Many seniors ultimately make the decision about which senior living community they want to move to, but they rely heavily on information gained by their adult child. When marketing senior living services to an adult child, it is important to keep in mind that they are not always the primary decision makers, so the potential resident should be able to relate to the marketing messages as well. Here are a few senior living marketing techniques we recommend:
• Focus digital ad efforts on the adult child. Most adult children find their information online, so they will usually compare two or three different senior living communities before calling to schedule a visit. Your digital marketing efforts, including banner ads, digital ads and squeeze pages, should mostly appeal to the adult child who is calling communities and making appointments. When you are using digital ads, we recommend incorporating links leading the adult child to more info, including brochures, floor plans and white papers.
• Target your collateral to the potential resident. The prospective resident will be the person looking at information that the adult child has gathered from digital marketing efforts. The digital marketing message should relate to the adult child, but the collateral or results of the search should be more focused on the prospective resident.
• Host events that appeal to both the adult child and the prospective resident. We also suggest using a direct mail piece to invite both the adult child and the prospective resident to a community event. Make sure that the subject of the event is appealing and interesting to both the adult child and the prospective resident. Create a guest panel of current residents and their adult children to speak on their experience in selecting a community.
