Do You Really Have a Marketing Problem? How to Diagnose What's Hurting Your Move Ins

If you are treating the wrong problem, you are spending time, money, and energy in the wrong place. And that is costing you occupancy.

When residents are not moving in, the first reaction for many senior living owners is, "I need more marketing."

But what if marketing isn't actually the problem? Here is the truth, and I say this with love...most of the time, it is not a marketing problem.

It is a diagnosis problem.

And in this episode, I am walking you through exactly how to tell the difference. We are playing detective today. Think of it like a doctor diagnosing a patient. The symptom might look the same on the surface, but the cause? 

Completely different.

Here is what we are covering:

If nobody is calling — that is a marketing problem.
If they are calling but not the right fit — that is a messaging problem.
If they are visiting but not moving in — that is a visit experience problem.
If they are disappearing after the tour — that is a follow-up problem.
If they keep choosing someone else — that is a pricing or positioning problem.

Five different diagnoses. Five different solutions.

If you are doing everything and still not moving people in, I want to help you figure out why.

The VIP First Impressions and Visit Audit is where I come in — virtually — as if I am a prospective family member. I walk through your community with you, ask the questions a family would ask, and show you exactly where the gaps are and how to close them.

You get a recording of our session, a written report, and a clear picture of what is working and what is not.

This is not an audit to catch you doing something wrong.
It is an audit to help you do everything right.

As always — take what you need, share what helps, and come back for more.

Transcript

Tiffany Updated voice 0:00

Hello, friends. Today we're going to do something a little bit different than we have previously. This episode today is ask me anything, and this is where I get to hear from you directly. So there is a link in the show notes if you have a topic that you want to share or a question. It is a voicemail, they call it fan mail, that you can leave me. And so I'm asking you that if you have something that you want to know more about in regards to marketing, sales, developing a culture, hiring staff, leadership, or senior living, this is the opportunity to ask me directly, and you can be anonymous. Um, but the idea is that if you have a question, then someone else has the same question too. And you can help other people learn and, um, and get the insights just like you would want them for yourself. So this is a time where we together can collaborate, um, in terms of you give me a question and I can answer it. And if I don't have the answer, I promise you, I know somebody who probably does, um, just with my sheer connections and longevity within the industry. You can also DM me on Instagram or on Facebook or even on YouTube, because I look at every comment. I answer all of the comments myself and, um, it's all Start With Occupancy. Start With Occupancy Podcast on Facebook, Start With Occupancy on Instagram, or Tiffany Hill Allen on Instagram, and, um, Start With Occupancy channel on YouTube. And, or LinkedIn. I'm also on LinkedIn under Tiffany Hill Allen. So you can find me, DM me, and say, "Hey, this is a submission for the Ask Me Anything episode on the Start With Occupancy podcast. So with that, let's get going

Tiffany 1:54

Uh huh. Welcome to Start With Occupancy, the podcast for senior living owners, operators, and sales professionals. /Hi, I'm Tiffany, marketing strategist and former corporate baddie who got tired of producing results for wall street and wanted to make a change on main street. /I provide quick tips, idea nuggets, and case studies to help you with proven sales, marketing, and business development strategies along with leadership concepts so that you can inspire change, impact lives, and improve outcomes for the aging, their families and your teams. /I'm committed to equipping you with the tools, the knowledge and resources that you need to excel in your business. /With experience working inside senior living companies, large and small, I've developed a deep passion for advocating for the aging adult and those who care for them, all while driving business growth. /So whether you're already in the senior care industry or maybe you would like to be, if your mission is to serve them, my mission is to serve you. /Join me as we unravel the strategies and tactics that drive success in your business while making a difference in someone's life. /The goal is to touch, guide, and impact the lives of 10 families per month! /Are you with me? It's time to be inspired, gain practical tips and own your future.

Tiffany Updated voice 3:21

So today, the question that I had posed to me, which was a really interesting one, this one is how do I know if I actually have a marketing problem or something else because I can't seem to get my occupancy to move? Here's the surprising part. Most owners think they have a marketing problem when in reality they have a diagnosis problem And so what I'm going to do is walk you guys through five possible causes to identify if marketing is a problem. Let's play detective, like a doctor diagnosing a sick patient. If nobody's calling, the diagnosis then obviously is marketing. But if they're calling but not qualified, then the diagnosis is messaging. But what if they're visiting and not moving in? Then the diagnosis might be the visit experience. And if they disappear then the diagnosis might be the follow-up. If they keep choosing someone else over and over again, then maybe it's your pricing or positioning. The first one is not enough inquiries. You know, it's hard to convert what you don't have. It's hard to get the number of move-ins if you don't have the number of inquiries coming in. So then that would mean that, yes, It is a marketing problem, because if you don't have anybody calling, that means you're not marketing enough. There's not enough people who know you, and obviously, you know, that is the default that most people go to. The other thing is that maybe you're like, "I'm getting the inquiries. I'm talking to the people," but then you're realizing, but they're not appropriate, for the care that I can give. Or another way of saying it, and the one that is my favorite, is I'm not appropriate for the care that you need. I like to put the onus on us and not on the family member, because how would you like someone to say to your loved one that you're not appropriate for my place? You know what I'm saying? That's just so cringe, you know. When you think about it and when you hear it from the family's point of view, "Your mom's not appropriate to live here." What does that mean, right? You know what I mean? So I like to phrase it, you know, we're talking about language here, um, is that we are not the appropriate place for your mom because we do not handle this type of care or that type of care, or her level of, of attention that she needs is much greater than what we are able to provide. So when I worked in my first community, one of the things that they told me when I got hired is that we, as a community, are very lopsided on the number of Medicaid residents that we have who are utilizing that as a payer source and the number of private pay. Although we were pretty highly occupied, um, and they challenged me, like, "When we hire you, it's because we know that you can get us the mix in the right direction." So I had a couple of issues first learning the industry and learning how to do this, but my other issue was that I found out we had so many phone calls. We was inundated, and at the time we didn't have a concierge or a receptionist. Every time the phone rang, one of the managers had to pick up the phone, and typically the onus was on me because I was the sales manager. It didn't matter if it was a doctor or, um A home health person, a, you know, home health group or, um, a home care group or someone looking for an inquiry. I still was answering all those calls and doing, you know, the visits and, you know, doing marketing plans and, and all of that stuff. Anyway, I digress. But the thing I wanted to say is that when in my taking in these calls, one of the things I noticed is that we had so many calls for people had been Medicaid approved. We had so many calls from people who had been Medicaid approved. So I was like, "Why are we getting all these phone calls? Like, there's so many." And it was nonstop, man. I wish I could really explain to you how nonstop those phone calls were. What I found out after digging is that we were on a list. So when someone got approved for Medicaid in our area The Department, um, of, uh, Elder Affairs is what it's called here, they would give a list of all of the communities that had Medicaid contracts, and we were on that list. So I had to work it out where I had to... I couldn't get off the list because we were a provider, but what I had to do was train the people to understand that, yes, we are a provider, but what we do is we help with the spend down. So my conversation was, "We can't take you straight as Medicaid approved, but before you get approved, meaning that you have at least one year worth of spend down, then we can convert you over." And so that message went out, and it helped us slow down those calls because it went out to the community. There was a messaging that I, I gave to all the different people, uh, and referral sources, and even the people at Eldersource. We still stayed on that list. I do believe, I think it might have been a year later or so that I was able to get us off of it. Um, I don't even remember if we ever got off, to be honest. But I will say this, putting that message out there in the community and in the healthcare community, and even with the people in Eldersource, helped a lot in slowing down the pace of the amount of resident referrals that we were getting from that one source, because it wasn't serving us. 87% Medicaid funds coming into a community doesn't keep you in business. Getting the wrong type of inquiries for the financial goals and the proper mix of residents that you are having, um, or needing or a- able to serve is one of the things that you need to look at. The other thing is that is it a marketing problem if you have poor visit experience? So my thing is this: How do you tell that? Well, if you have people calling in and then you have people coming in but they are not becoming your resident, then it's not a marketing problem, right? It is a visit experience problem because you can get them all the way up to the well, but you can't make them drink. And so that is where you need to focus on. So that's where you look at, What does my first impressions look like? What is my visit experience like? How is my staff? What does the community feel like? And the way you know what it feels like is what do I see, what do I hear, what do I smell, and how do I feel, right? We talked about that in the sales series, the twenty-one day sales series that is, um, on several episodes back. But that is something that you need to consider. Because if you have the calls coming in, if you have the people coming to visit, but you're still not getting the move in, then you know that there is a problem with your visit experience. The other thing is that if you have people that are coming in but they're not coming back for a second visit or they're ghosting you basically they're, they seem uninterested, you might have a follow-up problem. So this is where we take a look and see What is your follow-up process, and how are you connecting with families? Did you lose them in the actual visit experience that, um, that they're not connecting with you, they're not connecting with your community? When you followed up, did you not follow up consistently? Did you wait too many days to follow up? Um, what did your follow-up look like? And were you able to connect their needs and their pain and, and I say pain meaning like, are you able to find a solution? Are you... Do you seem like you're someone who can help them and help their loved one? Did you match the interests of their loved one or the personality, I could say personality, of their loved one to the personality of your community and the culture of your community? You see what I'm saying? How were you able to match people? And a lot of times I find that people struggle with that idea. They're kind of giving the family solution, solution, solution without seeing, okay, let me know more about your mom, let me know more about your dad, and let's see how we can connect them to the community, even if that means creating a program or an activity that is specific towards them that the other residents can enjoy. So if mom loved cooking and she loved, let's say, Italian cooking, and you know this, and this is one of her passions How hard is it to say, "You know what? Once every other week, um, we will have a Italian night. We will take your mom's recipes, and she will tell us how to cook them, and we will have her do whatever activity that we can do that she still can participate in, and we will create an Italian night, and we will have, um, Italian trivia. So what I'm saying is, is that how have you created an environment that's going to be, that's going to cater to that resident? Now, you can't do it for a whole bunch of residents. However, what happens is that if there is one resident that's really strong in one thing, a lot of times the other residents will enjoy it. So it's not really that difficult to try and figure out activities if you know who your residents are. I used to tell families that, you know, when your mom moves in and her neighbor moves in, then the next person moves in, what you see on the activity calendar may to- be totally different than what you see next, next year or next six months because our activities flex to who is in our community, and I think that's a very important differentiation than we're always gonna have this, we're always gonna have that, this is what we have, and we just pull these activities and enrichment programs that are just something that's good to do as something that is important to the people who live there The next thing is do you have a pricing issue or a market positioning issue? Are you so vanilla that you look the same as everyone else, and so a family can't differentiate? So if they see something that looks like you or is similar to you, they're like, "Well, they're cheaper." Right? Or are you pricing yourself so far out of your market without showing the value of what that price or justifying the value of that price, are people choosing not to come to you? It's really interesting because I've had this happen so many times where I've seen people underprice themselves, where they can actually lift their rates up and absolutely should. And then I've had other people that was so outrageously priced that they were like, you know, um, "I don't understand why I can't get anyone." And just recently, I mean, I'm not trying to call anyone out, but if your rates are over twenty thousand dollars a month and you're a residential assisted living, um, I have to ask, like, what, what are you providing that's gonna justify that rate that is so different than everyone else when the average across the nation is anywhere between six thousand, the high end is about twelve thousand. Of course, the low end is about four, three and four. Um, even in the major markets that are known to be higher, um, there's amenities out, out of this world for a twenty thousand dollar, you know, a month apartment, right? Um, or room So you have to just look at your market, and that's where a market analysis comes in, as well as a competitive analysis. Because those are the things that is going to help you to find out where do you land and also what other people offer so that you know how to position your value. Some things may sound like it is common sense, you know, but when you're in the thick of it and you're doing it and you're doing it every day, sometimes you're like, "I don't understand. Do I have a marketing problem? What's wrong with my community?" And I wanted to just kinda put that out there, that obviously if you have calls coming in, but they're just not enough, then that means that you need to try and do dif- something different in your marketing. Your marketing is hitting, but it's not hitting enough, and so maybe you don't have a, enough people coming in. So in that case, it is, right? Um, if you are getting it out there, you're marketing, but your messaging is wrong, then it's not necessarily a marketing problem, it's a messaging problem. If people are coming in, obviously you're like, "Well, I don't have a marketing problem 'cause they're here," but they're not moving in, then that's when you're looking at what does your experience look like to them? And again, that's a part of messaging. That's a part of what they call need-based matching. That's a part of connecting with the actual family. Um, are you even doing, what we call personal connections and are you offering them something of value? Why should they be at your location? And if your follow-up is weak, you know, that's, that's it. You know, how are you following up? Because people have short attention spans today. And last but not least, which we talked about, is the pricing. You know, are you positioned correctly in your market? This is where I have something called The VIP First Impressions and Visit Audit. This isn't an audit to say I got you, but this is something where I come in like I am your f- uh, a family member. I set you up with a scenario. Um, it is two hours with me. You're walking me through your community as if I'm a family member virtually. I'm asking questions like I'm a family member. I'm going through all of this so that I can help you really and support you and show you where there might be some gaps and how perception-wise a family will look at your community. It can be something as simple as you have a lot of clinical items in your bathroom that is turning the family off because now it doesn't look like home, right? It looks like it's very sterile. It could be mismatch furniture. I don't know. But when we go through this, we go through everything. So if you're interested in actually having me do a whole walkthrough with you, it is, I believe, reasonable for... I invest about five hours of time in your community, um, from beginning to the end of the whole process in prep time, during the time we're together, and then in follow-up because you do get a recording of our conversation, um, of the, um, strategies. You get a written report um, so that you can be better prepared. If you have any questions, please go to the show notes, click on the link and ask me a question so I can answer it for you next week. And as always, Take what you need, share what helps and come back for more. I hope you have a great day. I'll see you in the next episode.