Adult children of aging parents play an important role in the search and choice of a fitting senior living community for their loved ones. Statistics show that 73% of adult children were involved in their parent’s transition to a community. Therefore, senior living communities should not only consider the prospective resident when developing their senior living marketing materials but also cater directly to the adult children who have a big say in the final decision.
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Content for Each Stage of the Senior Living Buyer's Journey
Stage 1: Awareness Stage
In the first stage, the adult child becomes aware of the special needs of his/her aging parents. Besides normal aging, seniors may suffer from health conditions that require assistance in taking medicines, self-care, and preparing meals. But needs are not limited to the physical. They may also long for companionship and other social activities due to feelings of isolation. Typically some type of trigger event might cause an adult child to be pushed into the awareness stage of the senior living buyers process. Maybe their loved one fell down recently. Maybe they're noticing them becoming more and more forgetful. Or maybe they just notice that their aging loved one is having a tough time keeping up their house and seems to need more and more attention. Whatever the trigger is the awareness stage is marked by the adult child realizing that there's a problem that senior housing might be able to solve.
During this stage, the adult child will start to go online and search for answers to the problem they're having. As a marketing or sales director at a local senior living community, you want your website to do the best possible job it can, by answering these questions. Whatever it is this content should be geared at the adult child, who is just starting in their information-gathering process online.
Example Blog Post Title:
"How to know if my parent needs senior living."
Example Downloadable E-book Title:
"Tips for Helping My Parents Age Gracefully." or "How to know if my parents need senior living"
"Today’s buyers will navigate up to 70% of their
path to purchase alone."
-Instagepage
Stage 2: Consideration Stage
In the second stage, adult children are beginning to look online for communities and services that could provide for the needs of their loved ones. At this point, they are aware of a problem and want to start reviewing solutions and gaining a deeper understanding of what's needed. They might have honed in on the fact that they need senior living and are comparing the different available options and starting to narrow down their local options. With content for this phase, you'll want to show how your community is the best choice.
Example Website Page:
An in-depth case study is highlighting a happy, successful resident in your community. This page should have pictures and testimonials that can be easily shareable with potential residents.
Example Downloadable E-book Title:
"Community brochure or pricing guide"
"Guide to choosing a senior living community"
Example Video Content:
A video tour of your community highlighting all the features and amenities. This video is meant to showcase your community and give your prospect a reason to want to book an on-site visit.
Or a short introduction video from the sales director at the community of interest.
*This E-book is a great example of a mid-bottom-of-the-funnel content piece for adult children. Holiday did a great job of creating an e-book that any adult child would find valuable.
Stage 3: The Decision Stage
In the third stage, we’ll see the adult children making a decision to choose a senior living community after diligently doing their research. This is finally the point that they may reach out to a member of your sales staff to book a personal visit. At this point, a large portion of the buying decision has been made by adult children. They just want a final nudge to push them over the edge and call to come in for a visit. For this stage, you'll want to gather content to re-enforce that they're making the right choice in choosing your community. Get them in for a tour and highlight your community's best assets.
Example Website Content:
Online Testimonials and Google Reviews from happy residents
Example Calls to Action:
"Book a Tour" or "Speak to Our Community Sales Director" should be the CTA's that the prospect gets at this phase. If they receive these messages too early in the process they may not be ready and you run the risk of being seen as too pushy or "salesy" and lose the prospect completely.
Example Downloadable E-book Title:
"Guide to paying for senior living" or "After your move: things to know once you're living in a senior living community"
*This is a great testimonial example from New Perspective Senior Living. A testimonial like this re-enforces trust and helps assist the adult child in feeling comfortable moving their parent into one of their communities.
The closer you can match your conversations and the content on your website with the stage that the prospect is in, the more they will trust your community and the more likely you'll be to become their leading choice when they're ready to make a purchase decision. You can't give them too much too soon and your focus should remain on being helpful and assisting them in making an informed decision on their own.
At NextWave, we include specific pieces of content in our lead response service. Whether you already have content or need to create it from scratch, we make sure that your content matches your brand messaging and style. In our guide below we include lead response templates that you can use for emails and texts to prospects. Many templates include links to pieces of content you can offer to prospects.
Click the CTA below to learn more about outsourcing senior living lead response and how to use content effectively at each stage of the senior living buyer's journey.
