Through Their Fingertips— Incorporating Social Media Into Your Marketing Mix for Selling To Seniors

While some may regard social media as a “young person’s arena,” its popularity and reach extend and fit well into the marketing of senior living communities. The question is, “How do you navigate the maze of social media sites, applications and tools to find the right mix for your marketing message?”

Past Love Reports have examined how seniors respond to various media, including direct mail, print advertising and Internet Website marketing, with the consistent goal of closing the gap between what marketers think seniors may respond to, and what actually moves them to take action. This report is no exception.

Our Research Process

To complete Phase One of this study, we created a comprehensive survey to help determine senior respondents’ knowledge and use of various social media venues, including e-mail, social networking sites, blogs and podcasts, online chats and webinars. Two versions of the survey were produced to target two different groups—those who already reside in a senior living community, and those who do not. The second group included individuals on lead base lists, wait list members and age- and income-qualified prospects. A total of 38 senior living communities participated in the survey process.

Phase Two of the study involved Love & Company personnel training a group of residents of a senior community to blog, forming a resident blogging group to share insights about living in their community. In addition, we surveyed communities with Facebook pages to discover how they are using Facebook in their marketing efforts and what success and benefits have been derived from using the social media site.

What We Did

Participating communities were provided with a PDF of the cover letter and survey, which they printed and distributed to the various audiences. Respondents were given the option of responding electronically through a direct link, or completing and mailing the paper survey. We received a total of 2,603 responses to the surveys.

What We Learned— Optimize and Conquer

First and foremost, we discovered that over 86% of both survey audiences use Internet search engines, with over 28% taking notice of the sponsored results near the top of the page and on the right-hand side. Over 75% of respondents report starting at the top and viewing each result until they find a match. This includes viewing the sponsored links that appear at the top of the page before the organic results. These responses underscore the importance of optimizing sites to appear at or near the top of the most important search lists, as well as considering the use of search engine marketing (SEM) to have your sponsored link appear at the top of the page.

Embrace Email

Over 98% of senior respondents reported that they use e-mail, with between 78% and 86% reporting daily use. Because the vast majority of those who received the non-resident survey are using e-mail to family—also known as your target audience! Over 50% of these respondents indicated they would forward to their friends an invitation from their community to attend an upcoming event, and they felt that at least half of those friends would welcome the invitation. This can be a great—and low cost—way to increase attendance at marketing events.

Among both survey audiences, nearly 50% indicated they forward unsolicited jokes or humorous e-mail messages to friends and family, thus offering another avenue of communication. Creative use of viral marketing campaigns can move your message to reach an audience you may have considered outside your marketing scope.

Network Carefully

Our survey results indicate that Facebook and YouTube are the most popular social networking sites, and that many also use Skype to communicate with friends and family via the Internet. This offers a great opportunity to promote a community through posting of community event videos or testimonials on YouTube or Facebook. Other ideas could include “video demonstrations,” such as sharing recipes, community tours, profiles of unusual resident hobbies and more. Brainstorm ideas and topics and have a ready library of videos and posts from which to draw.

Most communities are using Facebook to share news and images with prospects, or to target adult children. Content is often very lifestyle-oriented, with more factual information still reserved for the community’s Website. Consider a Facebook page when advertising an upcoming social event, or to recap resident activity or offer an overview of a community.

In our surveys, 74% of participating communities report spending only up to two hours each week updating their pages. They currently report promoting their Facebook page in printed marketing pieces and print advertising, or including the logo in an e-mail signature. In addition, don’t forget to add the Facebook link to the home page of your community’s Website.

Blogging is a Personal Process

While over 72% of non-resident survey respondents are familiar with blogs, just 19% report following one or more online blogs. Currently their three top blog subjects are current events, financial information and academics. As mentioned earlier, Phase Two of this report involved training a group of senior community residents in Ohio to establish a community blog. As of November 2010, the group had been blogging for nine weeks, the team members were enjoying the experience and the group was about to expand.

We learned several things during the formation of the blogging group. When encouraging community residents to initiate a blog, take care in selecting the team. Choose members who enjoy the Internet and like sharing social news and expressing their views. Give them the foundational information they need, teach them the process and have them try it out for themselves. Then leave them alone. Blogging is a personal thing, akin to keeping a diary, and you just can’t force it. The benefit of the hands-off approach is that candid, unsolicited insights are shared about the community in which the residents live.

What We Concluded

• Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are critical to being “found” on the Internet. Make sure you’re noticed on key searches.

• E-mail is a powerful tool when senior living residents are included and drawn into the “marketing circle.” Remember their willingness to forward messages to friends.

• Viral videos can be fun and effective ways to communicate the news and personality of a community. Create a library of them and release them during key marketing periods.

• Prioritize your involvement in social networking sites, and then commit to using them for a variety of marketing purposes. Always include a strong call to action and an easy way to respond.

• Blogging is something that seniors enjoy and will use to communicate their own life experiences to others. If you take care in selecting the blogging team, they can be your best ambassadors!

Remember To Track Your Results!

All marketing professionals want to increase ROI (return on investment). The goal is to increase results while spending the same amount or less. This is where tracking the performance of marketing efforts becomes so important. The better your organization is at tracking the sources of leads, the more effective your advertising becomes. And effectiveness equals success. Allow time and budget dollars to track the number of new customers visiting your blog, or the ones who are linking to your Website because of search engine marketing. You may find that the cost of other budgeted initiatives can be reduced while maintaining or growing your ROI. Here are some simple steps to take:

• Specify landing pages on your Website for prospects to respond to marketing pieces and advertisements, such as direct mail, print advertising, web advertising and e-mail blasts

• Add Google Analytics to your Website – it’s free!

• Track visitors to your blog by using a built-in visitor counter

• Use an electronic response form on your Website to help track how respondents learned about you

• Constantly fine-tune search engine keywords to get the best mix

The social media research project was lead by Jessica Kraft, senior marketing account manager, and Emily Harman, media manager.

We continue to discuss the Principles of Influence and how they relate to selling to seniors. Thus far, we have covered five of the six – Consistency, Likability, Authority , Social Proof, and Scarcity. Today, we wrap up the conversation with the principle of Reciprocity.

Dr. Cialdini uses a great example, in his book The Principles of Influence,  of one of his Arizona grad students trying out an experiment. The student got a California phone book and at random selected two-hundred names, which she then sent Holiday Greeting cards. Now remember, these were people she did not know . . . living in another state! Amazingly, holiday cards from the receivers flooded back in! These are people sending cards to a person they did not know! Why? Because they owed her … and because they didn’t want to admit they couldn’t remember her. Even more amazing, is that she built real relationships with these people over the years. In fact, when it was time for her son to attend orientation at Stanford, who do you think he stayed with? That’s right, one of the “holiday card” people.

So how can you use this principle to your favor? My favorite example of this is a sales person who, during an appointment buys with a dollar out of his pocket, a soda for himself and his guest. Why does this work? Because the power of reciprocity is sooo strong!

At Love & Company, we tell our retirement community clients, that instead of just having a coffee machine in the corner of the sales office, the salesperson should make their guest a cup of coffee, preferably in fine china. The whole experience should be a ritual in service. “Would you like some cream? Sugar?” Although out of these two examples, I would say the soda example is much stronger because the sales person is paying for it out of his pocket. And therefore, the person owes HIM something.

I have always said that the best way to engage reciprocity is through unmatched customer service. The most loyal member base for health clubs, fitness centers, wellness centers, and retirement communities is one created through relationship marketing and an approach to post-sale customer service and relationship management that builds strong ties with your members – not one strictly based on price. If you do it right, you’ll actually have members who stay in touch – for example, sending you referrals even after they move away. You can’t beat that kind of goodwill.

PS   I hope to see you at the upcoming Leading Age conference in Washington, D.C.

We continue to discuss the Principles of Influence and how they relate to selling to seniors. Thus far, we have covered three of the six – Consistency, Likability, and Authority. Today, we’ll be covering the principle of Social Proof.

When a number of people agree on something, we are likely to be persuaded too. Apple knew what it was doing when it gave the first IPODs the glaring white wires and base. Soon you were seeing these glaring white music makers everywhere. When I drive by your gym, fitness center, or retirement community, do I get a sense of social proof? Have others gone before me?

How strong is this principle? Dr. Cialdini tells of a group of researchers who went door-to-door in Columbia, South Carolina, soliciting donations for a charity campaign and displaying a list of neighborhood residents who had already donated to the cause. The researchers found that the longer the donor list was, the more likely those solicited would be to donate as well. To the people being solicited, the friends’ and neighbors’ names on the list were a form of social evidence about how they should respond. But the evidence would not have been nearly as compelling had the names been those of random strangers.

The fact is that persuasion can be extremely effective when it comes from peers which is why Love & Company loves to utilize resident testimonials when selling to the mature market. The science supports what most senior sales professionals already know: Testimonials from satisfied customers work best when the satisfied customer and the prospective customer share similar circumstances.

Do you have pin maps showing where your retirement community’s residents came from? Do you have Polaroid pictures of your residents and new deposits pinned up on a sales wall (the sales person should be in every photo)? Both of these become visual clues of social proof to new and old signups!

Do you have testimonials and letters posted around your office and in your marketing materials? Do you provide opportunities for your members to bring in friends for special occasions? Maybe a special appearance by a chef on how to prepare heart-healthy meals?

Social proof makes perfect sense in a busy, overwhelming world. It’s proof that others have done the thinking for us and it turned out alright.

Photo Credit: http://blogs.cornell.edu/newmedia11cew88/

Studies show that people are more likely to comply when a request comes from an expert. As you would imagine, doctors rate very high on the scale of influence. How powerful is the principle of Authority? In the early 60’s, Dr. Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, tested the ability of authority figures to instruct otherwise normal, non-violent people to do unthinkable things. In fact, contrary to expectations, a majority of civilian volunteers would obey orders to apply electric shocks to another person until they were unconscious or dead. In Milgram’s experiments, obedience tended to increase with the prestige of the authority figure. Oh, and I should note, that those being shocked were in reality actors and the shocks simulated.

Did you know that at one point Camel cigarettes utilized this principle to hawk their product? They had ads with doctors recommending their brand.

So, remember people, you must only use these principles for the power of good! Of course, willingness to comply can be used for positive change. For example, the surgeon general telling you to quit smoking is a good thing! Your doctor telling you to exercise is a good thing!

At Love & Company, we’re always looking to apply this principle to our clients’ businesses. So, who is your exclusive expert? Your Sales person? A Doctor? An Engineer? Architect? Accountant? Another resident or member? How can you apply this principle? Uniforms, badges, clipboards – become the expert. Also, add to your credentials by using press releases, videos, association memberships, public speaking, framed licenses, honors . . . Etc., etc . . . You get the point. I’m always very impressed when I go into my doctor’s office, she has something like 600 framed advanced education degrees, so she must be smart. Right?

Columbo was the master of discovery.

Sales and marketing techniques for selling to boomers, seniors, and the mature market. Being a good husband, wife, friend, or marketer is all about the process of discovery. And TRUE discovery comes from conversation NOT from demographic profiles. I can tell you personally; this is a problem most husbands and marketers have. They are just not very good listeners (at least that’s what my wife tells me). Women, do you ever have a conversation with your husband, and then 5 minutes later he asks you a question that proves he really wasn’t listening?

Why is listening so important? Because only through real listening . . . no even deeper than that, only through probing, can we really discover what the needs, goals and aspirations of the person we are speaking to really are. What stage of life are they at? Trust me; you won’t get this off a mailing list.

And I use the word probe because most boomers and seniors are so use to not really being listened to, so much so that they don’t really usually offer up their real thoughts. Which means as a sales person, you really need to understand how to get past conversation stoppers. You also need to understand how to ask follow-up questions. Both of these techniques will coax your customer to reveal more of themselves. Columbo was the expert at this, “Excuse me, sir, but do you have time for just one more quick question?”

But listening is just the first step to building a deeper relationship. Once you listen, you need to know how to respond to your new information so that you can help the person.

I’m a big believe in the principles of influence as taught by Dr. Robert Cialdini, a research professor out of Arizona State University, although if it were me, I’d rename the principles, the principles of true love. Dr. Cialdini, who I actually hired for a speaking engagement, and his team are brilliant.

Here’s how I remember the principles . . . CLASS R.

C – L – A – S – S- R.

Consistency. Likability. Authority. Social Proof. Scarcity. Reciprocity.

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be talking about each of these six principles and how they apply to selling to the boomer, senior, and mature market.

We have many mature market clients who have hesitated when our team at Love and Company recommend that they “give” something of value away for free. “Tom,” they say, “we’re in the business of making money.” However, cost sensitivity is now the new norm. Regardless of age, upper-class consumers have joined the middle-class and lower-income in being price sensitive and value minded. And as we know, the mature market (boomers and beyond) is even more cynical and cautious, because they have seen it all. And, they have the patience and intelligence to gather information in a thoughtful manner.

We had one retirement community client tell us that their prospects were too refined for the word “FREE.” In this case, we were recommending that they give away a FREE retirement information kit. They had a hard time understanding that socioeconomic distinctions are rapidly becoming blurred. Cost sensitivity and cautious buying are now typical of all income brackets. Fortunately, their results dramatically improved when we were finally able to sway them.

In short, today’s market place is all about creating relationships. All of which brings us back to incentives. Incentives are a great way to start a relationship AND engage the power of reciprocity. That being said, there is a distinct difference between giving something of value away to potential customers and giving the farm away. My analogy is that we should make the first hurdle for entering a relationship as low as possible, this motivates them to reach out to you and to become acquainted.

Free offers can be as simple as a customized monthly newspaper, an e-newsletter, a white paper, a contest, a promotional item, or a seminar. The goal here is to have the incentive create a legitimate lead. This is particularly important in today’s world of permission marketing. Incentives should require your prospects to give something in return, namely their name and contact information. You won’t capture every visitor but those that do submit their information are serious prospects if your incentive offer correlates to your product or service in a meaningful way. For example, we use this offer for a FREE marketing audit on the Mature Market Experts site.

In this example, when I wrote the copy for Inter-Continental Hotels I used a double incentive - free information and a chance to win a free vacation.

By doing a lot of testing on your incentive offers and forms, you can typically increase your conversion rate significantly, capturing more leads from the same overall amount of traffic. Some of the things you might want to test are your incentive offer, the length of the form, putting a link to your privacy policy on your information submission form, adding a customer testimonial with a picture or video, and the form’s design.

Also, remember, there is a direct correlation to the number of landing pages (which improves your natural search engine optimization) plus, the number of incentive offers you have … to web traffic and leads.

Sadly, most websites do a poor job of capturing the traffic that comes to their door. Make sure that your organization is not one of them!

Important Note About Responding To Sales Leads:

How you respond to these leads is VERY, very important:

According to an MIT Study with InsideSales.com, 78% of sales that start with a web inquiry go to the company that responds first.

Of those surveyed by sales lead expert Mac Macintosh, 23% had bought the product or service they were inquiring about within 6 months. The other 67% still intended to purchase, but were not yet ready.

According to DemandGen Report, nurtured leads produce – on average – a 20% increase in Sales Opportunities vs. non-nurtured leads.

Source: HubSpot

Building, marketing, selling, and operating a successful senior housing project (active 55+ retirement community, continuing care retirement community, senior rental, assisted living, or skilled nursing care facility) today is a lot more complicated than it was just a decade ago.  Today getting zoned, financed, built and occupied within budget is much more difficult.  Not having the proper skill sets and experience on any of these steps can derail your mature market project. These 13 steps, if managed and handled properly, will lead to your project’s success.

1. Due Diligence

2. Demographics/Best Use

It’s also important to analyze potential partnerships with local service providers that can complement your property/product … providing additional insight into the best use for your property while offering additional cost savings.

3. Product Development

Henry Ford Village, Dearborn, Michigan

4. Master plan and Pro forma

An attractive master plan that maximizes your unit count, parking, and open space is the first step in developing a successful pro forma.  Having a realistic master plan that represents reality rather than a designer’s fantasy prevents zoning officials from becoming fixated on the front end of the process with amenities that could ultimately crush your pro forma.  If not avoided, these subsequent changes can be viewed as bad faith on the part of the developer (you) and ultimately derail your project.  In short, once you present town or city officials with any amenities it becomes almost impossible to take them away.  More importantly, developing a pro forma grounded in experience and realistic estimates is the backbone to a logical decision making process of whether to proceed or not.  A working pro forma that accurately includes development, construction, marketing, and operations — along with projected absorption and revenue is key to creating a successful package for attracting financial partners.

5. Pre-Marketing Test

6. Obtaining Entitlements and Approvals

In addition, having prior experience with multiple jurisdictions is often very helpful in getting officials through the unique requirements of senior facilities.  Not having this unique collection of skills and experience can be very costly.

7. Secure Financing/Letter of Commitment

There are still several banks and lending firms providing new construction financing, but the majority of new senior housing construction activity is coming through Housing and Urban Developments’ 221 and 232 programs.  Understanding HUD’s process for loans and time schedules is a very specialized skill set.

It takes more than good connections and a solid pro forma to secure your letter of commitment … understanding how to present your project is vital to achieving success.  A good financial request should include a portfolio of experienced industry players and their track records, a thorough explanation of both macro and micro conditions, projected project returns and an exit strategy.

8. Select and Manage the Design/Pre-Construction Team

9. Create Pre-Construction Advertising and Marketing Program

10. Close Financing

11. Oversee the Construction/Architect’s Administration Process

12. Furniture and Fixture Selection and Installation

Charlestown Retirement Community, Catonsville, MD

13. On-going marketing

Finally, getting in to senior housing or expanding an existing community requires a passion for the people and the industry. Make sure that … you’re working with people that share that passion, what we do is more than bricks and mortar!

Editor’s Note: Tom Mann of Love and Company co-wrote this article with Kevin Glover of KGRW & Associates. The senior management team of these two companies have worked as a team on some of the nation’s most successful senior housing projects over the last decade.

Is a game the way to consumers' hearts?

Mature Market Experts: more boomer, senior, and mature market news and stats you can use – Beyond Banner Ads. The yet fully unrealized potential of internet advertising hangs just out of reach as a tantalizing fruit for advertisers, as television advertising once did at its inception. The challenge is for advertisers to crack the code – how to get online users to pay attention to their marketing message. Especially, how to get the lucrative, savvy, mature baby boomer market to heed commercials as they browse the web, with real increases of sales in consumer goods and services. Some think the key to unlocking this elusive riddle will be to integrate enhanced interactive systems such as Microsoft’s new Kinect with the internet experience. To see a demo review of Kinect in game form click here. To read more on its advertising potential click here.

Don’t laugh, boomers and seniors have been big fans of augmented reality games from the beginning. An now, brain fitness programs like Super Noggin are incorporating games like these into their programming. It won’t be long before we see advertising as part of the environment.

Minor rant: I recently pulled out the instructions for my Jawbone headset … ugggg! Are you kidding me! The smallest, most impossible font I have EVER seen made the directions impossible to read! AliphCom, who do you think is buying these expensive bluetooth headsets? Let me give you a hint, they’re older and they have money. Please, please, please have your designer call us before you create your next packaging.

Mature Market Experts: more boomer, senior, and mature market news and stats you can use – Does the Medium Effect the Message? Like all advertisers, you need to reach your audience in the most cost effective way possible. But are numbers the only consideration when determining where to place an ad? In other words, are all ad spaces created equally? Is reaching 1 million internet viewers the same as a television audience of 1 million? A recent AdweekMedia/Harris Poll, indicates that different consumer groups self report connecting more or less effectively with various media forms. While it may go against intuition, the baby boomers (55+ group) found search-engine ads more helpful than younger groups (20% compared to 16% of 18-34 year olds, 18% of the 35-44 and 19% of the 45-54 age groups). Conversely, the youngest group was most likely to respond to television advertising (34% of the 18-34 age group), with effectiveness of television ads declining with each age group. Of course, there are ways to increase a medium’s marketing prowess. For example, while 15% of respondents said they found newspaper advertising helpful when purchasing consumer goods, having a dedicated tabloid with no competitive advertising in it, will increase your ad’s power tremendously.

For more information on the study click here.

To read more on creating a customized 8 page newspaper  click here.

Attention Wellness Directors: You owe it to your residents to introduce them to Super Noggin and Conductorcise in 2011!

Mature Market Experts: more boomer, senior, and mature market news and stats you can use – Defining the Senior Market. Baby boomers, seniors, 55+, 65+, the mature market … all of these terms are rather nebulous when it comes to marketing. What exactly is the senior market? Undoubtedly there are differences between a 65 year old and a 112 year old. The NAHB Research Center (a subsidiary of the National Association of Home Builders) breaks the senior category into 4 groups: the Baby Boomer Generation, born 1946 to 1964; the Post War Generation, born 1928 to 1945; the World War II Generation, born 1922 to 1927 and the Depression Generation, born 1912 to 1921. Among the more senior seniors internet advertising may be ineffective, while for baby boomers it may be highly productive. Read here for a different perspective on defining your target audience. Also consider cultivating new lead sources in the senior provider community. The Older Americans Act mandates that every community has an Area Agency on Aging (AAA). This is a great network to be a part of. To be included, your business must earn the trust of the AAA.

Editor’s Note: Wow! Hard to believe another year has blown by! Happy holidays to all. The team at Love and Company wishes you an awesome 2011!

In fact, our team at TR Mann Consulting feels so strongly about this principal that we won’t accept a client for our customized newspapers unless they accept this one condition … WE WON’T WRITE ABOUT THE PAST. Remember, your residents and prospects are forward looking people who want to live in a forward looking community!

Editor’s Note: Speaking of forward looking, just returned from San Diego and the International Council on Active Aging’s Conference (ICAA) which was simply an awesome event. Great to see our clients, Super Noggin and Conductorcise, as well as the countless other friends pushing the industry forward.

Mature Market Experts: more boomer, senior, and mature market news and stats you can use – Images: A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words. Have you ever gone to a website only to be tempted to abandon it because the downloading of images seemed to take forever? And when it finally appeared on your computer screen, realized that the image was not worth waiting for? Not a scenario you should be putting current or potential clients through. As the proverb goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But, in advertising it has to be the right picture. If the image is free, great; but has it been overused? The viewer will recognize it and not give much credence to your website or printed material. Images need to speak about the product – and assuming market leader and uniqueness are desirable attributes – they should not seem generic. If you are advertising to baby boomers, you need to consider if a photo of vibrant, natural looking, mature grandparents is more appealing and realistic than one of a campy forty year old couple? And remember, even the best image will be a turn off if it slows down the loading of a web page, so be sure images are optimized for the web. In any media, image excellence is essential to convey the message of quality.

For more tips on selecting and using the right photo click here.

Sources:

Love and Company

Free Marketing Audit (excluding travel) – call today to ask about our free marketing and sales audit for your community, 410-292-4333.

Mature Market Experts: stats and news you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Google Analytics and Analyzing Internet Data – Internet technology has become a tool that businesses selling to seniors can not afford to ignore. As boomers, seniors, and the mature market rely on it for everything from social networking and entertainment to price comparisons and online purchases, a side benefit is that enormous amounts of information becomes available for collection and analysis. Businesses and advertisers marketing to the baby boomer consumer could design their product and message based on these statistics. Last week’s 27th annual symposium of the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab brought government researchers, business financial analysts and computer scientists together to debate how to organize and display this gold mine of information in a beneficial way. To learn more about how this endeavor may help your future business click here.

At a minimum, you owe it to yourself to look at your Google Analytics to see if you are focusing your website’s keywords on the right terms (this assumes that you’ve been paying for Google Adwords …. if you haven’t been, it is worth doing just to see what valuable information you can glean). And while you’re at it, plug your website’s url into www.websitegrader.comfor an eye-opening view of your website’s flaws.

Mature Market Experts: stats and news you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – How To Get Free Advertising – The media campaigns you pay for could also be earning free market presence. If baby boomers are discussing your advertising on social media or watching parodies of it on Saturday Night Live or YouTube you could be reaping exponential rates of exposure from your initial investment. The catch, of course, is that is has to be thought provoking or entertaining enough to merit that consideration. And the icing on the cake – unpaid comments on social media are more credible than paid advertisements. So the next time you plan a marketing campaign to reach seniors, angle for a creative solution with the potential for going viral. For example, The Heritage’s reveal of its groundhog! To read more about earned exposure click here.

Mature Market Experts: stats and news you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Who Are You Marketing To? If your business is marketing consumer goods or services to a specific ethnic segment of the elderly population, the Administration on Aging’s website will be of interest to you. You can find various stats on the United States baby boomer population, such as the senior population projections for the Hispanic population over 60, 65 or 80. Breakdowns on the mature market’s racial makeup are provided by state. Statistical profiles for African Americans, American and Native Americans, Latinos, and Asians, provide numbers and percentages compared to the general population. Living arrangements, education and income levels, life expectancy, chronic medical conditions and access to health care are all accessible at this valuable website. To learn pertinent facts about your market click here. 

With the demographics of age and race in the US shifting exponentially, if you haven’t thought about how you’re going to address these new mature market opportunities, there is a good chance you’re missing out … which is why over a year ago, we added Elianne Ramos, an expert in Hispanic and Latin American markets to the team. Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Are the financial gyrations you are asking your customer to perform - to move into your retirement community, assisted living, or nursing home - natural?

Very often when our firm, Love & Company, receives a call from a senior housing developer, the patient has cancer. By this I mean, that the retirement community, assisted living, or nursing care facility is struggling with occupancy and the bank is knocking at the door. Both the client and the bank want to know the same thing, “Can this be saved?” But before we discuss the cure, I’d like to discuss a little bit about how we got here.

One of my first questions if often, “how is your pricing?” To which I am almost always greeted with, “As you can see from our feasibility study, we are right in line with our competitors.”

This response once caused me physical pain. Unfortunately, I’ve gotten so use to it that I no longer flinch. Sadly, if you could see your competitor’s occupancy and cash flow, you would know that they too are going out of business. Yes, it’s true; misery loves company … why else would your project have bench-marked itself to someone else’s proforma rather than the realities of your market?

Can your customer afford your product? Do they perceive that they can afford your product? What is the true strength of your site’s 20 mile radius (and more importantly, your 10 mile radius)? At your current pricing, what is the required penetration rate for each of your units to sell? I have actually seen projects that require a 65% penetration rate for their high end units (in other words, 65% of the age and income/asset qualified prospective buyers would need to buy). This, my friends, is feverish logic.

Worse yet, often as communities get further and further behind, they make poor budget decisions that dramatically effect marketing (cutting their advertising budget and staffing budget).

Of course, price is not the only variable that can get out of whack. The next, most common mistake we see is placing a community where the population won’t support the project. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard, “Oh, but we’re a retirement destination” or, my other personal favorite, “the surrounding area is filling in around us.”

OK, now what?

Sadly, when confronted with reality, most developers (and many banks) initially reject the medicine of lowering prices, “if we lower our pricing, the proforma doesn’t work. And remember, our pricing per square foot is very competitive.”

What they’re really thinking is, “why can’t you just sell our way out of this problem?” and “we’ve already tried special incentives and they didn’t work!”

This is an honest reaction, after all, no one likes to see their investment NOT make money, or even worse lose money.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. The community is losing blood on multiple levels:

1. Vacant units are not only not collecting revenue, the carrying costs are getting heavier
2. The community operations (i.e. dining, transportation, medical, etc.) are not realizing any efficiencies because staffing and supplies costs are being carried by a small number of residents
3. The community is not enjoying the full effect of one of its most powerful tools, referrals. One, there aren’t very many residents to give referrals. And two, the resident’s are scared to give a referral for a community they know is one shaky ground (and trust me, they can see what’s going on)

The Doctor’s Advice

Usually, the cure rests in two areas: Marketing and Pricing. With marketing there are usually two variables at play. Most of the communities we have visited are simply not generating enough leads and they’re not converting the leads they have. Usually, we can easily solve the first issue of generating enough leads with an experienced, cost-efficient marketing approach.

Unfortunately, the second issue, conversion rates, is a tad bit more difficult. Many communities have experienced sales people who flourished during the easy 90’s but who are struggling mightily in today’s environment. Sometimes the issue is not their issue (see discussions above). However, sadly, sometimes the issue is that individual sales person is not a closer. What makes these situations difficult is that often that sales person was part of the team from day one. The teams that can’t face reality and don’t make the difficult decisions, go down as a team.

As Love & Company works with clients around the country and as we discuss the state of the industry with peers, a reoccurring theme pops up again and again. It is extremely difficult to secure and retain good sales people. This phenomenon has been particularly acute since the real estate and retirement community industry collapse. There’s a reason real closers are not choosing our industry …. PAY! It is also, our opinion, that the role of sales has been under appreciated (for example, Love & Company places priority of top sales directors and sales people over that of an executive director in startup communities). Getting the right sales person, a true closer, is paramount to your community’s success.

Once you have your lead generation problem fixed and the right sales team in place, you need to give the team the tools to get the job done. Namely, you need to have your pricing aligned with the reality of the current real estate market … which means that seniors in your market can trade the equity in their house for your product (again, the sale price or equity they will trade needs to accurately reflect today’s real estate market). Or, if you run a rental community, that they feel their equity will last their life time.

A Dose of Reality

We’re not saying that reality is always pleasant but we do know this, the sooner the team (management company, developer, and bank) come to grips with the real challenges in front of them, the closer they are from emerging from these difficult times.

Love & Company specializes in marketing senior housing. This experienced team creates realistic feasibility studies and marketing plans designed to protect and maximize investments in this valuable industry. They are experts in accessing troubled properties, retirement communities, assisted living, and nursing care facilities and then providing solutions.

PS  I’ve been amazed at the response our blog, “Death of the Continuing Care Retirement Community” has generated. The changing likes and dislikes of today’s mature market, along with technology, is changing this industry at record speeds. Also, if you’re in New York on May 14th, I hope to see you at the Marketing to Boomers and Beyond event. When you register, make sure you get the Mature Market Experts discount. On the individual registration pull-down bar, select “Individual Registration (10% MME discount) $157.50.” Workshop guests can reserve rooms for the night of May 13 at a discounted $259 rate on the Marriott website: www.nymarriotteastside.com but to receive the discount, you’ll need to CALL reservations and provide them with the  Group Code: BUMBUMA (this code won’t work if you try it online)

Apple Inc.'s new iPad can make web browsing easier for aging eyes.

Mature Market Experts: stats and news you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Will the iPad Attract Seniors to Your Website? Maybe your business has nothing to do with computer technology, but everything to do with advertising to Baby Boomers. According to nielsenwire, the last five years has seen a huge growth in the number of seniors actively using the Internet (more than 55 percent, from 11.3 million active users in 2004 to 17.5 million in 2009).

So, what does Apple Inc.’s latest product, the iPad, have to do with you? If you are unfamiliar with this gadget, imagine a hybrid of a tablet computer, the iPod and select features of the iPhone (its not a phone).  It’s screen size is comparable to a small laptop. Yet, it only weighs 1.5 pounds and is a mere half inch thick. The large Multi-Touch screen is extremely easy to use and allows boomers to view vibrant, sharp web pages in their entirety. Making things very readable for senior eyes! Instead of using a cursor, just touch with a finger tip. It comes off the shelf with features that enable people who have vision impairment or are deaf or hard of hearing to use the iPad. So, those in the 65+ group that are currently put off by computers may soon be viewing your web site and internet advertising. Watch this Steve Jobs’ video, it’s as he’s talking directly to and for boomers.

How to capitalize on this new opportunity? Allen Moon suggests in his article, How the iPad Will Change the Way You Do Business, “Make sure your site has a blog that features regularly updated articles your target audience will find useful and entertaining. You can even create videos… include more interactive social media features on your site. These features are the most effective way to encourage your users to pursue an ongoing relationship with you and your other customers, and form a community around your business.” Marketing to seniors via the internet may become easier as the iPad’s popularity grows. Even online reviews, from sites such as sites like Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo! Local, will be more accessible to boomers as they can easily read enlarged e-mail messages while on the go with this mobile device. A smart marketing plan will take these developments into account in order to take advantage of this technology in the next few years.

sources:
www.apple.com

Mature Market Experts: stats and news you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Online Reviews Can Make or Break You – First there were websites, next came banner ads, now enter the powerful online review. Online review sites are gaining popularity and consumer influence. Many customers, including technically savvy baby boomers, review consumer goods and services such as restaurants and stores. For certain boomer products and services, it’s essential to be paying attention to your online reviews. Following your online reputation, and addressing any complaints, can be an incredible boon to your business and a more direct way to reach your market. In fact, some business owners report growth of more than fifty percent after positive reviews. But don’t be tempted to astroturf (falsely inputting rave reviews). Also, be sure to talk to your staff about the importance of ethics (I once had an over-ambitious intern decide to get creative on their own). Remember, at the end of the day, the best way to get good reviews is to provide a great product or service. The vast majority of your company’s time should be focused on providing greatness to your customers.

In this economy, who can afford to ignore such a powerful tool? To learn more. here’s a NY Times article about how to manage your online business reputation click here.

Read cautionary tale.

Mature Market Experts: More news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Why Advertisers Spend More On Drugs That Lack Competition. A new report by The Congressional Budget Office uncovers an apparently contradictory trend in the marketing of brand name drugs. Advertisers spend much more on the marketing of drugs that hold a monopoly than on those with competitors. A medication that is unique will benefit from approximately twice the advertising dollars than a drug that has only one challenger will. Catherine Rampell in The New York Times explains the reasoning behind this anti intuitive behavior as twofold. Advertising in a crowded field delivers less results on the dollar. Secondly, by creating greater demand for a monopoly the drug company can drive up the price. For more information on this report click here.

Not only is a busted appendix painful, but it can also prove deadly. Every year 300 to 400 people die according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The doctor who performed the surgery, in an effort to comfort me, assured me that the appendix was worthless. Still . . . since the experience, I have often wondered what the purpose of this organ was.

Think about it logically. This God person seems pretty smart. After all the human body is an amazingly sophisticated machine. Why would he/she just throw in an extra part? Well, turns out some scientists think they have figured out the appendix’s job . . . to produce and protect good germs for your stomach. A career hypochondriac, I am now left to spend my remaining years worrying about who will fight the bad guys in my tummy.

They’ll never get my tonsils!

We tend to joke that as boomers and seniors age, all they talk about is their ailments. To me, it makes perfect sense. After all, your health IS your wealth! If your retirement community is not capitalizing on this natural “obsession” by marketing or advertising a “preventive” health care approach you are missing a major opportunity.  Many of the boomers and seniors are just now beginning to discover their own mortality. This STAGE event, usually triggered by tragedy or illness causes a deeper reflection of their lives. A good example is my appendix … the what “ifs” of life become more meaningful.

As I’ve preached before, stage NOT age is what drives people’s behavior. This is why; despite tons of money being thrown at it, Eons has not been overwhelmingly successful … while WebMD continues to be a raging success.

Mature Market Experts: more news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – How to Be Sure Your Web Page Has Enough Color Contrast for Greatest Legibility.  The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which sets technical standards for the web, has come up with a formula to check that your site has enough contrast between the foreground and background colors, or when viewed in a black and white mode, to ensure legibility – critical when marketing to boomers, seniors, and the mature market.

Several programming companies have taken this a step further and created a formula to automatically adjust foreground colors to pop against background color as it is chosen by the program user. To learn more about this click here.

From the W3C website: “Two colors provide good color visibility if the brightness difference and the color difference between the two colors are greater than a set range.

Color brightness is determined by the following formula:
((Red value X 299) + (Green value X 587) + (Blue value X 114)) / 1000

Color difference is determined by the following formula:
(max (Red 1, Red 2) – min (Red 1, Red 2)) + (max (Green 1, Green 2) – min (Green 1, Green 2)) + (max (Blue 1, Blue 2) – min (Blue 1, Blue 2))”

There are some fascinating entries here, including evaluating legibility with color blindness (according to W3C  one in twenty people have some form of color vision deficiency), low vision and other disabilities – perfect for those marketing to baby boomers, seniors and the mature market. To see the complete list of web accessibility evaluation tools put out by the experts at W3C click here.

Technical stuff, I know, but making sure your designers (both print and web) have an empathy towards the mature market’s vision issues can make all the difference. For a less technical discussion on understanding vision and contrast, here’s a video of me discussing the issue with the marketing group from T. Rowe Price.

Mature Market Experts: more news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – Are Online Video Viewership Claims Realistic? The October 28th issue of Advertising Age raises some very interesting questions for marketeers to consider before purchasing online ad space. By asking some very pointed questions, author Jim Louderback (the CEO of internet video network Revision3) analyzes the validity of self reported viewings. Sites can claim a viewing even if it was watched for only a second, if a viewer has technical difficulties and repeatedly clicks on play, or even more egregiously, if the video starts automatically when entering a website. Would Nielson TV ratings include channel surfing for less than a second as a viewing? Advertisers wouldn’t stand for it, but they are being duped into just that by allowing the current self reporting to continue to mislead them (wittingly or not). Louderback suggests you ask the following questions when analyzing a site:

“How about multiple views from the same user?”

“How many views do you get for each episode?”

“Is viewership growing, shrinking or steady?”

“How do you count unique viewers?”

“Where do the views come from?”

“Do you pay for any views, or are they all organic?”

How important is this for the mature market anyway?

Keep in mind, that according to Pew that although internet viewing is not the norm among seniors, the 50+ segment of online video viewers continues to grow. In fact, among users ages 50-64, viewership is up 34% from just last year with 41% of this age group now saying they watch video on sites such as YouTube. In 2009, 27% of seniors 65+ now watch videos online, as compared to just 19% last year.

To read more click here.