How to Successfully Market Your Senior Living Community

But one thing remains constant regardless of the type of housing and lifestyle one chooses: deciding to move from a home in which most boomers have lived for 10, 20, 30 years or more is an emotional decision regardless of where and what that next housing option might be. And for over 20 years, Carlson Communications has worked with large and small senior housing builders and developers to create marketing tools to help them achieve their sales and leasing goals.

From Maine to Virginia, our clients have relied upon us to provide the experience, perspective and attention to detail to help ensure the message and branding of a senior community will connect emotionally with their prospective residents.

With today’s technology, this category is almost always your most successful and trackable marketing option.  Many different channels make up digital marketing including websites that create emotionally engaging experiences for the viewer, email blasts to send targeted and timely messages to your database, a combination of content marketing and digital ads that can connect with the community and decide if it’s a place where they or their loved ones would enjoy living, etc.

Every senior housing community is different and so is their target audience. There is no one-size-fits-all package and you need to consider which of these channels would work best and the ROI on whichever media you decide to use.

Marketing videos can provide compelling and emotional experiences to help viewers decide if they want to schedule a tour, request more information or attend an event at the community.

If planned and produced properly, video footage can also be adapted for TV ads which can dramatically accelerate buying decisions (in one client community, the time frame between a first visit and a decision to move was reduced from six – 18 months down to one to six weeks IF they had seen one or more of the community’s ads on TV). Radio can have a similar impact if directed to the right stations with a targeted message that speaks to the listening audience.

Sending direct mail to a qualified database with a targeted message, preferably with a time-sensitive “call to action” can still be effective in today’s digital world.  Invitations to special events, grand openings and attractive incentives for your readers have been very effective for many of our senior communities.

One advantage of direct mail is its “shelf life” IF the design and message appeals to the reader.

Unlike a 30-second TV ad or one-minute radio commercial, direct mail can stay with your prospective buyer if he or she decides the message is useful.  With sophisticated mailing lists you can target your audience using such factors as age, marital status, home ownership, net worth, etc. so you know your reaching a qualified buyer ahead of time. Ideally, a well-designed and executed inbound marketing campaign will generate a list of prospective buyers that can be your most effective database if tracked properly.

Regardless of the marketing channel used, the messages created for a senior living community should be creative and clearly position your community in the marketplace.  Since moving to a senior community, whether the decision is based on preferred lifestyle (e.g. independent living and active adult) or  “need based” (e.g. assisted living or memory care), it’s critical to remember the emotions involved in the decision-making process and create your messages accordingly.

At Carlson Communications, we believe it’s important to track which channels of your marketing strategy are producing the best results and continually optimize and adjust your plans accordingly to maximize your ROI.