Winning the Mobile Marketing Game in Senior Housing

For years, the senior housing industry has been working its way to a larger web presence to help drive sales and marketing, but the mobile marketing game is quickly taking over. Senior living providers that aren’t thinking about mobile marketing could be left behind as the fast-paced world of technology evolves around them.

While the demographic of baby boomers entering retirement is set to explode over the next decade, businesses that are utilizing mobile platforms may be better off to capture prospective residents and engage their customers, according to Lauren Moores, vice president of strategy at Dstillery, a digital intelligence marketing firm with its own technology platform.

“Facebook figured it out,” Moores said during the 2016 Senior Care Marketing Sales Summit SMASH in Chicago. “Most of their revenue now comes from mobile. We are constantly on our phones and tablets. The data is there: mobile is important.”

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It may seem counterintuitive to invest in mobile marketing for senior care, as not all seniors are utilizing mobile. However, that’s the wrong approach, Moores said, because it’s more important to target family members who may be making the decisions for their elderly parents. Adult children are heavy mobile users and are the ones senior living businesses should be targeted with their mobile strategies.

“Like financial services, you don’t want to go after the people you want as clients,” she said. “You want to go after the people who will be making the decisions.”

Data, Data, Data

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What is particularly useful about mobile data is its location capabilities, which can track where a person interacts with the Internet and what they are doing. Knowing where the right demographics are, including adult children, can enable a senior living provider to do more with their marketing.

“Location data shows physical intent, such as being in a store, in an area,” Moores said. “We can mirror that on the web or in an app.”

While not all senior living providers utilize mobile apps—in fact, very few actually do—there are ways to analyze web users to provide them with better content. Conversely, knowing when a prospective customer’s intent has changed via their web behavior can alert a senior living provider when that person is no longer looking for a senior housing solution. Partnering with data automation providers is one way to better engage prospective customers and follow through with them from a marketing perspective.

Knowing where customers are and how they are engaging online is also important for enhancing other marketing tactics, like direct mail and understanding other marketing behaviors, Moores said. Mobile data is not just for mobile marketing, she said.

“Mobile marketing is about brand engagement,” Moores said. “It works with other channels and enhances everything. You don’t want to interrupt, you want to provide value.”

Written by Amy Baxter

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