If you can tear yourself away from the extensive cover of William and Kate’s nuptials, here are some industry/senior related articles that you will hopefully find informative, entertaining or useful. Cheerio!
Selling the Social Media Investment:
Solid endorsements for seniors moving earlier, as opposed to later:
Senior Community gets in on the Royal Wedding fun:
Surprisingly, I have talked to a few people lately that told me how hard it was to get potential service providers to come to their houses to give them bids or take care of work that was already agreed upon. Really?? Companies are making it hard to let people use their services and pay them? Can I have some of their business? Must be really nice to have luxury to relaxingly respond to potential customers and take care of business at your leisure. Does that come with daily massages, miniature giraffes and an unlimited supply of gold encrusted cashews?
Unfortunately, this is a fantasy to most of us. We need to work hard for every customer and sometimes even harder to keep existing ones. Whether you are a retirement or assisted living community, a nursing, memory care, home care or hospice provider, the one thing you must do is make it easy for customers:
1) Be visible and have easy to find information on your products/services
2) Be easy to reach, instant access through e-mail or phone or a response back within 3-4 hours.
3) Understand their needs and provide well thought out options
4) Once you have provided information, don’t forget to follow-up in a timely manner, don’t make them have to track you down.
5) If you get the business, carefully walk them through the post-sale process, documentation needed, deadlines, etc. Answer questions before they are asked and provide all information in a simple, step-by-step manner that isn’t frustrating or confusing.
6) Make sure payment terms and method of payment are clear and in writing to avoid confusion between the sale and the invoicing process
7) After the sale, continue to keep the customer in the loop on upcoming offers or benefits that reinforce their decision. If they have to renew, make sure they know about any changes or additional value they are receiving.
These are a few ways to make it easy for the customer to choose your company and, as an added bonus, recommend you to others.
Are there other ways you make things easy on the customer? What has worked especially well?
Please let us and others know! Promise we won’t steal your business……….
I recently received the following post for our blog and thought it had some value coming from the viewpoint of a consumer in our industry:
“Technology Tools for Medical Alert System Marketing
The medical alert system has been around for decades. I see it as one of the most useful tools for adults who are still able to be independent, but who need a little more than a telephone to make them (or their loved ones) feel safe. Fortunately, marketing these systems is getting much easier with the help of the internet. So many older adults are using the internet these days, and that allows businesses to reach out and get the word out about these affordable systems. You can lay it all on the line on a website and let people make their own decisions.
There are no more infomercials, sales pitches over the phone, or confused retirees who don’t understand exactly what you have to offer. Plus, when you market online with a website, you’re also reaching out to family members who might be looking to invest in these systems for their parents. Your marketing plan should consist of keyword research, finding viable advertising spaces, and reaching out to the right audience.
Educate your customers. Nothing is more annoying that showing up to a website to learn about a product and getting technical mumbo-jumbo or no information at all. I want to know how things work, why they work, and what I’m going to get for spending so much money on whatever you’re selling.
Senior living blogs are a great place to advertise, but so are blogs and websites that deal with family issues and cater to younger adults. The children, after all, are usually the ones who talk the parents into the alert system in the first place. I’m not a marketing professional, but I am a professional retiree and I can tell you that I’ve shopped for these systems myself, both on my accord and for my parents. If you use the tools that are available to you, you’ll find customers like me in no time at all.
Contributed by Mary Albert, a blogger for a senior lifestyle web site that provides advice for the 55+ age group as well as information on medical alert systems.”
I think Mary has some very valid points, and not just for medical alert companies, but for all senior service providers. More and more people are turning to the internet to do research. Make sure your information is there so they can find you and learn about how you can help them! You may not want to publish everything including your pricing, but giving them an idea of pricing levels or a starting point, special offers, special care offered, etc… would help them make an informed decision and decrease un-qualified calls. Make the most of not just your website, but search engines, directories and blogs (like Mary suggested).
Get your senior community &/or service listed on the major search engines & all the industry directories you can find! Basic listings are usually free or are available for a minimal fee. Make sure the listings include contact information & a link to your site to drive traffic. Find some blogs & forums that fit your community & service & follow them. Offer comments & help when you can, and consider writing a post on what you know. You are an expert in your field and your past experience brings a new view to old questions!
The more places you are listed, the more traffic & leads you will get. Remember, it takes 7 touches to get someone to reach out to you. And the more information you offer, the more qualified leads you will get from this traffic.
Happy Marketing!
America is suffering through a terrible addiction epidemic, the smartphone. Everywhere you look, people have their heads down, staring at the small screen or working the keyboard furiously. Couples ignore each other at dinner, people walk straight into fountains and you have an excuse not to make eye contact on elevators. They have become the adult pacifier. Information or interactions that formerly could wait for hours, can’t wait for seconds. Am I part of the epidemic, of course.
What I noticed last week in Orlando was the effect of the smartphone on a tradeshow. It could eventually lead to the demise of the tradeshow. Three reasons:
1) Your potential clients that are walking through the show, with you hoping to catch their eye? Too bad, they just walked right by, with their head down, looking at voicemails or a video of three Norwegian electricians doing cannonballs into a vat of chocolate pudding. I saw this many times, somehow resisting the urge to trip them (attendees, not electricians)
2) Attendance seems light, but registration is strong. People are much more in touch, so they know when they have other obligations to attend to instead of going to the tradeshow. People that were on their way may have gotten e-mails during the previous session. So, instead of waiting, they feel the urgency to work on the issue now.
3) Tradeshow personnel also are not engaging prospective clients as in years past. You would always see rows of people standing on the edge of their booth, waiting for clients, talking to other vendors or passerbys. Now, they are slumped over in chairs, using their phones for business or downloading video of two Norwegian plumbers making a functional vehicle out of sardine cans. Looks terrible and if I am walking the show, I don’t stop, I keep walking, wondering why I bothered.
Those are my thoughts and observations. Its an ugly trend that is hurting the ROI on tradeshows. Would love to hear your views (and e-mail me any interesting video involving Norwegian skilled labor). Cheers, Doug
Last week, New LifeStyles exhibited at the ALFA Annual Conference and Trade Show in Orlando. I hope you were able to get to the show, as it is always a great opportunity to network with others in our industry, seek out new products or ideas and discuss trends that people are seeing. Everyone sees things from different angles and it’s always interesting to hear the insight of others and take away ideas for the future of your own company.
For New LifeStyles, it was our first chance to present ourselves as New LifeStyles Media Solutions. We had a new look to our exhibit and new products to discuss. It was great being able to present our App, digital guide and web design and hosting services to the attendees. Our exhibit grabbed the attention of people and seemed to draw in more eyes than normal. We had been using the previous exhibit for a few years and it probably had lost some of its appeal. If you have a tradeshow booth, keep it fresh and make sure it portrays what you are trying to get across in all of your marketing materials.
Tradeshows are a good way to gauge the status of an industry. On the whole, it was positive, with a great supply of exhibitors, but traffic in the hall was a little light. There was a photo opp with Christopher Knight, aka, Peter Brady, so many had their show made by that. ALFA had a lot of good presentations and learning opportunities, making the event a valuable experience for many. I will have more thoughts on tradeshows in general on Wednesday.
We receive hundreds of social media messages, newsletters, blog posts and articles on the senior industry, marketing and the state of affairs. We pick our favorites and pass them on to you, our clients in case they didn’t make it to your inbox. We hope you benfit from them & enjoy some. Feel free to share links you find too!
Have a Happy National Empanada Day & International Bird Day
Before designing our senior living app, we did research on other apps that might be similar, like iSeniors, iFindCare (includes childcare, but must be a “member”) and of course Yelp, but I hadn’t taken the time to look at other apps specifically for seniors until today, and I’ve had a lot of fun!
If you search the App Store for “senior” or ”seniors”, there are a lot of student apps to ignore, but in between them, there is a plethora of items from brain teaser games to home care management systems. A few of the offerings include:
Driver Seat Game by Liberty Mutual – The world’s first senior driving simulator. Give it a try for free.
Over 40 Magnifier and Flashlight – Eye Reader – always handy to have a flash light in your phone!
If you are curious as to what you will look like when you reach 70 – 100, download the Age Kiosk that ages you.
Workout your brain with Brain Blast, Math Genius Senior and Funblast Trivia
My latest download, Fogey Fu, where you fight to get out of the hospital (a bit politically incorrect, but you gotta laugh).
If you are looking for love, consider Online Dating for the Senior Citizen or Dating for Seniors.
We can’t forget Senior Golf 101 and for those who can’t remember their age, download How Old (Am I) – Maybe an Alzheimer’s Community can partner with them, as if you can’t remember your age in the time you can pull up an app???
For News there is Seniors & Aging News Updates & Pocket News – Seniors & Aging
Of course AARP has a few apps including the Bulletin & Magazine and you can get geriatric care advice from Dr. Marion with Elder 411 and Elder 911. Also available: A Child’s Guide to Eldercare.
I was impressed by the Senior Bridge Hospitalization Risk Assessment Tool offering advice to stay healthy at home. And to see individual communities doing their own apps to keep residents & families up to date, check out Vintage Senior Living’s app.
I was surprised to find a B2B app, ADLware, a home care management system devoted to sales, referral tracking, care & case management.
There’s even an app to help you find other apps. Healthful Apps helps find the best health related apps. (app overload!)
I laughed out loud (LOL really) when I read about the app that allows you to diary, suggest & find clean bathrooms (I’ll let you find that one). Ok, I might use it on a road trip…
I ran into a few apps for Baby Boomers. I think I will save that search for another day & another blog.
