A young senior is looking for senior living and lands on your website, searching for a community that grants them the independence they experience at home. As they pursue the website, they want to see images of active seniors engaged in fun, independent activities.
That senior’s adult child lands on the same website, also looking for a community. That person, who will be involved in the buy decision, is not moved by independent activities but by their parent’s safety.
As the young senior scrolls through the website, they see seniors having fun. As the adult child scrolls, they see seniors being cared for. Same site, same time, different user, different user experience. Same outcome: increased interest in the community.
That’s what personalized marketing is doing for operators.
“In simplest terms, you want to track everything: how they come to your website, whether they come to your social media, if they’ve opened an email, if they’ve read your email,” Mariam Ali, Head of Website Fulfillment at web marketing leader CITIZEN, said at the 2024 Senior Housing News Sales & Marketing event in Tampa, Florida. “You want to get in and get as much data and analytics as you can to use that data to understand where they come from, what their demographic is, what their interests are, and create content to be more personalized to target that right audience.”
Operators are increasingly enlisting digital marketing firms, like the Calgary, Alberta-based CITIZEN, that use automation and data collecting to present personalized online experiences for prospective residents. While targeted marketing and advertising is growing in every field, it is especially important in senior living, where the key demographic, baby boomers, might not be typically represented by default web design.
Senior living providers should know as much about their prospects as possible, starting with how those prospects found their website. That datapoint allows providers to analyze user demographics and their interests. Providers can then use this information to curate personalized content for prospects, thus driving further engagement, tours — and eventually move-ins.
“We all know that people love to see themselves in marketing (and) the ratio of women to men in a regular senior living community is 7 to 1,” said Joe van Kampen, CITIZEN Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships. Thus a website that is powered with automation and data collection can identify a male user and adjust the website to show imagery that more appeals to men, such as men hanging out or food service, van Kampen said. A senior who is single might instead want to see couples.
Personalized digital marketing might also take note of an online user’s location as it pertains to an operator’s portfolio. An operator with communities in disparate locations, such as the Southeast and the Northwest, might be appealing to two different types of residents who have different ideas of an active lifestyle: beaches vs. mountains.
“You’re changing the way you’re speaking to them without them realizing,” Ali said.
Solving the two big potential concerns about automated digital marketing
To capture data, CITIZEN uses ActiveDEMAND, which can track a multitude of demographics, everything from race, age and gender to net worth, location and even home ownership.
“It’s not just about understanding and getting that information from your salespeople anymore,” van Kampen said. “It’s about being able to track all those different components.”
This brings two areas of concern that operators can combat. The first is HIPAA-compliance, especially with higher levels of resident acuity.
“At the end of the day, if your automation software or your CRM is HIPAA-compliant, that’s awesome,” van Kampen said.
The second area is the concern that users might have if content marketing and a website are too personalized.
“You can say, ‘Hi Bethany, find a place for mom in Houston,’ but saying ‘Bethany’ might tip them off: ‘That’s kind of weird. How’d you get that?’” Ali said. “But if you just say the area, they’re probably not even going to realize that you’re making custom content for them.”
Walking that tight-rope means maintaining a human touch while using technology to collect, ironically, personal information. “At the end of the day, it’s all about marketing automation with empathy,” van Kampen said. “Generally, these people are making a major life decision on the heels of a major life event. And that’s a major challenge.”
Measuring the effectiveness of personalization in marketing: the importance of testing
In the end, whatever an operator does with his or her marketing, the key to success, van Kampen noted, is testing.
“In any type of marketing, it’s all about test, test, test,” van Kampen said. “Everything that you guys are doing, you should always be testing out. A-B testing. Just understanding where things are.”
With more prospects comes more variables that the automation is attempting to add and must hence navigate.
“Test it all: that’s the major piece,” he said. “If you’re not testing all of those different components, you’re leaving money on the table.”
CITIZEN specializes in marketing for senior living communities. CITIZEN works with you to ensure the very best representation through digital marketing. Learn more at citizen55.com.
