How good a job are you doing in driving traffic to your website? Content is king.
“Dynamic content is key. Start a blog, get a team of contributors from your community on board and set a goal to update weekly. You can do it,” says Janel Wait, Vice President of Digital at Glynn Devins. This is a great reminder for senior living communities to connect, engage and build loyal followers who are seeking adult living places for their loved ones. Wait adds, “Digital will become infused into every marketing tactic you execute. Companies need to tie offline events to online engagement to measure the impact of these cross-channel campaigns. Being relevant to your customer in every context improves your brand awareness, and engagement will ultimately lead to more inquiries and sales. Prospects will no longer have only offline or only online experiences; they’ll have integrated brand experiences.” Read the full article here. Communication is important in all relationships. The opportunity for ongoing engagement with a prospect begins when they first visit your site, find you online, or make a call to your office. With any good marketing effort, we need to maximize the contact that is made with a prospective customer by inviting them to connect immediately. When perusing your site, do visitors feel compelled to connect? Is your content personal and does it grab the attention of readers?
Here are some ways you can connect with your audience online:
- Engage your audience – Tell your story. Tell them why you’re in the business you’ve chosen. We want to read about you. It would be nice to see a photo of you too.
- Share stories on how you helped people like them, looking for your services. Publish reviews on your site. They want to know why someone chose to do business with you. Keep it real; it doesn’t all have to be positive. Any interaction you have with people, trips you take, clients who have benefited from your product or service, any learning experience you want to share that makes you look like a real human being and that others can relate to.
- Create a blog – I will look at websites to locate “where” the blog is. I can quickly learn about your offerings by reading through articles published there. It’s the ultimate engagement tool. (Janel Wait thinks so too!)
- Create meaningful content – The content you create should not only be about your company. While there is a place for that on your site, the majority of the content you create should be about them. Remember the WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME strategy and the reasons why residents chose you?
- Include a comment section on the blog or site to acquire what they are thinking about. People in general are willing to share opinions, if given the opportunity. What better way to find out about their issues and what keeps them up at night?
- Let your client know you personally – Consumers desperately seek personal relationships with those they choose to do business with. They will do business with you and refer you to someone else; if they feel that they genuinely know you. Give them more of what they want – a real person to do business with.
- In print communications – incorporate this information. In brochures, newsletters, handouts, etc. Find a way to weave in a personal story alongside your company’s offering. The more real you are with your audience, the more drawn to you they will be. Make it easy for consumers to get to know you and interact with you and your company through a consistent communication strategy. Figure out how your company can present helpful information to clients that is meaningful to them on a regular basis.
You think that’s too much work? Hire a professional copy writer.
Carol,
I completely agree with all of these items as you’ve outlined from our friends at Glynn Devins.
Unfortunately our experience with a majority of Senior Living operators is that they (or their staff) either don’t want to deal with the time and effort required for an effective content strategy or they farm it off to third party that doesn’t really know anything about their community or the industry.
The most effective content strategy campaigns we’ve seen is where a leader in an organization had chosen to dedicate a specific staff member to publish on behalf of the community or where a resident in the community has take charge of the outgoing content. These latter, resident blogs, are an extremely effective way to reach out to prospective residents and their families, but they also need to be overseen by someone on the staff to ensure their accuracy and timeliness.
What’s been your experience? Do you know communities that have successfully executed a content strategy or have a resident blogger? If so, how have they measured their results?
Marketing is rapidly moving from an outbound/interruption model to an inbound/content-focused strategy. The senior living industry has been notoriously slow to move in this direction. Many continue to waste limited marketing dollars on ineffective print advertising, costly direct mail and other outbound tactics. What the consumer needs is helpful information and education that results in smarter buyers of what we have to offer. For an example of what I’m talking about, check out http://www.MySilverAge.com, the online resource we recently developed to deliver rich content around successful aging.
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