For those who work in senior living, the difference between assisted living and memory care may seem obvious.
For prospective residents and their families, it often isn’t.
Senior living professionals spend every day talking about independent living, assisted living, memory care and levels of support. It can be easy to forget that many consumers are encountering these terms for the first time, often while navigating an unexpected change in a parent’s health or abilities.
That creates an important opportunity for senior living marketers.
Before we can market a community, sometimes we first have to help consumers understand what they’re looking for.
Don’t Assume Your Audience Speaks Senior Living
Consider assisted living and memory care.
A family may know that Mom needs more help than she once did, but that doesn’t mean they understand which setting is appropriate. They may assume memory care is simply assisted living with additional supervision. They may believe assisted living provides around-the-clock nursing care. Or they may not understand why a parent with significant cognitive impairment might benefit from a specialized memory care environment.
Those aren’t necessarily sales objections. They’re often education gaps.
And they’re exactly the kinds of questions senior living marketing should be helping answer.
The same is true throughout the continuum. What makes independent living different from an apartment community? What assistance is typically available in assisted living? What does memory care offer that assisted living doesn’t? When is skilled nursing appropriate?
If consumers don’t understand the terminology, beautiful photography and a list of amenities can only take your marketing so far.
Take It Back to Basics
Marketing teams understandably spend a great deal of time focused on leads, conversions, occupancy and differentiation.
But educational content can support all of those goals.
Look at the questions prospects and families repeatedly ask during tours, phone calls, lunch-and-learns and community events. Those questions are telling you exactly where confusion exists and providing a ready-made content strategy.
A question asked during a tour can become a blog.
A misconception heard during a lunch-and-learn can become a social media post.
A common concern expressed by adult children can become an email campaign.
A complicated senior living term can become a short video featuring an executive director or other appropriate community expert.
The questions your prospects are asking are content opportunities.
Education Builds Trust Before the Sales Conversation
There is another reason this matters.
Choosing senior living isn’t an everyday purchase. Families are being asked to make decisions involving home, finances, care, independence and quality of life. For many, the research begins long before they ever contact a community.
What are they finding during that research?
A community that consistently provides clear, useful information can begin establishing credibility before a prospect fills out a form or schedules a tour.
That doesn’t mean giving away the sales conversation. It means helping consumers become better informed so that when the conversation happens, they have a clearer understanding of their options and can ask better questions.
Your Experts Are Already in the Building
Senior living communities also have an advantage that marketers sometimes overlook: a tremendous amount of expertise already exists within their organizations.
Executive directors, wellness professionals, memory care leaders, nurses, life enrichment teams, chefs and other professionals can help answer the real questions families have.
Marketing can bring that expertise to a larger audience.
Instead of another post saying your community provides “personalized care,” consider explaining what personalized care actually looks like.
Instead of simply promoting memory care, explain what families should consider when determining whether memory support may be appropriate.
Instead of telling consumers your community supports healthy aging, introduce them to the people and programs doing it.
That’s useful information. It’s also marketing.
Where Communications Comes In
At The Ehlers Group, we believe some of the strongest senior living communications begin by listening.
What are prospects asking? What do families misunderstand? What do residents wish they had known before moving? What does your sales team find itself explaining over and over?
Those answers can inform an entire communications strategy, from website and blog content to social media, advertorials, educational events, media opportunities and thought leadership.
The goal isn’t to overwhelm consumers with industry terminology.
It’s the opposite.
Make senior living easier to understand.
Because when marketing helps people make sense of an unfamiliar decision, it does more than promote a community.
It starts building trust.