In a recent panel discussion at the Leading Age Annual Meeting, experts highlighted the importance of focusing on every stage of the customer journey to build occupancy and enhance brand presence for senior living communities. By strategically guiding potential residents through each phase of their trip, senior living organizations can create a more engaging experience that builds trust and ultimately boosts occupancy.
Building an Effective Customer Journey with Journey Mapping
Journey-based planning, or customer journey mapping, involves crafting and implementing a well-thought-out strategy that enhances the customer journey at each touchpoint. This approach leverages the right information, tools, and relevant content to equip sales teams, helping them to connect better with prospects and nurture leads more effectively.
The senior living sales cycle is complex, typically requiring around 25 touchpoints, such as calls, emails, or visits, to convert a prospect into a resident. According to Trisha Haber, Group Account Director at ThomasARTS, this journey is often long and labor-intensive for sales teams, especially in smaller communities where staff may have multiple roles. Therefore, a journey-based customer journey management approach helps support this end-to-end experience, enabling the community’s sales and marketing teams to work more efficiently.
Personalising the Marketing Experience
Kelly Ornberg, an Executive Strategy Consultant at Oakmont Senior Living, emphasised the need for a personalised approach in digital marketing, especially in today’s highly competitive landscape. “Storytelling is compelling,” she noted, stressing that senior living communities must build brand awareness to stay relevant. In her view, communities that fail to share their unique stories risk falling behind. At the same time, those who invest in brand storytelling become more relatable and memorable.
A personalised marketing approach through customer journey analytics enables communities to focus on building connections and responding to each prospect’s unique needs. This helps keep the marketing and sales teams focused on relationships, which is vital since not every lead immediately becomes a resident. Marketing automation can play a key role here, helping teams personalise the experience with tools, content, and information that align with each prospect’s position in the journey.
Leveraging Marketing Automation for Better Journey Management
Paul Barlow, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Transforming Age, explained that marketing automation offers an opportunity to create tailored content that resonates with the community’s unique value proposition. Communities can build trust with prospects by aligning messaging with location, lifestyle, and the ageing process.
Additionally, communities can use journey mapping to identify any points of hesitation for potential residents and address these objections effectively. Automated marketing tools can help communities highlight their strengths and tell a consistent story across multiple channels, whether online, on social media, or during in-person visits.
Haber also emphasised that digital content tailored to older adults should be visible on platforms they frequently use. According to the data shared:
- Nearly all older adults use the Internet daily, including checking emails and searching for medical care.
- A surprising 12% of people over 63 use TikTok.
- More than 47% of seniors spend an hour or more daily on Facebook and YouTube.
Engaging Adult Children in the Customer Journey
While it’s essential to communicate directly with prospective residents, marketing should also consider the adult children of these residents, who often play a vital role in the decision-making process. As Ornberg pointed out, only 28% of independent living residents decided to move into a community without input from their adult children. Engaging these family members through targeted marketing can be essential to the customer journey.
Since adult children may have concerns that differ from their parents’ — particularly around safety and quality of care — it’s helpful to provide relevant information through content and resources that address these issues. Educating families well before decision points can ease their transition into this life change and make them more likely to view the community positively.
Taking Small Steps to Get Started
Keeping up with fast-moving technology and marketing trends can feel overwhelming, especially for smaller senior living communities. Both Ornberg and Barlow recommend building a strong strategy team to guide the marketing direction while allowing sales staff to engage with families at a personal level. They suggest starting small for communities needing more resources to work with a large marketing agency.
For example, a community could begin with simple steps like sending a thank-you email after a visit or following up with a post-tour survey to gather feedback. It’s also beneficial to reach out to agencies for advice; many offer consulting services that can help small organisations develop a strategy for customer journey mapping in just a few hours.
Continual Improvement with Customer Journey Analytics
Barlow advised that communities shouldn’t adopt a “set it and forget it” approach with their marketing efforts to keep their approach fresh and relevant. The customer journey and expectations continually evolve, and marketing programs should adapt accordingly. A community’s marketing program plays a crucial role in managing customer journey expectations and ensuring that promises made during the sales cycle are kept.
When implementing a journey-based sales enablement program, Ornberg explained that it takes time and strategic planning. One Oakmont community took approximately nine months to develop workflows for sales and marketing fully. It’s important to build a solid foundation, even if it takes time, as the long-term benefits of occupancy, brand building, and customer satisfaction are substantial.
Building a Strong Customer Journey: Key Takeaways
Focusing on the customer journey with intentional mapping, personalisation, and automation can significantly impact senior living occupancy rates and brand loyalty. Communities can stand out in a competitive market by creating an engaging, efficient, and thoughtful journey. Here are a few essential takeaways for implementing a customer-focused approach:
- Use customer journey mapping to identify and refine each senior living sales cycle touchpoint.
- Leverage marketing automation to personalise the journey and provide timely, relevant content.
- Engage both prospective residents and their families through targeted, consistent messaging.
- Start small and grow strategically, especially if resources are limited. Simple follow-up emails or surveys can make a big difference in how prospects perceive your community.
With these strategies, senior living communities can provide a more fulfilling experience for potential residents and their families, resulting in higher occupancy rates and a more memorable brand presence. In today’s fast-paced world, where personalised, journey-based experiences are expected, those who embrace these tactics will find they can more effectively connect with their audience and stand out.
