It may be the holiday season, but cookie cutters belong in the kitchen, not in your marketing strategies. Practicing the same methods repeatedly, all because it was successful once or twice, may seem like the perfect way to streamline your day. But remember, your community is more than an army of perfectly identical gingerbread men and women. Pursuing every potential decision-maker, as well as referral sources, using cold, impersonal strategies is sure to set your sales and marketing teams up for failure. As experts in disrupting the monotonous, ADage Marketing Group is here to help you create the perfect recipe to leverage account-based marketing (ABM), resulting in better service to your ideal prospects, as well as ensuring the best use of your marketing dollars.
Know Your Audience.
Classic chocolate chip. Comforting ginger snaps. Maybe you have a flair for the dramatics and prefer something filled with cream or jam. No judgment! (Unless you’re one of those traitors who favors the deceiving oatmeal raisin cookie parading as chocolate chip. #TrustIssues). You wouldn’t put out a plate of just one type of cookie at the family gathering, expecting every person to be thrilled by the same sampling, so why would you handle your marketing the same way?
Creating an effective marketing strategy requires you to narrow down and define your desired audiences. If your community is mainly focused on independent living, you’ve grown accustomed to working directly with potential residents, with perhaps the occasional adult child weighing in on the decision-making process. With other living options requiring higher levels of attention, such as assisted living and memory care, you’re much more likely to speak with the adult children or medical professionals commonly providing families referral solutions. While it’s important to incorporate main themes or messages representative of your brand throughout your marketing to all three of these groups, we obviously cannot expect the same strategies to work for all parties. That’s where ABM comes in.
Create Engagement with Custom-Tailored Messaging.
While stars, bells, and Christmas tree sugar cookies may be fan favorites on December 25th, don’t forget that this same recipe can be used to create fun star of David or dreidel cookies to celebrate Hanukkah as well! Okay guys, that metaphor got a little out of hand, right? Stay with me here.
Your community events coordinator is one of the most passionate professionals you’ve ever met, and your residents’ social programming is second to none. Guess what – much like that sweet sugar cookie dough, this is something all three of your main targeted audiences will appreciate. You just need to determine the best way to share it. “ABM is all about prioritizing the quality of engagement — engaging specific accounts with deeply personalized content and touchpoints that feel uniquely crafted with them in mind,” says Greg Salmon, General Manager, North America, at Agent3, a global provider of creative, powerful ABM programs. “Never mind the quantity; feel the quality!”
Using ABM, you can focus on the fun benefits of an entertaining social life when speaking with your prospects and their family members, while also communicating to your referral sources how seriously you take the many health benefits of social connectivity.
Mix Up Your Distribution Methods.
It’s great to send family home with leftover cookies after your holiday get-together, but what about friends and coworkers near and dear to your heart? Much like dropping off a batch to friends or bringing a tin to the office kitchenette, your marketing must take a multi-prong approach to distribution, as well. With ABM, it’s important to practice omnichannel marketing in order to best reach all your desired targeted audiences.
While social media platforms have grown in popularity for today’s seniors, allowing them an easy way to stay up to date on the lives of their children and grandchildren, that doesn’t mean social media marketing will be your strongest option to reach prospective residents for an independent living community. A social presence is of course crucial in today’s metaverse, but a more traditional supplemental marketing campaign, such as age-targeted direct mail pieces, can be highly beneficial. On the other hand, marketing services such as assisted living and memory care to the adult child, who has lived with technology for much of their lives, will see greater success with digital campaigns that incorporate social, email, and PPC marketing.
Never Lose Sight of Your Strategy.
The same time and temps won’t work for every cookie, just like the same marketing strategy won’t work for every audience and market. By leveraging ABM, you’ll be able to build strong relationships across several channels and fill your pipeline with a steady stream of high-quality leads more likely to convert, while better utilizing your marketing budget overall.
Have you been too hesitant to tackle ABM on your own? Do you need a fresh recipe for marketing success? ADage Marketing Group is ready to help you mix things up. Contact us today to welcome a little disruption to your current marketing strategy.