NASHVILLE, TN — Making a powerful impression at each phase of the prospective customer’s journey is an approach that not only will build occupancy; it will help senior living organizations build their brand, according to a panel of experts speaking Sunday at the LeadingAge Annual Meeting.
Journey-based planning, they said, involves developing and implementing an intentional sales enablement strategy focusing on the customer experience. The approach uses information, tools and relevant content to help sales teams sell more effectively.
The senior living sales cycle takes an average of 25 touch points — activities such as phone calls, emails and in-person visits — before a prospect becomes a resident — more than healthcare and the direct-to-consumer industries, according to panelist Trisha Haber, group account director for marketing group ThomasARTS.
“That’s a lot of activities to get someone to move into a community,” Haber said. “We know for a lot of communities, that’s a lot of manual work for someone to manage, especially if you have an executive director wearing a lot of hats at a community.”
A journey-based process, she said, is designed to support the end-to-end customer experience, reducing a lot of the lift from local communities.
Personalize marketing
Kelly Ornberg, an executive strategy consultant with Oakmont Senior Living, said that it’s important in the digital marketing world to meet people on a personalized level.
“Storytelling is so powerful,” she said. “You need brand awareness to be competitive.”
Organizations that aren’t telling their stories will be left behind, Ornberg said, likening them to the Radio Shacks and Blockbusters of yesterday when they need to be the Netflixes and the Peacocks of today.
“Your leads today are not your move-ins today,” she said. “There are so many things in the sales cycle process, so it’s important from a marketing perspective to keep sales leaders and yourself focused on relationships and an individual’s sales needs.”
Building marketing automation into the sales cycle, she added, helps communities meet an individual’s needs.
Paul Barlow, vice president of sales and marketing for Transforming Age, said that personalized marketing automation can touch on a community’s value proposition, community information — including its location, lifestyle factors, the stage of the buying journey, the aging journey through thought leadership, and anticipated objections.
Haber said that it’s important for communities to use marketing to tell their story and what makes them different and uncommon, and she said it’s important to put those messages on the platforms older adults are using:
- 99% of older adults use the internet daily for email, medical care searches, social media and banking.
- 12% of people aged more than 63 are on TikTok.
- More than 47% of older adults are spending an hour or more daily on Facebook and YouTube
But don’t forget about the other potential customers, namely, the adult children of prospective residents. According to Ornberg, only 28% of independent living residents said that they made the decision to enter a community without the help of their adult children.
“Talking to an adult child is a different selling point than talking to Mom and Dad,” Ornberg said. “Ideas of safety, wants and needs are different.”
Marketing, she said, can target those adult children and educate them well in advance of when they might have a one-on-one appointment or conversation with their loved one. A good marketing program, she added, can educate families in a way that prepares them to make the jump and join a community.
“We’re in this because where you live matters,” Ornberg said.
Getting started
Marketing and technology are moving at such a fast rate that communities can barely keep up, Ornberg said. Both she and Barlow recommended hiring smart people to be the brains of the marketing strategy, allowing sales staff to meet prospects and their families at their level, providing personalized programs, content and emails to help move them through a complex process.
Barlow emphasized that the sales and marketing process is ever evolving and should never be a “set it and forget it.” He said a community’s marketing program allows it to keep promises made to families.
Implementing a journey-based sales enablement program, Ornberg said, is done incrementally and strategically, and will not pay returns overnight. One Oakmont community, for example, took nine months to build out sales and marketing workflows.
“Take the time and have the right things in place to build that out,” she said. “At the end of the day, this is the future, and we’ve got to be able to find a way to keep up.”
For smaller communities lacking the budget to work with an agency, Haber recommended mapping out the journey and getting a message in place before exploring available tools and technology platforms. Start small, like a thank you email after a visit or a post-tour survey. And don’t be afraid to reach out to agencies for consulting — she said many smaller organizations can hire a consultant for 10 to 15 hours to build out a strategy.
“If you can be taught, pay the experts to teach you,” Ornberg said.
The LeadingAge Annual Meeting continues through Wednesday. A representative said that more than 6,100 people had registered as of Sunday evening.
