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

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.

A properly executed senior living email marketing campaign works similar to Chinese water torture. Of course, instead of torturing people until they give us information, we’re using it to nicely and gently build a relationship with someone and have them become a raving fan of our community. (This is the same for homecare too.)

It should be personal, it should come from an individual, and most of all it should strategically build a relationship and get someone to take a desired action.

A carefully crafted senior living email marketing series automatically leverages and strengthens relationships with people. It acts like a tireless salesperson, continually engaging people.

Here’s some ideas on how to properly use email marketing for senior living or home care.

• You can craft an email marketing series to follow up with potential residents and their caregivers.
• You can create a series to follow up with new residents to deepen the already good relationship you have with them.
• You can create a series to stay in touch with past residents who happened to leave the community for one reason or another.

There’s clearly many different uses for creating an email marketing series. I encourage you to sit down and come up with a few. It will be as effective as Chinese water torture and is an inexpensive way have a tireless salesperson at your disposal.