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If you’re looking for a way for your senior living community to stand out from its competition, storytelling is the answer. It’s one of the most powerful ways to highlight your community’s brand image. It can often evoke emotion and build engagement with prospects in a way traditional marketing cannot.
Rather than solely discussing your community’s perks and amenities, storytelling touches on the human element. It details what it feels like to live in your community. The effective use of storytelling can build trust with prospects and boost engagement. Keep reading to learn more about brand storytelling and the key components of creating your own brand story.
Before building your brand story, it’s important to understand what storytelling is and how to use it effectively.
Brand storytelling is a form of content marketing that provides a platform for highlighting your company’s background, values, and mission. Instead of only detailing your community’s services, storytelling focuses on the residents’ or employees’ experiences or through the vantage point of their loved ones.
Storytelling is an effective marketing tool at all stages of the sales funnel, including awareness, consideration, and decision. Most importantly, this tactic can help your brand stand out from the competition and give your community a competitive edge, especially with prospects comparing several senior living communities.
Developing a unique selling proposition is the first step in building an effective brand story. What makes your community special? What features differentiate your community from the competition? Having this understanding in place before you start building your brand story ensures it aligns with the company’s values and mission.
The next critical component is to understand your target audience. This isn’t as simple as stating seniors and their loved ones. It’s important to dig deeper to understand their concerns, questions, needs, and anxieties as well as vital demographics. For instance, many seniors are apprehensive about transitioning to Independent Living. Creating content to calm some of this anxiety can show empathy and build trust.
Finally, there are several pillars of storytelling you should consider when building your brand story, including:
With your unique selling proposition and target audience profiles in place, you can start crafting your brand story. Many content mediums are available, including written content, images, infographics, and videos. While a combination of mediums works best, studies show that people retain 50% of what they hear and see compared to just 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, and 30% of what they see.
Your content options are limitless. For example, you can create a video highlighting the day in the life of one of your active residents or a resident testimonial, post pictures of special events held at your community, or have an executive talk about your community’s history and how it’s evolved over the years.
As you create content, be sure to focus on your target prospects. Remember, this is your opportunity to connect emotionally with potential residents and family members. Regardless of the type of content, be sure the tone and voice clearly align with company values and mission.
Sharing your brand story with prospects is just as important as creating it. Without proper distribution, your content may not generate the level of leads you need. The most effective brand storytelling uses multiple content-sharing platforms, including websites, email marketing, social media platforms, and advertisements. The trick is identifying your target audience’s online behaviors to determine which outlets provide the greatest reach.
A multi-channel approach also requires consistency and transparency. Whether creating using imagery, logos, infographics, or advertisement, the tone and voice of your content must clearly align with the company's mission and values. Otherwise, you risk confusing your audience and having trouble building trust with your prospects.
Storytelling is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing tool. It requires frequent monitoring, auditing, and updating. Your brand story should always be as fresh and up-to-date as possible. Just as your community and the senior living market continuously evolve, so should your brand story.
For instance, announcing new services, technologies, or amenities should go beyond a standard press release. It’s important to incorporate these new offerings into your brand story to show how they align with your company mission and improve the resident experience.
The most important thing to remember as your brand continues to evolve is to ensure consistency. All new and updated content should remain consistent with the voice and tone matching your company's mission and unique selling position.
Are you ready to take your brand messaging to the next level? FIVE19 can help. We offer customized storytelling solutions. Our team works directly with you to better understand your company’s offerings, values, and mission. With these details, we can work together to create a brand story using digital and visual storytelling that drives results.
Contact FIVE19 today to learn more about our custom storytelling solutions.