As an industry, senior living seems to acknowledge that we are laggards when it comes to just about every single new thing,

As an industry, senior living seems to acknowledge that we are laggards when it comes to just about every single new thing, but particularly with respect to technology.  There are an embarrassingly high number of senior living communities that still don’t have pervasive wifi. 

Many senior living communities have very basic web pages and simplistic (or no) ability to move prospects through the decision making funnel. Most communities are still using spreadsheets or paper and pencil for staff scheduling. They are only very reluctantly adopting resident care software packages. 

Interactive Content

This morning I read an article at Copy Blogger about Interactive Content.  It was a bit depressing because this is effectively Content Marketing2.0, which is good, except most senior living communities are not doing that great a job with Content Marketing1.0. Interactive content is pretty much what it sounds like. Rather than just asking your audience to read what you wrote, you give the visitors an opportunity to have an experience while on your website. In a very primitive sense, any call to action is the insertion of interactive content. This might also be true of a “contact me” form.

Other examples might be to ask someone to play a video, take a quiz or answer a poll question. In the case of Senior Housing Forum, it would include the questions I often ask at the end of an article looking for comments on the content.

Interactive Opportunities for Senior Living

If you were to look at some of the things that be.group is doing behind the scenes at their website MySilverAge or what Senior Housing Forum Partner Lead InSite is doing for senior living providers, you would discover they are able to keep track of who has visited their sites and deliver customized content that will, on one level. provide returning visitors information that is most likely to be valuable to them and, on another level, if there is a fit, move them effectively through the prospect funnel.

This is only barely interactive in that the web visitor really does nothing more than move from page to page and is not at all conscious they are being tracked or delivered individualized content.

Getting More Sophisticated

Where Interactive Content really gets fun is when a senior living website creates the opportunity for visitors to engage beyond clicking from page to page. This could be in the form of a quiz about senior living where the visitor is rewarded with points for right answers and a chance to learn more from wrong answers. It might be a cost calculator or the ability to move furniture around in a senior living apartment.

Ideally along the way players/visitors are encouraged to provide contact information.

Late Living a relatively new entrant into the senior living marketing space is doing some very interesting things with interactive videos, that allow site visitors to take self-guided tours of properties or take a self-guided basic class on senior living options. You can click this link to see how it works at The Forum at Tuscon, a Five Star Senior Living community (you will have to scroll just a little bit down the home page). 

The other even more interesting thing they are doing is this interactive video about senior living options . . . sort of a self-guided video tutorial.

Note:  You will need to enter contact information to watch it, but you can either put in your real information or make something up.

Do you have any thoughts on using interactive content on your site?  Would a video tutorial like the one above work for your organization?

Steve