WHAT'S GROWING ON

The internet reaches more than half of the world’s population, making it one of the most important channels for reaching your audience. To reach your senior living audience effectively, it is essential to understand how to make your content readily available to them.

From sharing your community's mission and values to showing the activities your residents partake in, social media can be a robust platform for any senior living community. But is it worth the time spent if no one sees it? 

We have senior living partners come to us all the time looking for someone to build them a brand. One thing we often have to educate them on are all the elements that make up a brand. It’s so much more than just a logo. It is having a consistent image and message across multiple mediums. 

The phrase, “The Customer Is Always Right” although cliché, is a statement that in today’s world of digital marketing, is extremely relevant. The truth is, even if the customer (or potential customer) is wrong, they have the ability (and power) to do great harm to your business.

When running a senior living community, it is always smart to hire employees who have worked in the industry before. Having senior living experience gives an applicant a considerable step up because you already know they would understand the nuanced language of senior living, reduce the time needed to onboard your employees, and prevent embarrassing mistakes.

Throughout our industry, as the President of Markentum, I’ve spoken with numerous senior living companies faced with a critical business decision: “Should I work with a marketing agency or should I hire my own in-house marketer(s) to do the work needed?”  

For many years, the goal of any website and SEO strategy was to rank number one in search results. Being number one inherently meant more traffic, more clicks, more conversions. While being number one in search results is still a solid goal, your SEO ranking and position should not be the defining factor of your senior living, SEO strategy.

The moment a family member walks through the door of your senior living community a friendly receptionist greets them. They can smell the fresh baked cookies laid out by the front door. On top of that, the tour is planned to a “T” and goes off without a hitch.

Storytelling is something that humans have been doing since the beginning of time. From the days around a campfire, it is the best way to evoke emotion and communicate a deeper truth. Of course, as we have developed and advanced, so have our story telling techniques. We now have the amazing ability to capture stories in real-time and have them permanently frozen in time. Not only this, but we can make these videos accessible to every person from their home, office, or on the road.

A brand is everything to a business. It's what can make a half-eaten apple represent creativity, rebelliousness, and beauty all at once. Or, turn a swoosh into feelings of dedication, hard work, and perseverance. It has nothing to do with the image (aka logo) itself. Nike's swoosh famously cost the company $35 and when they received it, remarked "I don't love it, but I think it will grow on me" and then quickly accepted it because of production deadlines. A brand is not a physical tagline, image, or product but a nebulous idea that only lives inside of someone's mind.