What if I told you, a goldmine of marketing information lays hidden right in front of you. Would you be interested?
It involves seeing the world through your customer’s eyes.
To do this, you first need to create an avatar of your ideal prospect. Focus on what keeps them up at night. Put yourself in their shoes, and feel what it's like to not be able to care for their parent or loved one.
For example, let’s say you're targeting adult children who live far away from their aging parents. Imagine what that hopelessness feels like. What would they say, feel, and desire?
Understand what's keeping them up at night, what they’re worried about, what's keeping them stressed at work because you can't care for your parent. If you can relate to that and capture this in your marketing materials, you’re going to hit their emotional hot buttons and form a connection. The goal when communicating to them is have them saying, “Yes, this is exactly what I'm going through”, and then have your services become their solution.
Following are two ways you can see the world through your customer’s eyes.
1. Interview current residents and their adult children. Look for the emotional stories that lead them to your community. Learn what your prospects relate to and understand. You’ll discover what frustrations and daily struggles they have. Was senior living on their minds for a while? What finally set the trigger loose? A fall or was it more gradual?
Record an interview of a few of your prospects. Transcribe the conversation, and look for the emotional language. You’re going to understand them on a deeper level than you thought possible. Through interviews, you can uncover the stories that motivated people to take action.
2. In this internet age, there are many reviews of communities. Study the reviews of your community and those of your competitors’. Gems of information lay hidden in those reviews. People reveal their honest opinions when hiding behind their computers. Learn what people liked about a community and what they didn't like. Rework your findings into your own communications, and you now have marketing messages in your consumer’s language.
When you see the world through your customer’s eyes, you hit your prospects at their emotional core. This inspires more action from your communications than the traditional senior living language.