There are dozens of approaches your community can take to creating its own marketing videos.

By Pam McDonald

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat . . .” or said differently for the cat lover’s in the audience . . . there are dozens of approaches your community can take to creating its own marketing videos. And, you absolutely should be producing and distributing video!

The Value of Videos Can’t Be Overstated

The value of marketing video, especially when combined with social media, can’t be overstated. A recent study reported by Inc. found that 74 percent of consumers say there is a connection between watching a video on social media and their buying decisions, and almost half (46 percent) actually made a purchase following a viewing. (You can read the entire article here.)

OneDay Makes Video Production Easy and Affordable

Now that OneDay for Senior Living, a resident storytelling, video-making app and Senior Housing Forum partner, has ensured that video production is incredibly simple and affordable, communities should be introducing them into their marketing mix.

With the OneDay app on your smartphone, you just point and record what you want to capture – a resident activity, for example – click “create a movie,” and OneDay edits what you’ve recorded, rendering it almost immediately as a branded, YouTube-quality video. No kidding; the production is just that simple.

Before Lights! Camera! Action!

But there’s a lot more to it if you want marketing videos that move your prospects along the “Buyer’s Journey” or through the “Sales Funnel” – from awareness to interest to consideration to intent to buy to evaluation and comparison and finally to purchase.

You definitely want to engage prospects wherever they are on this continuum. So here’s a short list of actions to consider before you start a production. They aren’t sequential, but inform and affect each other:

  1. Identify the specific audience your want to reach

  2. Determine the channels for its distribution

  3. Pinpoint the message you want viewers to take away

  4. Select the best approach for presenting that message to that audience

Your Audience

Because you’re creating a marketing video, your primary audience is your prospects. For senior living, that’s typically a senior himself or herself and/or an adult helper/influencer. In our industry, we refer to that person as the “adult child.” This individual commonly is a daughter, daughter-in-law, other caregiving relative, or friend.

Keep the following prospect demographic and psychographic information in mind while determining the take-away message, approach, and distribution channels for each video.

For seniors:

  • The average age of your future resident is 85

  • 74% are women

  • Only 12% are still married or have a significant other

  • Most do not need intensive medical care but require assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs)

  • Nearly 40% need help with 3 or more ADLs

  • Senior prospects tend to perceive themselves as 10-20-years younger than they are

  • They don’t want to be called seniors

  • They may or may not be realistic about what they need

  • They don’t like to be reminded of any limitations they might have

Adult children are:

  • women

  • 45-75-years-old

  • working full- or part-time

  • stressed and may be part of the sandwich generation caring for both school-age children as well as a senior

Distribution

Check out the two links below. They provide demographics for the users of major social media platforms:

At the very least, you should consider adding videos to your company and/or community website; Facebook page, assuming you have one; YouTube channel; other social media; and prospect email.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll look at some central messages about senior living as well as approaches that can be used to create videos that speak to prospects at different points on the Buyers’ Journey.

For more information about OneDay, click the button below to visit their website:

Download a PDF copy of this article by clicking on the button below: