Don't Ride a Dinosaur into Extinction

Senior Living Marketing: Don’t Ride a Dinosaur into Extinction

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I ran into Jeff Antaya, author of Don’t Ride a Dinosaur into Battle, at a wedding recently. During our conversation, I realized how perfectly the dinosaur analogy fits senior living marketing—maybe even more so today than when he first wrote the book.

Here’s the thing: senior living operators with outdated marketing foundations, little to no AI adoption, and an old-school mindset are riding dinosaurs straight into extinction.

Below, we break it down and include actions you can take ASAP to avoid this fate.

Outdated Marketing Foundations: Get Off the Dinosaur

If your marketing foundation is outdated, you’re already falling behind. Here are three areas to pay close attention to.

Website = Your First Fossil Check

If your website is more than three to five years old, it’s time to get off that dinosaur. You need a site built for AI search, one that answers questions directly (“They ask, you answer“) and adapts to how people search today.

Other signs you’re riding a dinosaur: You’re still using Squarespace, Wix, Drupal, or GoDaddy for your website.

  • PRO TIP: If you have multiple communities, consider organizing your sites into a parent/child structure for better management. It’s more efficient, less expensive, and easier to manage than juggling multiple standalone sites that compete with each other.

Commodity Messaging = Extinction-Level Event

You’re now selling primarily to Boomers, who expect transparency, authenticity, and trust at every step of their journey. (Hint: Check out our new book, which takes a deeper dive into the Boomers’ journey.)

“Starting at” pricing won’t cut it anymore. Boomers want the whole picture, including rent, care packages, hidden costs, historical increases, and comparisons to competitors or home care alternatives.

To stand out in a crowded market, invest in original photography, real resident stories, and engaging video content. In other words, lean into authenticity.

If you want to differentiate your brand, embrace the four pillars of building trust from communication expert Marcus Sheridan:

  1. Talk openly about pricing.
  2. Address problems and comparisons head-on.
  3. Highlight the best and worst fit for your services.
  4. Share honest customer experiences.

Remember, trust is your most valuable currency in senior living marketing.

Generic Email Blasts = Marketing Extinction

Sending the same email marketing blasts to everyone won’t work because the messages will be too broad or generic.

Thoughtful lead nurturing, on the other hand, is personalized, targeted, and dynamic. It engages prospects based on their persona, care level, readiness, and key motivators. The idea is that every message feels like it was written just for them.

  • PRO TIP: If you’re still using basic email systems like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, you may be ready for an upgrade. This is the year to ditch the drip and embrace true lead nurturing. Our top choice? HubSpot. It gives us the flexibility to build personalized journeys that turn cold leads into confident move-ins.

Lack of AI Adoption: The New Asteroid Impact

AI is today’s asteroid—and it’s already reshaping the marketing landscape.

ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews (AIO), and other large language models (LLMs) are changing how people search, compare, and make decisions. Prospects can now learn everything about your communities, research competitors, and generate side-by-side comparisons of pricing, services, amenities, and reviews—all without ever visiting your website.

So the question is: have you adapted?

  • Have you made sure LLMs like ChatGPT are pulling accurate, up-to-date information about your communities?
  • Have you updated your website content and schema to align with how AI scrapes and summarizes data?
  • Are you leveraging AI to build ideal customer profiles (ICPs) using real move-in data and matching those ICPs to your active leads?

If not, here’s an easy way to start testing.

Try This Yourself

You don’t need a paid ChatGPT subscription to do this. Just open the free version of ChatGPT and ask:

What do you know about [insert community name, location]?

What other senior living communities in the area offer similar services and amenities?

Pull reviews from all relevant sources and summarize customer sentiment for [insert community name, location] compared with competitors.

Find pricing information for [insert community name, location] and nearby competitors by level of care.

Take a look at the results. Are they accurate? Are they current? Are they flattering? If not, that’s a clear sign it’s time to evolve your content strategy.

Not Positioned for AI Search = Lost Visibility

AI Overviews (AIO) are pulling clicks and traffic away from traditional search results as more users engage directly with AI-generated summaries. The best way to replace that lost traffic is to make your website easy for AI to find and trust.

Here’s how to start:

  • Restructure content into FAQs, bullets, and lists so AI can easily scan and summarize your information.
  • Add schema markup to your website so AI tools can understand your data correctly.
  • Refresh and republish blogs regularly using a “perfect blog” format that includes unique insights, data, and community-specific points of view.
  • Focus on originality. Both AI and readers will likely ignore generic, templated content.

Old-School Limiting Mindsets: The Final Frontier

Even if your tools are modern, your mindset might still be stuck in the past. The operators who survive this next wave of change will be the ones willing to evolve technologically and mentally.

Proprietary Platforms = Rented Dinosaurs

If you don’t own your website hosting, your Google accounts (Google Ads, GA4, Search Console, Google Business Profiles), or your domain URLs, you’re riding a rented dinosaur.

Here’s the test:

  • Are you locked into a contract where your vendor controls your hosting or data?
  • Are you paying a percentage of your ad spend rather than a flat fee?

If you answered yes to one or both of the above, you don’t truly own your marketing. That lack of control can limit your growth and visibility. Owning your marketing means complete transparency, flexible partnerships, and data you can take with you.

Blind Spots & Dead Ends = Missed Opportunities

All-in-one “easy button” platforms sound appealing, but they often come with tradeoffs. They limit choice, flexibility, and visibility across teams.

Your website, CRM, VSA, chat tools, surveys, social media, paid ads, and marketing automation platforms must communicate with each other in real time. Anything less creates silos and blind spots between marketing and sales—and that’s where opportunities get lost.

Your goal should be a best-in-class tech stack that’s bi-directional and fully integrated. When every part of your ecosystem talks to each other, you gain clear visibility into the entire prospect journey—from first click to move-in.

AI Is the Asteroid. But Your Marketing Doesn’t Have to Go the Way of the Dinosaurs.

The leading extinction theory is that an asteroid impact triggered rapid, catastrophic changes that wiped out 75% of Earth’s species, including the dinosaurs.

AI is today’s asteroid. It’s already reshaping how people search, learn, and make buying decisions, and this change is happening faster than most senior living operators realize.

The good news? Not every species will go the way of the dinosaurs after the AI asteroid impact. Forward-thinking senior living marketers who embrace AI, modernize their tech stacks, and rethink outdated habits will come out stronger, faster, and more competitive than ever.

Need help navigating AI’s impact?

Find out how to future-proof your senior living marketing. Let’s chat.