Most Life Plan Communities place a great value on outreach and make it a high priority in how they market assisted living or skilled nursing, where the goal involves making contact with case managers and other marketers. And yet, outreach often gets greatly undervalued, if not altogether ignored, in independent living—much to the detriment of the entire community. Done right, an outreach strategy plays a key role in a Life Plan Community’s independent living sales and marketing program by raising awareness in the community, including serving on boards and participating in local events.
While it’s difficult to set firm expectations for leads and move ins generated directly from outreach, a strong program supports your other lead channels by the impact that comes from exposure generated by getting your team out in the community. Things like an active speakers bureau and staff members spreading the word about your community’s services to local groups, such as at Rotaries, churches and financial workshops, can educate people and help generate leads, even if other lead sources get the ultimate attribution. Community partnerships, sponsorships and speaking engagements demonstrate your expertise to the wider community in a way that lifts all lead sources—and pre-establishes credibility for your sales people.
Here are some simple, obtainable strategies that sales offices of any size can do to start or re-invigorate a foundational outreach program.
Community Involvement
Communities have various ways to get involved with local organizations that serve seniors. Use your imagination, keeping this goal in mind: Be a touchpoint for the broader community.
- Volunteering: Look at local organizations that serve seniors, such as Meals on Wheels or a senior center.
- Hosting Events: Look at local nonprofit groups, realtor meetings, church groups and high school reunions. Think intergenerational, too; demystify your campus by getting more young people to experience it.
- Community Awards: Create a senior volunteer award and ask all nonprofit organizations in the area to submit candidates.
- College Partnerships: Look for ways to partner with colleges for internships, offering guest rooms for interns to live in for free while they volunteer within the community.
Purposefully Allocate Time for Outreach:
Outreach often falls to the bottom of the radar for sales offices; don’t let that happen to you! Fortunately, you can and should get help, because a strong program can also rest on the fuller operations team.
- Encouraging Participation: Encourage the full staff to participate in local boards and volunteer activities to build relationships and raise awareness about the community.
- Team Volunteering: Lead by example by taking the marketing team out and volunteering together, which not only builds a strong team but also reflects well on the community.
- Measuring Results: Measuring outreach success is challenging, since it relies so completely on self-reporting and word of mouth. Still, you can start including a call tracking number in playbills and using visitor cards to ask drop-ins how they heard about the community.
Getting Help
Having a dedicated outreach position is ideal, but not always feasible. Consider hiring a local PR firm to maintain speaking engagements. Also maintain your professional relationships by participating in local marketing groups and having regular lunches with competitors’ marketing directors.
Leverage Your Community’s Niche:
Find a niche that aligns with your community’s interests and focus on that theme. As an example, Salemtowne, a Life Plan Community in Winston-Salem, NC, focuses on intellectual activities and partnerships with book festivals and authors, because that matches the community’s highly educated resident population. Salemtowne also partnered with a local volunteer center, HandsOn NWNC, to create a “dollars for doers” program. This type of program encourages staff to volunteer by providing donations to nonprofits based on the volunteer hours contributed.
Campus-wide Outreach Program Goals:
A best-in-class outreach program involves strategic planning and collaboration with other departments to achieve outreach objectives at the broadest most comprehensive level. This year, engage with other departments about their outreach goals as you begin your strategic marketing planning. And remember two other key group of stakeholders in your planning:
- Residents and Staff: Residents and staff play an important role in outreach, such as volunteering and participating in community events. Examples can vary widely, such as bringing animals (my favorite has been Shetland ponies) to the community for residents to interact with and organizing community open houses with decorated holiday trees by local nonprofits.
- Board Involvement: Board members should play an important role in outreach by using their connections to help the community, such as friend-raising breakfasts to explore partnership opportunities and efforts to engage with African American and LGBTQ community leaders to build relationships and improve inclusivity.
Take These Small First Steps to Unlock the Power of Outreach
Outreach for independent living can be such a powerful tool, and yet it is so easily overlooked. Getting started—or getting back into the practice—is as simple as taking some clearly defined activities. Here’s a recap of some consistently effective tactics I shared earlier; I recommend you start with this checklist.
Marketing & Sales Director Outreach Checklist
- Outreach Strategy: Define strategic goals for outreach and start implementing them as part of the marketing plan.
- Community Engagement: Encourage staff to take part in local boards or volunteer activities to build social capital and community presence.
- Speakers Bureau: Create a Speakers Bureau under marketing, philanthropy or life enrichment to have staff members speak at community organizations and events.
- Volunteer Opportunities: Organize volunteer opportunities for staff and the leadership team, including speed dating events, to connect residents and wait list members to volunteer areas.
- Community Partnerships: Explore partnerships with local organizations that serve seniors so you can provide education and connect them to resources.
- Event Hosting: Plan and host events for nonprofit groups, realtor meetings, church groups and high school reunions to help them experience the community organically.
- Internship Program: Revive the internship program by connecting with colleges and advertising projects to get college interns to work at the community.
- Community Sponsorships: Sponsor local organizations and volunteer centers to organize volunteer opportunities for staff and leadership team.
We here at Love & Company are happy to share simple steps you can take to build it into your marketing and sales program. If you’d like to kick around some ideas or share a challenge you face, reach out to Wayne Langley at 925-481-8904 and we’ll arrange a time to talk.
