AI-powered roleplaying, occasions catered to grownup youngsters, extra focused and inventive incentives and follow-up – these are just some of the methods senior residing gross sales and advertising and marketing groups are altering issues up for brand new prospects.
Senior residing operators say {that a} rising variety of potential residents and their households are doing previous to even contacting a senior residing group. That presents gross sales and advertising and marketing groups with a novel problem – and a possibility.
On the one hand, prospects and their family members are arriving at senior residing communities with an thought of what they may need or not need from senior housing. If operators fail to cater to these expectations, they might run into challenges. Alternatively, if senior residing operators can anticipate and meet a residents’ wants from the get-go, they stand a greater probability at attractive them to maneuver in.
Heritage Communities Chief Advertising Officer Lacy Jungman lives by what she calls the “90-90-90 rule”: 90% of senior residing prospects will decide on whether or not to maneuver in inside 90 seconds of stepping 90 ft into the group. In different phrases, residents are shortly making their selection, and gross sales groups solely have a small window during which to wow them.
Senior residing operators have devised plenty of methods to fulfill the calls for of the incoming technology of residents, together with roleplaying with AI brokers to higher nurture leads, holding extra inventive occasions geared towards grownup youngsters and worth incentives that don’t erode the worth of senior residing.
Roleplaying and different new makes use of for AI
For the final couple of years, senior residing operators have talked about the opportunity of utilizing synthetic intelligence of their operations to enhance gross sales and advertising and marketing, however with out a lot sensible software for it.
That isn’t the case for Omaha, Nebraska-based Heritage, which is rolling out and fine-tuning a brand new AI roleplaying system to coach its salespeople and enhance how they cater to new leads. The system permits Heritage salespeople to name a telephone quantity and faux as in the event that they’re making a sale whereas an AI agent roleplays varied situations that they have to adapt to.
“You name a quantity particular to your organization and … it solutions and says, ‘Hey, I’m concerned about pricing in your group,’ and you then reply,” Jungman stated throughout a latest SHN gross sales and advertising and marketing webinar. “It hears what you say, after which it’d reply with, ‘Oh, I’m actually not ,’ so then it’s important to overcome that goal.”
She added that Heritage continues to be fine-tuning the system, however that if it delivers as marketed, it may very well be a “game-changer” in how the operator trains salespeople.
“They’re extra environment friendly, simpler, and as soon as they know what that prospect wants, they’re finest in a position to serve them in follow-up,” she stated.
Just like the 90-90-90 rule, Bonita Springs, Florida-based Discovery Senior Dwelling follows one thing Senior Vice President of Gross sales Lou Maranto referred to as “seven touches in seven days.” The thought is to attach with prospects a number of instances and in a large number of how as a way to persuade them to take a tour.
The operator can be utilizing AI in gross sales, in keeping with Maranto. Discovery lately switched to a CRM that features an AI bot device that implies what steps salespeople ought to take subsequent with a prospect within the gross sales funnel. The corporate additionally makes use of AI bots to assist its video follow-up by offering data and information that salespeople can use to customise their messaging to residents.
Incentives and occasions
Senior residing salespeople typically say that getting prospects to tour a group is among the many finest methods to transform a lead right into a move-in. However attractive older adults and their households to come back to occasions is a course of a lot simpler stated than carried out.
Atria Senior Dwelling is utilizing advertising and marketing automation to take work off of group gross sales groups’ plates in that regard. The corporate has invested in on-line content material akin to retirement guides and caregiver guides to supply assets for prospects and their family members. The corporate additionally launched a sequence of occasions, dubbed the Social Sequence, that Chief Advertising Officer Sanela Graziose stated helps nurture senior residing prospects.
“There’s completely nothing that sells senior residing higher than spending time in a group with workers and residents,” she stated.
The corporate is also pushing gross sales groups to do extra house visits with methods akin to dropping off get-well soup kits after medical procedures.
In accordance with Jungman, Heritage has been significantly profitable with weekend boozy brunches that embody a takeaway merchandise for attendees, normally a small plant from an area nursery.
“We give attention to the grownup daughter, as a result of we all know that’s a heavy influencer for us,” she stated.
Providing a public service is one other approach to get folks via the door. Jungman stated she has admired how Discovery has held shredding occasions, with folks lining up down the block. Whereas not everybody at a shredding occasion would possibly attend as a result of they’re additionally concerned about senior residing, simply getting folks extra aware of the trade is a advertising and marketing win in lots of operators’ books.
A tried-and-true technique in senior residing is to get gross sales prospects over the end line utilizing reductions or different incentives, akin to waiving hire for a sure variety of months or including complimentary shifting providers. Jungman stated she sees different senior residing communities typically conceding the worth of their providers, even underselling them from a price perspective.
Following the 90-90-90 rule requires aligning gross sales with different components of group operations to ship a tailor-made expertise. Subsequently it’s particularly vital to get government administrators concerned within the course of.
“The ED must be the gross sales chief inside the group. It doesn’t imply that they’re the gross sales knowledgeable,” Jungman stated. “They’re getting each division on board and letting them know their position in an occasion, and so they maintain them accountable.”
She added: “When occasions come, each single individual on that management group ought to know what the occasion is and what their position is, and the way the expectations play into the 90-90-90 rule.”
Maranto famous that Discovery tracks resident acquisition prices, together with paid referral charges, commissions and gross sales budgets. In lots of communities, it prices a few month’s hire to accumulate a brand new buyer. In some communities, it might value slightly greater than that, he added.
The operator pairs that course of with its income optimization program that helps decide the place to enact particular pricing or selective reductions.
“Each of these mix collectively in ensuring that we’re driving occupancy on the proper fee, with the least quantity of concessions,” he stated.
High gross sales tendencies in 2025
Atria, Discovery and Heritage are in search of to profit from the promoting season this monetary quarter and subsequent. In accordance with Graziose, each salesperson in senior residing needs to be cognizant of “the change we’re seeing within the buyer.”
“We now have to understand that it is a extra tech-savvy shopper. That is an informed shopper,” she stated. “They’ve gotten data on our pricing, and if we lock it down an excessive amount of, they’ll get it from any person else.”
She added that operators ought to “self-audit” in gross sales to find out whether or not they’re reaching their supposed viewers.
Maranto’s recommendation for senior residing operators? “Don’t blink.”
“Keep on high of your metrics. Watch your tendencies,” he stated. “Ensure that the smoke detector goes off earlier than the home burns down.”
As she famous, Jungman believes that alignment between gross sales and different group departments is among the many keys to success this yr. She additionally thinks extra senior residing salespeople should perceive their true position within the gross sales course of is that of a trusted advisor, not essentially a good friend.
“They don’t come to us to be their good friend. Our prospects have sufficient associates. They arrive to us for assist, for steering, for subsequent steps,” Jungman stated in the course of the webinar. “That’s the place we’ve to start out with our prospects.”
