Photo of graphs for the article: How to Diagnose Senior Living Occupancy Issues

How to Diagnose Senior Living Occupancy Issues

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Photo of graphs for the article: How to Diagnose Senior Living Occupancy Issues

Anyone who’s worked in senior living sales or marketing knows the tension that exists between the two. Marketing might say, “Hey, look at all the leads we’ve delivered. Why haven’t you closed more?” Meanwhile, the sales team often responds with, “These leads stink! They’re not qualified.”

Marketing and sales teams each play essential roles in driving senior living occupancy. This is why we must dial down the tension and find ways to encourage collaboration. To foster collaboration, everyone must understand two key points: who’s in charge of what and how to diagnose issues.

Below, we outline what marketing teams “own” and what sales teams “own.” Then, we provide tips for diagnosing senior living occupancy issues in each case.

What does marketing own?

Simply put, marketing owns lead generation.

⮚ Are you generating enough quality leads, meaning a good mix of sales-qualified leads (SQLs) and marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)?
⮚ Are the SQLs converting into tours and move-ins?
⮚ Are the MQLs advancing to sales-qualified status over time?

How can you tell if you have a lead gen problem?

Ask yourself the following questions to help diagnose a lead gen/marketing problem.

Where are most leads coming from? Understanding lead source attribution is critical. Your primary source of leads should come from organic search. Paid search takes the #2 spot. Direct traffic (which suggests an awareness of your brand) and referral traffic round out the top four. Read more about the difference between organic and paid search.

Are you bragging about lead volume, but the sales team still complains about lead quality? Listen to them! Too often, marketing teams point to the volume of leads generated rather than the quality. Quality trumps quantity every time. Think about it. Would you rather have 500 mediocre leads that don’t convert or languish in nurturing workflows? Or would you rather have 200 quality leads, half of which are sales-qualified and the other half marketing-qualified? It’s a no-brainer.

Are you dealing with website traffic issues? Traffic problems usually present themselves in one of two ways:

⮚ Not enough quality traffic to yield leads. You need a healthy amount of quality traffic to hit lead quotas for the sales team. Issues like poor optimization or lousy site performance can cause traffic problems. For example, Google might not even serve up your website if it isn’t secure or mobile-friendly. Use our instant website audit tool to evaluate potential problems.

⮚ High traffic, low conversions. Do you offer prospects plenty of conversion points related to where they are in their buying journey? Have you reviewed CTA performance? Do you use specific landing pages instead of a generic “contact us” form? Are you using third-party conversion tools, such as surveys, 3-D floor plans, and chat? All of these things matter and can make a huge difference in conversions. Check out specific strategies for turning website traffic into leads.

Are MQLs advancing to SQLs at an appropriate rate? You don’t want your marketing-qualified leads to wither on the vine. After appropriate nurturing, many of them should convert to SQLs (aim for anywhere between 25 to 40 percent).

How are your paid ads performing? Is your impression score greater than 10%? What is your conversion percentage and cost per conversion? Don’t throw money at paid search without a solid understanding of the ROI you should be getting. Read more about cost-per-lead benchmarks for senior living.

What does sales own?

Simply put, the sales team owns conversions.

⮚ What is your “speed to lead”?
⮚ Is your team converting inquiries to tours?
⮚ Is your team advancing tours to deposits/move-ins?
⮚ Are you underestimating the value of marketing-qualified leads?

Regarding that last point, the shorter the sales cycle, the shorter the length of stay, which means less revenue. Leads nurtured over a longer timeframe tend to reside in the community longer, resulting in more revenue. In other words, don’t dismiss the “not ready yet” marketing-qualified leads—or your marketing team’s efforts in producing and nurturing them. Many of our clients have over 50% of move-ins coming from MQLs.

How can you tell if you have a conversion problem?

Start by looking at how you score and segment leads. Bottom line: Not all leads are created equal. If you treat all leads the same, you’ll have trouble with conversions. This is where collaboration with (and respect for) marketing comes into play. Let marketing nurture the MQLs. The sales team should only focus on sales-qualified leads. Learn more about the biggest lead-scoring mistakes senior living marketers continue to make.

Review how quickly leads are responded to during business hours. The community that responds fastest to the initial inquiry tends to win. (That’s the reality. We can debate whether that’s fair some other time.) At LeadGenie, our outsourced senior living call center, we schedule 70% of our tours in the first hour and 95% in the first two days. How’s this possible? Simple: We answer 85% of sales calls within 30 seconds. Learn more about LeadGenie.

Review inquiry-to-tour conversions. Turn to sales benchmarking reports to get averages (download this free one from Aline). If your conversions are underperforming, this could be due to myriad reasons, such as poor lead response time, lack of discovery skills, lousy rapport, lack of empathy, problems overcoming objections, or simply not listening close enough to the prospect.

Review tour-to-deposit/move-in. Poor conversions could also be due to myriad reasons, such as a lack of planning/personalization of the tour experience, failure to secure a next step at the end of the tour, or lack of creative follow-up after the tour. Read these tips for converting tours to move-ins.

Review call-tracking data. How many sales calls go unanswered? Look at the time of day and day of the week when calls come in so you can ensure coverage at peak times. Listen to the calls to hear your prospects’ experience when they phone the community. Look for training opportunities for the front deck/concierge and the sales team. Check out why we love CallRail for call-tracking.

Review how the team handles other common types of leads. Let’s discuss three common subsets of leads and how to engage or re-engage them.

⮚ Leads that get stuck. Sometimes that once-hot SQL will stall in the pre-tour stage. Others might peter out in the post-tour stage. It’s the sales team’s job to work these leads. This is where creativity, collaboration with marketing, and marketing automation can come into play.

⮚ On-deck/generic leads. Some leads are unresponsive to sales outreach, and some CRMs might use generic-sounding status options for these leads, like “on deck,” “lead,” or “contact.” After several attempts, enroll these leads into a longer lead nurturing campaign and leverage marketing automation to stay in touch with these shy leads.

⮚ Lost but not disqualified leads. Some leads end up in the category of “lost but not disqualified.” These leads chose to stay at home, hire home care services, or move in with family. Continue to nurture them because, at some point, these prospects will likely need a more supportive environment than what family, home care, or adult day care can provide. Add these leads to a longer lead nurturing campaign so that when the next crisis arrives, your community will be top of mind.

Need help diagnosing senior living occupancy issues?

We can help diagnose the problem and align your marketing and sales teams. Get in touch and let’s discuss lead gen.

Photo of a board for the article: Should You Outsource Your Senior Living Call Center?

Should You Outsource Your Senior Living Call Center?

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Photo of a board for the article: Should You Outsource Your Senior Living Call Center?

We don’t have to tell you that phone calls still matter in senior living. You’re living and breathing it every day.

But here’s an interesting stat from Invoca that verifies this experience: “70% of senior living and care consumers will call during the consumer journey. Since senior living and care is a highly-considered purchase, it often requires direct communication with a qualified agent.” (Emphasis is ours.)

The phrase “qualified agent” suggests a call center, a popular topic at the Senior Housing News conference in Tampa earlier this year. During various panels, several operators brought up the value of using a call center to improve lead response and conversions.

The question is, should you manage your own call center? Or should you outsource?

We have a strong opinion on this subject, and for a good reason: We built a senior living call center.

We launched LeadGenie in early 2023 to complement our marketing services and ensure that the leads we generate for clients are answered—and answered in a way that helps the prospect.

We got to this point after listening to countless hours of call recordings filled with lousy customer interactions and prospects who sounded frustrated (rightfully so). Many of these prospects had scheduled tours on the website, yet no one from the community had responded to confirm. Or they were dumped in voicemail, told to call back, or put on hold for so long that they abandoned the call.

It soon became clear that half of the leads we worked so hard to generate for our clients were mismanaged and never reached the salesperson.

So, we decided to build something that would work better for prospects—and our industry. The result was LeadGenie, a complete lead management solution with a call center at its core.

We’re not going to lie: It was really hard in the beginning. We made mistakes and had to rebuild the team and the infrastructure several months into the launch. Today, we know more about call centers and centralized lead management than we ever thought possible, and we love sharing our knowledge.

What to know about senior living call centers

The telephony system you choose can make or break your call center.

Your phone system must be easy for your staff to use. It should include workforce management to ensure proper staffing by day and time, provide transparency to staff performance so you can reward top performers and coach (or fire) underperformers, and generate a reporting dashboard to hold the team accountable to KPIs.

Speaking of KPIs, are you ready for some alphabet soup?

If you thought marketing jargon and acronyms were bad, just wait until you see the stuff related to call centers.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

We set this with each client based on their goals. The most common is the percentage of calls answered within an agreed-upon timeframe.

We average 85/30, meaning we answer 85% of all calls within 30 seconds for inbound calls. We use minutes to measure outbound calls (generated from third-party leads and web forms) since the team has to receive the lead, read the notes, and make an outbound call attempt. We had a client with a 27-hour speed-to-lead that we reduced to a few minutes.

Once you agree upon the SLA, it should be visible on the client dashboard.

Average Handle Time (AHT)

Each client has a different goal regarding how deeply they want us to explore prospects. Some want light discovery with AHT under 3 minutes. Others want us to act as an extension of their sales team and conduct deep and detailed discovery, which can take eight to 12 minutes.

Call centers, whether you own or outsource, are labor intensive. Labor will be your biggest investment, so setting expectations on AHT is critical to achieving the desired results. Read more about call center best practices.

After Call Work (ACW)

Call center staff must document notes into your CRM once the call is completed. A few minutes per interaction must be built into staffing models and included in reporting.

Call centers might combine AHT and ACW into “screen time” if the telephony system records each agent’s screen for training purposes.

Workflow

Agreeing upon the lead response and follow-up cadence will help set the tone for a successful relationship. Some clients want us to manage a lead for only 24 hours, while others might want up to four attempts in three days. One client requested 14 touchpoints in 10 days, and others want us to own the lead until we qualify, disqualify, or advance it to an appointment.

Some of our workflows involve only inbound and outbound calls, while others include emails. Once everyone agrees on the workflow, there must be accountability for managing it successfully.

So, should you manage your own call center? Or outsource? 5 considerations.

The problem with managing your own senior living call center is you don’t realize how complex things can become until you’re in it. Five areas in particular can become headaches in a hurry:

1. Recruiting

This is a specialized hire (especially if you’re building a remote team). Do you have a recruiting specialist for this role?

2. Training

Do you have a team that can train new hires about the senior living industry? What about sales skills, call center skills, and technical proficiency? It can take skilled call center teams two to three weeks to fully train an agent before they’re ready to get on the phone. Oh, and training should never stop. You must have live call monitoring, evaluations of recorded calls, and one-to-one coaching with each agent.

3. Admin, HR, and Payroll

Do you want to manage a high-turnover, hourly staffing model with last-minute call-outs, no-shows, and missed punches?

4. Accountability and Productivity

Do you know how many sales activities each agent should complete per hour/shift? Do you have KPIs to measure quality, productivity, and results? Do you have the capacity to coach to improve performance and identify gaps in learning?

5. Knowledge Bases

You’ll have to build custom knowledge bases for each community so your agents can quickly provide prospects with answers to their questions. Agents will need more than what’s available on your website, so having the right platform to make it easy for agents to navigate while keeping the prospect engaged is critical.

Think you might be better off outsourcing? Give LeadGenie a try.

LeadGenie has been a great addition to our marketing agency services since it takes all the great leads we’ve been generating for clients and advancing more of them to tours and move-ins.

If you’re considering a call center partnership that allows you to use your CRM, customize your workflow, and measure results, schedule a call with LeadGenie. Visit the LeadGenie site to learn more.

Computer with a toolbox filled on top.

Getting the Most Out of Third-Party Website Tools & Integrations

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Computer with a toolbox filled on top.

Third-party website tools and integrations can be an excellent way to elevate a prospect’s experience on your senior living website. The right products can boost engagement and conversions, but the key word here is “right.”

Below, we discuss what to consider when selecting and using these products as part of your senior living marketing strategy.

The primary question to ask when choosing a third-party website tool or integration

The following questions should always be in the back of your head as you consider different products:

  • What’s the goal?
  • What does success look like?
  • How will you measure results?

But one over-arching question that encompasses all of the above is this: How does the tool fit into your strategy?

Remember, every good marketing decision begins with the right strategy to achieve your goals. Common goals include:

  • Getting more leads in the pipeline
  • Booking more tours
  • Getting more phone calls
  • Shortening the sales cycle
  • Advancing marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to sales-qualified leads (SQLs)

Your marketing toolbox should have various website tools to help achieve these outcomes. Here are some popular ones to consider—and how to get the most out of them.

Website Tools & Integrations to Consider

Surveys/Assessments & Decision Tools

When prospects visit a senior living community’s website, they often want to better understand their situation and determine which level of care is the best fit. Survey and assessment tools can help.

Some of these tools focus more on the clinical aspects of the decision (e.g., Roobrik), while others are more aligned with lifestyle and socialization preferences (e.g., Waypoint).

Surveys and assessment tools can work well as an initial conversion point, but we often find even better results when used in lead nurturing and marketing automation campaigns.

Where to use them:

  • Place them strategically throughout the website.
  • Use them on thank-you pages to advance prospects to take the next step.
  • Link to them in your lead nurturing email campaigns to advance prospects into the next stage of their buying journey.

Chatbots, Live Chat, or Virtual Sales Assistants (VSAs)

These tools empower prospects to get information without speaking on the phone (or in person) with a sales rep. Our data shows that returning visitors are more likely to engage and convert using one of these tools and that chat is frequently the touch point that converts anonymous website visitors into contacts.

  • AI-based tools can mimic humans and respond to frequently asked questions, freeing your sales team and front desk from having to repeatedly answer the same questions.
  • Live human chat that connects more personally can elevate this experience even further. The prospect might feel more relaxed communicating through a screen (rather than on the phone or in person) while still appreciating that there’s an actual human on the other end of the exchange. This could be especially helpful for adult children researching communities on behalf of a parent. The adult child likely uses this form of communication for other tasks (like cable, banking, etc.).

The good news is that plenty of solid options exist, including SiteStaff Chat and Further.

  • PRO TIP: Think about the experience you want to create. An AI chatbot is a different experience than a human interaction. A bot is better on a mobile device since typing entire conversations on a cell phone is difficult. However, human chat might be better for visitors using a desktop. You could also opt for a hybrid solution that combines human live chat during business hours for laptop users and AI bots for mobile visits to your website and after-hours coverage.

Call Tracking Tools

Call tracking tools like CallRail provide valuable insights, such as . . .

  • Which marketing channels are making your phone ring
  • How well your inbound sales calls are being managed (for example, answered vs. not answered)
  • The quality of the sales interactions (which you can learn about by auditing recorded calls)

To get the most out of these tools, you must set up each marketing channel with a unique local phone number, monitor your dashboards, and audit calls regularly.

When you review the analytics, pay attention to the following items:

Call attribution. This will tell you which marketing channels and campaigns are generating phone calls. An important caveat: You must monitor calls to ensure you’re not wasting precious marketing dollars on generating calls from staff members, job seekers, vendors, or families trying to reach residents.

Missed opportunities. The dashboard should show you how many calls from your marketing channels go unanswered, are abandoned, or go to voicemail. Peak times often correspond with morning and lunch hours.

Call quality. Audit recorded calls to see how your sales reps interact with prospects. Things to listen for include the ability to build rapport, the percentage of time they spend talking vs. listening (the prospect should be speaking 70% of the time), how often the salesperson asks open-ended questions, and whether the salesperson tries to advance the prospect by offering them a tour, lunch, or an invite to an upcoming event.

Documentation. Go into your senior living CRM to see if the lead has been entered and if comprehensive notes summarizing the information gathered on the call exist.

  • PRO TIP: Integrate your call-tracking tool with your marketing automation (like HubSpot) to enroll prospects into SMS lead nurturing and follow-up campaigns.

Bounced Lead Retargeting

“Not all who bounce are lost,” according to NaviStone, a software company that helps marketers drive growth to their brands. NaviStone’s research shows that 95% of all website visitors leave without taking action.

But with NaviStone, you can retarget prospects who bounce with personalized direct mail sent to their home address. Yes, you read that right: They can send snail mail to anonymous website visitors on your behalf. (About 70% of website visitors can be matched with physical snail mail addresses.)

This product empowers you to find your hidden market of anonymous visitors and bring them back to your community.

Marketing Automation

Every marketing channel and conversion tool becomes even more powerful when it integrates seamlessly with a marketing automation platform. Once prospects engage with a website conversion tool, your automation should send personalized follow-up communications as part of a lead nurturing workflow.

Why? Well, most conversions will be marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), meaning they’re not ready for a sales interaction yet. That’s OK. You still have an excellent opportunity to build your sales pipeline for future move-ins with MQLs.

  • PRO TIP: We’ve found that tours scheduled through chat have a higher no-show rate than tours scheduled through calls. To reduce no-shows, create a workflow in your marketing automation platform that confirms the appointment, reminds them of the appointment, pushes the tour notification into the CRM, and alerts the salesperson to connect personally with the prospect pre-tour.

We’ve written extensively about marketing automation. Here are three articles to dive into next:

A caveat about empowering leads to disqualify themselves

Early-stage marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) may just want a quick answer about the price to self-qualify or self-disqualify. Some web chat tools allow prospects to check “cannot afford” after the pricing is revealed and self-disqualify without ever speaking with a salesperson.

Is this what you want? Do you push all of these “cannot afford” leads into your CRM? Or do you only push over sales-qualified leads (SQLs) who are ready to tour or want to speak with sales? Are you sure that every prospect who self-disqualified using a bot understands potential funding resources (like the Veterans Aid & Attendance benefit)? Are you ready to let them go without any follow-up?

We had a client who converted seven “cannot afford” prospects into move-ins because we nurtured and educated them about available funding solutions they were unaware of.

  • PRO TIP: Integrate your chat tool with your marketing automation platform. Segment your leads into SQLs and MQLs and create workflows for each.

Remember, website tools won’t increase your website traffic

One of the most important considerations when choosing a new toy for your website is your website traffic volume. Website tools do not generate traffic. They only convert the traffic generated from search channels (organic, paid, direct, and referred).

Only a small percentage of your website visitors will engage with these tools. If your site doesn’t get a lot of traffic, you’ll have fewer conversions. You should address that issue before you focus too much on adding bells and whistles to your site.

And guess what? We can help with that. Contact us to discuss your senior living website strategy.

Multicolor boxes stacked in various patterns.

More Tech Stack Tips for Senior Living Marketing

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Multicolor boxes stacked in various patterns.

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion at the Senior Housing News sales and marketing conference in Tampa alongside Sherrie Bebell and Wade Goodman.

The session, “Tech Stack Transformation: Innovating Senior Living Sales & Marketing in 2024,” offered a fascinating look into the collective drive to enhance the prospect experience, minimize decision-making friction, and refine the integration of marketing and sales for improved lead quality and conversion rates.

Of course, choosing the right tech stack can be challenging for senior living marketers since many legacy technologies haven’t adapted. Not to mention, there are so many new bright and shiny things to choose from.

We recently shared an article about the tech stacks all senior living marketing and sales teams should use. Now, let’s take a deeper look at three critical areas (and let’s use a fun analogy to explain them: shopping malls).

What do shopping malls have to do with your senior living community’s tech stack anyway?

Like shopping malls, today’s marketing tech stack has anchor stores, lots of smaller boutique shops, and a food court in the middle.

In this shopping mall analogy, the senior living website and CRM are at the ends of the mall, anchoring the smaller boutique shops. The marketing automation platform is the food court—it feeds the marketing machine. The small niche shops are your website chat, surveys, blogs, floor plans, videos, and so forth—the stuff that engages prospects as they pop in and out of their shopping experience.

Just as malls have had to rethink their structure to remain competitive, senior living operators should rethink their three anchor technologies: website, CRM, and marketing automation.

Outdated website? Here’s what to do next . . .

If your senior living website hasn’t been updated in over three years, consider this your sign for a makeover. Modern prospects expect a mobile-first, fast, intuitive, and easy-to-navigate online experience that allows them to research anonymously.

When doing your website makeover, emphasize original photography, comprehensive 3D floor plans, transparent pricing, trust signals like reviews, and robust educational content to keep prospects engaged and loyal to your brand.

Build your site on WordPress, own your hosting license, and avoid falling prey to proprietary websites that you cannot access and do not own.

Learn more about the ins and outs of effective senior living websites here.

Crappy CRM? Time to upgrade . . .

A great senior living CRM integrates with your chosen marketing tools, including your marketing automation, email marketing, chat (live or widget), surveys, call tracking, third-party aggregators, call center (outsourced or internal), Google Analytics, and social media.

The best CRMs also allow integration of choice rather than limiting the selection to only their preferred partners, which they monetize through forced bundling.

Today, with open APIs, Zapier, and custom middleware, operators should expect their CRM technology partner to provide bilateral integration with all marketing tools and platforms.

If your CRM doesn’t offer all of the above, it’s time to upgrade.

Is your marketing automation too basic? Time to upgrade here as well.

Your website (along with Google Analytics) should be able to capture the initial prospect journey information, such as lead attribution sources, most visited pages, entry and exit points, and conversion insights (where and how prospects are converting from anonymous website visitor to lead).

Your CRM picks up the prospect when they have advanced to a sales-qualified lead and documents all sales activities, effectively closing the loop when prospects advance to move-ins.

Your marketing automation, however, is the engine in the middle that works 24 hours a day to nurture and advance prospects throughout their journey. The connection between each of these three platforms ensures that there are no blind spots in the prospect journey and that no lead is left behind.

We recommend HubSpot above all others because of its reporting capabilities and the marketing dashboards you can create by ownership group, portfolio, region, and level of care. These dashboards allow you to visually display the entire lead pipeline by stage. You can see the ROI of every marketing dollar spent by channel, which is critical intel.

Don’t forget to integrate bespoke experiences for added panache, personalization, and conversions.

To complete our analogy of comparing the martech stack architecture with a shopping mall configuration, we can’t forget the smaller boutique stores that connect the anchor stores and the food court.

In our analogy, these would be all the third-party integrations that plug into your tech stack, including chat, surveys, call tracking, videos, map features, and the like.

Just as mall shoppers pop in and out of the niche store as they move between the large anchor chains and the food court, senior living prospects will use these tools when they visit your website.

Our approach to creating this foundational tech stack for our clients

Our clients have enjoyed great success using WordPress CMS, HubSpot marketing automation, and Welcome Home CRM. This combination of products provides complete visibility into the prospect’s entire journey.

From there, we can reverse-engineer move-ins to better understand:

  • The original lead attribution source
  • All the touchpoints along their decision path (engaging with social, paid, content, video)
  • Measure their engagement (number of website visits, landing page conversions, content downloads, and emails opened and clicked)
  • The number of days between first conversion and tour, first conversion and move-in, and tour-to-move-in by persona and level of care

Ready to rock your senior living marketing tech stack?

For communities that want to increase their lead generation and conversion rates, embracing a well-rounded tech stack is key. And we can help! Schedule a brainstorming call with us today, and let’s explore how we can transform your marketing tech stack.

Clos up of an arm demonstrating senior living marketing.

Senior Living Marketing Tech Stacks: The Ultimate Guide

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Clos up of an hand building a pyramid with blocks.

When it comes to adopting the right marketing technology (a.k.a. “martech” or “tech stack”), senior living marketing and sales teams can’t afford to fall behind the curve.

You must have a reliable tech stack that effectively supports your marketing strategy so you can grow and maintain occupancy.

So, what should your community have in its tech stack?

Keep reading to find out.

Martech essentials for senior living marketing

Marketing automation

Marketing automation empowers you to send the right message to the right prospect at the right time. (That’s a simplified definition.) Marketing automation is a must-have if you want your community to remain competitive.

CRM

The most important point we need to drive home is this: Your senior living CRM shouldn’t live by itself in a silo. Why? Well, if your martech platform isn’t connected bilaterally to your CRM, you’ll end up with two systems that are blind to each other.

One system will house initial source attribution (and possibly prospect behavior before people convert, depending on how sophisticated your system is). However, once the leads go to the sales team, the marketing team will be out of the loop since sales will use the CRM that doesn’t pass info back to the first system.

Instead, you should choose a CRM that integrates with your marketing automation platform to capture data from social, paid, organic, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), event registrations, etc. This centralized marketing portal should allow you to create custom dashboard reports that you can easily filter by location, portfolio, region, and investor group.

Data and analytics

Google Analytics 4 is a must (and it’s free). Keep in mind that GA4 is COMPLEX. You’ll want to make sure everything is working properly from a back-end perspective and that you have someone who can correctly interpret what the data is saying.

Marketing automation software (like HubSpot) also offers robust analytics. Again, the challenge is making sure someone knowledgeable in statistics interprets the data.

Website platform

Avoid templated websites (also called “websites in a box”). Unfortunately, promises of rock-bottom prices and so-called ease of use can lure people in. But like so many things in life, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Templated websites offer little to no flexibility, break easily, are too generic, are rarely built with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, offer barebones customer service, and become more expensive in the long run.

Instead, invest in a custom website that reflects your brand and is designed for your prospect personas.

  • PRO TIP: If you put the work and money into your website, make sure you OWN it. Using older, closed, or proprietary platforms will limit your ability to own your strategy, decisions, and results. How can you tell if your website is yours? If you can’t get into the backend or you have to submit a ticket to make changes, you don’t own it. Ditto if your marketing agency manages your website hosting, Google Analytics account, or Google AdWords account. Don’t settle for this! Everything should belong to your community.

Website accessibility

Have you heard of the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)? In a nutshell, WCAG’s ultimate goal is to make web content accessible to everyone, particularly people with disabilities.

Making your senior living website accessible to all visitors doesn’t just happen. You must be thoughtful in your approach—and aware of the latest WCAG requirements.

Working with an accessibility compliance partner to help make sure your site is always up to snuff should be another item in your tech stack. (Remember, accessibility will remain ongoing, given how quickly technology evolves.)

Call tracking

You can’t know what you don’t measure. Unlike other industries, the phone is still a popular way for prospects to contact senior living communities. (More on this topic below.) But you must effectively track and link those calls to their corresponding marketing campaigns.

Call center

No, we’re not talking about your grandma’s call center (or even your mother’s). Good call centers today are much more sophisticated—and can serve as an excellent way to manage leads. (See further down in this article for a deeper discussion about this topic.)

Interactive website tools

Tools like live chat, chatbots, interactive surveys, 3D floor plan renderings, and the like make for a “sticky” website where visitors spend more time engaging with different elements and soaking up info about your community.

  • PRO TIP: Check out one of our favorites: Roobrik.

SMS/Text

People read and respond to texts faster than email or phone calls, so it’s not surprising that more and more businesses are adding text messaging into the marketing mix.

Integrate text message marketing into your lead nurturing processes by triggering text messages to prospects based on their online behaviors.

  • PRO TIP: We recommend Salesmsg to keep communications cohesive across all platforms and devices.

Should an old-fashioned telephone be part of your martech stack?

Phone calls are still relevant, but you need a modern way to manage them.

Too often, communities rely on a front desk greeter or receptionist to field calls from people who want to know more about the community. The problem is that they are not trained in sales.

But expecting your sales reps to be available to take sales inquiry calls as they come in is also unrealistic. Your reps will be busy doing tours, meeting with families, and networking.

A better solution is to contract with a call center to manage all inbound inquiries. A good call center can qualify, score, and segment leads appropriately. Sales-qualified leads (SQLs) will go to the sales team (along with helpful notes). Marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) can go into relevant nurturing campaigns. You won’t have to worry about leads falling through the cracks.

The key is finding a call center with expertise in handling senior living inquiries and that trains its employees on your community’s specific workflows. Not all call centers are created equal, so make sure you work with one that helps your sales process, not hurts it.

  • PRO TIP: At Senior Living SMART, we’ve developed an answer to the above problem: LeadGenie. LeadGenie acts as a virtual welcome center for prospects. It can also cover vacant sales positions, do pipeline work to warm up older or colder leads, manage events, and handle crisis communication. It’s not just a call center—it’s a total lead management solution.

Bottom line: The right tech stack can make or break your senior living marketing and sales efforts.

Get in the habit of auditing your tech stack every year (at least). Many technologies renew automatically whether you’re using them or not. Cancel subscriptions for software and tools that no longer serve you, stay current on software updates, and be open to new products that can improve workflows and results.

And if you need help figuring out any of the above, give us a shout. We can audit your existing tech stack, review contracts for big-ticket items, and give you our honest opinion.

Close-up of woman with headset working in senior living marketing.

Why We Love CallRail & HubSpot for Senior Living Marketing

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Close-up of woman with headset working in senior living marketing.

What’s the problem with this marketing story? A 55-year-old woman has been broaching the subject of senior living with her 80-year-old mother. Unfortunately, Dad died three months ago, leaving Mom all alone in the house where the daughter—let’s call her “Gabby”—grew up.

Gabby knows the house is too much for her mom. Mom has been mostly non-committal whenever the topic of senior living comes up, but she doesn’t flat-out say no. Gabby has been casually googling senior living communities in the area. She recently visited one website that caught her eye and downloaded an interesting guide about steps to take when considering senior living. She glanced at it and put it aside to read later when she had more time.

Fast forward a few weeks. Gabby’s mother experienced a fall. Luckily, she didn’t break anything, but Gabby knows she needs to push for senior living sooner rather than later. Coincidently, Gabby received an email this morning from the same community where she downloaded the guide. Gabby pounces and calls the number in the email to book a tour for the upcoming weekend.

Gabby and her mom take the tour, and both fall in love with the community. While they do visit a few more communities, they keep coming back to this one because they’ve developed a great rapport with the sales counselor. Before long, Gabby’s mom signs a lease with the community.

So, again: What’s the problem with this marketing story? You might be thinking, Not a thing. The story demonstrates effective marketing and sales efforts, right?

Sure, it’s great that the community’s site came up in Gabby’s online search. It’s great that Gabby downloaded a piece of content (which means the community got her email address). It’s great that she opened the lead nurturing email. And it’s great that she scheduled a tour.

The issue? The phone call she made to book the tour.

That phone call can cause a potential hiccup in the marketing attribution. Remember, to understand what campaigns bring in the best leads, the sales and marketing teams must be able to close the loop in their reporting. So, the question becomes, how can you track phone calls and synch them with digital contact records in your CRM, like HubSpot?

Luckily, solutions exist, and our favorite is CallRail.

What is CallRail?

In a nutshell, CallRail describes itself as the AI-powered lead intelligence platform that gives businesses of all sizes the ability to track and attribute calls, texts, forms, and chats just as easily as you can track clicks.

The CallRail integration with HubSpot allows businesses like senior living communities to connect call data to HubSpot contact records and track the campaigns generating move-ins. CallRail works with over 200,000 businesses and has been a HubSpot app partner since 2018.

Why integrate CallRail with HubSpot?

Because the senior living sales cycle can be so long, we recommend taking advantage of CallRail and using call tracking as a complement to your existing digital marketing efforts.

Benefits of integrating CallRail with HubSpot:

  • Track calls from any source, including online ads, offline marketing, and your website
  • See phone-tracking data within HubSpot—no need to toggle between multiple platforms
  • Learn which marketing campaigns are driving the most leads so you can make better use of your budget
  • Drill down into the summary of each call with CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence—discover keyword phrases, learn about questions prospects have, and identify which sales reps are rocking their calls (and which ones need coaching)
  • Bolster your lead scoring—call data is helpful in advancing prospects. If someone calls in directly to the community (showing higher intent), you can use that call data as positive criteria as part of your lead-scoring strategy

Remember, marketing isn’t linear (as much as we’d like it to be).

In a perfect world, prospects would follow the path we marketers have envisioned, like visiting the website, downloading a piece of content, getting lead nurturing emails, and ultimately clicking on a link in one of the emails to schedule a tour via a form on the website.

But as our earlier example suggests, marketing is never linear. The casual, low-intent prospect who hasn’t opened the last two emails you’ve sent might pounce on the email you send tomorrow because her situation has changed. Her mother fell, and now she needs to move much faster than originally planned. But instead of clicking on the link in the email to schedule the tour, she calls instead.

If you’re not tracking that phone call, your marketing and sales team loses out on critical data—not to mention that it will be much harder to close the loop in your marketing and sales reports.

But if you have CallRail integrated with HubSpot, you can ensure all the marketing intelligence associated with that prospect isn’t lost simply because she chose to call instead of clicking on a link.

CallRail + HubSpot: A winning formula.

We don’t have to tell you how long the senior living sales cycle is—and it only seems to be getting longer, especially among Boomers choosing to stay put in their homes.

Get the most out of your marketing efforts by tracking as much as possible, including calls into your community, with CallRail integration with HubSpot.

Reminder, CallRail will . . .

  • Help supercharge your HubSpot
  • Provide practical insights into calls
  • Demonstrate a positive way to use AI

View Webinar Recording - 4 ways to get more marketing insights from HubSpot with AI-powered applications
Psst. Don’t know what to do first? Or don’t have the time? We can take this off your plate.

And if you want to know more about CallRail and HubSpot, check out the webinar that Paul Trusik, our Director of Operational Technology, was involved with last year. You’ll find it in the second point in this article, “4 ways to get more marketing insights from HubSpot with AI-powered applications.”

Two adult women on their phone searching for place "near me" learn more about senior living SEO.

Senior Living SEO: How to Optimize for ‘Near Me’ Searches

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Two adult women on their phone searching for place "near me" learn more about senior living SEO.

When someone plugs a query into Google, they’re looking for results that will satisfy their query ASAP. It’s all about the searcher—their needs, their questions, their pain points. And nothing demonstrates this better than the rise of “near me” searches.

Most of us have likely done these types of searches before:

  • Best coffee shop near me
  • Best Indian restaurant near me
  • Best antique store near me

The beauty of the “near me” search is that the technology knows where we’re located when we conduct the search. So someone in downtown Boston who searches “best coffee shop near me” will get much different results from someone who conducts the same search while standing under the Eiffel Tower.

And that’s a good thing. If I’m in Boston, it’s not going to do me any good if the top search result is for a French café on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, right?

The same applies when people conduct searches like “senior living near me.” The searcher is looking for options near them. Maybe it’s an adult child searching for a parent. Or an older adult who wants to remain in the area they’ve lived in for decades. Often, Google will serve up a map result with “near me” results, even when your search is something generic, like “senior living.”

What might surprise you is how many people perform these searches monthly. Check out the snapshot below.

semrush near me searches

Now, if you’re a savvy marketer, you’re likely wondering if there’s anything you can do to help boost your senior living SEO and community’s exposure in “near me” searches. The short answer is yes. Below, we provide three strategies for doing exactly that.

1. Optimize Your Google Business Profile.

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ve heard us talk about this topic before. Nothing is more important than your Google Business Profile (GBP) if you want your senior living community featured prominently when someone conducts a “near me” search.

Here’s the thing about your Google Business Profile: IT’S NEVER DONE.

Just like your website, your GBP requires regular attention.

You must . . .

  • Monitor and engage with reviews
  • Add new pics and videos
  • Answer questions
  • Ensure all info is current

And that’s just the beginning.

Further reading/learning:

2. Mind the NAP.

NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. Make sure your NAP is consistent across your site and all online assets like your Google Business Profile, social media profiles, and relevant directory listings that rank well for local search.

This is particularly important for voice searches.

Semrush notes in its article on voice search optimization, “Although Google Assistant fetches local business information from Google Business Profile, that’s not the case with Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Apple’s Siri. To make sure your local business is shared by different voice assistants, it’s important to leverage different local directories.”

Note: You likely have a contact page on your site with all this info. A good rule of thumb is to also include your NAP in the website footer, making it easier for Google and voice search.

Further reading:

3. Include Structured Data on Relevant Pages.

Simply put, structured data (also called schema markup) is additional code that helps search engines like Google understand what your site is all about.

Google explains, “Adding structured data can enable search results that are more engaging to users and might encourage them to interact more with your website, which are called rich results.”

For example, let’s say you want your site to rank well when someone searches for “pet-friendly senior living near me.” (This isn’t a random query—people search on this phrase 320 times a month, according to Semrush.)

You would create a page about how your community caters to pet parents. On the page, you’d have pics of actual residents with their fur babies, like dogs and cats. You could have a shot of your on-site dog park. Finally, you could include a video featuring a day in the life of a resident and her dog.

Adding structured data to this page would signal to Google that you have all these awesome elements, like pictures and videos, that would satisfy the searcher’s query on “pet-friendly senior living near me.” So your page would stand a better chance of showing up in rich results and getting clicked. (Pages that show in rich results enjoy better conversions than those that don’t.)

Remember, structured data/schema markup doesn’t just happen. It’s code that needs to be deliberately added to the page. (Your web person can help with this—or we can!) And honestly, structured data will be a must-have if Google’s Search Generative Experience takes off.

Further reading:

Need help implementing the above?

If this article made you sob because you don’t know how you can possibly add this work to everything you’re already juggling, have no fear! That’s precisely where we come in. We have some of the smartest (and techiest) folks in the senior living marketing space.

We can help you rock your senior living SEO and optimize your site for “near me” searches. Get in touch and let’s chat.

Elder woman interacting with clinical caregiver.

Senior Living Marketing: Get More Videos from Your Team

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Elder man in interacting with clinical caregiver recording a video. How to use videos in senior living marketing.

Nothing can transform senior living marketing from meh to WOW faster than video. It’s among our top recommendations to our clients, yet the hardest one for them to embrace.

Listen, we get it. Video marketing can sound intimidating. And a decade ago, it was. But today’s smartphones shoot excellent video, and editing apps simplify splicing and dicing.

The best part? You likely already have someone on your marketing team who can take on editing videos. Or you could task an intern with the role. Gen Z knows a thing or two (or a hundred) about shooting compelling videos. And all they need is their phone. (If neither option is viable, we can help, provided you get good raw footage—more on this below.)

Empower people in your community to shoot raw footage.

The key to getting more videos is empowering existing team members within your community to take more videos. We’re not just talking about the senior living marketing and sales teams, either. The activities department, dining services, and even admin folks can all be tasked with taking videos.

Let them know all they need to do is shoot the raw footage and that your team will handle the rest. Easy-peasy!

Make it simple for people to share their footage with the marketing team.

You need an easy way for people to transfer the raw footage from their phones to a place where your marketing team can access it. Many options exist. If you’re unsure, go with Dropbox.

Here’s what you do:

  • Each month, set up a community Dropbox folder for the current month. You’ll have one main Dropbox folder. Within it, you’ll create a new folder each month. Turn off permissions for the other months’ folders as you go along.
  • Create a shareable link to the current month’s folder. Make sure the setting says that anyone with access to the link can edit.
  • Email the Dropbox link to the staff (or the folks you’ve empowered to be on your video team). Alert them that this month’s folder is awaiting their awesome uploads.

In your email, always include a link to instructions on how to download the Dropbox app to their phone and how to upload videos from their phone to Dropbox. We recommend creating an unlisted YouTube video that only people in your organization can view, demonstrating how to do this on iPhones and Androids.

If people have trouble transferring the raw footage to Dropbox, invite them to stop by the marketing team’s office for help.

In the email, you’ll also want to remind people about the types of video footage you’re looking for.

  • Sweet moments between residents
  • Video testimonials from residents and their families during move-in day
  • Shots of the grounds (flower garden, after a snowstorm, a rainbow)
  • Snippets from activities and events
  • “Day in the life” videos of residents and employees
  • Holiday-specific montages (like the activities department decorating for Christmas or the Fourth of July)

You should also provide reminders about video etiquette and resident privacy.

The more specific your suggestions are, the better. For example, if your community is hosting a Kentucky Derby party, ask for footage of all the fabulous hats people are wearing and capture people toasting with their mint juleps.

Now, you might be thinking, “Yeah, this sounds great. And people will likely have good intentions. But what if it doesn’t result in anything?”

That brings us to our next tip—the magic formula for getting people to participate.

Offer incentives for the best footage.

Think of it this way: If you invested in professional video shoots, you’d spend thousands of dollars.

Your monthly incentive program will cost considerably less. Invest $150 per month to use as an incentive. Give $100 to the person who provides the best footage and $50 to the runner-up. (If you can up the ante, even better. The bigger the incentive, the better the footage—and you’ll likely have more options.)

Promote last month’s winner in the email you send out during the current month.

Don’t just send the email only once. Send it at the beginning of the month, the middle, and towards the end with a “last chance to enter this month’s raw video footage contest.”

At the end of the year, you could hold a community-wide contest where people vote on who recorded the best footage used in a video—and the winner gets a substantial prize, like a $100 bonus.

Assign one or two people on your team to edit video footage and create the final videos.

By running all the footage through your marketing department, you’ll have quality control measures to ensure the content is appropriate and on brand. (Bottom line: You don’t have to use all footage that comes in, either.)

This work doesn’t have to be a heavy lift, either. Video editing can happen through a simple phone app like InShot. We recommend upgrading to InShot Pro because it has more features. It costs less than $5 per month. (Or if you want to install editing software on a desktop, that could work, too. But honestly, being able to do everything on a phone makes it easy and fun.)

Remember, people don’t want overly-produced videos—they want authentic videos, especially on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube shorts. The goal is to make sure the video is engaging and reflects well on your community.

You can easily create any branded visual assets you need in Canva, like thumbnails.

Don’t forget to share your videos in places other than social media—blog posts, relevant web pages, and emails are excellent places to pop in a video.

But when you do post on social media, give a shout-out to the person who captured the raw footage and remember to tag them. They might share the video with their followers, which means more exposure for your community.

It takes time to build momentum. Don’t give up.

Once word gets out about the incentives and people begin seeing their footage online, you’ll be surprised at how eager people will be to participate and share the video snippets they capture.

And again, if you need assistance editing any of the raw footage that comes in, our team can help.

4 Smart Ways to Use ChatGPT in Senior Living Marketing

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Image of a hand extended with AI for ChatGPT in senior living marketing.

It’s been a little over a year since people began buzzing about ChatGPT and other generative AI. Rumors swirled: Massive layoffs will ensue! Robots are poised to take over the world!

None of these doomsday prophecies happened. What did happen: ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app in history while continuing to evolve rapidly.

At Senior Living SMART, we still recommend treading carefully when using ChatGPT. But we also believe knowledge is power. ChatGPT has made several upgrades that smart marketers should be aware of. Below, we highlight strategies for using these upgrades in your senior living marketing.

Note: As we go to press, the first two items below can be done with a free account. The third and fourth suggestions involve having ChatGPT access the web. For this, you need a paid subscription plan, like ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20/month.

1. Set up “Custom Instructions” about your brand and brand voice.

If you want ChatGPT to produce content that sounds closer to your brand voice, the Custom Instructions section is the place to go because this is where you can teach it how to respond to your prompts.

How to access Custom Instructions in ChatGPT

  • Navigate to your settings by clicking on your username. (If you have the ChatGPT app on your phone, click on the hamburger menu in the upper left and then click on your username at the bottom.)
  • From there, click on “Custom Instructions.” (Or it might say, “Customize ChatGPT.”)
  • You’ll have two boxes to fill in, both with a maximum of 1,500 characters.

Custom instructions for ChatGPT

Custom instructions

respond ChatGPT

Benefits of Using Custom Instructions

  • Save time. You don’t need to rewrite the same instructions over and over.
  • Continuously train (and improve) ChatGPT. You can continue fine-tuning your instructions over time so ChatGPT develops a deeper understanding of your brand.
  • Easily swap in different instructions for different purposes or different communities. For example, let’s say you have four senior living communities under one brand “umbrella.” Each property could have its own set of Custom Instructions that you can swap in when you’re doing work related to that property.

Tips + Tricks

  • Draft your instructions offline first. Create different versions of your brand and tone guidelines. You’ll need to experiment to see which instructions produce the best results.
  • Don’t ditch human oversight. Even with Custom Instructions, ChatGPT likely won’t deliver content that sounds completely on-brand. But it should be closer than what it produced a year ago. Bottom line: You still need human writers to review and revise any ChatGPT-generated content (especially long-form pieces).
  • Keep in mind Custom Instructions will apply to all new chats moving forward. You can update your instructions at any time. When you swap in new instructions, you must start a new chat for the instructions to take effect*.

*NOTE: As we go to press, ChatGPT has announced a new feature called Memory, allowing it to remember things from different chats. It’s currently available to only a few users, but this will likely change quickly.

  • Don’t put in any proprietary brand info. A good rule of thumb with AI right now: Only share content, concepts, and ideas that are already publicly accessible.

2. Train ChatGPT to understand your personas.

You likely already have personas. (If you don’t, you should!)

Open a new chat, copy and paste your persona info into it, and ask ChatGPT to take on the role of this persona. Then, you can prompt it to do things like . . .

    • Have ChatGPT brainstorm blog article topics that it would want to read. Again, it’s important to instruct ChatGPT to take on the role of the persona.
    • Task ChatGPT with brainstorming headlines and subject lines that will likely resonate with the persona. Or give it the headlines/subject lines your team created. Ask ChatGPT to assume the persona’s role and ask which versions it likes best and why.
    • Ask ChatGPT to assume the persona’s role and fetch recent articles, blog posts, and offers it finds interesting. Talk about valuable intel! You’ll better understand what content resonates with the persona. (NOTE: Currently, this task would involve a paid subscription since you’re asking ChatGPT to access the web.)
    • Go a step further with the suggestion above, and ask ChatGPT to tell you what it liked about each piece of content—and where it could be improved or what questions it was left with. Pay attention to any content gaps ChatGPT points out. This will be an opportunity for your brand. You can create content that fills the gaps.

Any time you close a chat, ChatGPT automatically saves it. You can rename it accordingly—for example, “Adult Daughter Debbie Persona.” Then, return to this saved persona and open the chat whenever you want to do further work with ChatGPT about this persona.

See our earlier note above about a possible long-term memory feature in ChatGPT. If this comes to fruition, you won’t have to worry about continuing conversations in the same chat thread. In theory, with long-term memory, ChatGPT will be able to remember separate chats/conversations.

If you don’t have personas, you might be tempted to have ChatGPT craft them. While this could work for certain industries/brands, we don’t recommend doing this for senior living since many human emotions are at play—nuances exist between care levels and the people involved in the decision-making (for example, adult children vs. seniors).

Instead, develop personas based on actual conversations with residents, their families, and lost prospects. Need help? Persona development is one of our many areas of expertise.

  • PRO TIP: If you conduct interviews with real residents, you could take the transcripts from the interviews, feed them to ChatGPT, and ask it to pull out the recurring pain points, etc.

3. Have ChatGPT perform competitor research and analysis.

When it launched, ChatGPT couldn’t access the web and was only trained on data through September 2021. But paid subscribers (ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, and Team Workspaces) can now access the web in real-time (through Microsoft-owned Bing).

Nope, it’s far from perfect. ChatGPT is still prone to hallucinations, and you must triple-check any facts it serves up.

But give it 10 of your competitors’ websites and ask it to analyze things like messaging and on-page calls-to-action? THAT it can do—and lightning fast.

Use the following prompt and see for yourself.

    • PROMPT: Assume the role of an expert in competitor analysis. Please review the following competitor websites. [List URLS] For each one, analyze messaging strengths and weaknesses and share your findings. Then, suggest ways for my community [URL] to differentiate its messaging.

This is one of dozens of prompts you could devise for competitor analysis and research. Remember, the more detailed and specific your prompt, the better. It’s not unusual for effective prompts to be a page long.

Tips for writing effective prompts:

  • Be precise, be specific. The more you can do both, the better your results.
  • Provide context. Pretend ChatGPT is an intern. How much background would you give the intern to get the results you’re looking for? Do the same with ChatGPT. It’s a great tool, but it’s not a mind-reader.
  • Ask ChatGPT to assume a specific role or persona. Studies show that directing ChatGPT to assume a particular role, persona, job description, and so forth will help it produce better results.
  • Approach prompts like an ongoing conversation, not a once-and-done task. Asking follow-up questions is an excellent way to refine ChatGPT’s responses.
  • Practice makes better. You’ll see people claiming to be experts in writing ChatGPT prompts, but remember that ChatGPT has only been around since November of 2022. You can absolutely rock ChatGPT prompts on your own with practice.

4. Have ChatGPT perform data analysis.

Again, this feature is currently available for paid subscriptions.

You’ll notice the little paperclip whenever you open a chat if you have a paid subscription. You can upload docs and ask ChatGPT to analyze the data.

For example, you could have ChatGPT analyze trends and themes in your community’s online reviews.

Here’s what you’d need to do:

  • Copy and paste all your Google reviews into a spreadsheet.
  • Open a new chat in ChatGPT and attach the spreadsheet.
  • Ask ChatGPT to assume the role of a data analyst and to look for messaging themes in the reviews, questions that would make good blog content, and areas that might need further clarification on your website and elsewhere.

You could have it conduct a similar analysis with surveys or even more analytical data that you download from GA4 or YouTube dashboards. You get the idea.

A final note: Don’t ditch your human writers.

Don’t mistake this article as an endorsement for ditching your writers and using AI-generated content. Even with training, ChatGPT still can’t perfectly match a brand’s voice—you still need human writers to bring their judgment, experience, expertise, and ability for nuance. And we don’t see that changing any time soon.

Instead, approach ChatGPT (and other large language models) as another tool in your content marketing toolbox. Don’t be scared of it. Experiment with it. Practice using it. Always double-check any facts or figures it produces (especially if you’re about to go live with something).

In the meantime, we’ll continue to provide helpful tips and strategies for using ChatGPT in your senior living marketing. Subscribe to our blog to make sure you don’t miss any of our articles. And make sure you’re connected with us on LinkedIn.

More great resources about ChatGPT & AI:

Animation of human three different brains to compare using behavioral science in marketing.

Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: What to Keep in Mind

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Animation of human three different brains to compare using behavioral science in marketing.

On a recent episode of our Senior Living Marketing Perspectives podcast, Debbie Howard interviewed Nancy Harhut, founder and chief creative officer of HBT Marketing.

Nancy is all about getting prospects to take action, and she accomplishes this through a keen understanding of behavioral science. (We encourage you to read her book: Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses.)

Below, we’re highlighting key takeaways from the podcast, including tips for using behavioral science in marketing your senior living community.

What is behavioral science in marketing?

Simply put, behavioral science in marketing involves understanding how people make decisions. And guess what? People rarely make neat and tidy decisions that follow a linear path based solely on logic or rational arguments.

As much as we marketers and sales folks like to think that simply delivering the right message to the right person at the right time is all we need to do, the reality is it’s more nuanced than that.

“Very often there are other factors at play that influence people’s decisions,” Harhut says, “and a lot of times, they’re not even aware of them.”

With significant financial investments—like senior living—you might think prospects are weighing the pros and cons and doing a cost-benefit analysis. But they’re more likely thinking things through with their heart rather than their brain.

“People make decisions for emotional reasons,” Harhut explains, “and then they later justify those decisions with rational reasons. So what that says to us, in marketing and sales, is we need both. We need both of those components. We need the rational reasons and the emotional reasons.”

But the trick is to lead with emotional reasons much earlier in the buyer’s journey.

Fostering an emotional connection also fosters trust.

When you emotionally connect with people, they tend to trust you more.

“And when people begin to trust you more,” Harhut says, “they’re more open to your story. They’re going to absorb what you have to say. They’re more likely to believe you. And, at the end of the day, probably more likely to do business with you.”

This is why you can’t wait until an in-person sales interaction to trot out the emotional components of your senior living marketing efforts. You must speak to people’s emotions from the start, which usually begins on your website.

3 ways to develop an emotional connection with prospects through a screen.

1. Develop messaging that demonstrates empathy.

Too often in senior living marketing, we lead with bright-and-shiny facts rather than honest emotion: You won’t have to do chores like mowing the lawn! You’ll have access to a gazillion activities! You’ll enjoy five-star dining!

What if instead we led with something like this . . .

“We know moving into senior living is a HUGE and often scary, frustrating, anxiety-inducing decision. Not to mention, everyone’s situation is different. You might be excited at the prospect of ditching the honey-do list, while someone else might be sad about leaving their forever home. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and you’re the one feeling unsure and sad. This is precisely why we won’t try “selling” you on senior living. Instead, our goal is to be as transparent as possible about what life is like in our community, how you might fit in, and the steps we take to help new residents transition into their new homes.”

Which one is more honest, authentic, and empathetic? Which speaks to a broader spectrum of emotions that many people experience before moving into senior living? It’s the second one.

Identify with prospects in a very empathetic way to build that all-important emotional connection. (Check out our article on empathetic marketing.)

2. Acknowledge challenging emotions.

When you lead with nothing but positives about your community—great care, great food, great amenities—you’re making it all about you. Not to mention, most communities boast the same things.

Instead, try leading with some of the more challenging emotions your prospects are experiencing, like worries over declining health, concerns about having enough money to finance senior living, sadness over the loss of a spouse, and a whole lot of other hard, ugly, upsetting emotions.

And don’t forget about the emotions the adult children have.

Harhut says, “If you’re hearing people say, ‘Look, I’m afraid my mother’s going to hate me when I do this.’ Or ‘It’s breaking my heart to make this decision,’ use that language because it’s real, it’s authentic, it’s where they are, and they’re going to say, ‘Oh my gosh, you guys understand me.” And you get that bond.”

  • PRO TIP: With smart content, you can adjust the messaging that viewers see based on rules you set, like whether they’re first-time or repeat visitors. So, you could share emotional messages with first-time visitors. During people’s subsequent visits, you can serve up messaging that might hit more of the logical, rational arguments. Smart content is also known as “dynamic” or “adaptive” content. Like anything else, you’ll want to pay attention to the results. Experiment, measure, lather, rinse, and repeat.

3. Brainstorm barriers—and how to overcome them.

Consider why people object to moving into senior living—and remember that those barriers will vary depending on the audience and even the level of care. For example, when an adult child is in urgent need of memory care for their parent, barriers to entry might be pricing, bad reviews, or guilt about putting their parent “in a home.”

However, the barriers to entry for people choosing senior living from a position of strength—think of younger boomers interested in retirement communities—might be, “Is this too indulgent? Do I have the money? Is this really the lifestyle for me?”

Address those barriers in your marketing messages by making an emotional connection and demonstrating empathy first. From there, you can build out the rational reasons.

Harhut says, “A lot of times in marketing and sales, we’re all about why someone should do something. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Obviously, we do want to talk about why you should do this, why it would be good for you, the benefits and advantages that you’ll get from it. But sometimes we need to think about why might someone not want to do what I’m asking them to do? And what’s the smartest thing I can say to overcome that hurdle or that barrier.”

Need help developing the right messages to get your prospects to act?

Our writers and messaging gurus understand how and when to use emotions ethically and responsibly in the marketing assets we create for clients. Get in touch and let’s discuss messaging for your community.