Research tells us that trust has gone missing in both the retirement living and the aged care sector. Negative media and some underperforming operators have taken a great toll.
Retirement village sales are down, hurting residents and operators. Aged care is under a cloud and facing a Royal Commission. Residents and families are confused, even afraid.
Our customers don’t understand what retirement villages and aged care offer as a value proposition or believe that we will deliver.
Here at DoComeMonday Media we are dedicated to these two interrelated market segments. We have visited hundreds of villages and scores of aged care homes. We know that good work is being done. Quality research confirms this.
We decided we can’t watch and wait for our markets and value to drift away.
Three months ago, we committed $1 million to a talkback radio strategic partnership with Macquarie Media. The results were instant with 27,000 extra searches for a village home being made on villages.com.au in the first month, reversing a seasonal downturn. See the graph below.
This is a year-long education campaign, combined with our digital engagement which achieves a combined 1.5 million visits a year across villages.com.au and agedcare101.com.au.
Our initial strategy is to make talkback listeners to simply stop and listen.
We created three retirement village radio ads for each capital market, one for each property price point – low, medium and high. We then identified a region like the Northern Beaches of Sydney and explained that you can have a light filled two-bedroom apartment overshadowing a golf course for $495,000. This is about 60% of the local residential market.
You can hear the ads for your metro market. Click on Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or Perth. (Adelaide is coming).
We connect the radio promotions to the operators who advertise with us on villages.com.au – click HERE for examples.
We also have editorial radio spots, like this one.
We are now advertising agedcare101.com.au. You can hear the six ads featuring Jill Donaldson titled ‘Jill, I need your help’ HERE plus her educational piece.
Why talkback radio? Did you know that the average listening time is 15.25 hours a week? Talkback listeners are ‘rusted on’; they are listening/engaged and they are our market. The 50-year-old eldest daughter (we call her Jenny) and older.
With radio we can cost effectively generate new creative as we take ‘Jenny’ on the educational journey. Every 4-6 weeks we can add a new piece to the education pie and within say six months the listener will have a deep understanding of the value proposition, having learnt it one piece at a time.
Plus, the talkback hosts get educated at the same time and engage in conversations.
Politicians and their staff also listen to talkback - religiously.
Others are now joining us, like Oak Tree Villages who now use Macquarie personalities Ray Hadley and Steve Price in their ads delivering regional markets to great effect.
Now that we have tested our creative we will be going hard over Christmas through to February – the most important months of the year.
Why don’t you join us? Call me if you want to learn more on (02) 9555 9576.
Think about investing rather than just letting your market drift away.
