The Importance of Visual Aids in Senior Living Marketing

While senior citizens are not the only audience that senior living facilities market to, it can’t be denied that they make up a massive percentage of their audience. As such, to grow and succeed, you must market to this part of your audience. It’s also important to note that different parts of your audience will react differently to various marketing efforts. When it comes to senior living marketing, we can’t overstate how important it is to use visual aids. Visual aids can greatly improve your ability to communicate with senior citizens, especially when you consider how effective they are in their daily use.

Senior Citizens Understand Visual Cues Better Than Verbal Cues

Verbal communication tends to become more difficult as a person ages. Many healthcare providers understand that effective verbal communication requires the addition of visual cues. There are many reasons for this. Some senior citizens are simply hard of hearing, making verbal communication more difficult. Some have difficulty understanding the main message due to memory issues or other problems. Visual cues can be used to enforce a message or tone.

In real-world conversations, visual cues can include smiling, using eye contact, nodding, and using hand gestures. These visual cues also show that you’re engaged, which will make them more engaged.

Read more here to learn about how to market to senior citizens.

How To Use Visual Aids To Market To Senior Citizens

Reading long walls of text can bring up a lot of challenges for senior citizens. They may have some difficulty following along due to memory issues or simply because they aren’t familiar with some of the terminology or slang being used (which is why it’s so important to write with your audience in mind). Fortunately, you can make it a lot easier to get your message across through the use of visual aids. The following are a few examples of how visual aids can be effectively used:

1. Photographs That Evoke Emotions – Photographs are a great way to relay the tone of an article to your audience. For instance, an article about senior living facilities can be informative, but a picture of actual residents enjoying those activities will have a much greater impact. Just remember to use real photographs. Stock photos often look fake and can end up hurting your trust.
2. Infographics That Break Down The Numbers – If you’re trying to reinforce a message using statistics, your readers can quickly get lost in all of the numbers. Support content that relies on stats or numbers using infographics. Infographics help make it easy for readers to better understand the numbers and their context in a less overwhelming way. When creating infographics, make sure the numbers and words are big enough for people with eyesight issues to see.
   

How to Optimize Senior Living Marketing Using Visual Aids

1. Use Colors That Aren’t Overwhelming – Many senior citizens can’t navigate websites and pages like younger generations. As such, use color in a way that helps guide their eyes to where you want them to look. Additionally, don’t overwhelm your pages with color, stick to one or two complementary colors that reflect your brand.
2. Use Slideshows That Are Easy To Follow – Because longer articles can be more difficult for an older audience to follow, slideshows are a fantastic way to make your points easier to digest. Each slide can focus on one point and use its own visual aid. As such, a slideshow is also more engaging for senior audiences.
3. Use Videos That Are Engaging – Video content is a much more effective way to deliver information to your senior audience. Not only will having a personality on screen be more engaging and relatable, but your audience will have an easier time understanding your message. Not to mention that they won’t have to strain to read anything. Eye contact and hand gestures within the video can help enhance the engagement of the senior citizen.

Use Visual Aids To Strengthen Your Senior Living Marketing Efforts

Visual aids can go a long way towards getting your message across to a senior audience as well as to help evoke emotions. However, having visual aids isn’t going to be enough to sell your message or convey certain emotions. You need to use visual aids smartly and in a way that’s impactful. Senior audiences may have some trouble with their eyesight or may have some memory limitations, but that doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent – don’t make the mistake of dumbing your senior living marketing efforts down. Senior citizens are nothing if not smart and won’t take kindly to marketing efforts that offend them.