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Boost engagement and drive conversions with AI in senior living marketing strategies that humanize your brand and enhance customer service
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In honor of National Technology Day, we’ve put together a list of apps we use that definitely make our work better and lives easier.
Quick note: All of these apps have free plans, but there are paid versions with additional features.
If you’ve been on a Zoom call with me over the last year, you’ve seen my Fathom notetaker. It’s also been my nerdy go-to conversation starter, “Do you use Fathom on Zoom?”
Before Fathom, taking notes during a Zoom call was messy and sharing a Zoom video was even more challenging. But with Fathom, all of that is extremely easy.
When you install Fathom and begin a Zoom meeting, you’ll notice that it will join your Zoom room as an additional user. Once you’ve added it to the Zoom room, you’ll have a Fathom navigator appear on your screen. The navigator allows you to mark specific timestamps and add notes in your meeting.
As soon as the meeting is over, the meeting recording is available in Fathom’s cloud with a full transcript (the whole thing is usually ready within two minutes — depending on the meeting length).
I could say a lot more. But if you use Zoom, you need to use Fathom.
Fathom is currently 100% free with no paid options.
Click here to visit Fathom.
I used to design a lot of collateral and images with programs like Adobe’s InDesign and Photoshop. But now that we have Canva, I’ve dropped both of those programs.
The amount of templates, free designs and icons, and basic image editing you can do in Canva is amazing.
If you ever design PowerPoint slides, basic logos or branding materials, social media posts, or just about anything else, you should check out Canva.
You can do a lot with Canva for free. But they do have a paid version that gives you access to additional features, templates, and icons.
Click here to visit Canva.
I can’t imagine what our team would do without a tool like Slack. Maybe we would email each other 85 times a day? Gross.
Slack is a great way to quickly stay in touch with your team throughout the day.
If you manage a team of marketing directors and sales people, Slack would be a great place for all of you to share ideas, solve challenges, and encourage each other without sending an email.
Slack is free but also offers a paid version.
Click here to check out Slack.
I used to put my daily tasks on paper, but I would often forget recurring tasks or leave my desk to work at a coffee shop and forget what I wrote down.
With ClickUp, I can view my tasks on my laptop, tablet, and phone. I can create recurring tasks, automate tasks through Zapier (that’s the next app I’m mentioning), and set a content calendar.
ClickUp is also a great way to stay accountable with a team or share a task with a team member.
ClickUp is free but also offers a paid version.
Click here to view ClickUp.
Have you ever wondered, “There has to be a really easy way to easily connect software and apps without having to know any kind of code.”
If so, Zapier or Make is your answer.
Zapier and Make essentially do the same thing, but we use both of them in our business because they each work with apps that the other doesn’t work with.
You can do things like:
The possibilities are endless.
They both offer free and paid versions.
Click here to view Zapier or click here to view Make.
If you enjoy attending conferences and taking notes on an iPad, you should download notability.
Notability offers the features of a typical note-taking app with the ability to record audio at the same time. It will timestamp your notes to line up with the audio. For example, if the speaker says something that you write down, when you go back and listen to the audio later and want to skip to the part when the speaker said that one thing, you can just click on the note you wrote and it will jump ahead to that section.
They simply call it: Audio-recording synced to your notes.
Notability offers a free and paid version.
Click here to view Notability.
We use a ton of software and apps, but these are a few of our favorites. If there is a big one we missed, you should let us know!
2023 is just days away and chances are you already have a solid 2023 marketing plan. But take a quick look at the list below to be sure these items are on your list:
If you don’t do anything else in 2023, do this.
Please get rid of the forms on your Schedule A Tour, Book A Visit, and Schedule A Visit pages. If you’re relying on your marketing directors to respond to inquiries after they submit a tour request form, you’re losing tours and move-ins.
You need to put an actual calendar on your website for users to choose a specific day and time. And that calendar should be synced to your marketing director’s calendar.
Once the lead confirms the tour, it is automatically added to your director’s calendar, and the lead should begin receiving reminder messages before the tour.
If you want something like this for your website, just contact us. We make it really easy to get this up and going.
It’s really sad that this is still a big problem in the senior living industry when it doesn’t have to be. We mystery shopped thousands of community websites this year, and here are a few of the disappointing highlights:
These numbers tell us that (1) we’re not serving families and their loved ones like we should and (2) we’re leaving thousands and millions of dollars on the table.
That’s the bad news. But there is good news. It doesn’t have to be this way, the solution is cheap, and it can be implemented overnight.
⚪ It doesn’t have to be this way.
The way many communities respond to new leads is the way they responded to new leads 20 years ago. But you and I both know the landscape has drastically changed so the way we did things 20 years ago will not work today.
You need to implement automation in your follow-up because good automation will follow-up at the right time every time. Humans will follow up whenever they can — which, for many busy sales people in your community, may honestly be 48 hours later (which is not good enough).
Before we go any further, I will acknowledge that the word automation might conjure up memories of frustrating chat bots you’ve used in the past. Some companies still use chat bots like that, but there is fantastic automation that is available. It’s personable, feels like a human, and won’t annoy your leads.
⚪ The solution is cheap.
Every website lead should be contacted in two minutes or less (because there is a lot of data that shows why this is important). And you may think something like that would be pricey. But it’s not.
Our tool that follows up with every lead in two minutes or less is $297 a month per community.
⚪ It can be implemented overnight.
I recently heard a leader in the senior living marketing and sales world say that they wanted to implement a good speed-to-lead solution but that it “couldn’t be implemented overnight.”
That’s not true.
We can put our tools on your website, and they’re ready to go. You can pay today, we give our tools to your web team, they put the tools on your website, and your speed-to-lead is fixed.
Not only did our mystery shops show us that speed-to-lead was bad, but the frequency of follow-up was terrible, and the messaging did not connect.
⚪ You need consistent follow-up
It’s one thing to follow-up fast; it’s another thing to do it consistently. The best way to be able to measure the effectiveness of your follow-up is to rely on automation to do it the exact same way every time. Then, a couple of months later, you can look at the results, tweak, set goals for the next couple of months. It’s impossible to know how effective your follow-up is if you’re doing it differently every time. Automation solves that problem.
⚪ You need to follow-up more
Our mystery shopping shows us that senior living communities don’t follow-up enough. During the first seven days, of the communities that did respond to our inquiries, we usually only received one follow-up message (text, email, and call included). That’s not nearly enough. Through the first seven days, you should aim for 4–5 touches.
⚪ Your follow-up messaging needs to connect
A lot of the messaging we’ve seen doesn’t do a good job of connecting with the problems that the spouse or adult child is dealing with. The responses to our inquiry are filled with industry jargon, way too many PDF attachments of brochures, and long paragraphs of text.
When we follow-up like that, we overwhelm people. What they really need is for someone to say, “This is Luke at Pine Greens. I just received a notice that you viewed our pricing. Can you tell me a little more about what led you to view our pricing today?”
We all know video is killing it these days so let’s do something about it!
When it comes to connecting with your leads, there are many great tools in the industry like OneDay, SalesMail, and others. These apps make it really easy to send personalized videos to leads. We received some in response to our inquiries, and they are impressive!
The next thing you need to put on your website is video testimonials from family members, residents, and team members. Before you start thinking about how difficult that may be too accomplish, I promise you it’s really easy. Just reach out to us to use our brand new video testimonial generation platform, or we can recommend some other options to you.
Here is what you need to do to help your marketers reach 100% occupancy in 2023
If you do those four things, you’ll find increased occupancy and happier sales people.
Every retirement community and marketing/sales team has the same goal — book more tours, increase census and grow waitlists. The key in that three-step plan is to convert potential residents and their adult children from tourers to residents and community fans. While the experience you provide on the tour will have a large impact on whether or not a tour results in a booked room or apartment, the experience you provide before and after the tour has just as big of an impact.
Think about a time that you’ve experienced amazing automated customer service before and after a service or product you purchased. For me, it was purchasing food from a local food truck. This particular food truck was located in an area with few seating options. So I was worried about (1) hearing my name called for my food and (2) grabbing an open table before it was gone. This food truck solved this problem because they took my phone number, entered it into their system, and told me I would receive a text when it was ready. It was a flawless experience. I grabbed a table and 10 minutes later, I received an automated text telling me that my food was ready.
If your senior living community can provide a similar experience with technology, your tours will improve and you’ll stand out from your competitors. Here are four ways you can implement technology to create a better tour experience:
When a potential resident or adult child books a tour through your website, you need to capture their phone number and email address. With this information, you can automatically send them reminder emails and texts about the tour. We recommend immediately having an automated email sent to them right after the form is submitted with important information they will need like the address, a phone number if they have further questions, and a three-step plan that displays how booking a tour is step one and moving into your community is the final step. Including this three-step plan simplifies the process for them.
Studies show that text messages have a 98% open rate, which makes sense, right? Who leaves an unopened text message on their phone? Another study found that companies who implemented automated text message appointment reminders had a 38% lower no-show rate. A no-show is a revenue killer. You prepare for tour, you say “no” to other tours who want to book that time, and then they don’t show up — that is wasting time and money.
So, to sum up this first point, you need an automated email that is sent immediately after someone books a tour on your website. You also need to send a text reminder to the person touring so that you save time and money and so that you create a better tour experience.
You need to create an automated email that is scheduled to be sent after the tour is complete. This email should include a simple review of what you went over in your tour. If the tour is for a potential assisted living resident, be sure that it’s targeted to that person; you don’t want someone who toured for memory care to be sent information about independent living. That would be information they (1) don’t want and would (2) fine useless. You do not want to put your potential resident or their adult child in that position.
As a senior living marketer, you know for certain that your leads aren’t just touring your community. They’re considering at least three others at a minimum — probably a lot more than that depending on where you live.
By sending a summary of your tour, you’re helping them remember all of the positive aspects of your community and your residents. This one action item will give you a leg up on your competitors.
You most likely deliver amazing tours and showcase your star residents to the potential residents and their adult children. So, if those you tour receive 5-star treatment, we think you should at least get a 5-star review!
Here’s how this works — set up an automated email or text to be sent after your tour (ensure it’s setup for a different time than your automated email summary). In that automated message, say something like, “We hope you enjoyed the 5-star treatment we do our best to offer everyone who walks through our doors. Your thoughts about the tour would really help others who are considering our community. Could you help us out by posting a Google review? Click here to start your review.”
This will get you more reviews, a better website ranking, more tours, and you’ll begin to see your census increase.
This last action step is for those who really want to take their marketing to the next level. We’re talking about email drip campaigns, drip marketing, automated email marketing, or whatever else you want to call it.
Here’s how it works. Once you get a lead’s email, you enter it in your drip campaign software, and the lead begins to receive automated emails from you. You need to set up emails that have content they want, not bullet points of amenities you want to push on them.
For example, an assisted living move-in checklist would probably be very valuable to the person who just toured an assisted living apartment in your building. Or an ebook about the difference between Medicare and Medicaid would most likely be very helpful to someone considering skilled nursing in your community.
You get the idea. Find pain points or areas where they’re struggling, and then send emails with content that addresses those pain points. You’ll be amazed at the result, and you’ll be utilizing technology that very few if any of your senior living competitors are using.
If you want to get this kind of technology activated for you and your marketing, just book a call. We’ll get it in place for you so you can book more tours, increase census, and grow a waitlist.
