Hosting events is a powerful way to attract new residents, keep your community top of mind, and foster a vibrant environment. But for many senior living operators, event marketing is a manual, time-consuming headache—juggling invites, reminders, RSVPs, and follow-ups across multiple communities.
It doesn’t have to be this way. With the right automation tools, you can eliminate busy work, increase event participation, and focus on engaging with people—not spreadsheets.
Why Senior Living Events Matter
Events serve multiple purposes in a senior living community. Here are some key benefits:
Attracting Prospective Residents – Events allow prospective residents and their families to experience the community firsthand, meet staff, and interact with current residents in a relaxed setting.
Strengthening Relationships – For waitlisted or undecided prospects, engaging events keep your community top of mind and reinforce the benefits of moving in.
Enhancing Resident Engagement – A vibrant social calendar enriches the lives of current residents, fostering a sense of belonging and community.
Boosting Word-of-mouth Referrals – Happy residents and their families share positive experiences, leading to organic referrals and increased occupancy rates.
Example Types of Events to Hold
Events can cater to different interests and showcase the unique aspects of your senior living community. Some great event ideas include:
Themed Open Houses – Invite prospects and their families to an open house featuring live entertainment, food, and personalized community tours.
Educational Seminars – Host expert-led discussions on senior health, estate planning, or downsizing tips.
Wellness and Fitness Activities – Organize yoga classes, walking clubs, or healthy cooking demonstrations.
Holiday and Seasonal Celebrations – Create festive gatherings for holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or the Fourth of July to foster a sense of community.
Arts and Culture Events – Partner with local artists, musicians, or theater groups to bring creative performances to residents.
Intergenerational Activities – Encourage family involvement with events like grandparent-grandchild days or school partnerships for reading programs.
Promoting, Executing, and Tracking Event Success
Planning a successful event goes beyond just picking a date and sending invitations. Here’s a step-by-step approach to ensure maximum impact:
1. Promoting Your Event
Effective promotion ensures strong attendance from both residents and prospective leads. Consider these strategies:
Email Marketing – Send personalized invitations to prospects, families, and local referral sources.
Social Media – Utilize Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to promote events and engage with potential attendees.
Community Website – Create an event landing page with details, RSVP options, and testimonials from past events.
Printed Materials – Use flyers, posters, and newsletters to inform current residents and visitors.
Referral Incentives – Encourage residents and staff to invite friends and family by offering small incentives for successful referrals.
2. Executing a Seamless Event
The key to a well-executed event is organization and attention to detail:
Staff Coordination – Assign team members specific roles such as welcoming guests, leading tours, and answering questions.
Engaging Programming – Ensure structured activities cater to your target audience’s interests.
Hospitality Excellence – Provide refreshments, comfortable seating, and a welcoming atmosphere.
Lead Capture – Have a system to capture attendee contact information for future follow-ups.
3. Tracking and Measuring Results
Assessing event success helps refine future strategies. Metrics that marketing campaigns can track include:
Attendance Numbers – Compare actual attendance to RSVPs to gauge interest and participation.
Resident Engagement – Gather feedback from current residents on their experience.
Lead Generation – Measure how many new inquiries or tour requests result from the event.
Post-Event Follow-Up – Follow up with attendees via email, phone, or personalized messages to keep the conversation going.
How Marketing Automation Eliminates Event Planning Hassles
What if you could plan an entire event campaign in minutes, not hours? A dedicated marketing event campaign can significantly streamline event planning, promotion, and follow-up. Here’s how:
Automated Invitations and Reminders – Schedule email and text invitations in advance, with automatic reminders leading up to the event.
RSVP Landing Page and Confirmation Emails – Effortlessly gather RSVPs with a streamlined event sign-up page that’s ready to use and easy to replicate. Automated confirmation emails can be sent immediately, providing event details and reinforcing their decision to attend.
Adding Event to Attendees’ Calendars – Ensures guests don’t forget by automatically adding the event directly to their digital calendars.
Tracking Attendance – Capture and track attendee interactions to identify the most engaged prospects. Advanced marketing campaigns might use barcodes, QR codes, or scannable name tags to track who attends or checks in at the event. This provides real-time attendance data and helps segment follow-up communication based on actual participation.
Personalized Follow-Ups – Automatically, send tailored post-event thank-you emails with additional resources, online surveys, or invitations to private tours.
Data Analytics and Insights – Event campaign reports track event success to fine-tune future event strategies.
Task Management – Assign and automate tasks so staff members know exactly what needs to be done before, during, and after the event.
Why ActiveDEMAND Makes Event Marketing Effortless
By leveraging marketing automation, senior living operators can reduce administrative and marketing workload, increase event participation, and enhance prospective resident nurturing efforts.
ActiveDEMAND Event Campaigns support all these time-saving features—and more—in simple, cloneable templates. Community first event promotion and tracking in one package. Instead of manually setting up each event, it is as simple as:
Fill in event details into the campaign variable fields
Select reminder and follow-up options
Clone the campaign across all your communities
That’s it! No repetitive work. Cut out manual tracking. Just seamless, stress-free event marketing.
Final Thoughts
Hosting engaging senior living events is a great way to attract new residents, strengthen relationships with prospective residents, and foster a vibrant community atmosphere. But it doesn’t have to be a frustrating, time-consuming process.
By leveraging marketing automation, senior living operators can eliminate busywork, increase event participation, and enhance lead nurturing efforts—all while freeing up time to focus on what truly matters: building meaningful connections and ultimately driving occupancy growth.
Ready to simplify your next event? If you’re looking for a better way to streamline invites, RSVPs, and follow-ups, schedule a demo to see how automation can help. Already using ActiveDEMAND? Talk to your Account Success Representative to maximize your event marketing strategy.
Written by Eric Murphy
Eric Murphy is the Digital Marketing Manager at ActiveDEMAND. He is responsible for driving the marketing strategy for the ActiveDEMAND integrated marketing platform. He has a strong background in online marketing, communications and working closely with sales teams. For many years Eric was an evangelist and marketer for the industrial communications community through guest articles, maintaining industry blogs and speaking at conferences and other events.
Machine Learning vs. Generative AI: What’s the difference, and how can they transform senior living marketing? From predicting…
By Saman Aboutorab
Apply Now
Join the Winning Team
Please fill out the application form and upload a copy of your resume.
Contact Us
How can we help?
We’re passionate about what we do but we’re also passionate about people and we want to hear from you! Need help, want to see a demo, or have questions about our platform?
Phone
Looking for sales? Marketing? Support? Advice? Talk to an ActiveDEMAND expert directly. We’re here for you!
1.855.782.0512
Chat
Looking for sales? Marketing? Support? Advice? Talk to an ActiveDEMAND expert directly. We’re here for you!
If you’re an existing customer and need support, please visit our Customer Center.
Senior Living CRM Integration
Integrate with ActiveDEMAND
We want to help make you successful! Integrate with ActiveDEMAND and streamline communications between your software and ActiveDEMAND to improve efficiency, productivity, and your customers’ experience.
Our certification program is designed for professionals eager to advance their skills and demonstrate their expertise in marketing automation.
As a partner, you’ll receive comprehensive training and access to industry-leading tools and resources, equipping you to become a certified ActiveDEMAND expert.
Get Certified Expertise.
Win Client Trust.
Grow Relationships.
Start Your Free Trial
Get Started with ActiveDEMAND
Experience the power of a complete customer journey tracking and marketing automation platform. ActiveDEMAND captures every touchpoint, providing actionable insights and automation to drive results.
Book A Demo
See how ActiveDEMAND can work for you.
Book a demo tailored to your needs, get answers to your questions, and learn how we can help you improve performance with one powerful, all-in-one platform.
