Best Practices Sustain Occupancy and Help A Community Weather Economic Storms

For Moravian Village in Bethlehem, PA, a partnership with Hamlyn Senior Marketing was the key to growing and sustaining occupancy during an economic downturn. Moravian Village achieved what few thought possible: growth in occupancy, and stabilization at 99% with no price discounting and very little advertising during a time of great economic instability.

Here’s how we grew and stabilized occupancy in an economic downturn:

• A thorough, detailed assessment of sales and marketing efforts and the market area.

The comprehensive sales and marketing assessment included an evaluation not only of the current market and the community’s positioning, but addressed efforts of the marketing department and the staff’s skills as well. This evaluation resulted in the creation of immediate, actionable recommendations that included raising some prices.

• Hands-on management of sales and marketing program.

Our experts fully trained sales staff in solid, industry selling skills, use of the REPS database for lead and sales tracking, and time management. Training is intensive and ongoing, so that staff can build and refresh their skills continually. To keep staff accountable for creating urgency with prospects, we established weekly/ monthly reporting and monitoring.

A selling Marketing and Sales Director now spends 90% of her time on direct sales activity (calls and appointments). Having seen the value of consistently applying best practices of contact management, discovery and strategic follow-up, she maintains her sales focus and continues to excel.

• Repositioning market communication.

Based on the findings of our comprehensive study, Moravian village repositioned its message to “outstanding value” to capture attention of the moderate income audience needed to fill the community’s difficult to sell smaller units. We reduced advertising spending by evaluating its effectiveness for lead generation, and reallocating spending to more productive media – for this community, it was direct mail – and increased lead generation by 26%.

These were the results of our partnership:

• Independent Living occupancy reached 99%
• Establishment of a viable wait list to fill available units due to attrition
• Occupancy has been consistently maintained at 97%+ despite economic instability that dropped national CCRC occupancy to 86.5% in the late ‘00s.