We see it all the time – fantastic retirement communities with diverse and enriching wellness programming for their residents, but lacking a unified banner to pull it all together. Instead, the programming is a little bit hodge-podge and lacking in a strategic focus. And senior living wellness professionals, because their busy and pulled in 100 different directions, are missing out on opportunities to capitalize on these engaging wellness activities.
What is your senior living community’s wellness strategy missing?
- Are you able to capture stories of how your wellness services are positively impacting the lives of your residents?
- Is your marketing and sales staff able to effectively articulate what it means to live vibrantly in your community to prospects who may be reluctant to leave their homes?
- Do you have a wellness brand that is well-executed through the community within multiple departments, through a variety of personnel?
If you didn’t answer a resounding YES to all three of those questions, then check out some of the key strategies below that we offer our clients who are working on building a better wellness brand.
- Begin with the end in mind: When you’re just getting started considering the brand you want to develop for wellness at your senior living setting, it is sometimes helpful to think about the end point. Consider what you want to communicate and how that should look. Once you are able to define that end-picture, you can start working backwards on what needs to be developed, designed, created, and transformed.
- Identify and leverage existing successes: Think about what is a huge success at your community? What do your residents buzz about over and over again? What kinds of events, programs, or services get the greatest participation? Those offerings may provide you with a jumping off point for considering your wellness brand. Giving thought to the stakeholders in your community who need to be at the table for these discussions also is part of this consideration.
- Use the wellness dimension model to look for programming holes: Start by writing down all the dimensions (physical, emotional, social, environmental, intellectual, vocational, spiritual) and list out all the programs you’ve run in the last six to 12 months. Then put the programs into the wellness dimension buckets where they belong. (Most initiatives will fall into more than one dimension.) This simple mapping technique should help you identify where you may have some gaps in services. It should also show you low-hanging fruit opportunities for early success in your branding efforts.
To learn about two more strategies as well as some tactics for executing on your wellness brand, view our “Build a Better Wellness Brand” webinar using the button below. If you want to cut to the chase and access all four of our Build Vitality webinars, click here.
