Services
With a laser-focus on marketing and communication for senior living communities since our company’s inception, we’ve assisted client communities in various stages of development and sales—from launch to repositioning and on-going leasing.
Our boutique approach and hands-on expertise allow us to provide you with a wide range of diversified services. We are positioned to handle a variety of responsibilities and assist you in many different capacities. Choose from our “buffet menu” of services or get our full, turnkey package and take the guesswork away. Our strength lies in delivering exceptional service that’s personalized to your company’s mission.
With our marketing expertise, we offer services that bring the customer to your door.
We look at marketing as an umbrella with the ribs being the various contributing components:
- thorough marketing research
- the formulation of a marketing plan
- thoughtful, targeted advertising
- internet initiatives
- sales oversight
- public relations
- event planning, and
- management of direct mail and social media
Marketing Assessments
Determine Strengths and Weaknesses
Research methodology may include competitive shops, in-person and by-phone mystery shops, plus interviews with community resources and referral sources. Focus groups with residents and families gather opinions regarding the community’s customer service, level of satisfaction and suggestions for areas of improvement.
We fully understand the correlation between marketing and sales and our experience guides us in developing a strategic marketing plan/budget that integrates sales conversions as a key component. We work hard in developing marketing tactics that
- Positions the community for long-term success as well as
- Increases the sales funnel for qualified leads.
Our thorough marketing assessments allow us to closely analyze communities across the country. Any weaknesses this exposes can be turned around to become opportunities for forging stronger customer relationships.
Communications Audit
Marketing &
Advertising Analysis
A Communications Audit provides a detailed analysis of all marketing/advertising materials allowing us to offer constructive criticism and actionable recommendations.
This way, we can generate critiques of your website, social media pages, advertising, brochure collateral, and prospect correspondence, including any additional collateral used for customer outreach, such as direct mail, newsletters and activity calendars.
Telephone Mystery Shops
Competitive Mystery Shopping
We are constantly amazed at the missed opportunities by sales people to build relationships or discover the real motivating factors which drive a prospective resident to choose one community over another. Through our interaction with sales people, we can build a foundation on best (and worst) practices for working with older adults.
Telephone Mystery Shops allow us to review competitors and critique a client’s own team. Clients use mystery shops to update competitors’ pricing, services, incentives, and availability, while telephone mystery shops of your community are an excellent way to help your teams to determine what training is needed to improve their skills. This may include both daytime and after-hours calls and you receive an evaluation form, audio file and optional transcription of the call.
In-person Mystery Shops
Use Trained Experts to Understand Your Competitors
Trained shoppers learn what a community may say about a competitor while updating pricing, services, incentives, and availability. These can also be used for a community to assess sales team’s skills. When combined with sales training, in-person mystery shops can help your teams improve their selling skills. You receive an evaluation form and full summary.
Focus Groups & CUSTOMER SATISFACTION INTERVIEWS
Understand Your Prospects and Their Families
This type of interaction can help you understand the buyer’s mindset, which can help your team attract more residents as well as decrease move-outs of dissatisfied customers.
Focus group research can be used in determining the public acceptance of a new community as along with its concept and design. Used in new community launches, it can help generate initial interest and leads. Later as a community matures, focus groups can track customer service issues and gather insights for developing solutions.
The Ehlers Group also offers turnkey service for this strategy, arranging all venues, catering, as well as recruiting participants. As a certified focus group facilitator from the Riva Institute, Janis Ehlers is an experienced moderator and has personally conducted many insightful focus groups.
One-to-one customer satisfaction telephone interviews can provide valuable insights from families following a move-out and trained interviewers conduct telephone research with families. These show families their feedback is valued and retains good relationships for referrals.
Public Relations
Storytelling And Media Relations
We work with you to identify notable community features, newsworthy stories about events and residents of interest. Credible third-parties include local TV outlets and newspapers. Needless to say, the results of TV coverage or an article are priceless and have a much greater impact than traditional advertising. Often, public relations content is combined with Facebook and blogs allowing your community to become its own source of news.
Our public relations services compliment senior living communities’ events and may be used to garner media attention. We understand what may attract the media and coordinate all the details required in securing news coverage.
Events
Creating Relationships with Today’s Customers
During the course of any event, we interface with many current and future residents. This increases our understanding of the decision-making process and the motivating factors behind choosing a senior community as a place to live.
The Ehlers Group understands the value of special events—big and small—in creating relationships with today’s customers. Those who are considering a senior community seek opportunities for entertainment and education in a less threatening environment than that found in the sales office. Events provide such opportunities and are a key ingredient to any marketing plan as part of the public relations efforts for your community. Events can be for lead generation, lead conversion and other benefits. The Ehlers Group offers turnkey services, including the booking of speakers, direct-mail invitations and full event management.
Social Media
Customized unique content on a consistent basis
The Ehlers Group’s social media services include content creation and placement for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and podcasts. We work with your community individually, via your marketing director, activity director, etc., to develop unique, customized content on a consistent basis.
The Ehlers Group understands the value of engaging content and the importance of consistency. We take the burden off of your community by creating compelling Facebook blurbs that convey a community’s personality.
Podcasting
The Ehlers Group offers your community a professionally produced series of six branded podcast episodes, strategically crafted to delve deeply into the key aspects of your community, complementing your own marketing efforts. Podcasts are a way to provide an authentic voice to share a community’s unique story, by using employees, residents and other guests.
Each episode follows a proven format to introduce your community to prospective residents and their families. The Ehlers Group offers all of the services you to get your podcasts up and running, including a great host and production team.
Your branded podcast series can be embedded to your website, newsletters, social media outlets while being automatically distributed to all the popular podcast platforms including Spotify, Google Play, Apple (and many more).
Contact us today and learn how you can put a voice to your brand and stand above your competition.
Blogging
Whether you realize it or not, your community has great stories to tell, and where brochures or website copy leave off, a well-written blog can be the key to successful outreach. Blogs keep your website fresh and give potential customers an incentive to return to your community’s website. When linked to your community’s Facebook post, blogging reinforces critical messages and keeps your community visible. The right blogging strategy separates you from the competition.The Ehlers Group understands the value of engaging content and the importance of consistency. When The Ehlers Group handles a community’s blog, clients can be assured content is relevant and consistent. Blogs can incorporate podcast content with further adds to their relevance.
Podcasting
Podcasts are a Perfect Medium to Add to a Senior Living Community's Marketing Toolkit.
Podcasts are a way to provide an authentic voice to share a community’s unique story, by using employees, residents and other guests. The Ehlers Group offers your community a professionally produced series of six or more branded podcast episodes, strategically crafted to delve more deeply into the key aspects of your community, complementing a community’s marketing efforts.
Each episode follows a proven format to introduce your community to prospective residents and their families. The Ehlers Group offers all of the services needed to get your podcasts up and running, including a great host and production team. Your branded podcast series can be embedded to your website, newsletters, social media outlets while being automatically distributed to all the popular podcast platforms including Spotify, Google Play, Apple (and many more). Podcasts can also be incorporated into audiograms, combining a community’s visuals or use stock with excerpts from the podcast. These shorter clips are easily consumed by potential customers.
Our six-episode podcast series, “Visionary,” “Top Dog” or “Ambassador,” provides an example of how your community can effectively develop a successful podcast campaign:
6-episode series geared for senior living communities under construction, also known as “blue sky”
Founder/Developer/Owner
Discuss vision behind the community and what will make it unique and different from other senior living communities.
Architect
Questions focus on the community’s architectural design (i.e. use of natural light, traffic flow of public spaces, and any unique design features).
Interior Designer
Interior designer shares an overview of the community’s interior spaces, inspiration for the community, etc.
Architect and/or Director of Marketing
Episode focuses on floor plans, universal design features and unique aspects of the community.
General Manager
Share General Manager/Executive Director’s background and address the special training the staff undergoes.
Management Company
Management company discusses special proprietary programs and their benefits to the residents’ lifestyle.
6-episode series geared for senior living communities that are operational with residents
This series can highlight the managers who play key roles in the community and who residents would enjoy learning about such as the General Manager, Executive Chef, Director of Nursing and Activity Director. As a prospective resident or family member, learning more about these people offers an opportunity to get to know more about them, understand their roles and build trust.
Sample: General Manager/ Executive Director
Get to know the Executive Director by leaning about their background, expertise managing the community and special training staff undergoes.
6-episode series spotlights fascinating stories about residents who live at the community
In this series, residents can share their achievements and discuss how they decided to move to the community.
Sample: Resident Council President
Show prospective residents they have a voice in the community by sharing how community is governed, role of residents’ council, volunteer opportunities, etc.
Sample: Community Residents & Moving
Episode explores how someone tackled their move after they made the decision to select the community.
Crisis Communication
Managing Perceptions
The Ehlers Group offers the expertise to develop crisis communication plans and works with your community to prepare for their implementation. We work with teams in structuring the right messaging to reach out at time of need to residents, families, employees, the media and others.