by Diane Masson | May 21, 2012
Are you afraid of events or do you embrace them? How innovative are your events? Are they attracting qualified prospects to your community? The sole purpose of events is to have new prospects walk in your door and say, “Wow! This is where I want to live.” This chapter goes into detail on ideas and how to put on a great event.
What is your definition of an event? For example, the community picnic is a wonderful celebration for all residents and their families. It is not an appropriate event to invite prospects because they don’t want to see the sea of wheelchairs and walkers from the assisted living and skilled nursing residents. Please do not call this a marketing event. The community picnic is an event for existing residents and should be handled by resident services/activity directors. Marketing directors can help, but they need to stay focused on new sales or there won’t be any.
So how many marketing events should you be having? My recommendations:
- Large events should be held three to four times a year.
- Small events should be one to two times a month, depending on occupancy needs and your ability to attract new faces.
Let’s break each of them down from start to finish for ideas and planning to produce effective events.
A large event draws one hundred to three hundred attendees. Who do you invite? First on your guest list is your wait list. There are people percolating on your wait list who just need a subtle push to call the moving van and order change of address cards. If your event is done properly, it should result in three to five move-ins in the next quarter. Secondly, one-third of your guests must be new faces. These will come from two sources: advertising and resident referrals. I recommend a quarter page ad in your local newspaper. Please see recommendations for a newspaper ad in Media Buying, Advertising, Public Relations, and Community Building with a Skinny Piggy Bank. The third group to invite is friends of the residents. Many communities get 50 percent or more of their new leads from resident referrals.
Tip: The best way to get resident referrals is to let residents know that they have an opportunity to attend this fabulous event if they bring a guest who is interested in moving to your community. Hello? Knock, knock? Many of your residents’ friends probably qualify age-wise and financially to move to your community. Start informing the residents two months ahead of the event.
Tip: Make the event something exciting enough that residents will be able to enthusiastically endorse it and want their friends to attend. Do not have the CEO or a botanist describing the cross section of a leaf to be the main speaker. You may as well have an event to watch your newly painted walls dry. No offense to CEOs, but you are not a big enough draw. A resident’s Disney family vacation slide shows are for the residents to see, not your prospects. That theme will make your guest feel grumpy, dopey, and sleepy. Now if you wanted to invite the real Mickey Mouse and give away a trip for two to Disneyland…but that might be too expensive and that would be goofy.
To summarize your event attendance goals:
- Approximately one-third new faces
- One-third wait list members
- One-sixth will be second looks (their second time in your community)
- Less than one-sixth will be residents (who have invited a new face guest)
Planning should start a minimum of three months before the event date. Begin planning with the end result in mind. An event starts with an idea…
This was an excerpt from “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full.” The book has step by step instructions on how to have an excellent event. http://www.amazon.com/Senior-Housing-
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog:http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | May 14, 2012
There seems to be a new sales tactic to show future residents the brochure and floor plans – before touring the senior living community! This makes no sense to me. Most people cannot look at a floor plan and decide to give up their 3000 plus square foot home of 30 years and just move into a smaller sized 1000 square foot apartment. Some professionals or retirees were former realtors, designers or architects – these folks would most likely be capable of picturing all their worldly possessions on a 8 ½ by 11 inch – floor plan. So let’s just assume the rest of the people can’t visualize a space based on seeing a retirement community floor plan.
Some senior living sales people actually asked me if I would like the bathroom placement or closet placement here versus there. What?!? I asked them to show me in person. They seemed surprised that I needed a real visual. Others showed me one bedroom and two bedroom floor plans and wanted me to select my favorite floor plan to determine what to go see in the building – nuts! Be a better sales person and figure it out for me. Ask better questions to learn about my lifestyle and needs.
Senior living floor plans are a tool to help someone visualize the placement of furniture in their apartment home. Use it after the prospective resident has already seen and has expressed interest in a certain style apartment at the retirement community. A floor plan can be a helpful reminder of what you saw an hour ago. But if they want to see the apartment in person one more time – please take them back to see it again.
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | May 7, 2012
Please enjoy this published article I wrote for seniorhousingforum.net for my friend Steve Moran. – http://seniorhousingforum.net/
Here are my top 10 positive and negative first impressions after touring 15 senior living communities in 3 days. (Part 2)
By Diane Twohy Masson
My top 10 positive first impressions of touring 15 senior living communities were talked about in Part 1. My goal was to put myself in the shoes of the adult boomer child looking for the right retirement community for an aging senior parent. What would be his or her overall impression after viewing 3 to 5 senior living communities in a couple of days? Now, in part 2, let’s talk about how some senior living communities chose to put their proverbial foot in their mouth and some of the reasons why they did not make a good first impression for this adult boomer child.
What were my top 10 negative first impressions of 15 senior living communities?
1) Driving up and seeing a weed filled garden, the lawn too long or the building in any type of disrepair. (If they can’t weed the garden on a regular basis, maybe they won’t be able to take good care of my mom on a consistent basis.)
2) A sea of people in walkers and wheel chairs staring at me as I walked in the building or looked in the dining room. If they were having a stimulating dining room conversation with their fellow residents or staff, they would not even have looked up at me (instead they were bored and ALL looked at me).
3) Bad smells – from walking in a dining room and knowing someone needed his or her depends changed to smelling that old building smell.
4) No activities happening and the residents looking bored.
5) Having a resident say the food is bad (this literally happened).
6) Being shown an apartment that was not rent ready with equipment lying around or was being used as a storage room. This was surprisingly very common!
7) Not being offered a cold refreshment when it was 90 degrees outside. This happened at half the communities.
8) The majority of marketers sat me down and started grilling me on my mom’s medical needs. It was all about medical questions and they didn’t focus on her as a person or my concerns as an adult child.
9) Seeing a resident eating alone in the dining room.
10) Experiencing a receptionist on the telephone, hold up her finger to me to wait, say something rude to a resident, hang up, roll her eyes and then ask me what I wanted…
Most of these negative first impressions can be easily corrected with good management and coaching the senior living marketer. Even the best communities out there can’t predict what some of your residents would say to a tour. But if your residents don’t look happy – what can your team do to redirect the seniors into an engaging activity? Look around your retirement community with the fresh eyes of an adult boomer child. What do you see? Can you say that all of the first impressions of your new future residents are great?
+++++++++
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or emaildiane@marketing2seniors.net. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web:www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | Apr 30, 2012
After touring 11 retirement communities in the last several days, I say yes – to residents being the best! The senior living sales people who gave me tours – only focused on the real estate. It was all about showing apartments, casitas and duplexes. They only asked enough questions about my mom to determine if she could live independently in one of those choices.
The resident tour guide was fabulous! She wanted to know about mom as a person. Her questions were geared toward learning about what my mom enjoys now and then proceeded to explain how my mom could experience an even better life and social connections at the retirement community. The resident brought the lifestyle to life first, by describing all the fun activities in every single community space that I was shown. For example, when she showed me the swimming pool, she proceeded to describe how the residents enjoy water volleyball and how she personally enjoys it twice a week. I was blown away. The life she described was so exciting that I wanted to move in immediately.
After the resident painted the dream of the lifestyle, she then showed me her own beautiful home. It was one of the best tours that I have ever been on. She apologized that there was no brochure to give me. The sales people don’t let her give them out. She made sure she captured my contact information too. Now here is the icing on the cake, she called me back two hours after I left to tell me something she forgot. She shared again, that she would truly love to meet my mom in person. This resident got an A+ in my view. Too bad the senior living sales people did not trust her to give out brochures or talk price – maybe they would be full…
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | Apr 27, 2012
Please enjoy this published article I wrote for seniorhousingforum.net for my friend Steve Moran. – http://seniorhousingforum.net/
Top 10 positive and negative first impressions after touring 15 senior living communities in 3 days. (Part 1)
By Diane Twohy Masson
My goal was to put myself in the shoes of the adult boomer child looking for the right retirement community for an aging senior parent. What would be his or her overall impression after viewing 3 to 5 senior living communities in a couple of days? What community would rise to the top and be their first choice?
What were my top 10 ten positive first impressions?
1) Smelling freshly baked chocolate chip cookies when I walked into the lobby.
2) As I drove up seeing perfectly manicured lawns, a good-looking building and some colorful flowers out front. (Flowers in pots by the front door looked great.)
3) Some kind of “wow” when I entered the lobby that would direct my eye to the beauty of the community and not see the walkers and wheel chairs. An example was seeing a gorgeous/expensive flower/plant arrangement on a circular table as I entered the lobby. Another retirement community had a beautiful living room area with a fireplace, a FRESH flower arrangement on the coffee table and happy residents conversing.
4) Having the receptionist stand to greet me with a smile and a handshake.
5) Being offered refreshments immediately (I was parched from all my touring!)
6) Having a marketer tailor the tour to the needs of my mom. They would bring each community space to life by painting a picture on how my mom would enjoy using it (based on her capabilities).
7) Being introduced to important staff that would be caring for my mom. It was especially impressive if they said, “We would love for your mom to live here.”
8) Having a housekeeper or caregiver smile at me as I walked down the hall. It gave me the impression that they were happy to work there and would smile at my mom.
9) Hearing the residents being called by name and looking happy.
10) Seeing vibrant activities taking place in a variety of community spaces.
First impressions are everything to an adult boomer child trying to evaluate the best place for his or her senior parent. What first impressions are your senior living staff and community giving out? Would you want your own mom to live there? Could you sleep at night, knowing your own mom lived at your community?
Next week:
Diane Twohy Masson’s top 10 negative first impressions in touring 15 senior living communities in 3 days and how some senior living communities chose to put their proverbial foot in their mouth will be coming in part 2.
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or email: diane@marketing2seniors.net. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web:www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | Apr 19, 2012
One of the reasons your occupancy may be down is because you may have reactive marketing. What does this mean? Do any of the following scenarios happen at your community?
- You walk into Bored Brad’s marketing office and he’s sorting paper clips. He just wants to give a tour but no one is coming in or calling the community.
- When you stop by Blabby Barbara’s office, she is on the phone, but you quickly determine that she’s talking to a friend and not a potential resident.
- Residents complain to management that phone calls to the marketing department are not returned in a timely fashion to friends they have referred and who are prospective residents. You march right over to Moody Marbella on your marketing team to address the residents’ concerns. She responds by changing the subject and, worse, blaming you with her explanation, “Events won’t work. Low occupancy is not my fault.” Do you think she missed the point?
Does this really happen? Yes! Reactive marketing people truly exist and I have worked with some of them. It can be a challenge to determine if the new team you are managing is reactive, but once you know the symptoms it’s easy to identify:
Symptom 1) Reactive marketing does not have programs or policies in place to make a certain number of outbound phone calls per day. This means every day.
Symptom 2) After conducting a tour, reactive marketing people wait for prospects to call them back to say they are interested in moving in. This is really the function of an order taker and not the attitude of a professional salesperson.
Symptom 3) Reactive marketers urge spending money on advertising because they claim they don’t have any leads and therefore no new sales.
Symptom 4) Reactive marketers exhibit a lack of urgency to answer the phone within two rings.
Symptom 5) Reactive marketers have a lackadaisical attitude returning phone, web, and social media inquiries.
These reactive marketing teams are waiting for walk-ins and call-ins. They believe the customer should just say, “Yep, here’s my deposit. Let’s call the moving company right now.”
Spending money on new leads is a waste of the marketing budget for a reactive marketing team. Many prospects can be slow (which is normal) to make a decision. A reactive marketer does not initiate calls with the non-hot prospects, so a cool or lukewarm prospect will never be contacted again. This means that 20 percent to 30 percent of sales can just slip through the fingers of this type of marketer. This really does happen, and it can be affecting your financial performance. Is it?
This was an excerpt from “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full.“
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
