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The Benefits Of Marketing Automation For Senior Living Communities

September 18, 2015/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Senior Living Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Seniors today are more tech-savvy than ever before. A recent Nielson report shows that the number of adults 65 years old or older actively using the Internet has increased by more than 55 percent in the last five years. Furthermore, adult children continue to play an important role in finding quality elder care for their parents. This means that it is vital for your senior community to maintain a strong web presence, and vital for your company to reap the benefits of marketing automation, as a part of senior living marketing.

When searching for a community online, seniors and their children both expect timely responses to their questions and content that addresses their specific needs. Marketing automation helps enable senior living organizations to engage leads with relevant content, track and score each lead’s behaviour and deliver better quality leads.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing Automation is a tool that informs, interacts and nurtures leads as they move through the sales funnel. It is a process that manages a community’s interaction with its prospects by providing them with the right information at the right time in the buying process. By targeting content, marketing automation informs, entertains, socializes and earns the prospect’s business.

Prospects define the path through their modes of interaction, targeted search, website visits, by downloading brochures or requesting a tour of your community.

How does it work?

MA tools start with the premise of managing all levels of leads and then apply business rules, analytics, segmentation and scientific data to manage prospects in your sales funnel.

Here is an example of what a basic automated email workflow could look like:

Step 1: Email Invite

You send an email invitation to download your latest community brochure to a targeted list of contacts

Step 2: Thank You Note

You send a thank you note to all the people that downloaded the brochure.

Step 3: Follow Up Email

A few days later, you send a follow-up email to the list of people who downloaded the brochure, offering them more detailed floor plans, amenity lists and information about your community.

Step 4: Notification

Finally, when someone reads that information, your sales team will get a notification so they can follow up with them (this person is now much more qualified and is likely farther down the buying process)

Learn more about the Benefits Of Inbound Marketing

Now, put yourself in your prospect’s shoes for a moment. If this was you, receiving information from a senior community about their services and amenities, wouldn’t you prefer to get emails like the ones above over blasts you can tell they’re sending to hundreds of other people? It feels personalized like it is tailored to you and addresses your individual medical needs. This makes you much more likely to trust that community and ultimately schedule a tour.

This is the foundation of marketing automation. To provide you, as a marketer, with the ability to target your contacts and send them content that is based on their behaviour. You’re giving them the information they need when they want it. You’re easing their buying decision. And as a result, your conversion rates will increase and vacancies will decrease.

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results

Using LinkedIn to Develop Connections and Generate More Leads

August 7, 2015/in Directors, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

LinkedIn is one of the best social media platforms for business leaders. It currently has 350,000,000 usersand over 25 percent of users believe it has helped them generate leads. When used effectively, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for connecting with others and building a strong, robust network, for establishing your thought leadership to generate more leads. The following guide should help you get more out of LinkedIn.

Networking

LinkedIn is a great tool for networking. It allows you to build your own network, starting with the people you know directly, called 1^st-degree connections. As you connect with more people, you also build an extended network comprised of the people known by your connections, these are known as 2^nd and 3^rd-degree connections.

Ideas for generating new connections:

Connect with everyone in your current database
Connect with everyone you receive a business card from
Connect with anyone you conversed with professionally that day

Building your network is important, because the options you have for communicating with other users depend on how closely connected you are. The larger your network, the more people you are able to interact with, and the larger your potential influence on LinkedIn.

Thought Leadership

After you have started to build up your network, you can take advantage of LinkedIn’s publishing and content marketing features. From your profile, you can post both updates and posts. Updates are like the traditional status updates found on most social media platforms, whereas posts are more like articles that are published to your LinkedIn profile.

By regularly posting topics of interest to you and your industry, you can use both updates and posts to demonstrate your thought leadership and develop credibility within your industry. Good topics for posts and updates include:

New Technology or Innovation
Regulatory Changes Impacting Your Industry
Industry Trends
Frequent Asked Questions
Commenting on Industry Controversy

Read more about “Content Marketing For Lead Generation”

Group Participation

LinkedIn hosts thousands of groups, covering an array of professions, industries and organizations. You should join the groups that are relevant to your business and become an active participant in those groups.

Participate in group discussions by answering questions, commenting on other’s posts and occasionally sharing your own content, but only when it is relevant. Becoming an active group member is a great way to communicate with others in your industry and find new connections and potential business opportunities.

Performance Tracking

In order for your LinkedIn initiative to be successful, you need to keep track of your activity and key performance indicators.

To track your activities, create a dashboard listing your weekly new connection reach outs, group conversations, comments, updates, posts, profile updates and recommendation reach outs. Filling out the dashboard each week holds you accountable and keeps you on pace towards finishing your goals.

After charting your activities, you keep another dashboard listing your key performance indicators. Keep a weekly tally of new connections, recommendations, article likes/comments, network rank, scheduled meetings and most importantly, any new leads.

For more information about using LinkedIn for business or to set up a LinkedIn Training Session, Contact Us.

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War May As Well Have Been About Advertising

July 13, 2015/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors /by Dan Gartlan

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Sun Tzu – The Art of War

Often in business, we feel like we’re on strategy, but as we move further away from when that strategy was defined, we’re really just going through the motions. Activities are being completed, but we lose site of why we are doing them and what they are supposed to accomplish. In addition, there can be changes in the marketplace, competitor’s messaging, consumer concerns and even the methods of communication. Read more

The Next Generation Of Homebuyers Is Here…Are You Reaching Them?

July 6, 2015/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors, Homebuilder Marketing /by Debbie Szwast

Move over Baby Boomers, Gen Y has passed you as the largest share of the homebuying population according to the National Association of REALTORS®. Topping out at age 35, this group known as Millennials grew up online, are tech-savvy and don’t remember a time when they weren’t on a smart phone.

Most of these twenty and thirty somethings, nearly 70 percent, are purchasing their first homes and doing so because they want to own their own places. They understand the value of homeownership and more than 80 percent believe it’s a solid financial investment. That doesn’t mean they are looking to make a quick profit, though. Most expect to stay in their home for 10 years. So if you miss out on an opportunity to sell a home today, it might be awhile before you get another chance—unless, of course, a life change occurs that could prompt them to move. Read more

3D Printing Is The Future Of Manufacturing

April 8, 2015/in Articles, Directors /by Mark Beebe

Innovation has driven three quarters of US economic growth over the past six decades. In fact, there have even been 646,000 new US manufacturing jobs created since the recession. The manufacturing industry has continued to move forward by connecting machinery, products, ordering, shipping, and internet databases. The constant innovation is all around us. So it is no surprise that 3D printing is a game-changer in this industry by allowing manufacturers to print layers of material-plastic, paper, metal and ceramics to make literally everything.
Read more

Make An Impact With A Pop Of Color

March 16, 2015/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy /by Debbie Szwast

I’m a sucker for anything pink. I bought my first iMac because Apple offered it in fuchsia. I got a brand-new KitchenAid in pink, even though my old one still worked. I even bought a car in red raspberry, which is as close to pink as cars come.

So imagine my delight when I walked the floor of the International Home and Housewares Show (IHHS) last week at McCormick Place in Chicago. Down every aisle pastel pinks, blues and purples captivated me while bright red, green and yellow items captured my attention. Everything from kitchen utensils to luggage…small appliances to pet supplies colorfully screamed “notice me.”
Read more

For Those Who Do Not Believe In Branding and Marketing

September 11, 2014/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Brand Development, Directors, Marketing Strategy /by Mark Beebe

So… you are one of those people that don’t believe that branding and marketing works…

Well…

Why do so many companies spend millions of dollars for just a few seconds of air-time on the Superbowl each year?

Why do millions of people flock to Starbucks every morning?

Why has Apple taken over the phone industry?

Why has Nike signed more athletes than any other brand?

These answers are way too obvious. Read more

The Future is Here and Paper is Not Included!

July 22, 2014/in Articles, Directors /by Mark Beebe

Whether you are an “extreme couponer” or just like to keep an eye out for good deals, you are probably used to finding these in the Sunday newspaper or in the stack of weekly circulars at the local grocery store. You get home, grab some scissors, and start snipping away. Then, you begin to sort and organize into different piles by month, store, or expiration. Well, put down those scissors and pick up that smart phone; the paper-coupon era is becoming extinct.

It is confirmed that more than 110 million people and about 70% of digital coupon users will use coupons on their mobile device this year. This number has increased dramatically compared to the 92 million people that used digital coupons in 2012 and the 103 million people back in 2011.

TNT’s Edgy Brand Makeover and New “Boom” Tagline

July 16, 2014/in Articles, Brand Development, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

TNT’s brand makeover began with two wildly successful guerilla-marketing stunts in 2012 and 2013 titled “A dramatic surprise on a quiet square,” and “A dramatic surprise on an ice-cold day” following a year later. Both ads featured pedestrians stumbling upon a large red button with a sign pointing to it that read, “Push to add Drama.” In “A dramatic surprise on a quiet square,” those who were brave enough to press the button were exposed to an elaborate live sequence of car crashes, fights, police shoot outs, heroic football players, and a girl in a bikini riding a motorcycle. Read more

Who is Alex Trebek?

May 7, 2014/in Articles, Directors /by Mark Beebe

CBS took a gamble on Jeopardy 30 years ago. It has had to stay fresh by doubling the question values and adding video clues via The Clue Crew in 2001. And then a stroke of luck and good decision making came by way of lifting the five-game limit in 2003 and making it the first syndicated show to air in high-definition in 2006. But the accomplishments and achievements are mind boggling:

1992- Jerome Vered wins $34,000 to become the shows highest single-day winner which stood for more than 10 years.

1993- 11 foreign countries are producing their own version of Jeopardy.

2000- 30 countries.

2001- The dollar values double and Trebek shaves his mustache.