You’ve had positive phone calls, the tour went great, they enjoyed the free lunch, and then… they disappear off the face of the earth.
And when you finally reconnect, they’re vague, non-committal, and reluctant to engage.
You know they haven’t selected another community and there’s only one thing keeping them from moving forward with a reservation…
…Uncertainty
People do not like to be uncertain, and they will not make a decision, especially one as life-changing and costly as Senior Living, if they are unresolved.
Uncertainty Is A Sign Of An Incomplete Sale
It means the prospect has not found an overwhelming, compelling, or motivating reason to buy from you or there is a lingering unresolved question or feeling.
They may have lots of information about your community but no desire strong enough to make them eagerly act.
Of course, there are factors beyond your control that stall the prospect – family politics, finances, life, etc. But those are issues of friction, not uncertainty, so let’s just throw them out.
It’s the marketer’s responsibility to design and execute effective nurturing campaigns and sales flows that eliminate uncertainty at every stage of the prospect’s journey.
Uncertainty Must Be Anticipated And Eliminated Though Clarity
Think of Clarity as Meaningful Specifics. It begins with your marketing strategy and how your messaging clearly tells prospects what you will do for them and how their lives will change.
Clarity is needed in your website, literature, social media, advertising, and emails. Instead of bundling your services into a few bullet lists, go deep and explain how each of these items proves you can deliver on your community’s promises.
Let ME use a little clarity here:
Let’s say there’s prospect whose primary concern is Care but their secondary concern is Safety and Security. They’re reading your website and in a bullet list they see Accushield.
Great. You check the box because you told them the name of your Guest Security System. Does the prospect have any idea of what Accushield is? Do they know this feature provides the kind of protection they’re looking for?
Did you just list the Accushield name, or did you tell them WHAT it does, HOW it protects residents and WHY they’ll feel safer with Accushield in place?
Did you go into detail about it’s other uses, such as credentialing of third-party care providers? Did you tell them about the facial imagery it captures of every visitor or how it assists caregivers and First Responders during an evacuation?
Those are meaningful specifics that provide Clarity for a prospect that cares about Safety and Security.
Hold on their cowboy – you might say – our competitors use Accushield too, so that’s not a differentiator.
That’s true. But that’s true with everything your community offers.
So, Let’s Talk Beer…
The copywriter and advertising pioneer Claude Hopkins told this great story about how to build preeminence in his book “My Life In Advertising”…
“Schlitz Beer was another advertising campaign which I handled for J.L.Stack. Schlitz was then in fifth place.
All brewers at that time were crying “Pure”. They put the word “Pure” in larger letters.
Their claim made about as much impression on people as water makes on a duck.
I went to brewing school to learn the science of brewing, but that helped not at all. Then I went to the brewery.
I saw plate-glass rooms where beer was dripping over pipes, and I asked the reason for them. They told me those rooms were filled with filtered air, so the beer could be cooled in purity.
I saw great filters filled with wood pulp. They explained how that filtered the beer.
They showed me how they cleaned every pump and pipe, twice daily, to avoid contaminations. How every bottle was cleaned four times by machinery.
They showed me artesian wells, where they went 4,000 feet deep for pure water, though their brewery was on Lake Michigan.
They showed me the vats where beer was aged for six months before it went out to the user.
They took me to their laboratory and showed me the original mother yeast cell. It had been developed by 1,200 experiments to bring out the utmost in flavor.
All of the yeast used in making Schlitz Beer was developed from that original cell.
I came back to the office amazed. I said: “Why don’t you tell people those things? Why do you merely try to cry louder than others that your beer is pure? Why don’t you tell the reasons?”
“Why,” they said, “the processes we use are just the same as others use. No one can make good beer without them.”
“But,” I replied, “others have never told the story. It amazes everyone who goes through your brewery. It will startle everyone in print.”
So I pictured in print those plate-glass rooms and every other factor in purity. I told a story common to all good brewers, but a story which had never been told. I gave purity a meaning.
Schlitz jumped from fifth place to neck and neck with first place in a very few months.
(Read that again with Senior Living in mind instead of beer)
It’s a true story and all Hopkins did was to go into detail about what made Schlitz the “less bilious” beer simply by explaining the care in which it was made.
Competitors thought the details of Purty were mundane and common. But when Hopkins used them as proof points, an entire market of beer drinkers switched to Schlitz.
“I Gave Purity a Meaning” is a profound thought
What about you? Can you…
- Give Care a Meaning
- Give Quality of Life a Meaning
- Give Safety and Security a Meaning
And can you do it by explaining the details of features and programming and how they empower you to deliver on your promises?
If you do, you’ll provide the specificity that justifies the prospect’s attention and consideration. You’re not letting them gloss over your lists, you’re stopping them and you’re drawing them in with powerful meaning and their need for proof
And you’ll be increasing their momentum toward signing a reservation with you because they won’t be stuck on an item you haven’t explained.
Now, what about those prospects who are currently stalled?
Well, you’re probably making those painfully awkward follow-up phone calls where you try to sound casual, but you really want to know if they’re going to close and when.
These are the same calls your prospect is getting from every community they visited, so how are you appearing different?
My advice is to create new marketing strategies to get them moving. Instead of making those predictable follow-up calls, use what you know about them and review their priorities. Based on that, send them relevant content, emails, and case studies that prove they’ll get what they want from your community.
Even if they didn’t indicate their priorities, you still know their challenges. That’s all you need to create content or communications to reactivate their interest.
Summary:
- Plan your marketing to prevent stalls
- Prospects stall for many reasons – don’t let uncertainty about your community be one of them
- Clarity eliminates uncertainty – information provides clarity
- Information needs meaning – tell stories that breath life into static details
- Design a new strategy for currently stalled prospects
This article could become a thick chapter in a book and I’ve tried to keep it simple and give you actionable information.
Senior Living is only getting more competitive and marketing it is becoming more and more complicated and nuanced. AI is essential in marketing now and it fits perfectly in marketing Senior Living.
When you’re ready to implement AI into your workflows, please call me. I offer Done-With-You or Done-For-You services.