Category: Boomers Marketing

How would you complete the sentence: “Getting older is getting better because ______.”? That’s the question we have been asking friends of ours to spotlight the 2015 White House Conference on Aging, which took place earlier this month.

So far, we’ve gotten some interesting answers, including:

Getting older is getting better because …

…my fishing license is free!

…I am healthier.

…I get to spend time with grandchildren.

…I’ve learned to cherish the little things.

…my newly discovered diet makes me feel better.

…every experience I have builds on the one before it.

The White House has held a conference on aging every decade since the 1960s. The 2015 Conference is an opportunity to look ahead to the issues that will shape the landscape for older Americans in the next decade. Some important issues that will be discussed at the conference are retirement security, healthy aging, long-term services and support, and elder justice.

We’d love to hear how you’d complete the sentence: “Getting older is getting better because ______.” You can tweet your answer to us at @varsitybranding. For more information about the conference click here.

A team of Varsity researchers brought Project Looking Glass and Project Looking Glass II to the field of aging services. In these nationally recognized studies, researchers moved into two retirement communities for 30 days; there they lived, ate, shopped and socialized alongside residents. We have now launched a third in-depth ethnographic study, called “Project Looking Glass III: From the Outside In.”

In essence, we are turning the looking glass around to dig more deeply into the decision-making process that prospects go through when choosing a community. We’ll learn what triggers people to start investigating senior living communities; what factors influence potential residents to choose or pass on a community; what their expectations were prior to moving into their new home; and the reality that they find as residents of the community.

We’ll evaluate the decision-making process to see how it may vary in different areas of the country and among different cohorts—the current aging generation of prospects (what we call “the transitional generation”) and Baby Boomers—each of which is at a different stage of investigation into retirement community living.

• Silent Generation: Born 1910-1925
• Transitional Generation: Born 1930-1950
• Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964

Insights from this study will assist senior living communities in further refining their marketing messages and targeting techniques to make sure they’re not only connecting with the right people, but are also having the most relevant, informed conversations that will lead to positive decisions.

If you are interested in participating in this study by having your prospective residents fill out an online survey and/or in having Varsity conduct focus groups at your community, please contact me at jstone@varsitybranding.com.

Once again, we participated in the LeadingAge PA Annual Conference & Exposition, which was held this June in Hershey, Pa. Key leaders gathered to discuss ideas that will shape the future of senior living.

We wanted to share a few of the inspiring solutions we heard.

Swimming with the sharks. On her sixth attempt, 64-year-old Diane Nyad successfully battled sharks, venomous jellyfish and hypothermia to swim from Cuba to Key West. Her motivating advice for reaching your dreams: build a strong support team, give it your all, learn from your failures and never give up.

Spinning stories into marketing gold. Asbury’s session emphasized the importance of finding the right human interest story and repurposing it in blogs, newsletter articles and social media posts, all linking back to your website. Strategic storytelling can be a gold mine of leads, publicity and brand awareness.

Tapping the independent living middle-income market. As the economic spread continues to grow, creating an affordable community for the “working class” is a concept worth looking at.

The end of advertising. Advertising isn’t going extinct—we just need to rethink it. It’s about finding new ways to have conversations with prospects, so we can discover and meet their needs. The engagement shouldn’t stop once residents move in; they need to be invested in the community so they’ll share their positive feelings with new prospects.

Our team would welcome the opportunity to discuss these insights or to simply begin exploring questions that will lead to solid strategies for your community’s continued success.

Think that only blondes have more fun? That thinking is old. These days, the trend is not covering grey with color, but covering color with grey.

The grey hair or “granny hair” trend has been around for awhile but is going stronger than ever. A string of celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Kylie Jenner, Kate Moss, Kelly Osborn, Rihanna, Nicole Richie, and even Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes, have all rocked granny hair.

The Huffington Post calls granny hair the hottest beauty trend of spring/summer 2015. And #granny hair is all over social media, with 27,102 posts on Instagram right now. The fashion world is showing love for granny hair as well, with models for Gucci, Versace and Dior strutting their silver locks on the catwalk.

It’s wonderful that society is recognizing that looks of any age can be beautiful. And even better that, after years of dropping serious cash at salons to hide the grey, women may be encouraged to embrace the beauty of their natural color. Then they’ll have more funds to spend on fun things, like that bucket-list trip to Hawaii.

Maggie is 87. She lives alone and no longer drives. Her grown children live out of town, and her only regular companion is her grandson Mark who does her grocery shopping and handles her banking. Everyone says how helpful Mark is, but some family members have suspicions.They’ve noticed his new flat screen TV, fancy smartphone and expensive shoes.

When it comes to older people and their relationships, there could be more there than meets the eye. That’s why World Elder Abuse Awareness Day was created. Today, June 15, is a day when people around the world plan activities and wear purple to raise awareness of the abuse, neglect and exploitation of elders.

Here are six facts about elder abuse you may not know:

1. Over one in 10 elders is affected, but only one in 23 cases are reported.
2. 90 percent of elder abuse is committed by a family member.
3. Those over 80 are most likely to be abused.
4. Risk factors for the abuser include substance abuse, mental health disorders and financial issues.
5. Financial abuse is the fastest growing form of abuse.
6. Often, the abuser is the only form of companionship for the abused.

It’s important to raise awareness for this serious problem today by getting involved in World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. But it’s even more important to watch out for the red flags of abuse on the other 364 days of the year. To learn more about elder abuse and how to report it, visit www.ncea.aoa.gov or call 1-800-677-1116.

When we’re working with a client on a potential brand position, we ask three questions: Is it true? Is it unique? And is it compelling? All three of those qualities need to come together for a brand to work its hardest. In previous posts, I covered true, unique and compelling in detail. A quick recap:

• True: The claim you’re making must be true. Otherwise, people may try your product—but they won’t buy it again. Some examples of brands that didn’t live up to their advertising: the Ford Edsel, Surge soda and WOW Chips.

• Unique: The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) first discussed in the ‘40s still holds true today. It’s critical to find something that makes your product truly different. It’s all about that one promise that no one else in the market can make.

• Compelling: Last but not least, if a proposition is true and unique, but not compelling to customers, they won’t be moved to act. How can we be sure our promise is on track? Research. Research. Research. We should never assume we know what consumers think before checking in with them.

True. Unique. Compelling. The right brand position will be all three.

101 Ways to Follow up:

Salespeople are always asking for more qualified leads. They don’t want to be a nuisance by calling the same people in the lead base over and over again. But since it takes an average of 15-20 touches from initial inquiry to move-in, the existing leads in your database are much farther down the sales pike than the new ones walking in the door. Providing they are qualified, and that they haven’t made a definite yes or no decision, they are active leads that need to be cultivated and advanced through the sales process.

This doesn’t mean just continually calling prospects, especially without an objective or a reason to call. That’s what can make you feel and look like a nuisance. Follow-up does need to be structured, but it also takes creativity and individuality to stand out from your competitors in your prospects’ minds. Make them feel special, understood and cared about, and you will be amazed at the results.

The ideas for following up are limitless. What if you ask a prospect out for coffee at a local coffee shop and then follow up with a thank-you note and a gift card for the coffee shop? Or what if she attends an event at your community with her daughter, and you capture a beautiful photo of the two of them that you frame and drop off for her? Or what if she happens to mention that she likes to watch HGTV, so you pick up an issue of the magazine and mail it to her with a note?

These small gestures do not cost much, and if they further solidify the relationship by showing that you listen and that you care, then they are much more cost-effective than traditional marketing tactics.

Be smart about how you spend your time, effort and money when following up, and let your creative juices flow. You’ll find the follow-up process to be more enjoyable and more effective.

Don’t forget; All of those “I’m not ready yet!” prospects are in your lead base already—and so are your next 5-10 sales.

Looking for creative ways to follow up? Email me at jstone@varsitybranding.com, and I’ll send you my free handout, “101 Ways to Follow up.”

Managing a successful organization has never been easy, but given today’s rapidly evolving changes, the leadership challenge, at least for most of us, is greater than ever.  Pressures from a variety of stakeholder groups compete for our time, attention and resources. More than ever, distractions seem to intercept our good intentions. Results—favorable ones—don’t occur without a plan. Exceptional results happen only when the plan is well executed. Unfortunately, too many of us invest far more time in developing the plan than in managing or executing the plan.

More Than an Exercise

Strategic planning is a discipline that should be logical, practical and manageable. Many of the plans I review these days seemingly lack depth and evoke far too little action. Now that we have adopted the concept of strategic planning, let’s ensure we introduce plans to our teams that produce the desired results.  Planning should become integrated into our patterns of management at all layers of the organization, not simply an exercise for the board and a few select executives.

Missing Components

Two areas of planning I recommend consistently including in your strategic planning process are innovation and culture. Certainly these areas are difficult to articulate, but they are crucial to your success in driving the desired results. Whether you are competing for residents or employees, your ability to establish objectives for enhancing the culture in which your services are delivered creates a competitive advantage. In great work cultures, great ideas can come from any team member in any department. Setting the tone for culture is the foundation to creating a more innovative environment in which people want to contribute.

Monitoring Success

People want to know how their performance stacks up against expectations. Routine reporting on key accomplishments against the plan is often missing beyond the executive suite. Success happens when the entire organization is aware of the strategic plan as well as how they are doing in completing the objectives driven by that plan. Measuring and communicating success is more than simply crafting an email or printing a newsletter. Engaged teams want a personal account from leadership on how well they are achieving the goals for the organization.

Link to Performance

Is your organization performing at its absolute best? Why or why not? Is your strategic plan a living document embraced by your entire organization, or something that occupies space on your shelf only to be discussed at board meetings? Are you winning the “war for talent”—are the brightest people coming to work at your organization?

It is no longer enough to be good at anything—consumer expectations for your brand are high. If your organization is performing at a level that doesn’t create “wowed” customers, your plan needs work, and your executional tactics need attention. The journey of successful strategic planning and organizational performance must get your attention daily.

It’s a good week for “timeless female empowerment.” Blanche, Sophia, Dorothy, Rose, Baddie and Mylie are all in the spotlight.

At Varsity, we’re major fans of the Golden Girls, and we’ve covered their innovative living situation in a previous blog post. That’s why we’re so excited about the news that a proposed Legos set featuring the groundbreaking ’80s sitcom is moving through the review process. The project, created by longtime “Golden Girls” fan Samuel Hatmaker, has now gathered 10,000 supporters, which means it qualifies for Lego review and has a chance to be produced. The story was all over social media and got picked up by USA Today, TVWeek, Ellen, Huffington Post and other news outlets.

Another ageless female also received a golden opportunity. On April 6, DimepieceLA, a chic street-style fashion brand, announced that 86-year-old grandmother Baddie Winkle will be featured in the new Dimepiece “state of mind” campaign. On the Dimepiece blog, the company announced, “Our brand has always stood for timeless female empowerment and continues to encourage this mindset in our latest campaign.”

Baddie has 745,000 Instagram followers, and one of her biggest admirers is Millennial megastar Miley Cyrus. Miley is such a huge Baddie fan that she photoshopped herself into one of the Dimepiece pool-site fashion shots and posted it on her Instagram page. Here’s to powerful females of all ages.

“Once upon a time…” The phrase takes many of us back to our childhoods. It brings back memories of snuggling under the covers as a parent told us a bedtime story, or sitting cross-legged on the classroom floor as the teacher read out loud. We listened raptly, wondering where the story would take us next. Even as adults, we love stories and the journeys they take us on. It’s stories that grab our attention and keep it.

Consumers love stories, too. They enjoy learning about the history of a company and where it is going next. In college, I learned about the marketing concept “what’s in it for me?” and how important it was to answer that question through storytelling. That was close to 25 years ago, and the idea remains as strong now as it was then.

Our culture has been handed down for centuries through the oral tradition of storytelling. It’s in our nature to tell stories. People love to relate an anecdote when friends ask them about a purchase they’ve made. So, if you share a story about your own product with your customers, you’ll reap the benefits of having it passed on to others. This process is how a good story can grow and develop a life of its own.

Creating a story about your brand is a great way to let your customers know who you are and what you stand for. It’s through this narrative that you gain their interest and, more importantly, their trust. It doesn’t need to be some huge tome, telling them every little thing about your brand. It just needs to be enough to give them a taste, make them want more and, most importantly, help them remember you and your product.

In addition to my career in advertising and marketing, I’ve spent the last 15 years making and selling my own artwork. My customers love to hear the story behind each of my pieces. Even if they don’t buy anything, I tell them the story about my studio name. I can’t tell you how many people come back and say, “I remember you and that interesting story of how your studio got to be called ‘Kerensamere.’”

In this digital age, one might think that storytelling is dead, but that is simply not the case. If anything, storytelling is prevalent in our society now more than ever. Online videos are a great example of storytelling. It’s amazing how one well-crafted video can tell so much in such a brief time. Make it a good one, and it goes viral. Next thing you know, everyone is telling your story for you.

Not everyone is a good storyteller. Back in the Middle Ages, communities relied on bards to come to town and recite stories. Not just anyone could be a bard; it took a certain skill. It’s kind of like the difference between a person who’s good at telling jokes, and one who isn’t. If it’s not told right, the joke falls flat. You don’t want this to happen with your own brand story. That’s where hiring the right team can make all the difference in how well your story is told and retold.

Crafting and presenting your story is a skill that comes with practice and insight. You need to understand your own brand as well as your audience. What is it that you want people to know? How do you get them to care about your story? This is where hiring a team like Varsity comes into play. We pride ourselves in our ability to create brand narratives that tell your story to the people you want to hear it and get them to repeat it for you.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.