People on Quora share their candid, authentic insights that can inform content for all stages. These insights can also influence content needed for things like recruitment.

Content Brainstorming for the Consideration Stage

In the consideration stage, people compare options and schedule tours—hopefully with your community.

Make it easy for people to compare.

 

Create highly visual charts.

At-a-glance comparison charts make it easy to see the differences between your community and your biggest competitors. (Don’t sugarcoat, and never misrepresent your community.)

Encourage residents to share the experiences they’ve had with your community and with other communities.

  • Don’t just ask residents or their families why they chose your community—ask them why they didn’t choose your competitor.
  • Reach out to residents who moved in from another environment, whether that’s another community, home care, or a family member’s home. Get their take on why the move into your community made sense at this time.
  • Ask people to leave reviews about all their experiences with your community—from touring, to moving in, to living in your community.
  • Encourage user-generated content where people create their own content and tag your community so you can share/repost (with permission, of course).

How to turn these stories into helpful content:

  • Record the person (use your smartphone) and share snippets on social media.
  • Do a write-up as a blog post.
  • Use the story as a sidebar in relevant guides (for example, “Senior Living vs. Other Options”).

Differentiate your community in the “sea of sameness.”

Think about the stories that would help people wavering between your community and a competitor.

For example, is your move-in day process better than your competitors? If yes, create content around that process:

  • Publish a comprehensive website page that discusses the move-in process, what to expect, helpful resources, etc. Need inspo? Look at college websites. They know how to build excitement around moving in.
  • Include a call-out to this page on tour confirmation emails. Include a note saying, “We can’t wait to show you around. And even though we might be getting ahead of ourselves, we wanted to show you how easy it is to move into our community.”

Talk about how your community addresses specific elephants in the room.

  • Create content around anxiety over moving. Have an honest discussion and provide strategies for effectively managing anxiety.
  • Talk about romance and sex. Yes, really.
  • Talk about death and dying. Buzz kill or refreshing take? How you write about it is key. Our point: don’t avoid hard topics simply because they’re hard.

Read more ways to differentiate your community.

Content Brainstorming for the Decision Stage

During this stage, people tour and make their final decision.

Elevate the tour experience. (Yes, fabulous content can help!)

We don’t have to tell you how critical tours are. Treat the entire tour “path” accordingly.

  • Don’t just have a simple “request a tour” button on your site. Again, take your cue from colleges and create a page that helps people plan their visit. Where should they park? Where should they go upon entering? Who should they ask for? What can they expect during the tour (length, food, etc.)?
  • Make it easy for people to schedule tours. Ideally, someone should be able to schedule their desired day and time directly on the page—and receive instant email and/or text confirmation. (It’s 2024, folks. There’s ZERO reason why your site shouldn’t have this functionality.)
  • Provide genuinely helpful post-tour content. You should have a follow-up email workflow for people who just attended a tour. Remember, at this stage, people don’t require more education. They already know what senior living is, and they’re familiar with your brand. Instead, focus on content that will speak to them about this monumental decision they’re facing.

o   “How I decided” videos/stories. Create a series of videos or stories where residents talk about the moment they decided to choose your community. What was the deciding factor? What was the moment like?

o   Tips for deciding between two close contenders. For prospects having trouble choosing between a couple of communities, create a checklist or toolkit (more on this below) that helps them look at the pros and cons.

REMINDER #1: The best content in the world can’t make up for a lousy tour experience—or a community that doesn’t match everything the content has been promoting.

REMINDER #2: Even the most logical among us make decisions based on emotions. (Once we’ve made a decision, we often look for a logical rationale to support it.) Make sure some of the content you create triggers emotional reactions.

For example, you could send a series of emails with built-in emotional triggers:

  • “Remember how you felt when you walked through our gardens? Here’s a reminder.” (Include images or a video walk-through.)
  • “Remember how wowed you were by our incredible menus? Here’s what our residents recently had for dinner.” (Again, include images or video.)

Create content that empowers people.

At this stage, many people need the courage to sign on the dotted line, so to speak. Create empowering content that helps them do exactly that.

For many of our clients, one of the most powerful pieces of content is a “how to decide” toolkit. People crave guidance, and if you can provide a tool that helps them, even better.

We’ve also created a “What are you waiting for?” campaign for those who’ve stalled post-tour. It’s a highly visual email campaign that reminds people what they could be experiencing if they lived in your community compared to what they’re likely experiencing in their current environment.

For example, in one email, you could have an image of a harried person lugging a laundry basket down to the basement. Next to that image, you’d have a shot of a cheerful staff member handing freshly folded towels to a relaxed resident.

Need more help with content brainstorming?

That’s what we’re here for. We have fabulous content writers and strategists who can help you create winning content that aligns with the prospect journey. Get in touch and let’s talk about your content needs.

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Content for Each Stage of the Senior Living Marketing Funnel

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Content makes the senior living marketing world go round, but not just any content. You must have strategic content that reaches the right prospect at the right time. Otherwise, what’s the point?

For example, you could have the most fantastic content to go with your sales pitch, but if someone is only in the early stages of learning about senior living, you’ll be wasting your time.

This is why we recommend focusing on the various stages of the sales funnel and matching the best content for each stage.

What’s the sales funnel?

The sales funnel indicates where your prospects are at any point during their buying journey. It is typically segmented into three sections: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

  • The Awareness stage happens at the top of the funnel. In this stage, people realize that they or a loved one needs senior living. This stage is education focused. Prospects learn about senior living, how much it costs, how to finance it, and different care levels.
  • The Consideration stage happens in the middle of the funnel. As the name suggests, people in this stage are considering their options. Note: Not everyone in this stage will necessarily “buy” senior living. Some might decide to stay in their home or move in with family members, for example. They’re considering all their options.
  • The Decision stage happens at the bottom of the funnel. Folks in this stage are poised to buy. But again, not everyone will buy. And even if they buy, it might not be for months or years. (The sales cycle in senior living is notoriously long for certain lifestyle options, like independent living.) And, of course, they might not choose your community.

In senior living marketing, we also discuss three other stages—Whether, Where, and When—that coincide with the Awareness, Consideration, and Decision stages.

For example, during the Whether stage, people often wonder “whether” they should move into senior living, whether they can afford it, and whether they must sell their home before moving. They’ll turn to the Internet for answers to these questions and to educate themselves (which is why this stage coincides nicely with the Awareness stage). Read more about the Whether, Where, and When stages.

Why is it critical to match the right content to the right stage?

As we mentioned, if you give someone good content at the wrong time, you’re essentially wasting good content. You’re also missing an opportunity to deliver content that will resonate better with the prospect.

For example, the divorced woman in her early sixties who is thinking about retirement isn’t interested in reading customer stories about your community or coming in for a tour yet. She’s still in the early Awareness stage, where she’s educating herself about senior living, costs, and so forth.

On the other hand, someone who has already toured your community doesn’t need a guide explaining what senior living is. They are way past that point. And if you send it to them as follow-up content after they tour your community, you’ll not only look silly, but you’ll also waste an opportunity to give them content that could actually be helpful in their decision-making process.

What type of content formats work best for each stage?

What follows isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a good overview of the types of content that senior living marketers and writers should be planning.

Good senior living marketing content for the Awareness stage

  • Blog posts optimized for search
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Listicles
  • Educational guides (e.g., Senior Living 101, How to Fund Senior Living)
  • Educational webinars
  • General FAQs (about senior living in general)
  • Self-directed surveys (e.g., What senior living lifestyle is best for you?)

Good senior living marketing content for the Consideration stage

  • Case studies/customer stories
  • Comparison charts (your community compared to others in the area)
  • Day-in-the-life videos
  • Day-in-the-life blog posts
  • Meet the staff videos/blog posts
  • Webinars
  • Specific FAQs (about your community specifically)
  • Decision toolkit
  • Interactive elements (like interactive floor plans)
  • Lead nurturing emails

Good senior living marketing content for the Decision stage

  • Invites to on-site events (book clubs, musical events, lunch & learn series)
  • Testimonial videos
  • Case studies/customer stories
  • Schedule a tour (make sure people can schedule their own)
  • Post-tour nurturing emails

Notice that some content will overlap between stages. For example, case studies and customer stories can be used in both the Consideration stage, when people are thinking through their options, and the Decision stage when they have whittled their choices down to your community (hopefully) and one or two others.

When creating the content, make sure your buyer personas are current. Not every community’s ideal resident is the same. For example, a luxury community that caters to high-net-worth people won’t spend money developing content about how to afford senior living.

Content marketing is an investment, but when done right, you’ll enjoy an excellent ROI.

The key is doing it right. Here are more articles to help you write compelling content that converts people in various sales funnel stages.

✔    How to Create Engaging Content for Your Website

✔    Content Offer Ideas for Senior Living Marketing

✔    Content Marketing for Local SEO: What to Write

✔    Best Content for Email Marketing to Baby Boomers

✔    More Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content Ideas for Senior Living

✔    What to Look for in a Content Marketing Agency for Senior Living

Or you can reach out to us and have our team of fabulous writers do the heavy lifting for you.

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Senior Living Sales: Cold Leads Success Story

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When it comes to senior living sales, we often discuss best practices, like finding gold in lost or cold leads. But stories are much more compelling, right?

Below, we share results we achieved for a client and the takeaways you can learn and apply to your own community.

Many lost leads aren’t actually lost—they’re simply deferred.

Remember, lost leads were once qualified leads.

Unfortunately, something happened along the way that forced these leads into the dark abyss known as the “lost lead” category in your senior living CRM. Leads in this bucket might also have labels like cold, unable to reach, decided to stay home, chose home care, or moved in with family.

But here’s the secret about these leads. Don’t think of them as lost forever. Think of them as deferred.

  • That person the sales team reached out to only once or twice might not have been ready for the sales call then, but they could very well be months later.
  • Those who decided to stay home might think about things differently after a snowy winter.
  • That person who chose home care might have more needs than the aides can handle—or that the person’s home can accommodate.

Our point: Revisiting lost leads is a smart strategy. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. And thanks to marketing automation, you don’t need to put the onus on your senior living sales team to call or manually email hundreds or thousands of lost leads. A turnkey email campaign (we call ours “Stay in Touch“) can do the heavy lifting. If someone bites (i.e., engages), then the sales reps can get involved at that point.

Here’s a recent success story using this approach.

We went through this process with one of our clients, Sinceri Senior Living. They had around 4,300 cold leads that they wanted to re-engage. Our automated “Stay in Touch” email marketing campaign resulted in 20 move-ins, equating to three million dollars in revenue. Not too shabby, right?

Even better: An additional 350 (or so) leads re-engaged (whether it was moving to marketing-qualified or sales-qualified status), so the sales reps then had another 350 engaged leads to work with.

⮚      TAKEAWAY: Don’t ignore lost or cold leads. View them as opportunities. Create a plan for entering them into an automated email campaign that will re-engage and convert at least some of them to tours, deposits, and move-ins.

Most stalled leads won’t stay stalled forever.

Your community likely has a bucket of marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) that have gone through your nurturing workflows, yet they still haven’t advanced to sales-qualified lead (SQL) status.

Stuck MQLs also offer great opportunities. Sure, after they’ve gone through your nurturing workflows, you could simply enroll them in your email newsletter and call it a day. But that likely won’t be enough to nudge them.

That’s why we recommend creating a slow-burn, long-term drip campaign. We call ours “Still thinking?” In it, we offer ways for the person to self-identify where they’re at in the process, if things have changed for them, and so forth.

Again, this is an automated email campaign—no heavy lifting for sales or marketing (once you set it up). The goal is to re-energize some of the stuck leads. It won’t work on all of them, but even if you can get a small portion to move forward, it’s all good.

And for the rest of the leads that truly cool down to the point they enter the “lost” bucket? You can give them a break from emails for a while before entering them into the “Stay in Touch” campaign. And don’t worry: Good marketing automation, like HubSpot, has settings you can enable to ensure people don’t go through the same workflows repeatedly.

Here’s a recent success story using this approach.

We used the “Still thinking?” campaign with Sinceri. The result? Twenty percent of the stalled MQLs advanced to SQL status.

⮚      TAKEAWAY: You have to nudge MQLs along. Yes, even after they’ve been through the initial nurturing workflow. The sales cycle for senior living can be long (especially for independent living).

Would you like to experience similar conversions with your cold or stuck leads?

The results we achieved for Sinceri Senior Living weren’t an isolated experience. We strive to get these results for all of our clients. Get in touch and let’s talk about how to convert cold and stuck leads into move-ins.

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How to Market Senior Living Communities in a Sea of Sameness

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One of the biggest challenges in how to market senior living communities is differentiation. On the surface, most communities look the same. They all promote having the best care, best staff, best dining, best activities, best blah, blah, blah. (Sound familiar?)

If you can’t figure out what makes your community genuinely different and special—in other words, its unique value proposition—prospects will resort to focusing on price and location when deciding. Price wars are a race to the bottom, and you can’t move your community, so get ready to play the “let’s make a deal” game.

That’s the bad news.

But here’s the good news.

Developing a unique value proposition isn’t as hard as you might think. The unique value prop doesn’t need to be sexy or over the top to “win.” It simply needs to be true and resonate with your prospects.

So, how do you create this value prop? Begin by leaning into the things that your happiest residents and families continually say about your community.

Here are some ideas to get you going.

  1. Embrace your newness.

If yours is the newest community in your market, lean into that. Be the bright, shiny penny and play up your newness. You likely have the latest technology and modern finishes, and residents can be the first to live in their space. No scuffs, scratches, or stained carpets here.

But remember, the newness won’t last. Claim this position while you can, but behind the scenes, work on developing another value proposition to replace it when the time comes.

  1. Embrace your oldness.

OK, so maybe you can’t play the new game, but you can focus on your experience, stability, and years of service to your community. Older communities often have better locations and larger apartments. Promote this. Not to mention, older adults turned off by ultra-modern aesthetics might feel more comfortable in older communities.

Bonus: You might be able to offer a lower price point since competitors are paying significantly more for construction and financing.

  1. Promote high acuity levels of care.

Several regional and national brands position their ability to manage high-acuity residents. Their messaging about caring for the “frailest of the frail” attracts their ideal prospects (or their families). These communities don’t try to be all things to all people. Instead, they focus on what they’re great at: serving older adults who need more care.

If this describes your community, focus on your staffing levels, staff training, and the technology that supports better management of frail seniors. Include compelling proof of your community’s excellence by achieving deficiency-free status.

  1. Highlight luxury.

If you are the luxury price leader, your marketing messaging should focus on exclusivity, discernment, and lifestyle.

Here are themes that tend to resonate with people seeking luxury:

  • When only the best will do.
  • Dream bigger.
  • You earned this.
  • Design your life one day at a time.

The key is focusing on what elevates your brand to luxury status. For example, other communities might have fitness centers, but your community has personal trainers.

  1. Highlight affordability.

The key to marketing an affordable product is positioning your community as a responsible choice for consumers who are planners and don’t want to run out of money. Your community offers everything that your prospects need without making them pay for additional amenities that they’ll never use.

This is an example of an un-sexy but highly effective message for people who can’t afford frills or simply aren’t interested in them.

  1. Show off your specialty.

Maybe you only offer independent living or stand-alone memory care. Your marketing messaging can promote all the advantages of being purpose-built for that lifestyle to sell against competitors offering multiple levels of care.

Specializing in just one lifestyle should give you an advantage to create a unique experience that your competitors can’t provide in a more blended model.

  1. Niche down.

Niche developments often appeal to older adults who want to live with people with similar backgrounds, experiences, and hobbies.

Here are some examples of senior living communities with interesting niches:

  • Lasell Village in Newton, Mass, is a university-based retirement community (UBRC) built on the Lasell University campus. The community says the pursuit of lifelong learning is central to its lifestyle.
  • The Lillian Booth Actors’ Home is built for retired Broadway professionals (actors, musicians, directors, and designers).
  • The design-build company Haskell has created senior housing for Naval and Air Force personnel: Fleet Landing in Florida and Falcons Landing in Virginia.
  • There has been a lot of press about developing communities for retired NFL players.
  • Some companies are building specialty properties for the LGBTQ community, while others are focused on a specific culture.

The above is a small sample of ideas, but many others exist, like big campuses, small residential homes, buy-ins, rentals, and many more. The key is identifying your authentic value proposition and building your marketing messaging and campaigns around your strengths.

Need help standing out in a sea of sameness?

Messaging is one of our core services and specialties. Get in touch, and let’s brainstorm how to market senior living communities like yours.

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Are You Maximizing Your Senior Living Marketing Budget?

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The success of your senior living marketing—whether in-house or outsourced—is measured by tours, deposits, and move-ins. While it might be tempting to think your marketing is “working” as long as those three things consistently trend upwards, you could be leaving money on the table and not even realize it.

Budget season is the perfect time for a gut check. Here’s what to do . . .

Review your traffic and conversion sources.

As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Questions to ask:

  • Do you have complete visibility into each of your marketing channels, including digital and traditional?
  • Are you using UTM tags properly so you know where people are coming from and how, when, and where they convert?
  • Do you use centralized marketing technology, like HubSpot or something similar, that empowers you to monitor traffic sources and campaigns throughout the prospect’s journey?
  • Does your marketing tech integrate with your CRM? If not, the two systems won’t communicate, leading to disjointed data.

By asking these questions, you can identify areas you need to fix or improve. For example, if you recently launched an email marketing campaign, but the tracking is broken or non-existent, you won’t know if the campaign is working—or how well.

Or maybe your website traffic and conversion sources are not aligned or a historically successful source of qualified leads is trending down.

Again, these things can be subtle and easy to miss, especially if conversions seem good and the sales team appears happy. You must be proactive, pop the hood, and see what’s what. If you don’t, you might lose out on viable leads that could turn into tours, deposits, and move-ins.

Evaluate your content’s performance.

You need content for all phases of the buyer’s journey. However, too many marketing teams fall into the trap of thinking that the most popular content produces the most conversions.

That’s not always the case, which is why it’s essential to understand which pieces of content drive the most tours, deposits, and move-ins.

For example, guides like “How to fund senior living” tend to be top downloads for many communities. But the question is, how many of the people who download the funding guides ultimately convert into move-ins?

With some of our clients, we’ve discovered that when we look at the people who’ve moved in and best reflect the ideal customer profile, another piece of content—like a decision-making toolkit—actually converts more move-ins.

Intel like this can help you adjust and optimize your content marketing strategy. This is why you shouldn’t get hung up on vanity metrics like most downloads. Instead, always consider which content (and which content paths) produce the best conversions to tours, deposits, and move-ins.

Assess your budget allocation, look for wasteful spending, and adjust accordingly.

Here’s a four-step process to follow when developing your budget. Doing this will help ensure you’re putting all of your marketing dollars to good use:

  • Consider your current budget for each channel (e.g., organic, paid, social, etc.). Remember, the best way to inform future strategy is through current performance.
  • Review each channel’s results. And not just contacts and leads—you must know which channels are producing tours, deposits, and move-ins.
  • Identify any gaps. What don’t you have in your marketing stack? For example, if you haven’t launched a new version of your website in three years, you probably need a new one or a significant refresh at the very least.
  • From there, reallocate your budget accordingly. Put more dollars toward what’s delivering the most tours, deposits, and move-ins.

Now’s also a good time to audit your martech stack for technology and software you’re still paying for but not using. You’re wasting budget that you could be using somewhere else that actually helps generate more leads—and ultimately tours, deposits, and move-ins.

  • PRO TIP: Communities often wonder how to split their budget between digital and traditional marketing. This will depend on various factors, including the care level you’re selling, what type of community you have (rentals vs. life plan communities, for example), and even location. A rule of thumb: for-profit properties, an 80/20 split makes sense. For non-profits, a 70/30 split works (these communities tend to send more direct mail).

Understand and monitor key metrics.

Do you know the lifetime value of a resident? If not, tackle that first. It’s the granddaddy of all metrics.

Make sure you’ve set up clear goals and conversion tracking:

  • Define and track specific conversion goals, such as form submissions or phone calls.
  • Analyze conversion funnels to identify potential drop-off points. (More on drop-offs below.)
  • Implement tracking codes and pixels for accurate measurement.

Analyze demographic and behavioral data:

  • Explore demographic insights of website visitors and email subscribers.
  • Analyze user engagement based on age, location, and interests.
  • Use this data to refine your buyer personas and marketing messages for them.

Pay attention to funnel drop-off points:

  • Identify stages in the conversion funnel with high drop-off rates.
  • Analyze user behavior, messaging, or design issues causing drop-offs.
  • Optimize those specific areas to improve conversion rates.

Remember, the above items still matter if you work with an outside senior living marketing agency.

The primary difference is that you’ll collaborate with the agency about these items.

If you’re questioning whether your agency is the right fit and delivering measurable ROI, you should take a step back and evaluate their work—and your relationship with the account team.

Remember, a good agency will:

  • Create custom dashboards that highlight the metrics that matter most in achieving your goals
  • Be proactive in delivering reports, analysis, and recommended adjustments
  • Not be afraid to make changes based on what the data says
  • Act like a partner rather than a vendor

Some communities might find the agency’s results OK, but the customer service is severely lacking. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice one for the other. A good agency will value its relationship with you and promptly respond to emails, calls, and requests.

Still not sure you have the right agency?

Check out eight signs it might be time to fire your senior living marketing agency. Or you can simply contact us! We value our client relationships and love getting great results for them.

photo for an article Do You Need a Senior Living Marketing Plan, System, or Both?

Do You Need a Senior Living Marketing Plan, System, or Both?

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photo for an article Do You Need a Senior Living Marketing Plan, System, or Both?

If you’re one of our regular blog readers or podcast listeners, you might have heard us talk about the importance of having a marketing system. But what is a marketing system? How is it different from a senior living marketing plan? And do you need both?

Below, we explore this topic by drawing from our podcast with Sarah Nay, the COO of Duct Tape Marketing. (Listen to the full podcast here.)

What is a marketing plan?

A senior living marketing plan outlines specific tactics and actions designed to achieve your marketing objectives. While a marketing plan is crucial for identifying what your team must do daily, weekly, and monthly, it will fall short if it doesn’t integrate into a broader, more dynamic strategy.

The main issue? Too many marketing plans list tactics like blogging, emailing, posting to social media (and so forth) without taking that all-important step back to understand the “why” behind each item.

What is a marketing system?

A marketing system, on the other hand, is a comprehensive, strategic framework that guides all marketing efforts. Before getting into a list of day-to-day or month-to-month tactics (i.e., your marketing plan), the marketing system delves into a cohesive marketing strategy that aligns with your overall business goals.

This strategy work includes things like:

Once you understand those things, you will have a much better grasp of the “whys” behind your marketing efforts and how those efforts will help the community achieve its business goals (for example, increasing revenue by X percent year over year).

Why your senior living community needs a marketing system and a marketing plan

Here’s why you need both to effectively market your senior living community.

1. Strategic Direction and Tactical Execution

A marketing system provides strategic direction, ensuring your efforts align with your business goals. The marketing plan, on the other hand, outlines the specific tactics and actions needed to execute this strategy. Together, they ensure that every action you take is purposeful and contributes to your long-term objectives.

2. Consistency and Flexibility

A marketing system ensures consistency in messaging and branding across all channels, creating a cohesive experience for your audience. The marketing plan allows for flexibility, detailing the specific actions to be taken and adjusted as needed based on performance metrics.

3. Comprehensive Coverage

While a marketing plan focuses on immediate actions, a marketing system ensures that these actions are part of a larger, integrated strategy. This comprehensive approach covers every stage of the customer journey, from awareness to conversion and retention.

4. Improved ROI

By integrating a marketing system with a well-crafted marketing plan, you can track and measure the ROI of each tactic more effectively. This transparency allows for better resource allocation and more informed decision-making, ultimately driving higher returns on your marketing investments.

Key differences between senior living marketing plans and marketing systems

1. Scope and Depth

  • Marketing Plan: Typically more tactical, focusing on specific actions to achieve short-term goals.
  • Marketing System: Holistic and strategic, encompassing the entire customer journey and ensuring all marketing activities are interconnected.

2. Approach

  • Marketing Plan: Often a static document outlining what needs to be done.
  • Marketing System: Dynamic and iterative, adjusting strategies based on ongoing performance metrics and feedback.

3. Integration

  • Marketing Plan: Might include isolated tactics without a unifying strategy.
  • Marketing System: Ensures all marketing efforts are integrated and support a unified strategic direction.

Bottom line: Think marketing system first, marketing plan second.

Relying solely on a tactical marketing plan will not yield the results you want. To drive occupancy and build a thriving community, you need a smart strategy that informs your marketing plan.

The marketing system provides the strategic backbone, while the marketing plan outlines the specific actions needed to achieve your goals. By integrating these two elements, you can create a cohesive, dynamic marketing approach that delivers consistent, measurable results.

Need help with your community’s marketing strategy, plan, or both? Get in touch.

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Senior Living Leads Stuck in Pre & Post-Tour Stages: What to Do

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Photo for the article Senior Living Leads Stuck in Pre & Post-Tour Stages: What to Do

Tackling occupancy issues in your community often means finding untapped opportunities within your existing senior living leads, such as those stuck in the pre-tour and post-tour stages.

By effectively re-engaging these segments, you’ll move more pre-tour leads to tours and more post-tour leads to move-ins. Below, we explore strategies for doing exactly that.

Understanding Leads Stuck in the Pre-Tour Stage

People stuck in the pre-tour stage have expressed interest in your community by reaching out, but they haven’t scheduled a tour yet. They need an extra nudge to take the next step.

But first, how do you know if someone is genuinely stuck? The 2023 Aline Annual Sales and Marketing Benchmark Report for Senior Housing provides excellent metrics like the average sales cycle length from inquiry to tour for the following:

  • Independent living: 122 days
  • Assisted living: 78 days
  • Memory care: 49 days

Here are some strategies for nudging leads stuck beyond those averages.

1. Come right out and ask if they’re still interested.

Direct is usually best. If prospects are stuck in the pre-tour stage, you could enroll them in an email nurturing campaign that asks if they’re still considering your community.

We’ve had great success with these “Are you still thinking about senior living?” campaigns for our clients. The gist of the correspondence is, “You expressed interest in our community in the past, but we haven’t heard from you in a while. We‘re wondering if you’re still thinking about senior living?”

The campaign gives recipients options for re-engaging. If they opt out, no harm, no foul—at least you know, and you’re not wasting time marketing to them.

If they re-engage, they’ll continue receiving emails that refamiliarize them with your community and gently nudge them to book a tour.

2. Forget selling. Focus on connecting.

Some people might find the concept of a “tour” too formal or salesy. Instead, avoid the word “tour” and offer something that feels more relaxed, casual, and low-risk.

  • Lunch invites. People love free food. Inviting your prospect to a casual lunch can provide an excellent introduction to your community.
  • Event invites. Invite prospects to social gatherings where they can experience the environment without the pressure of a formal tour. Think movie nights, musical events, or fairs.

3. Don’t nudge people to the point of annoyance.

Gentle reminders are good, but pestering emails and phone calls aren’t. Moving to senior living is a huge decision involving many emotions. Empower prospects to tell you when they’re ready to schedule a tour. Enrolling them in lead nurturing campaigns is a good step, but only if the campaigns are relevant to them.

Remember, these prospects have already expressed an interest in senior living and your community in particular. Brainstorm why the prospect might be reluctant to schedule a tour and use the nurturing campaign to address those issues and demonstrate your empathy.

Common issues include:

  • Fear of Commitment: They might think scheduling a tour implies a level of commitment they’re not ready to make.

o   How to address: In your communication, reassure prospects that a tour isn’t binding. Explain that touring several communities is part of the process, and even if they decide your community isn’t “the one,” that’s OK.

  • Emotional Barriers: The prospect or their family members might face emotional challenges, such as denial or guilt about moving into a senior living community.

o   How to address: Acknowledge that having mixed feelings about senior living is normal. Share stories of residents who experienced different emotions before making the move—sadness, fear, anxiety, guilt—and how they successfully overcame those emotions. (If you don’t have this content, create it.)

  • Lack of Information: This is also called the fear of the unknown. Prospects might feel uncertain about what to expect during a tour.

o   How to address: Create a robust “What to expect when you visit” page on your site that talks about tour specifics, like where to park, where to enter, who to ask for, how long the tour will last, etc. If available, sprinkle the page with testimonials or snippets of Google reviews that mention how helpful the tours are. (Not sure your tours are up to snuff? Here’s how to create a red-carpet experience.)

  • Perceived Sales Pressure: Prospects might worry they’ll experience high-pressure sales tactics during the tour.

o   How to address: Once again, emphasize that they are always in control, that a tour is simply an introduction to your community, and that no one expects them to make such a big decision on the spot.

Understanding Leads Stuck in the Post-Tour Stage

Nothing is more frustrating—or puzzling—than when a high-intent lead tours the community, seems to love it, and then . . . crickets.

But here’s the thing: Too often, sales teams drop the ball here, thinking the heavy lifting is done once they give someone a tour. Sure, the sales rep might do a perfunctory follow-up. But one follow-up won’t cut it given senior living’s notoriously long sales cycle, especially for independent living and assisted living.

You must continue to actively and creatively engage leads in the post-tour phase.

But again, how do you know if someone is genuinely stuck? The 2023 Aline Annual Sales and Marketing Benchmark Report for Senior Housing provides the average sales cycle length from tour to move-in for the following:

  • Independent living: 201 days
  • Assisted living: 119 days
  • Memory care: 64 days

Here are effective strategies to implement if leads get stuck in this stage.

  • Invite the prospect back for another visit. Even better if it’s something other than a tour. Personalized invitations to special events, like a holiday party or a lunch-and-learn, can keep your community top-of-mind.
  • Occasionally drop in on them at home. Consider doing home visits for high-intent leads. Bringing a meal or a small gift can be a thoughtful way to show that you care and to keep the conversation going.
  • Enroll the prospect in a “What are you waiting for?” campaign. This is another campaign we’ve had great success with. This post-tour campaign uses FOMO (fear of missing out) to encourage decision-making. In this campaign, we contrast the annoyances of the prospect’s current home life with the vibrant life they could have in your community. For example, in one email, we show a person alone eating a can of soup, followed by a shot of smiling people enjoying a yummy-looking meal in the community’s gorgeous dining room. The concept is simple: What are you waiting for? This could be your life.

Bottom line: Don’t give up on stuck leads.

We’ve seen too many senior living CRMs with buckets of leads labeled “cold.” Yet when we dig deeper and ask questions, we discover that these leads once had high intent. (Especially the ones that went on tours.)

Don’t give up on these leads. The senior living sales cycle is long and involves a lot of effort and patience on the part of marketing and sales. If your community needs help re-engaging stalled leads, get in touch and let us help.

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Using Social Proof in Digital Marketing for Senior Living

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Have you ever been in a social situation where you weren’t sure how to behave—should I sit, stand, congregate in one room, avoid another—and you modeled your behavior based on what others around you were doing?

That’s social proof (or social influence) in action.

Psychologist Robert Cialdini coined the phrase social proof in his book Influence: Science and Practice. The term suggests that when people don’t know how to behave or what to do in a situation, they tend to look at what other folks are doing, assuming (rightly or wrongly) that others have more information or insight.

OK, so you might be wondering what social proof has to do with digital marketing for senior living. Turns out, a lot. Below, we discuss what social proof is in terms of marketing, why it matters for your senior living community, and what you can do to foster it.

What is social proof in marketing?

Social proof in marketing occurs when someone other than the brand says the brand is fabulous, and this stamp of approval influences others to buy from the brand. As noted above, humans tend to be influenced by what other people do and experience.

⮚      Have you ever had a bunch of friends talk up a new show on Netflix or Hulu, and you found yourself watching it over the following weekend? That’s social proof. (This is how The Bear took off last year.)

⮚      Have you ever craved a specific type of food and chosen a restaurant based on its stellar Yelp reviews? That, too, is social proof.

⮚      Have you ever asked for a recommendation in a Facebook group—maybe for a plumber, landscaper, or hair stylist—and eight comments mentioned the same person, which spurred you to call them? Hello, social proof!

Social proof is also closely tied with another concept many of us know: FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” Think of any product that’s gone viral—from the Cabbage Patch dolls of the 80s to the veggie chopper everyone’s talking about on TikTok. These things take off because influencers talk them up, and suddenly, everyone wants to have the product or service.

Why is social proof important in digital marketing for senior living?

We don’t have to tell you that people hesitate before making big purchases. Moving to a senior living community is often the last big purchase a person will make in their lifetime—and it’s a pricey one.

Prospective buyers want to be reassured that they’re making a good decision. And that’s precisely where social proof comes into play. They want to hear about people’s experiences in the community: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Were they happy? Was it money well spent? Were they cared for? Was the place as wonderful as the website and marketing materials suggested?

If your community lacks social proof, you’ll have an uphill battle converting marketing-qualified leads into move-ins.

Consider these social proof stats cited by OptIn Monster:

  • 87% of purchasing choices start with online research before the transaction.
  • The average consumer reads ten online reviews before deciding to buy.
  • 88% of people value user reviews as highly as personal suggestions.
  • 82% of Americans consult friends and family for advice before buying something.

Bottom line: social proof matters!

What types of social proof should senior living communities encourage?

Reviews

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ve likely heard us emphasize the importance of your senior living community’s Google Business Profile, particularly the reviews. At some point, most of your prospects will see your Google reviews.

When it comes to reviews, focus on doing the following:

Regularly solicit reviews. If you don’t have recent reviews, this can lead to questions and diminish trust in your brand. Why are the reviews a year old? What does this mean? Is the community still around? Did something change with management? Does that five-star review from three years ago tell an accurate story of what it’s like in the community today?

⮚      INSIGHT: OptIn Monster reports that eighty-five percent of consumers believe online reviews older than three months are irrelevant.

Maintain an overall positive rating. Most reasonable people don’t expect perfection. In fact, a perfect 5.0 for reviews would likely raise an eyebrow since enough folks have likely heard about fake or paid reviews. At the same time, people will quickly cross off communities with ratings in the threes or lower. We advise our clients to aim for the sweet spot of 4.0 to 4.5. This tends to be a believable score as well as a good score.

⮚      INSIGHT: OptIn Monster reports that fifty-seven percent of consumers will only purchase or use a business’s services if it has a rating of at least four stars.

 

Provide thoughtful responses to all reviews, especially negative reviews. Are your responses kind and authentic? Or snarky and defensive? People do take note. Demonstrating that you’re listening to people’s critiques will serve your community a lot better than a dismissive response to a negative review.

⮚      INSIGHT: TrustPulse reports that fifty-six percent of consumers alter their view of a business based on the way it responds to reviews.

Referrals

We mentioned earlier that most people seek recommendations from friends and family before buying something. Having a robust referral program can help you take advantage of this stat.

Referrals can come from residents, family members, and third parties, such as elder law attorneys, financial planners, and geriatric care managers.

RESIDENTS. The best way to get referrals from residents is by creating a seamless move-in experience—and a stellar first month. (We’re not suggesting things should go downhill from there, but the first 30 days are critical.) Marketing, sales, and other departments (like activities) should collaborate. Silo mentalities need-not apply. Learn how to create an epic new resident welcome program.

FAMILY MEMBERS. Adult children can be an excellent megaphone for your community, especially if their mom or dad is having a wonderful experience. Remember that the adult child can continue to be a referral source even after the resident moves out or passes away (provided the experience remains positive until the end). Learn more about the adult child’s journey and why staying in touch with them is critical.

THIRD-PARTY REFERRALS. Sales reps should always nurture these relationships and regularly network. Still, marketers can help by providing compelling collateral and setting up automated email workflows to make it easier for reps to stay in touch with their networking contacts. Learn more about how to engage with senior living referral sources.

Need help developing social proof for your community?

There’s no better form of social proof than glowing reviews and a steady stream of referrals. Get in touch if you need help generating more of one or both. We specialize in digital marketing for senior living and know how to prime your community’s social proof engine.

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Senior Living Social Media Marketing: Storytelling Tips

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Photo of a cell phone for the article Senior Living Social Media Marketing: Storytelling Tips

Humans are suckers for a good story, full stop. We love telling stories. We love listening to stories. And thanks to social media, there’s no shortage of ways to consume stories, either.

For the casual scroller, encountering interesting stories on social media can be a fun way to while away the hours. For savvy businesses, however, sharing memorable stories can increase engagement, brand recognition, and even sales.

Consider these compelling storytelling stats:

So, let’s discuss the power of storytelling in senior living social media marketing—and some tips for creating truly memorable stories on three of the biggies: Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Facebook

Along with YouTube, Facebook is still the granddaddy of all social media platforms, with over two billion active daily users globally. According to Hootsuite, it’s also the most used platform in the U.S.

This makes Facebook an ideal platform for senior living communities to connect with prospects, current residents, and their families.

Facebook Storytelling Tips for Senior Living

Your residents are an excellent source of compelling stories, so turn to them for ideas. Even better, their stories won’t be the same ones people see on a competitor’s social media accounts.

Here’s how to use their stories on Facebook:

 

  • New resident spotlights. By highlighting a new resident, you’ll create a warm and fuzzy feeling for the resident and their family. You’ll also show prospects how you celebrate residents.
  • Holidays. Here are some examples. For Thanksgiving, ask residents to share their favorite family traditions. On Halloween, ask residents if they’ve ever encountered a ghost or haunted house. You get the idea. Consider venturing beyond traditional holidays and focus on creating stories around things like National Hot Dog Day or National Ice Cream Month in July.
  • Day-in-the-life stories. Follow a resident around for a day in your community and highlight the happy moments.
  • Timelapse videos of events, like decorating the Christmas tree or how the gardens change from spring to fall.

Regarding story length, remember that no one expects a novel or movie. Shorter posts typically get better engagement on Facebook.

What do we mean by short? HubSpot says 40 characters or fewer. If you’re about to say it’s impossible to share a good story at that length, consider the famous six-word short story attributed to Hemingway: For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

BOOM. That little story, which weighs in at 33 characters, delivers one heck of an emotional punch. Now, we’re not suggesting that you must stay under 40 characters. But you should aim for no more than a couple of sentences. Do your best to keep your post under 200 characters (at which point the text gets cut off, and people need to click to “see more”).

How can you keep it short and sweet while still delivering a compelling story? Here are some strategies.

Provide a super-short story, like Hemingway’s, but illustrate it with a pic or two.

 

  • EXAMPLE: Meet Mary. She loves quilting, cats, and a dry martini with three olives. Cheers!

o   Make sure you include a picture of Mary holding up her martini.

 

Offer a cliffhanger that entices people to click into a longer piece of content.

 

  • EXAMPLE: Meet Mary. She loves quilting, cats, and a special libation that she swears has kept her 87 years young. Find out what it is in our latest Resident Spotlight.

o   Link to a narrative about Mary on your website.

 

Let videos tell the stories.

  • EXAMPLE: Mary, our newest resident, reveals the drink she can’t live without.

o   Include a short video where Mary is toasting with her friends.

Videos are incredibly helpful in telling stories. Plus, videos boost engagement. (People spend half their time on Facebook watching videos.) Videos don’t need to be super long (think one to two minutes max), and they don’t need to be professionally shot, either.

Encourage residents and staff to keep their smartphones handy and share raw footage with the marketing department (here’s how to foster and reward this behavior). With an intuitive editing app like InShot, you can edit the raw footage into a compelling video.

Instagram

Instagram caters to a much younger demographic than Facebook. According to Hootsuite, 85% of IG users are under 45. You might be thinking, why bother? Well, nearly 16% of Instagram users are between 35 and 44, and 8% are between 45 and 54. Many of those users have aging parents and will likely be involved in the decision-making process when Mom and Dad consider moving to senior living.

The bottom line: Instagram is still an excellent place to share content, as long as you remember that you’ll most likely be talking to adult children rather than seniors themselves.

Instagram Storytelling Tips for Senior Living

So the question becomes, how do you engage this younger demographic, one that might influence their parents and grandparents?

We recommend turning to time-tested hashtags on Instagram—and reinventing them.

For example, hashtags like #food (and its various synonyms) are among the most popular hashtags on Instagram. Food is also among the most common questions communities receive from prospects and their families. Plus, it’s one of the topics communities like to promote as a differentiator.

You see where we’re going with this, right?

Use #food as the starting point for your storytelling. No, we’re not suggesting you show shots of what’s for dinner and call it a day.

Brainstorm all the stories around food in your community. Questions to ask yourself:

  • What’s your chef’s story? Conduct a video interview with them. You could also do a timelapse video of the chef and their team preparing dinner. Or record another video of them doing something special, like decorating a cake for a resident’s birthday or making one of the most popular dishes in the community. And then—this is important—share the recipe in the caption.
  • Does your community have a vegetable garden? Do the residents help with gardening? What’s grown, and what dishes are made from the harvest? Take a bunch of pics and include an engaging caption.
  • Where are veggies and meats sourced from? If there’s an interesting story—fishmonger, local butcher, farm-to-table approach—highlight it.
  • What are residents’ favorite meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Do a breakfast montage where you shoot a video of favorite meals interspersed with quick snippets of residents saying what they love about that meal.
  • Do you host pasta parties, brunches, ice cream sundae bars, etc.? Lively reels with fun captions are always crowd-pleasers on IG.
  • How about celebrations? Record a video highlighting how the dining staff works with a resident and their family for special occasions—wedding anniversaries, birthday parties, Mother’s Day brunches, and so forth.

Remember, no other community has your chef, your recipes, or your dining staff. By focusing on a popular hashtag like #food, you’ll gain traction (over time), but you’ll also be able to stand out—in a good way—from the competition.

Note: We’re not suggesting you can’t have content highlighting other areas of your community. But if you create stories around the food in your community, you’ll capture people’s attention and boost engagement. And we’re not just talking about more likes, either. People often share and save food-related content, especially food demonstration videos and recipes.

Here are some more tips for this approach . . .

  • Don’t forget the captions. If you need inspo, check out how local restaurants and hotels approach writing fun captions on Instagram.
  • Don’t forget to repurpose your videos. You can use the videos on other platforms. Share them on TikTok and YouTube as well.
  • If your competitors join the #food action, that’s OK. Again, all communities will have different food tales to tell.

LinkedIn

Your community is only as good as your employees. The most successful communities usually have happy, loyal people who enjoy their profession and love working for your senior living community. If you have a rotating door of staff members coming and going, everyone will feel it (and not in a good way), including residents, families, and fellow employees.

While fixing employment challenges is beyond marketing’s purview, the marketing department can still help attract the right people to open roles within the community. This is where LinkedIn comes in.

LinkedIn Storytelling Tips for Senior Living

The stories you share on LinkedIn can provide a glimpse into what it’s like to work in your community. To get started, revisit your community’s mission and value statements. From there, share content that shows how employees embody these values.

For example, if compassionate care is one of your community’s values—and not just for residents but also employees—you could share the story about an employee who recently had a baby and the amount of parental leave they were given, the flexible “easing” back into their work schedule, and the adorable gift basket the community delivered to the new parent and baby.

Of course, everything you share has to be true, but you get the idea. By sharing a true story demonstrating your community’s values and how they affect employees, you’re showing prospective employees what they can expect. Showing instead of “telling” is the hallmark of good storytelling.

More storytelling ideas for LinkedIn:

 

  • Employee Spotlight. Just as you have resident spotlights, you can record short videos or write up short narratives on employees.
  • Employee Testimonials: Share written or video testimonials from employees about why they love working in your community. These personal stories can provide insight into your community’s positive work culture and supportive environment.
  • Professional Development and Training: Highlight stories of employees who have benefited from ongoing training and professional development opportunities. Share how these programs have helped them advance their careers and improve their skills, reflecting your community’s commitment to continuous learning.
  • Team Achievements: Showcase team achievements and collaborative projects that have significantly affected the community. This could include successful events, innovative programs, or any initiatives that highlight the teamwork and dedication of your staff.

Bottom line: Make sure you’re including compelling stories in your senior living social media marketing.

By tailoring your storytelling approach to fit each platform’s unique features and audiences, you can maximize engagement and highlight the vibrant life within your senior living community. These tips will help you create compelling content that resonates with current residents, prospective residents, and their families.

Here’s more helpful content on social media marketing in senior living: