There are several brand awareness aspects that can elevate your residential assisted living homes above your nearby competitors.
Brand awareness is everything.
Unfortunately, many residential assisted living homes fail to clearly explain why they are different from their competitors.
As a result, they do not stand out.
What does this tell us? Brand awareness is everything in marketing.
BRANDING ALLOWS YOUR BUSINESS TO STAND OUT
A properly branded business name can saturate society so much that it can transpose itself into action verbs, such as in the case with Google.
We don’t say, “let’s use the Google search engine,” instead users say, “Google it.”
The importance of brand awareness cannot be overstated. It can mean the success or failure of a business.
This is especially true in the present day, where digital marketing has taken a front seat to more traditional channels.
Brand awareness is even more important in the senior living space.
Owning a particular look, phrase, color scheme or even picture can sometimes make a big difference.
What is it that you are really trying to achieve with brand awareness? For clarity sake, what is the point, what is the goal?
The goal is simple, you want your RAL home to be the first location to come to mind. You are branding your business to have first place in the minds of prospective residents.
You want families to refer people to your RAL home when the need arises for their loved ones.
This is brand awareness.
Well-branded residential assisted living businesses own a piece of mental real estate in the minds of prospective and current residents.
Many senior living communities do not clearly explain why they are different and better than their competitors and often do not stand out amongst the field.
What’s your difference? What makes you the perfect fit? In other words, what’s your brand?
Listed below are 8 questions that your marketing team must ask in order to understand your community’s RAL business brand image.
EVALUATING YOUR BRAND CRITERIA
1. What is most meaningful to your target audience?
· What unique services does your RAL offer that solves specific challenges seniors are having that other RALs do not?
· Do you have a brand awareness statement that encompasses your difference from other competitors?
- Is your message proprietary?
· Do you own your phrase?
· Do you have a market position that others cannot fill?
· Are you known for this position?
- Is your message preemptive?
· Do you hold first position in the minds of prospective residents?
· First position results in increased visibility and revenue. Others might have to pay top dollar to catch up and many never do.
· Your RAL home should be “top of the mind.”
- Can your community deliver on that message?
· Anyone can make a claim, but not many can make the claim a reality.
· Would current residents say you live up to the claim you make?
· If so, then you have the adequate staff, expertise and training in place.
· If not, you’ve got work to do.
- Is your brand promise aligned with your community’s heritage and reputation?
· Is your brand promise believable based on your community’s history? While you can certainly change a community to reflect a new brand promise, it is a much easier task to create a brand promise that mirrors your community’s existing strengths, heritage and reputation.
· Understanding this will save money on promotion that will be ineffective.
- Does your brand message have a life?
· Can you make your brand last for years? It takes time and money to establish a proprietary and preemptive brand. Once you have determined your brand message, it takes a lot of repetition to establish that message in the minds of your prospects.
· Effective brand development will endure more than a lifetime.
· It becomes colloquial.
· When those words are uttered, even unrelated to your business, people think about your residential assisted living home.
- Does it have “legs”?
· Is your brand message transferable internally and externally?
· Can it be used in all media forms?
· Is it user-friendly with all audience segments?
· Just because your brand message can be communicated in a sales presentation doesn’t mean it can be effectively delivered in a brochure, banner ad or billboard.
· Your brand message must be able to work everywhere at all times.
- Does your brand messaging have management support?
· Owners and operators must accept the brand message. If they do not, it will fail, even if it is good.
· Engage management and staff in the formulation of a brand message. People accept ownership of what they have a part in creating. It’s a pride thing.
HOW RALNA IS HELPING OWNERS EXPAND THE ASSISTED LIVING INDUSTRY
How did you answer the above questions? Were you able to answer all of them or some?
Relax, your answers, or the lack thereof, only means you need support. Remember, owning and operating your own residential assisted living business is a group effort.
This is not the business for a lone wolf.
The Residential Assisted Living National Association is here to provide information, resources and support for RAL owners and operators.
We provide the kind of support that empowers owners and operators to administer quality senior care.
Join us today and begin building a RAL business that will last from one generation to the next.
Brand awareness is not easy, but it is possible to achieve – many have done it and many are doing it.
