When it comes to marketing your senior living community, it may be tempting to try to be everything for everyone. It can feel limiting to not share a whole list of services and amenities in a print ad or include all of your community’s best qualities in a Facebook ad. Despite what may feel counterintuitive, a more narrowed approach wins out over trying to include it all.

Narrow Your Message

The truth is, trying to be everything for your audience comes at a price. You risk confusing and overwhelming your audience. 

Every message your community puts out is for a specific audience. Therefore, the end experience for the audience should be a top priority. If your content isn’t visually appealing or easily digestible, you may lose them altogether. Plus, every marketing material or advertising content contributes to your overall brand reputation, so you run the risk of making a bad first impression for your community and hurting your brand reputation in the eyes of the audience. 

Putting out content that focuses on too many things can leave your audience feeling intimidated, overwhelmed, or even off-put. And in this day and age, our attention spans have decreased dramatically. We want to consume information quickly and easily.

For example, a print ad with a laundry list of amenities or reasons to move to your community can be too much for the eyes and may cause a reader to simply move on. 

Keeping each message simple, with one or two focused topics, is easier to quickly absorb. This helps ensure that your audience receives the takeaway and call to action you intended. 

Less Is More

When marketing for senior living, less is truly more. This is especially the case in areas like print and digital advertising. With smaller spaces to convey a message, utilizing the entire space more effectively may mean conveying your message through images and short copy. 

Focusing each marketing piece on one key feature helps your reader filter everything else out. And it can help emphasize your main message.

This will also help you create a message that more strongly resonates with a specific group of people rather than a broad message that isn’t relevant to anyone.  

Know Your Audience

Knowing what’s important to your audience and how that relates to what is unique about your community is key to leveraging your marketing message for lead generation and conversions. 

This might mean marketing a specific amenity or opportunity that your community offers. Such as, focusing on the active outdoor opportunities for an outdoor-loving lead base or leveraging a maintenance-free (and snow shoveling-free) lifestyle in the winter for a northern and midwest audience. 

Not only is a focused message easier to consume, but it’s also more likely to resonate with those interested in this particular aspect. It may also help your community stand out from the competition.

What’s Next

Once you’ve captured your audience’s attention with your focused messaging, you’ll have an opportunity to customize it. Your sales appointment is a great time to get to know your lead, learn about what’s important to them, and then delve into the unique aspects of your senior living lifestyle. You can read more about what you should always ask in a sales appointment here.

If you’re ready to talk more about marketing for your community, let us know here.