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Senior Living Marketing Tips: What is Your Special Sauce?

Marketing Strategies for Senior Living: What’s Your Special Sauce?

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Let’s talk awesome marketing strategies for senior living. To start, who remembers that great jingle from the 1970’s: “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun”?

For all of us who grew up with that catchy song, we knew it was about the McDonald’s Big Mac. The special sauce was the magic. It was the distinction between a plain old hamburger and a Big Mac.

OK, so what’s this got to do with your senior living community?

Keep reading…

When it comes to marketing strategies for senior living, you must know your community’s special sauce.

Special sauce is a good way to explain how you’re different from your competitors. In other words, your special sauce is what sets you apart.

For example, consider Walmart. Its special sauce is simple: pricing. Everything that Walmart does is specifically about keeping their prices low. Apple’s special sauce is innovation. Nike focuses on their product line. They are the gold standard in athletic wear.

What’s the special sauce in your senior living community? Do you have something that makes your community stand out?

Not sure? Not to worry. The following marketing strategies for senior living will help you create the perfect special sauce recipe for your community.

1. Operational Excellence

Offering quality services at an affordable price—that’s what everyone wants, right? A great example is our friend McDonald’s. It offers a simple, budget-friendly menu. It also maintains consistency in taste, swift service, and efficiency.

2. Product Leadership

This competitive strategy focuses on bringing superior products to the market. Also, the products should ultimately create great experiences for customers. Consider this from a senior living marketing perspective. For example, is your wellness program outstanding? Do you offer a unique dining experience? Talk about them!

3. Service Quality

Delivering consistently superior customer service is the recipe for this special sauce. The secret ingredient? Service resolution. After all, nobody’s perfect. But being able to listen to the customers’ problems so you can work toward a positive resolution is key. Virgin Airlines is a great example of a company that offers full service flights and outstanding customer service.

4. Relationship Differentiation

This special sauce is all about your associates and team members. Their interactions with the customer demonstrate competence, courtesy, credibility, reliability, and responsiveness. This avenue is closely related to service quality. But where service quality mostly focuses on processes and systems, relationship differentiation is all about the people.

The hiring process at Zappos is a great example of how they maintain their relationship differentiation. The recruitment process is like a courtship. They woo people who fit into their culture and who are good people.

5. Reputation Differentiation

Some companies set themselves apart by their reputation. This can be difficult for newer senior living communities, but even they can succeed in establishing a quality reputation through strategic partnerships. In other words, alliances with hospitals, medical staff, and industry thought leaders can establish a company as an expert.

DuPont, for example, has a strong reputation, employing engineers, scientists, and sales reps with solid technical or educational backgrounds.

To help you define your special sauce, ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Why do your customers choose you rather than your competitors?
  2. What emotional need does your service fulfill?
  3. What aspects of your business can your competitors not imitate?

Once you’ve determined your special sauce, make sure that you do the following.

  • First, your special sauce isn’t something you simply throw around in senior living marketing copy. Your company should be walking the talk when it comes to fulfillment.
  • Second, employees should be able to articulate your special sauce.
  • Third, make sure your special sauce is part of your culture at all levels.
  • Finally, make sure you promote how great your special sauce is across all marketing channels!

Need help defining your community’s special sauce! Our senior living marketing agency can help!

We have decades of industry experience, so we know how to create a special sauce that will be unique to your community. Let us help!

senior living marketing

How To Generate Word Of Mouth Endorsements – A Case Study

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Written By: Doug Pruden Principal Customer Experience Partners, LLC – and Senior Living SMART Partner

What Costco Might Teach us About Generating Word of Mouth

Confirmed Costco shoppers appear to enjoy their shopping experiences at the big-box retailer.  Despite the less than luxurious facilities, larger than desirable multi-packs, membership fee, and frustratingly long checkout lines, Costco rises to the top in just about every national customer satisfaction ranking.  At first glance, it may seem strange that Costco ranks right up there with the likes of Nordstrom and Trader Joes, but when all of the components of the total customer experience are considered, it makes sense.

Word of Mouth Just Happens, Right?

But the apparent contradictions don’t stop with Customer Satisfaction.  Costco also enjoys strong, positive word of mouth!  Actual, in-market dialogue about a company often doesn’t track well with these more traditional measures.  So, it’s worth taking a look at how Costco manages to turn purchases of 6-month supplies of olive oil or ‘convenient’ twenty-four packs of D-batteries into a shopping experience that customers actually talk about.

Of course numerous possible explanations come to mind.  It could be that shoppers like to brag about how much money they save, such as the convenience of ‘one-stop shopping’, etc.  However, according to Robin Ross, Senior Director of Corporate Marketing, Costco’s ability to generate word of mouth also has to do with offering unexpected surprises and instilling the sense of a ‘treasure hunt’ into every shopping visit. Costco understands that providing good bargains and a satisfactory shopping experience may keep customers coming back, but these more mundane issues are not likely to stimulate conversations with friends, neighbors, relatives, and co-workers.  And, it’s this positive word of mouth that communicates and perpetuates the memorable customer experience which, in turn, helps keep customers returning and attracts new customers as well.

Advertising Isn’t Involved!

Stimulating and maintaining dialogues about itself with little or no advertising demanded what Ross describes as a “better idea”.  Costco elected a unique strategy.  They added “conversation products” into their product mix; a $3,000 toilet, a $2+ million dollar ring, and computer-measured, custom-tailored men’s suits.  These items are both unconventional and unexpected offerings in a discounter-setting and in truth Costco doesn’t expect to sell many of these items.  But along with other, more affordable ‘treasures’, they provide customers stories to tell.  This unusual merchandise provides customers a reason to talk about their trips to Costco.  Embedded in the resulting word of mouth may be mentions of other, more traditional purchases; the wild salmon they bought or the rewarding savings they received at the in-store pharmacy.  The next time a friend mentions Costco pay attention; you may be a recipient of just such a report.

Strategies for increasing the volume and positive tonality of word of mouth aren’t unique to Costco. Senior living facilities that understand how to provide: 1) Motivation, 2) Content: stories to tell, and 3) Opportunity: chances to relate their content, will enjoy increased word of mouth as well. To hear more about managing and monitoring word of mouth for your brand join us for a Senior Living Smart webinar on October 14!

Would you like to learn more about word of mouth referrals?

Watch our webinar, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you need solutions.

Word of Mouth Webinar We Can Help! Schedule a Consultation

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Senior Living Marketing: The Power of Differentiation

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Marketing a senior living community can be challenging. After all, most communities are essentially selling the same thing. As a result, it can be difficult for consumers to identify the community best suited for their lifestyle and needs.

How can you elevate your senior living marketing to show true differentiation? Read on.

1. Differentiate through technology. Here’s what to keep in mind when evaluating your options.

2. Differentiate through value and price. You could use a “high-end” approach. This caters to the belief that the more costly a product or service is, the more valuable it is. Another option: Position your brand as the provider of high quality at a value price. (Hint: Southwest Airlines does a great job at the latter.)

3. Differentiate through product and services. Convey value by highlighting unique product or service features. For example, how does your dining program compare to local restaurants? How does your resident wellness program compare?

4. Differentiate through customer service. Thanks to the prevalence of online reviews, good customer service will always be important. But exceptional service will elevate your status in the senior living marketplace even more. What are your residents and families saying about you? Do you have a customer service program that creates raving fans?

5. Differentiate through user experience. Senior living communities must build emotional connections through memorable experiences. Remember, there are many transition “points” for residents and families during their stay in your senior living community. How well do you do at these important points in time? Are you eliciting feedback from your residents and following through on what you’ve heard?

Need help creating an unbeatable senior living marketing strategy?

We’ve spent decades working in the industry. Let us help!

 

8 Questions that Determine a Great Leader

8 Questions that Determine a Great Leader

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Are you a good leader? How do you know? Review this quick leadership checklist to see how you measure up against characteristics of great leaders.

8 Questions for a Great Leader

  1. Is your door open more than it is closed? Does your team feel comfortable coming to you with questions, ideas and concerns?
  2. Do you have favorites or are you fair with all your staff? This can be tough – it’s part of human nature to develop close bonds.
  3. Do you have a culture of safety? People make mistakes. Do you punish or provide an environment that creates learning opportunities?
  4. How are you in managing your team’s work/life balance issues? It never fails – on the day of your yearly strategic planning meeting your key team member is out with a sick child. Are you empathetic or frustrated?
  5. Are you even- tempered and consistent with your emotions? Are you predictable in your reactions in times of change and crisis? Keep calm and carry on!
  6. Have you set expectations with your team? Does your staff know clearly what is expected of them and are they given the support to reach their goals?
  7. Do you micromanage your staff? Or do you empower them to make changes and decisions with the end goal in mind?
  8. Are you having fun? Are you creating an environment where people enjoy coming to work regardless of the external stressors?

The best way to assess your leadership skills is to look at your team:

Are they having fun?

Are they feeling successful?

Is the team reaching goals?

What other questions could you ask someone to determine if their characteristics are ones of great leaders?

6 Easy Steps to Communicate with the Family

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Blog provided by Senior Living SMART Partner: Sensight Surveys

One of the most common recommended improvements we hear from family members on our customer experience surveys is more frequent updates from community management about their loved one’s status.

Managing a senior living community is a busy, demanding job.  Sometimes finding time to update responsible parties (RPs) can be difficult, but doing so goes a long way in building a sense of caring.  Our research shows that something as simple as a personalized note from the Executive Director can make the difference between a disgruntled family member and one who is happy with their senior assisted living community. Read more