AI-powered roleplaying, events catered to adult children, more targeted and creative incentives and follow-up – these are just a few of the ways senior living sales and marketing teams are changing things up for new prospects.
Senior living operators say that a growing number of prospective residents and their families are doing prior to even contacting a senior living community. That presents sales and marketing teams with a unique challenge – and an opportunity.
On the one hand, prospects and their loved ones are arriving at senior living communities with an idea of what they might want or not want from senior housing. If operators fail to cater to those expectations, they could run into challenges. On the other hand, if senior living operators can anticipate and meet a residents’ needs from the get-go, they stand a better chance at enticing them to move in.
Heritage Communities Chief Marketing Officer Lacy Jungman lives by what she calls the “90-90-90 rule”: 90% of senior living prospects will make a decision on whether to move in within 90 seconds of stepping 90 feet into the community. In other words, residents are quickly making their choice, and sales teams only have a small window in which to wow them.
Senior living operators have devised a number of strategies to meet the demands of the incoming generation of residents, including roleplaying with AI agents to better nurture leads, holding more creative events geared toward adult children and price incentives that don’t erode the value of senior living.
Roleplaying and other new uses for AI
For the last couple of years, senior living operators have talked about the possibility of using artificial intelligence in their operations to improve sales and marketing, but without much practical application for it.
That is not the case for Omaha, Nebraska-based Heritage, which is rolling out and fine-tuning a new AI roleplaying system to train its salespeople and improve how they cater to new leads. The system allows Heritage salespeople to call a phone number and pretend as if they’re making a sale while an AI agent roleplays various scenarios that they must adapt to.
“You call a number specific to your company and … it answers and says, ‘Hey, I’m interested in pricing for your community,’ and then you respond,” Jungman said during a recent SHN sales and marketing webinar. “It hears what you say, and then it might respond with, ‘Oh, I’m really not interested,’ so then you have to overcome that objective.”
She added that Heritage is still fine-tuning the system, but that if it delivers as advertised, it could be a “game-changer” in how the operator trains salespeople.
“They are more efficient, more effective, and once they know what that prospect needs, they’re best able to serve them in follow-up,” she said.
Similar to the 90-90-90 rule, Bonita Springs, Florida-based Discovery Senior Living follows something Senior Vice President of Sales Lou Maranto called “seven touches in seven days.” The idea is to connect with prospects multiple times and in a multitude of ways in order to convince them to take a tour.
The operator is also using AI in sales, according to Maranto. Discovery recently switched to a CRM that includes an AI bot tool that suggests what steps salespeople should take next with a prospect in the sales funnel. The company also uses AI bots to aid its video follow-up by providing info and data that salespeople can use to customize their messaging to residents.
Incentives and events
Senior living salespeople often say that getting prospects to tour a community is among the best ways to convert a lead into a move-in. But enticing older adults and their families to come to events is a process much easier said than done.
Atria Senior Living is using marketing automation to take work off of community sales teams’ plates in that regard. The company has invested in online content such as retirement guides and caregiver guides to provide resources for prospects and their loved ones. The company also launched a series of events, dubbed the Social Series, that Chief Marketing Officer Sanela Graziose said helps nurture senior living prospects.
“There’s absolutely nothing that sells senior living better than spending time in a community with employees and residents,” she said.
The company also is pushing sales teams to do more home visits with strategies such as dropping off get-well soup kits after medical procedures.
According to Jungman, Heritage has been particularly successful with weekend boozy brunches that include a takeaway item for attendees, usually a small plant from a local nursery.
“We focus on the adult daughter, because we know that’s a heavy influencer for us,” she said.
Offering a public service is another way to get people through the door. Jungman said she has admired how Discovery has held shredding events, with people lining up down the block. While not everyone at a shredding event might attend because they are also interested in senior living, just getting people more familiar with the industry is a marketing win in many operators’ books.
A tried-and-true strategy in senior living is to get sales prospects over the finish line using discounts or other incentives, such as waiving rent for a certain number of months or adding complimentary moving services. Jungman said she sees other senior living communities often conceding the value of their services, even underselling them from a cost perspective.
Following the 90-90-90 rule requires aligning sales with other parts of community operations to deliver a tailored experience. Therefore it’s especially important to get executive directors involved in the process.
“The ED has to be the sales leader inside of the community. It does not mean that they’re the sales expert,” Jungman said. “They’re getting every department on board and letting them know their role in an event, and they hold them accountable.”
She added: “When events come, every single person on that leadership team should know what the event is and what their role is, and how the expectations play into the 90-90-90 rule.”
Maranto noted that Discovery tracks resident acquisition costs, including paid referral fees, commissions and sales budgets. In many communities, it costs about a month’s rent to acquire a new customer. In some communities, it may cost a little more than that, he added.
The operator pairs that process with its revenue optimization program that helps determine where to enact special pricing or selective discounts.
“Both of those blend together in making sure that we’re driving occupancy at the right rate, with the least amount of concessions,” he said.
Top sales trends in 2025
Atria, Discovery and Heritage are seeking to make the most of the selling season this financial quarter and next. According to Graziose, every salesperson in senior living should be cognizant of “the change we’re seeing in the customer.”
“We have to appreciate that this is a more tech-savvy consumer. This is an educated consumer,” she said. “They’ve gotten information on our pricing, and if we lock it down too much, they’ll get it from somebody else.”
She added that operators should “self-audit” in sales to determine whether they are reaching their intended audience.
Maranto’s advice for senior living operators? “Don’t blink.”
“Stay on top of your metrics. Watch your trends,” he said. “Make sure that the smoke detector goes off before the house burns down.”
As she noted, Jungman believes that alignment between sales and other community departments is among the keys to success this year. She also thinks more senior living salespeople must understand their true role in the sales process is that of a trusted advisor, not necessarily a friend.
“They don’t come to us to be their friend. Our prospects have enough friends. They come to us for support, for guidance, for next steps,” Jungman said during the webinar. “That’s where we have to start with our prospects.”
