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Your advertising often provides the first exposure your audience has to your community. In fact, it’s probably the only exposure they have before actually calling for information or making an appointment.

For these people to think it might be a good idea to consider your community over another, they first need to be interested in who you are and why they should care. So your communication with them – your advertising – will work best when it’s presented in a truly interesting way that will stick with your audience.

How do you do that? Although it’s tempting to believe others are as interested in us as we are, the best way to get someone truly interested in you is to show you’re sincerely interested in them, and what’s important to them.

People respond most positively to advertising that approaches them in a sincere, genuine fashion. Advertising that uses the same kind of language they do with their friends. Advertising that shows you understand them and are interested in them by talking about them and their concerns, their hopes, their needs – not just about yourself.

Look at your advertising as if it were a real person representing you out there in the community. You’d probably want that person to be smart, truthful, friendly, approachable – maybe even funny. You’d want them delivering the message that shows you understand what is important to your audience, and suggests you can help them achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. And maybe – just maybe – it leaves them with something to smile about.

So if you want people to remember your community, make sure your community is interesting to them by creating advertising that shows you’re interested in them. For example, here are a couple ads that present a message in a truly interesting way:

• “City You’ve Grown to Love” Ad  

• “Countless Ways to Express Yourself” Ad

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I wrote last week about silver bullet ideas that are really made of brass. Here are some other thoughts related to that same topic which show what we’ve always known to be even more important than before.

Who do people trust?

According to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of more than 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries, “90% of consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trusted consumer opinions posted online.” (See the entire article here.) 

This should come as no surprise. Testimonials and referrals have always been tried and true elements of any CCRC sales and marketing effort. But this research is proof of the ever-growing impact social media is having on consumers and their decision-making processes. Social media applications have given consumers the unprecedented ability to communicate with each other about what they think, like, dislike and what they’ve done about it. It seems especially important for all of us to take note, since the CCRC purchase environment is all about relationship, which is all about trust.

So what’s the connection?

Your customers’ motivations haven’t changed. Their desires haven’t changed. The fact that they trust people like themselves isn’t new either. But their ability and willingness to discuss it among themselves is growing rapidly. And you’ve never had a better opportunity to join the conversation. No matter how easy it is for them to share information, they still want the same things. Their future is important to them. They want to know why they should trust it to you.

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Sure, everybody says they know there isn’t a silver bullet out there, but this question gets asked persistently.

“Given the current economic environment, how should I change my advertising to persuade leads and prospects to act today?”

The answer is you probably shouldn’t.

We talk to current and future residents almost every day. We’re constantly asking them why they decided to make this commitment and how they feel about it now. And guess what. We’re getting the same answers today that we got 3, 4 and 5 years ago.

The reasons people are attracted to the CCRC model haven’t changed.

• They have concerns about their own health, or the health of their spouse
• They’re tired of taking care of their home and are attracted to maintenance-free living
• They have concerns about becoming isolated and alone and see the community environment as a good alternative
• They want more freedom to pursue what really interests them in life 

The reasons for choosing one community over another haven’t changed either.

• Location
• The appearance of the community
• What their specific residence looks like
• What the people around them are like, both staff and residents
• Cost

And they still have to form an emotional connection of some sort with the idea of moving to your community. The decision may take a little longer. The process may take a little longer. But the emotions, the logic, the motivations and benefits remain the same. Ultimately, it’s still about quality of life.

The bullets are the same as they’ve always been – still brass, no silver. So make sure your aim is true and keep firing.

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To paraphrase Aldous Huxley, one of the 20th century’s most famous writers and futurists, it’s time to be brave and face the new world. Social media, consumer conversations, Web 2.0 digital interactivity are all upon us. The old way of looking at the world as a collection of markets and our customers as targets to hit with a message is fading into the sunset. The brave new world is a place of engagement, where information, content and the brand or product experience will lead the way. And the communications tools – channels, if you will – for reaching consumers and spreading the perfume of your brand’s experience are increasingly offering a digitally interactive conversation, and it’s the customer who’s in charge.

“But that’s not my customer,” you say? “My customer is 75 and older and they’re not, as a rule, digitally sophisticated.”

Perhaps not. But their children are. For example, the 55+ age group has grown their presence on Facebook by more than 500% in the last six months! Those users have grown from less than one million in January 2009 to more than 5.8 million by July 4. It’s their children who are driving them to embrace the new media, and smartphones and netbook computers are making it all so easy to do. Safe to say that part of our world that hasn’t changed is about to.

Plus, for these adult children, this new media world is fun. It’s informative. It allows them to connect with people they thought they’d never meet, let alone Tweet with. It makes the world smaller and the opportunity to engage with them larger. Click here for a little more insight into how subtle, seductive and powerful it can be.

So, how important are your customers’ kids to your customers’ decision-making process? What do these adult children know about you? What do they think of you? How have you engaged them in the experience you say you offer? Don’t get me wrong – traditional forms and venues and outlets for traditional advertising approaches aren’t going away anytime soon. But the digital landscape and the new power of the consumer in terms of how marketing messages are encountered is steaming rapidly in our direction. If we ignore it, we’re likely to find out it’s not the light at the end of the tunnel we see, but the light on the front of the freight train coming toward us.

All of which means this is without question the brightest opportunity to explore, experiment and develop new ways to connect with your customer to come along since the introduction of television. Time to be brave and embrace the new world. Opportunities like this just don’t come along very often.

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Recently, I blogged about whether or not your retirement community was a product or a brand. If you did some research and found out you have a brand, then great. If not, here are some further steps to make sure you’ve put a brand in place.

1. A “brand” requires the customer to be highly involved. After all, you won’t have much luck building a brand in a category nobody cares about. Generally speaking, people aren’t “involved” in laundry detergent. However, some people are highly involved in clean, fresh-smelling clothes. This high involvement doesn’t have to be perpetual, but it does, at least, have to be occasional. Are you selling your community as a place with two bedrooms? Or are you promising a comfortable lifestyle with a plan for the future?

2.  A “brand” is dependable. Customers and prospects depend on it for something. This is its sustainable benefit. It should be a simple concept that is easy to understand, and it should have broad appeal. Not universal, mind you. But broad. This promise or benefit should be simple, preferably can be expressed in one word, and is something the customer can remember and depend on to be true. So what do your residents depend on from you? Is it quality? Or is it security? Whatever your one word is, make sure your residents can consistently depend on you to deliver on your word.

3. A brand has a personality. By that we mean its message makes more sense and is even more resonant when delivered in a way that is consistent with the brand’s promise. In other words, how you say what you say does make a difference. If you sell your community as quality, then make sure your messaging delivers that promise of quality.

4. Brands are consistent. A brand doesn’t change. It’s always there, delivering on its promise. Speaking in a language its customers understand and can identify with. Reinforcing its personality so that customers can all go through life knowing with absolute certainty they can depend on that brand for _______ .  Make sure that whatever you fill in the blank with, you consistently provide to everyone who comes in contact with your community.

How is your community doing? Try following these steps and see if you can turn your community from a product into a brand.

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