Retirement communities in the United States face an unusual marketing challenge. Most of them have to market themselves to two completely different audiences.
Even though the primary residents of the retirement communities are seniors, they are not always the ones who collect the information about senior living or make the final decisions. Sometimes it’s their adult children.
What does that mean for you if you’re marketing a retirement community? For one thing it means you’ll need to develop two consistent but distinct messages around those two audiences. Because good marketing messages address “What’s in it for me?” You’ll need to answer that question from the retiree’s point of view and from the adult children’s point of view.
Not only does your messaging need to be aligned with two different groups of people, but the way you deliver your message needs to be consistent with the way these two groups like to get information. While the number of seniors who take advantage of online communication has grown dramatically, there are still many seniors who prefer to get information in more conventional or traditional ways. That means you should take a hard look at methods such as direct mail when reaching out to seniors.
There are, however, significant numbers of seniors who are comfortable with searching for information on the Web. Your Web presence, however, will still need to take into consideration that both the seniors themselves and their adult children will likely be looking for helpful information. You may want to have two separate FAQ sections on your website: one for seniors and one for their adult children.
It might also be advisable to have separate blogs: one that addresses the questions and concerns of adult children looking for care for their parents and one that speaks to the issues that the parents themselves are interested in.
What are your distinct messages for the two audiences you are trying to reach?