How To Do Senior Living Social Media In 15 Minutes A Day

How To Do Senior Living Social Media In 15 Minutes A Day

Senior Living Social Media in 15 Minutes a Day

Twitter IconIt only takes 15 minutes or less per day to engage in social media!   Has your retirement community entered the twenty first century with social media yet?

Some of the larger senior housing organizations have wonderful social media programs.  Sunrise Senior Living posts great blog content multiple times a week.  Emeritus sends out engaging monthly email blasts.  Other organizations with a nationwide presence have a staff who are dedicated to social media.

What do you do if you are a stand along retirement community or only have a handful of senior living communities in your portfolio?  You can still do social media for 15 minutes a day.  Seriously – I am doing it at two Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) in Southern California.

First, you can either set up some social media yourself or have it professionally done for about $1000 per community.  I had mine set up professionally.  Then I trained one person at each CCRC to add content.  At first it took them some time to get into the swing of it, but now they can create three or four posts at time and then schedule one post to be released online at a time – one per day using Hootsuite.

We post – fun stuff the residents are going to do, show pictures of what the residents or employees have done and repost interesting articles that seniors would like.  The 15 minutes timeframe per day includes taking pictures of some of the resident activities, a plate of food or searching for a image on line to share. And yes, we have signed photo releases… Post your upcoming marketing events and engage with prospective residents.

You can pay extra money for followers, but we have let it grow organically.  Employees, residents and family members are getting engaged and we even do the Fan of the Week on Facebook.  Freedom Village and The Village each have Facebook accounts, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest.

As local seniors pick one of our CCRCs, the Boomer children that live out of state can see and connect with their parent’s selection through social media – this has had a positive impact on sales.  Our most popular posts are residents and employees pictures that go viral.

How is your social media going and has it created or confirmed any move-ins for you yet?

Please comment to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase occupancy on a nationwide basis.

Diane Twohy Masson is the author of Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com.  Masson’s book will be required reading at George Mason University in the Fall as part of the marketing curriculum.  She is currently consulting with Seniors For Living and two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. Connection and partnership opportunities: Email: diane@marketing2seniors.net

Sales Meeting TIPS to Increase the Occupancy in 2013!

Sales Meeting TIPS to Increase the Occupancy in 2013!

Increase the occupancy in senior livingIt’s time to grow your senior living occupancy in 2013!  Let’s motivate the sales team on how to achieve your senior housing community’s goal. I assume you already have a budget of how many projected move-ins are required and the projected amount of move outs for your retirement community (The number of move outs seem to get higher every year – doesn’t it?)?

For those of you in smaller communities you may be having a sales meeting with yourself or one other person.  The rest of you probably have a team of 2 to 4 sales people to motivate.  Some sales people get very overwhelmed with the yearly goal. When they hear that 50 CCRC entrance fee move-ins or 120 assisted living move-ins are budgeted, you can look for the squirming in the seat and eye rolling. This means they don’t believe.

Well, it’s your job to believe the occupancy goal and encourage your people to believe.

Here are some tips to turn them into believers.  Break down the yearly occupancy goal into monthly goals.

  • How many sales are needed per month?
  • What is each person’s monthly sales goal?

For a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) with three sales people and a goal of 50 move-ins – that’s 4 sales a month and about 1.3 sales per person per month.  Calculate how many tours are needed per person and how many calls on average will draw in the tours per month.

For the same CCRC example it ends up being:

  • 60 tours a month and 1,200 team phone calls per month or
  • 20 tours and 300 calls per month for each sales person or
  • 5 tours a week and 75 calls in a week for each team player

How easy is it for one person to do 1 tour and 15 calls in a day? This is how the 50 move-in yearly goal breaks down.  It’s very easy to hit the yearly goal with a great team, a good organization, planned advertising to draw in new faces, excellent quality of programming, superb food and a first-class reputation of caring for the residents.  It can be so simple to hit the goal for 2013.  Just break it down for your team, BELIEVE and then your team will BELIEVE too!

Diane Twohy Masson is the author of Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com.  Masson’s book will be required reading at George Mason University in the Fall as part of the marketing curriculum.  She is currently consulting with Seniors For Living and two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California.  Connection and partnership opportunities: Email diane@marketing2seniors.net Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/

A Short Fun Senior Living Sales New Year’s Poem

A Short Fun Senior Living Sales New Year’s Poem

Is it time to grow your retirement community’s census,

Or just entertain the residents and be festive?

It takes sales stamina and focus,

To accept some sales no’s with no fuss.

Give your determination a sense of finality,

To rise above “the get by” mentality.

Keep calling the database,

Don’t pause on the hot lead chase.

Because seniors just need some education,

To deter each and every objection.

Ultimately, your senior living community will win,

Because making a great sales commission is not a sin!

It’s your choice to be a senior housing hero!

Let the competition end up with a big fat zero!

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/

Marketing a Twenty-Year-Old Senior Living Property?

Marketing a Twenty-Year-Old Senior Living Property?

Twenty-year-old Retirement CommunityIs this you?  Then you are in one of two situations – either your owners have renovated in the last 5 or 10 years or everything in your senior living property is original…

1) A Renovated Twenty-Year-Old Senior Living Community?

If your retirement community owners have renovated – thank your lucky stars!   It is awesome to be able to tell prospective seniors that a great sign of a quality organization is how well the building is kept up.  Tout the age of your building and make it a plus for future senior residents.

Yes, you may have limited community space or smaller apartments than your newer senior living competition, but competition could have insurmountable debt from financing in the last 5 years.  I am finding that older communities have more flexible payment plans for seniors who are considering an entrance fee for a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC).

2) Original Furnishings and Tired Looking Senior Living Community?

Do you need to avoid the PUMPKIN carpet that has multiple stains in the dining room?  Are the couches covered with throws, because of the discoloration?  Is the carpet threadbare in spots?  This is a sales person nightmare.  What can you do?

Well, there are many in our industry who face this daunting sales task everyday!

You have two hopes in my opinion.  First, let’s hope that your quality of care is amazing and secondly that the operations team has done everything in their power to have a clean, fresh smelling building.   The best defense is often a strong offense.  You can say, “You can go down the street to live in a newer building, but no one can come close to us on the quality of our care.  So you have a choice.  You need to decide if the cosmetic appearance of a community is most important to you or if it is more vital to you in how your loved one will be treated and cared for in the coming months and years.”  Wow!  This is a powerful statement to make!

What would you pick if you were comparing two assisted living communities?  Remember to think like the customer!  Boomers want their parents to live in a nice community.  Surface people will only consider appearances.  Educate the boomer children to determine that care is most important and they will look past the frayed furniture.

If your retirement community has lousy care and looks old, just quit… or there has to be some redeeming quality that you can highlight.   Become a senior living expert in your area, know your competition and accentuate your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.

Please share your marketing success or struggle story, if your retirement community is twenty years or older…

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/