Start Planning Your Year-End Marketing Events NOW - With WelcomeHome
The article emphasizes the importance of early planning for year-end marketing events in senior living communities, highlighting how the WelcomeHome CRM can facilitate successful, engaging holiday-themed events that attract prospects and professional referral sources by showcasing festive decorations, community warmth, and hospitality through activities like trunk-or-treats and open houses.
Even though we're months away from the start of the year-end holidays, now is the time to start planning your end-of-year marketing events for your prospects and professional referral sources.
Here are some tips for how the WelcomeHome senior living CRM can help make your year-end marketing events successful, easy, and fun.
Holidays are special in senior living communities
The holidays are the time of year when your senior living community can put its best foot forward. The lobby and common areas are decorated for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. Residents' doors are adorned with handmade crafts, and visits by family and friends are at their peak.
It's also a time when older adults who live alone feel the most lonely, so a vibrant and active senior living community can be especially appealing to them and their loved ones.
Why not invite professional referral sources, prospective residents, and their loved ones into your community at this time of year?
Benefits of marketing events for senior living prospects
Marketing events are a wonderful way to bring your prospects and their loved ones into your community when everyone is feeling festive. Seasonal snacks, appetizers, or desserts will show off your cuisine, and staff should be prepared to answer questions and give tours.
Benefits of marketing events for professional referral sources
Marketing events are among the best ways to maintain excellent relationships with your professional referral sources. (If you need convincing about why professional referral sources should be a part of your occupancy growth strategy, check out the linked blog.)
Year-end marketing event ideas
Tis the season to try one of these proven marketing events:
- Trunk-or-treat: Host a trunk-or-treat event for the children and grandchildren of your referral sources and prospects' families in your parking lot.
- Open house: Bring in prospective residents, families of current residents, professional referral sources, and your staff and their families.
- After-5 mixer: Open this event to the local chamber of commerce or civic groups so their members can get a taste of your community.
- Charity collection event: Be a collection site for local charities' toy or canned goods drives. Make it festive with carolers, hot chocolate, and cookies.
- Giftwrapping party: Invite professional referral sources to help residents wrap crafts they've made for friends and loved ones. Play holiday movies and serve snacks and refreshments.
2023 holiday dates to remember
- Halloween: October 31, 2023
- Thanksgiving: November 23, 2023
- Hanukkah: December 7 – 15, 2023
- Christmas: December 25
- Kwanzaa: December 26, 2023 – January 1, 2024
Use the WelcomeHome CRM for marketing event planning
WelcomeHome has features to help you plan and execute your next marketing event:
- Identify warm and hot prospects and professional referral sources to determine who to invite.
- Send bulk invitation emails with the Bulk Email function.
- Send reminder texts to attendees who RSVP'd using integrated texting.
- Use the Events Portal to automatically track RSVPs and check in attendees live at the event via the app.
Tips and best practices for planning a successful marketing event
- Assign roles, choose a theme, plan, budget, publicize, and maximize marketing and sales value from the event.
- Get your whole community team involved with the CRM to ensure all prospects and referral sources are invited. (WelcomeHome allows unlimited users.)
- Equip your front desk team with WelcomeHome on a computer or mobile device to mark attendees.
- Invite current and past residents. Anyone in your database can be invited if you have good contact information.
- Follow up each event with an evaluation of what worked and what didn't to improve planning for next year.
Don't forget those prospects who can't attend
Some hot prospects may not be able to attend. Let them know you didn't forget about them by bringing a small token of the event to them, such as something special from the chef or a memento made by residents.
Are you in the market for a new CRM that offers tools for making your marketing events successful in addition to a full suite of sales, marketing, and reporting functionality? WelcomeHome is a CRM built specifically for senior living communities, with an intuitive user interface, recommendation engine, and clear workflows. Experience what thousands of senior living professionals rely on to make their job easier: request a free demo of WelcomeHome's CRM today.