Being a good marketer means understanding people. Along with emotional intelligence, we can use neuroscience findings to better reach leads in the senior living industry. We’ve uncovered three principles that just might help your sales team drive more sales.
People Want to Envision Their Best Selves
Think about the ways photographers market their services on social media. They don’t make lists of how amazing their camera is, the exact number of images you’ll get back, or all of their photography accolades. They show pictures—and lots of them.
And the pictures speak volumes.
Future photography clients see what they could look like, too, by hiring someone who can clearly make their eyes sparkle, their hair look like magic in the sunset, and their humanness shine through.
People want to see themselves in a certain light. And it’s our marketing and sales role to expertly show them what that can look like.
The company, Spectrio, says, “If you want to communicate with your customer’s decision maker, then you need to communicate why they should trust you.”
In senior living, we can translate this into photos of daily life, positive resident stories and testimonials, and video clips of what an average week might look like at your community.
People Love to Learn and Be Entertained
Some products and services are the last things we want to buy, but definitely necessary. Tax prep, attorneys’ fees, dental invoices, car maintenance, and gas bills aren’t glamorous and something most of us dread. Even our own industry is a major life purchase that many people hope they never have to buy into.
So, how do we get creative with our messaging to surprise and delight those against senior living?
Progressive Insurance makes us all laugh with its clever commercial spots. What do these clips have to do with insurance? Other than insurance comes with adulting, not much. But they’re effective because they get our attention.
This Ram Trucks commercial inspires people to be their best, which is a nice tie-in to their product story.
We can share the fun and impactful sides of senior living, too. Creating a TikTok that features activities, events, and even funny stories that happen within the community are ways to highlight your space and get noticed.
People Think From the Heart
Even the most logical of us have strong emotions that come into play subconsciously. Our brains are wired to reason through a primal response—even if we’ve done all the scrutinizing, analyzing, and strategizing a critical thinker can do.
Research has shown many times over that our purchases are emotional: “It’s been studied again and again; fMRI tests have shown that when subjects evaluate products or brands, their limbic systems (where our feelings, memory, and value judgments originate) light up, while the data processing and analysis centers of their brains are left largely unstimulated. In other words, most of the purchase decisions people make are emotional, not practical.”
Additionally, “the University of Glasgow suggests that in reality all of our modern emotions stem from 4 core feelings; happy, sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted.” And did you know that the happy emotion generates more shares, while the sad generates more clicks?
Marketing expert, Neil Patel, says, “People buy products emotionally, and justify the purchases logically.”
Remember this Budweiser puppy commercial or what about this one? The iconic beer brand didn’t promote any of their products, but pulled at our heartstrings. And we remember them for that. Oh, and if you have any tissues left, this Chevy commercial doesn’t disappoint on an empathetic level.
Additionally, this Dove commercial is meant to be a tearjerker and to appeal to what people are feeling at their core. They’re not asking you to try their latest anti-aging moisturizer, but asking you instead to value the beauty you already possess.
But shouldn’t a purchase be part of it? Neil Patel also reminds businesses you don’t always have to sell. Because, you know what? The next time you’re out shopping and think, Hey, I need to pick up some soap for the shower, we bet you think of Dove.
And finally, The Starbucks® Coffee Break-away commercial makes us all want to be better, more engaged people. It isn’t about the product here, but about the people who could use this product to get to a more connected place with loved ones.
As senior living experts, we must meet people where they are. This means listening and empathizing with their situation and needs. We are caregivers first. A business, second.
