Meet the Team Behind Aging Choices

Adam Wilensky is Canopy’s Director of Marketing and Communications. He recently sat down with Terri Sullivan, Co-Founder/CEO, Brenda Limone, Co-Founder/COO, and Brandon Compagna, SVP of Product and Strategy to discuss how the Aging Choices digital platform is helping educate and match aging adults to senior living and care options based on their unique lifestyle and needs.

AW: AgingChoices was founded by Senior Living veterans, can you fill us in on your respective backgrounds and the motivations that led you to build your company from the ground up?

We (Terri Sullivan and Brenda Limone) each have 16+ years in the senior living industry in both senior living technology solutions and as a provider in operations and resident services.

 We are also both “adult daughters” and caregivers, so this is an area that is particularly meaningful for us. We launched Aging Choices with a very specific objective: help senior living providers improve a prospects’ experience by using an experiential survey and the collection of lifestyle data. Ultimately, our mission is to engage prospects and give them an opportunity to share needs, preferences, and a level of interest data that community sales teams can then utilize to advance the sales process by delivering value-based selling and differentiation, which in turn leads to higher close rates.

 We have since expanded our suite of tools to continue helping prospects get what they need quickly and to ultimately choose the way they want to engage with a provider.

For senior living providers, it is about converting website visitors to engaged prospects, collecting valuable data for key insights, and helping maximize every dollar committed to driving high-quality website traffic. Brandon Compagna has more than 20 years in product management and product marketing and brings a wide range of invaluable skills to our team. Brandon is passionate about solving complex, real-world problems and he does that by creating cost-effective tools that remove barriers to productivity and make our customer’s jobs easier.

AW: Broadly speaking, how has digital marketing transformed the Senior Living customer experience since the COVID-19 pandemic began and how can providers remain competitive without “breaking the bank”?

We are witnessing the majority of senior living providers expand their investment in their digital footprint and to develop more immersive website experiences that speak to the new customer journey.  How prospects researched senior living options has significantly changed over the past 2 years and counting. A large portion of prospects have become more technically proficient and savvy at a rapid rate. These prospects are now better educated, more sophisticated and don’t want to be sold.  Online video tours, 3D floor plans, Google walkthroughs, and many other technologies were implemented in a short period of time. Prospects are now able to do more from their home than ever before, prior to setting foot inside a community.

It’s important to “own” and maintain your digital space. Make sure each of your web pages is SEO optimized. Place an emphasis on your community pages and keep them regularly updated with the latest information and photographs. Make sure to view how your communities perform in a Google search in a private browser window. Finally, update your Google Business Profile for each of your communities.

AW: Almost everyone is bombarded with non-stop advertising. How does the AgingChoices platform help prospective residents “cut through the clutter”?

We have found that placing the AgingChoices Navigator on community pages allows prospects to find the top 3-4 most important pieces of information quickly and easily they are searching for. This step makes it far easier to get them into your sales funnel. The best part is that our customer’s don’t have to go through yet another website redesign, they just have to add a simple code to their websites. We understand the challenges providers are facing, which is why we’ve worked to make AgingChoices simple to use.

AW: How does AgingChoices help providers meaningfully understand the needs and wants of their prospects, and can you share any real-world examples of how the platform delivers on its promise?

With the AgingChoices Pro Survey product, we collect 13-15 data points that provide a better picture of where the prospect is in the process, before you have an introductory phone call.

We have found that this step alone helps sales teams better understand the prospect’s motivations and enhances their experience in a far more personal and memorable way.

AW: How does AgingChoices Pro Survey help motivate prospects to take tours and assist them in making better-informed decisions?

Aging Choices Pro puts prospects more at ease with a visually pleasing graphic-based survey. The tool is “always on” and many of our customers have told us that AgingChoices is now an essential part of their online presence.

At the end of the day, prospects are more likely to answer the questions in the AgingChoices Pro Survey than a generic “contact us” form, where they are concerned they will get blasted with a bunch of emails. Also, the conversion of survey completion to tour is extremely high and has reached upt to 75%.

If a prospect takes the time to complete a “lifestyle quiz” they tend to be a more serious prospect and are more likely to convert than a casual website visitor.

AW: What’s on the horizon for the AgingChoices team?

2022 is going to be a big year for us. We remain laser-focused on delivering measurable funnel optimization through our AgingChoices Pro products.  This commitment also means that we can provide even deeper data metrics that create higher-converting sales funnels and impactful messaging for senior living providers.

Senior Living providers are now on the push side of marketing, which many haven’t had to do before, so we are trying our best to make them as successful as possible. It’s an exciting time all around!

You can learn more about AgingChoices for providers here: https://provider.agingchoices.com