When you start exploring the idea of using storytelling to market your senior living community, there are a few key questions to ask before hiring an agency or finding a freelance writer to help articulate the best elements of your organization.

Senior living communities should consider the below three components before getting started with a content marketing plan.

1. Home in on your value proposition. Be as specific as possible. This is a huge help when it comes to crafting the story you want to share to find, attract and convert senior living community residents.
2. Understand your audience’s wants, needs and challenges. Senior residential living is a complex process and often involves many stakeholders and emotions.
3. Ensure that your team has effective messaging distribution across various marketing channels or hire an expert to ensure your stories get the spotlight they deserve.

In this week’s blog, we’re going to focus on the latter component. At the Times Union Media Group, we empower brands to tell their stories. We provide different platforms to connect our business partners with their target audiences, on a personal level, through content and storytelling.

Check out three such ways to integrate your marketing message into quality customized content that is engaging and relevant to your target audience.

TIMES UNION MEDIA GROUP’S BRAND SPOTLIGHT

The Times Union Media Group’s Brand Spotlight is a dedicated page, where you can spotlight your team, your brand or the services that make your senior living community a success through a tailor-made article written by a local professional writer. You have a say in how your story is told, and determine the components of it, including video capabilities within your digital post. We work closely with you to make the story of your business or organization impactful – with messaging to target your desired audience.

Sponsored content or native advertising through the TUMG’s Brand Spotlight product delivers value to prospective clients and customers upfront. Roughly 71% of consumers say they personally identify with a brand after viewing its native ads versus only 50% with display ads.

Here’s the breakdown on the Times Union Media Group’s Brand Spotlight package and how it can help your senior living organization:

WHAT: The TUMG’s Brand Spotlight is your opportunity to have a professional writer craft a tailor-made article that tells the story of your business or organization.

WHY: A Brand Spotlight affords your company more control over the message and the story they can tell through multiple channels. Native advertising delivers value to prospective clients and customers upfront.

HOW: Through a dedicated page on TimesUnion.com, and in the newspaper, you can spotlight your team, your brand or the products and services you offer. We also offer tactics to drive traffic to your story through social posts and native ads on TU.com.

HEARST’S StoryStudio

Hearst’s StoryStudio is made up of content creators who tell your stories in a way that makes people listen. Through thorough research, strategic insights are used to connect with your consumers.

StoryStudio will work with your brand to create impactful content that matters. All content is housed in one environment creating an immersive brand experience that will resonate with your target audience. StoryStudio content blends in with the surrounding editorial content which creates a natural look and feel that engages readers.

StoryStudio also leverages premium inventory, proprietary data, and optimization technology across all Hearst-owned platforms to maximize engagement for each story.

Here’s the breakdown on Hearst’s StoryStudio and how it can help your senior living organization:

WHAT: The StoryStudio is Hearst’s content marketing and native advertising agency. The StoryStudio helps businesses large and small create intrigue with brand storytelling techniques.

WHY: The StoryStudio believes that storytelling is the foundation of a successful marketing plan because content is the new creative. Thoughtful, strategically developed content creates a clear and meaningful human connection.

HOW: As a content solution, The StoryStudio works with businesses to craft their story – in writing or produced as a piece of video content – and then boosts that story to the world using pin-point targeting and all of Hearst’s vast resources.

HEARST’S SEO STUDIO

For giant corporations within the senior living space, getting their message out across markets can be somewhat of a daunting task. For instance, Brookdale Senior Living has more than 100,000 residents in over 1,100 communities in 47 states. Organizations like Brookdale, smaller national senior living corporations, or national business entities involved in some manner with senior living communities can turn to sponsored content published on news sites to drive organic traffic to their articles.

SEO-optimized sponsored content is great for senior living organizations looking to launch new services, companies with a national reach, communities who want the perceived credibility of a news article, and senior living organizations already spending on SEM to advertise their services.

Here’s the breakdown on Hearst’s SEO Studio and how it can help your senior living organization:

WHAT: Hearst’s SEO Studio is sponsored content formatted for SEO. As a publisher, we provide marketers or product with organic traffic on our sites. This is an opportunity to publish branded content on a popular website with strong traffic.

WHY: SEO Studio reduces independence on Google AdWords and other SEM or online ads. Thousands of companies publish to news sites to drive organic traffic to their articles, featuring their products or their clients’ products.

HOW: Advertisers create long-form SEO-formatted stories based around keywords. The stories are published on Hearst Newspaper sites, with site-exclusive access to specific phrases like “Best Keto Diet Pills 2021”.

There are a few optimizations and recommendations we would make to clients interested in this storytelling service.

Optimizations

Clients are responsible for their articles. Hearst published their articles on our popular sites, and because of our strong traffic and links to the stories, clients earn organic traffic.

Many clients improve their articles with elements like:

• Page Title has keywords
• Keywords included in Page Description Tag
• Keywords included in Header Tag, H2 Tag, H3 Tag,
• Article Summary has keywords
• Structured data tables may help acquire Featured Snippets or Google knowledge graph placements

Rules and Regulations

Sponsored content placed on Hearst Newspaper sites must be accurate and not misleading. Facts and claims must be substantiated with links, especially anything with health or finance – this is key for senior living communities. We also recommend linking to the sponsored article from your site(s).

In addition, consider add-ons like retargeting pixels to serve banner ads to those who’ve engaged with your content (we can help with that!!). And last, but not least, use UTM tracking in the links.

Recap

The Times Union Media Group and Hearst offer some unbeatable solution for creating sponsored content. Through driving creative direction via the TUMG’s Brand Spotlight and Hearst’s StoryStudio, content typically performs better for our clients.

In addition, we work to drive engagement and share reporting with our clients via a dedicated team of creative and marketing strategists, project managers and account managers. All of our products are completely customizable to meet the needs of our clients. This includes packages and pricing. We want to ensure that our solutions are cost effective and align with your overall and financial goals.

To learn more about our storytelling and content marketing capabilities, get in touch with one of our experienced marketing consultants and see what the Times Union Media Group can do for you!

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