If you’ve followed our blog for very long, you know we are advocates for using storytelling to connect and engage with senior living visitors.
Content serves many purposes, including entertaining and educating. Much of it requires understanding the emotion behind a decision.
You need content that stops families from skimming and scanning different senior living websites looking for answers. Information and resources that are more than platitudes and robotic sounding “solutions.”
In our industry, the competition for keeping a visitor’s attention is ferocious. The more confident you feel writing about emotions, the better your content will likely be.
Neuromarketing and Senior Living
Emotions can slows a senior or their adult child down and keep them on your site longer. Neuroscience can help you learn more about why people behave the way that do.
That in turn, gives you an advantage in finding meaningful ways to connect and communicate with them. It’s known as neuromarketing.
Obviously, our industry is ripe with situations that heat up emotions.
While some parts of the continuum of care are associated with positive, happy emotions (starting a new chapter in life), other parts are associated with tough times for families.
What are some examples of the emotions you can write about to provide the support and answers families need?
Here are a few to help you get started.
Emotions in Senior Living Content
- Validate the difficulties: Think about how difficult the role of family caregiver is, especially those caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s. Reading content that validates how tough it is and offers solid solutions is vital. It gives the family member confirmation that their struggle is real, and they are justified in seeking help from a senior care provider.
- Offer hope for the future: Losing a partner of many years often leaves the surviving spouse feeling lonely and isolated. By showcasing how life could be by moving to an independent living community or a CCRC, you offer hope. Tell the personal stories of other residents who have made this transition and are thriving. What other opportunities are there for telling stories of hope? Your team can likely identify many of them.
- Make it easier to relate: Our industry can be complex. From the jargon many of us are guilty of using to the types of payor sources communities accept to the differences in level of care, it can leave families feeling overwhelmed. If they’ve never been through this before, it might make them feel uncomfortable and even a little incompetent. No one wants to grapple with those emotions when making such an important decision. By telling meaningful stories of residents’ journeys, you create scenarios everyone can relate to and better understand.
Want to learn more?
We have few favorite books on the topic you might want to check out. They may help you find new ways to put neuromarketing to work for your senior living content.
Books on Neuromarketing
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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. This book by Robert B. Cialdini is considered to be the classic that other ideas are developed from. It presents six principles of influence that can guide marketers.
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Brainfluence. Written by marketing expert Roger Dooley, this book shows readers how to create strategies based on brain and behavioral science. It takes a concept or topic and provides practical ideas for using them.
- Unconscious Branding. Douglas Van Praet is the author of this well-researched book. He combines advertising and science to teach marketers how to understand and change consumer behaviors.
Looking for professionals to write and edit the stories that highlight all your senior living community has to offer?
Send us a message! We’ll be happy to set up a time to talk about how we can help you meet your content marketing goals.
Until next time,
Shelley