A Night at the Movies

It doesn’t matter if you have a built in theater room or a clubhouse with a TV in it. You can make Movie Day or Movie Night a big hit! Start by decorating for the occasion. The Party store has really great decorations geared toward the movie theme. Put up balloons and make it as festive as possible. Ask around a week or so before the movie and see what movies your residents are interested in viewing. You may want to have a sheet with choices that the residents can fill out to give you an idea of what movie to purchase or rent. Once you decide on the featured movie (make sure to keep it PG13) put out a flier to let the residents know what day and time you will be showing the film. Put it in your newsletter. Offer free refreshments such as popcorn and hot dogs. Purchase movie candy like Dots and Milk Duds. Ask your residents to sign up for the event. This will give you an idea of how many hot dogs to buy and it also makes the resident more likely to attend when they feel committed to the event. Ask the residents to bring a friend or family member to the Movie. This way their guest can get an idea how fun your events are. They may remember this when looking for a place of their own. Remember resident functions can bring in many referrals. Give your residents an incentive for bringing a guest. Have movie trivia with prizes before the movie begins. Make it fun!

The Three P's

If you have taken over a community that is in the red zone or below 93% occupied you are probably feeling a little overwhelmed. I like to start with the basics. The three “P’s”
People- Talk to the staff. Ask if they have any thoughts on what is going on with the occupancy. See if you can be of a support to them. They may need tools to make their job easier or they may need some extra training.
Product- Walk the community from the back to the front. See if it’s clean. How is the curb appeal? Do you need new signage or fresh flowers planted? Walk each and every vacant unit. Make sure that the ready units are really ready. Maybe they need a touch up clean. Make a list of any items you can improve. Make a couple mini models with some really great move in gifts inside them.
Price- Next you will need to do a market survey. Check your prices to make sure that they are competitive. Look at each floor plan and square footage to make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Look at the move in special that other communities are offering. Maybe you need to make your special more interesting. If everyone else is offering a free month’s rent you can offer a $299 move in. Sometimes a price point is more appealing.

Once you have evaluated the three “P’s” and you have put your goals in place you will be able to track your success!

Starting a Book Club?

A book club can be a great way to get residents together. They can meet new people who have a similar interest. The fun thing about a book club is that the residents can choose the book. They meet in the clubhouse once a week and you provide the coffee and treats! Start by advertising. Send out fliers to each apartment asking for volunteers to be your core group. Once you have two or three volunteers you can begin to decide what book to read. If they are not sure or do not really know where to start pull up the best sellers list and make a choice from there. You can also follow Oprah’s book club. Each person would be responsible for purchasing their own copy. Depending on how much interest you have in the book club you may want to have more than one book club meeting on different days. The suggested amount of members for a book club is ten to twelve people however don’t feel discouraged if you don’t have that many to start. Once you have the members set up and the books purchased you can decide on what day and time to meet. Make sure to set ground rules in the first meeting and pick a host or hostess to help set up and serve the snacks. This makes the meetings fun and keeps things moving. Also have the hostess in charge of choosing a list of questions for the meeting. Some questions may be things like 1. who was your favorite character? 2. What character did you like the least? Ask each member to invite friends from outside the community. Purchase bookmarks with your logo on them and give them away at the meetings. Post on Facebook and start a discussion there as well. People may be interested in posting comments on Facebook instead of coming in person. Reach out in many different avenues to get as many people involved as you can. Invite new authors to do a book signing. You may want to pick a book for your book club by the author that is doing the book signing. You can also get the kids involved and have a book club just for them as well. Happy Reading!

Resident Appreciation Week. You've Graduated to VIP!

Make your resident appreciation week a little different. Have your Resident appreciation week coincide with graduation month May or June. Purchase graduation promotional products and decorations. With signs that say “You have graduated to VIP! Purchase a graduation cake and have fun prizes to give out or raffle off tickets to Disneyland! Give out certificates for a VIP FREE carpet clean. Create an event for each day of the week. Graduation breakfast, Graduation dinner, Have a photographer there one day to take professional photos. Make it fun and be creative.

Make Bingo Work for You

At our senior community Bingo is the be all end all event on our calendar and we are always looking for ways to make the game better. We look for great prizes and fun signs and banners to post to attract new players. I thought it would be a great idea to create a T-shirt as a prize for bingo. I noticed that residents had bingo hats and good luck charms that they brought with them to every game. Why not create a T-shirt that would not only be a great prize but would also advertise our community! The casinos do it why not us? So I ordered the T-shirts to say “ I’m a BINGO winner at XYZ Senior Community” with our phone number at the bottom. I purchased them in a variety of colors and sizes. The residents loved them! It was a huge hit and they are happy to be a walking billboard for our community! So try it! They will love their T-shirts and they will be proud to wear them because they enjoy living at your community where they have a great time playing Bingo!

Back to School

If you are a community that is near a school and your demographic is mostly families with children now is the time to start thinking about back to school. You will need to lease up before August when the kids go back to school. By then parents are already settled in their new homes and will not consider moving until the following year. If you want to capture those families now is the time to act. Send out a direct mailer to your target communities or homes with the back to school theme. If you do not have it in your budget to do a direct mailer create a flier that states what schools you are near or what school district you’re in. Create a sense of urgency by creating a special that ends on the first day of school. Encourage the parents to move into your community now so they can enjoy their summer! Let the parents know that your community has many great amenities and fun activities that focus on children. If you’re near a high school inquire about putting up a banner on their football field. Practice starts way before school begins. Offer to donate water to the practice field with your labels on them. Or hand them out to parents in the stands. Offer to sponsor a team. Many of these sports events start creating their t-shirts etc. during the summer months so that they are ready when football season begins. Offer to sponsor a softball team. See if you can be apart of Open House for parents. Get involved with the schools in your area. Advertise in the school newspapers. Get to know the parents at your community and see if maybe they can introduce you to one of the teachers or staff members that can help you in your marketing efforts. Go to the Community Rec Centers in your area and leave fliers or coloring pages for the smaller kids with your logo and contact information on them. See if you can put up a banner there. Parents will be dropping off their kids to the community pool or play area and will see it. Approach the area day cares and see if you can drop off coloring pages or maybe you can donate juice boxes with your labels on them. Use the summer to set the ground work for the school year. Create relationships now and create a sense of urgency to move into your community before “Back to School”

Line Dancing

Line dancing can be a fun activity to offer to your residents! Find a local dance instructor and offer a series of classes that will prepare them for a final recital! A few weeks before the recital design t-shirts for all participating to wear. If you can get your vendors to sponsor the classes list the vendors that donated on the back of the t-shirts. Make an event out of it by offering your residents lunch or snacks to come out and support their neighbors. Invite local business owners or vendors to the event. During the recital event video tape it and put it on UTube! This will show the world how much fun your residents have living at your community.