As budget season nears for many Life Plan Communities, it’s the perfect time for marketing professionals to reflect on their budgets and set new goals. Creating an efficient budget and strategic plan goes beyond crunching numbers though—it’s part science and part art.
Whether you’re fine-tuning your current budget or planning a complete overhaul, these five effective tips can help you budget smarter and ensure your marketing dollars work harder.
1. Learn from past budgeting experiences
Your team’s financial data from previous years are easily your biggest asset. Knowing where the Life Plan Community stands financially and how each of your marketing investments translates into operating revenue and financial performance is important for productive planning.
As a team, it can be helpful to—fearlessly and without judgment—reflect on past wins and losses. Answering the following questions with your team can lead to insights that fuel innovation and help you break out of dangerous (and expensive) “But we’ve always done it this way” thinking.
- What worked well?
- What could be better?
- Why did past plans succeed?
- Why did past plans fail?
2. Connect your marketing budget to clear goals
The difference between budgeting and budgeting well boils down to creating a budget that’s tied to specific and realistic goals. Be selective and strategic about your community’s priorities—you don’t have to accomplish or invest in every goal at once for the coming year.
One helpful budgeting strategy is to begin by creating categories of questions to prioritize general, short and long-term goals. A general rule of thumb is to ensure that every item in your marketing budget contributes directly to a specific goal.
The following questions can serve as a road map for senior living marketers:
General goals:
- Who should be involved in strategic planning discussions?
- Is the organization currently in growth mode?
- Which goals align most with the vision or priorities of the organization?
- Which goals have the biggest impact on achieving strategic objectives?
- Can you achieve your goals within budget constraints?
Short-term goals:
- What occupancy level must be maintained for success?
- Which goals have the biggest impact on achieving strategic initiatives?
- What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) for short-term goals?
- What type of technology or personnel is needed to meet your goals?
Long-term goals:
- What are long-term trends or opportunities in the senior living field?
- What capabilities are needed to achieve the team’s long-term vision?
- Are big-ticket items needed, such as a brand refresh or a new website?
3. Invest in useful marketing tools
Once you’ve determined your goals, you’ll want to consider the tools you’ll need to achieve them and, of course, evaluate how much everything will cost. There are several budget-friendly tools to enhance your marketing performance, as well as sales training and content marketing. Some of the most popular investments for a typical Life Plan Community’s marketing program include:
- Referrals and outreach: Public relations services, resident referral program expenses, events, professional outreach and sponsorships.
- Traditional advertising: Newspapers, magazines, brochures and flyers.
- Branding and collateral: Photography, website development, maintenance and hosting.
- Content marketing: Case studies, blog posts, e-books and videos.
- Broadcast media: TV commercials and radio spots.
- Out-of-home advertising: Billboards, bus ads, vehicle wraps and transit ads.
- Digital advertising: Search engine marketing, display advertising, video advertising and email marketing.
- Direct mail and events: Creative services, printing and marketing event expenses.
It’s best to create a marketing strategy using a combination of print and digital tools, but it ultimately depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If your community’s top priority is to increase leads, keep in mind that lead sources vary in value. For example, leads generated by referrals and outreach can close at approximately 10% to 12%, whereas leads generated by traditional advertising can close at about 2% to 5%.
4. Practice proactive budget management
The last thing you want to do is to set your budget on autopilot and forget about it. We strongly recommend revisiting your goals each quarter to make course corrections based on your marketing tactics and sales results. By taking a proactive approach, your team can make timely adjustments that will eliminate last minute scrambles to meet year-end goals.
Additional benefits of implementing budgets through tactical quarterly plans include:
- Fostering a consistent growth mindset within your marketing team
- Staying nimble in your response to new competition, major events in the economy and other external factors you can’t control
- Allowing your team to step back regularly and assess whether you’re meeting, exceeding or falling short of your budgeting plan
- Tracking your expenditures against budget.
5. Draft a winning budget with Love & Company
At Love & Company, our team specializes in budget planning and helping Life Plan Communities nationwide define their budgeting strategies and identify measurable goals.
No matter where you are in your budget planning or goal-setting process, we can provide the tools and guidance you need to succeed. We understand how overwhelming and time-consuming budgeting can feel. Remember, it’s okay to ask for help—that’s what we’re here to do. Call Tim Bracken, vice president of client relations, at 301-663-1239 to get started, and be sure to view our expert-led webinar about how to approach your marketing budget.
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