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4 Ways Senior Living Communities Can Speak In Their Consumer’s Own Language.

August 12, 2013 By 3 Comments

We recently ran a survey here at SeniorMarketing.com about the words we use to describe senior living. Our survey results prove, prospect’s feel disconnected by the typical language used by a community. It’s usually a much different language than they normally speak.

So if the typical language is offending and disconnecting seniors, how can we learn to use the language our consumers are using to connect with them emotionally?

Traditionally, this required focus groups and surveys, but today much of your research can be done online. Following are 4 simple ways you can use today to discover the language your prospects use.

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What Stock Investing and Senior Living Marketing Have in Common

June 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Imagine having an investment portfolio and you couldn’t track it’s performance in any way, shape or form.

Would you continue with these investments?

I know I wouldn’t…

You might as well go to the casino and put it all on black. There you know you at least have a 50/50 chance of winning.

If you’re a savvy investor, there’s specific metrics you want to see. You will want to know your return on each investment, how much profit you’re making, etc…

Marketing is just like a stock portfolio and must be viewed as an investment.

Upcoming Webinar, Senior Living Marketing Money Pits to Avoid at Any Cost

I am the guest speaker on this very important webinar with RetirementHomes.com. I’m going to cover some cutting edge marketing strategies you won’t hear anywhere else.

I will address common mistaken beliefs about senior living marketing, important metrics to live by, and reveal new easy-to-use technology that assists senior living communities to measure their return on investment for various types of marketing.

TOPICS COVERED WILL BE:

  • 4 Senior Living Marketing Problems to Avoid at Any Cost.
  • 4 Commonly Used, But Incomplete Tracking Methods to Track Marketing Activities.
  • The Lifeblood of Smart Senior Living Marketing and 4 Important Metrics to Watch Daily.
  • Technology to Easily Track Your Marketing Return on Investment

The webinar will take place on Wednesday, June 19th, 2013, at 2 pm ET / 1 pm CT / 11 am PT.

To register, click the link below and fill out the form:

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/468119470

A Concussion, My First Pair Of Glasses, And Senior Living Marketing

June 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

When I was about 10 years old, I can remember sitting in the classroom squinting. I remember being in the very last row with squinting to see what my teacher was writing on the chalkboard.

I didn't necessarily understand what was going on, it just kind of happened, but things were starting to get out of focus.

One day my mother was watching me fly a kite. It wasn’t a very windy day, so I had to run to keep the kite up in the air. I kept looking back at the kite to watch it fly, and when I was looking back, I ran right into a tree giving myself a concussion. My mother said she was watching, and it looked like I bounced off the tree. She refused to admit her son was doing something moronic, and blamed it on my vision, and said I needed to go see an eye doctor.

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How To Value Your Residents, Form Realistic Marketing Budgets, And Cut Expenses By Understanding The Lifeblood Of Smart Senior Living Marketing.

May 24, 2013 By 3 Comments

Stop Money Sucking, Mind Numbing, Wasteful Marketing Strategies

The definition of the word investment according to dictionary.com is as follows:

Investment – The investing of money or capital in order to gain profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.

Imagine for a moment, that I were to approach you with an amazing investment opportunity. I’d tell you about how much money you’d make, and all you’d have to do is give me a couple thousand dollars.

But there’s one catch….

During the life of that investment, we would have no clue how it performs, no way to track it, and we would only know how much money was made after the investment was sold.

Would you invest in that?

Of course not.

Marketing Absolutely Must Be Viewed As An Investment!

If you were to invest $5,000 in a marketing campaign, and you get 2 new residents out of that campaign, then obviously those residents are going to be worth more than $2,500. On average, the value of those residents are worth anywhere from $60,000-$70,000. Talk about a great return on investment!

This is where the lifeblood of smart senior living marketing comes into play. At SeniorMarketing.com we focus exclusively on senior living and home care, and the fundamentals of everything we do is based on the lifeblood of smart marketing. We eat sleep and breathe it!

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How to Capture Online Prospects in the Senior Living Buying Cycle

May 15, 2013 By 1 Comment

This is an article I wrote for Retirementhomes.com

Just like our eyes can capture only a sliver of the full spectrum of light, the keywords our prospects type into search engines are a sliver of a conversation inside their heads.

Understand this conversation and you’ll be able to beat out your competition the majority of the time. The rest of this article is to help you uncover this conversation.

What Do Keywords Have To Do With The Buying Cycle?

When your prospects begin searching for senior living, they may or may not be educated in the market. Very rarely are they going to make one search, call your community and become a member.

They will do many searches! And their searches are going to reflect their level of education into senior living.

Keywords tell a story within someone’s head at that very moment. And what a valuable moment it is for us when they’re searching for senior living.

I want you to stop for a minute and think about the conversation inside someone’s head when they make a search for senior living. Really imagine the emotions they’re going through when they are typing into the search engines.

Maybe their parent just had a fall and they need a rehab community, or maybe a person is so overwhelmed caring for their spouse that they can’t handle it anymore. They’re in pain, tired, fed up, looking to get their relationship back with their loved one, and not be the caregiver any more.

Here’s what your prospect’s search patterns may look like. An adult child in Middletown CT may start searching “different types of senior living communities.” Later, once they’re a little more educated, they may come back and search for “assisted living in Middletown CT”.

Then, they may come back and search “skilled nursing in Middletown ct,” and then even later, when they realize their parent with dementia needs a community with specialized care, “dementia care Middletown CT.” Once they have found a specific community, they may end the process with “The Community name” they want to schedule a tour with.

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What Chinese Water Torture and Email Marketing For Senior Living Have in Common.

May 2, 2013 By 2 Comments

And Why A Monthly Newsletter Is Not Email Marketing!

Imagine you’re a captive in a Chinese prison during the 1800’s. You have valuable information – the government wants it.

The prison guard throws you into a chair. There’s a large bucket apparatus overhead. You see gloom in his eyes as he straps your arms and legs so you can’t move. Here comes the blindfold. You mind is racing of the terrors that lay ahead.

You’re heart is pounding – you’re not sure what’s going to happen. He steps back for a minute, then yells to his assistant to turn on the apparatus.

A few seconds go by…

You begin to feel a cold drop of water on your head. You’re not sure what to think. It’s not bad at first.

A few minutes go by and drip…drip…drip…

Eventually an hour….two…three…pass!

Drip…drip…drip…

Now soaked from head to toe, you’re freezing. The cold water is slamming on your head like a sledge hammer. Nothing else exists at this point. You desperately want it to stop.

You yell for them to stop – you beg them to stop – you scream!

Eventually, you give in and are defeated. You never thought a little drop of water could have so much power.

A Properly Executed Senior Living Email Marketing Campaign Should Work Like Chinese Water Torture.

I’m going to be blunt here….

Leads and prospects in the senior living industry are costly. The actual cost of generating them is costly, the cost of qualifying them is expensive, the time to sit with them and give a tour is costly, and follow up is costly.

In today’s environment, it take more exposures to convert a prospect into a resident. One of the biggest problems we see today is a serious lack of follow up on senior living prospects.

If all your doing to follow up with prospects is calling once in a while and sending them a monthly newsletter than you’re missing the boat. When a prospect or caregiver gets a monthly newsletter, it’s usually salesy, it’s corporate feeling, and worst of all it’s impersonal. Worse, the majority of email newsletters never even get opened.

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A Big Misconception About An “Important” Senior Living Marketing Metric

April 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This is a recent article I wrote for Retirementhomes.com

There’s a mistaken belief within the senior living industry I want to dispel. Particularly, with regards to internet marketing. Many people have been conditioned to believe there is an important metric to focus on in their marketing efforts. However, if you happen to be only measuring by this metric, you’re shooting blind with your senior living marketing. Worst of all, the results can be downright dangerous!

[Marketing]

The misconception I’m referring to is the idea of measuring the success of a marketing campaign by cost per lead.

Here’s why that’s important…

LEADS DO NOT PAY BILLS, YOUR RESIDENTS DO!

What seems like a low cost per lead can actually be very costly to your business. And what seems like a high cost per lead can actually be a very profitable avenue.

Anybody can generate many leads for you. Whether or not they’re quality leads, that will actually turn into a paying customer is a different story. Cost per lead is an incomplete number to your business. It’s only a piece of the sales process and an arbitrary piece at that.

I can generate a ton of low cost leads to your community tomorrow if you want. What I can do is host an event at your community and run a direct mail promotion. I will give away a $100 Visa gift card, free lunch for prospects and their family, and have a carnival with face painting. The problem with this is, while I will generate a lot of responses they’ll be responding to the $100 gift card, the lunch, and carnival. The actual amount of qualified leads will be low and new residents will be costly.

Full article at: http://www.retirementhomes.com/library/a-big-misconception-about-an-important-senior-living-marketing-metric/

4 Rules For Senior Living Search Engine Marketing Campaigns

April 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This is a guest post I wrote for Carebuzz.com 

There’s no denying having a strong internet marketing presence helps grow your senior living community or senior care business. With more and more adult children and seniors using the internet, it’s hard to survive without an online presence.

Over the past few years, there has been a flurry of marketing and referral agencies popping up in this industry. Some provide an honest service, and I would recommend testing their services, while others may not be so honest. Because these referral companies are very good at internet marketing, is using their service the only way we can gain search engine real estate?

This is where having a strong search marketing campaign can help. And pay per click marketing is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to reach seniors and caregivers the moment they need your community or care services. With pay per click advertising, you bid on “keywords” which are phrases people are searching on a search engine, and anytime someone types one of these phrases your ad will be displayed. The best part is you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

If your website is Google compliant, you can have a campaign running by this afternoon bringing you qualified leads.

However, as powerful as pay per click marketing is, if you do it wrong you can lose your shirt. And today’s pay per click systems have as many dials and knobs as a commercial airplane.

I’ve written this article to list out the 4 most important areas a senior living community or senior care company needs to pay attention to when building out a campaign.

Full article at: http://carebuzz.com/rules-for-senior-living-senior-care-search-engine-marketing/

How a Cursing White Rabbit is Why You Need to Monitor Your Senior Living Community’s Reputation

April 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This is a guest post I wrote for RetirementHomes.com

This morning while watching the news, there was a segment featuring a video at Disney World. In this video, a girl ran up to someone dressed as the White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland. She pulled and yanked on his tail, and ran away. It seemed innocent watching it on TV. Apparently, not so for the rabbit as he didn’t take the gesture kindly. He ran over to her, pinned her up against the wall, and had some choice words with her.

This was on national news!

5 years ago this incident would have either, ended right there, or been handled by customer service. Now, it’s on national news, repeating for a week, a PR disaster for Disney and probably the end of the line for this employee dressed as the rabbit.

In today’s digital world, it’s extremely easy for people to capture and share information. A disgruntled employee, unsatisfied resident or parent, or God forbid one of your employees doing something unethical on camera can easily get published online and hurt your community’s good reputation.

Full article: http://www.retirementhomes.com/library/how-a-cursing-white-rabbits-is-why-you-need-to-monitor-your-senior-living-communitys-reputation/

2 Must Know Senior Living Marketing Metrics. How Much Money is Your Community Leaving On The Table?

March 28, 2013 By 1 Comment

This is a guest article I wrote for NewLifestyles.com.

A good senior living marketing program is a combination of art and science. It is important to connect with seniors and caregivers on an emotional level, know their frustrations, desires, and motivators. Requiring them to take action involves the art of knowing them so well, you can write a page from their diary. On the other hand, there is the scientific aspect of senior living marketing. You must know the performance numbers of multiple marketing mediums, multiple exposures, and the results of any tests you happen to be performing. There are response numbers, inquiry ratios, tour ratios, and move in ratios. It is a difficult task knowing what the most important area to focus on with your senior living marketing. In this article, I am going to introduce some fundamental marketing metrics that will bring clarity to your marketing efforts and allow you to finally know the value of your residents.

In the Q & A section of a recent popular senior living publication, a reader asked what was the most critical marketing metric to pay attention to for a senior living community and why?

There were some good responses, including one senior living executive saying occupancy is the most critical element to know. Other executives responded saying the most important senior living marketing measurement would be a number of different elements including inquiry-to-tour and tour-to-move in ratios.

Full article: http://blog.newlifestyles.com/2013/03/20/most-important-marketing-numbers/

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