Greenfield | The Magazine
The Goal
The aim of this publication is to generate public interest in regards to Greenfield Senior Living and increase our standing within the community—as a company that genuinely cares for its residents and has a high level of integrity. Ultimately, the magazine will make your life easier, since it will draw prospective residents to your communities and reduce the effort you need to expend in order to “sell” the benefits of Greenfield to them—since they will already be aware of them.
One of our goals is for the magazine to become a one-stop resource. Although it has features, pictures and information regarding our communities, we want the publication to have a far greater reach. In order to achieve this, it will be packed with articles and useful information pertaining to all aspects of senior life—similar to the AARP magazine.
No other senior living companies are taking this marketing. Their primary point of contact are websites which, for the most part, all look the same. There is nothing appealing about clicking on link after link, only to see stock picture after stock picture, and catch phrases like, “Join our family”—without so much as a genuine picture of the so called family a prospective resident is being invited to join!
Eventually, our website(s) will reflect the type of imagery and information we are including in the magazine—warm, personal and inviting. Prospective residents will actually be able to see what life is like within our communities. However, in the meantime, since this is still work in progress, we can use the magazine as a tool to achieve this.
Magazine Content.
Contents page.
Mission & values.
Informative articles.
Exemplary employees.
Photo of the month.
Humorous articles.
Features on staff.
Community events.
Community activities.
External submissions.
Special occasions.
Recipes.
Educational.
Staff submissions.
Community pages.
Services & care options.
Admission process.
Contact.
The Benefits | A Summary
Challenges Associated With COVID
As you know, Senior Living has been hit hard by the pandemic and the fallout associated with COVID has stretched the staff in care homes to their limits. However, there have been other ramifications too.
Due to community lock-downs, activity programs have, for the most part, been suspended.
Residents have been unable to physically visit with their family members.
In some cases, family members have no idea what is going on within the communities.
Greenfield has lost both a staff member and a number of residents to the pandemic.
For the most part, there have been no new admissions.
Some of the communities are operating at a loss.
How The Magazine Can Help
The creation of the material for the magazine could be turned into a fun “activity” and a tool to address some of the issues raised above. For example, the activity directors could visit with the residents individually, take a picture or two and ask if they have any messages for their loved ones. I could then create an entire page within the publication devoted to this topic. Something of this nature would help both resident and family members to feel connected.
A company wide publication, packed with pictures, is not only a wonderful marketing tool, but also has the ability to give comfort to the loved ones of your residents. They will have a tangible way of seeing that life is moving forward within the communities of Greenfield—in a positive way. There have been a number of complaints from family members, due to the lack of posts on Facebook. They literally have no idea what’s happening!
As you know, the job of an ED has many facets. Firstly, to ensure that the residents are cared for and secondly, to make sure that the community runs well from a business perspective. With regard to the second point, the magazine can be a very effective tool. Due to the loss of residents and the inability to accept new admissions, many of the communities are now running at a loss—which is not sustainable. Therefore, when the restrictions are lifted, Greenfield needs to “come out of the gate running”, not “crawling”! Integral to Greenfield’s ability to this, is its marketing. The magazine can help in this respect. However, in order for this to happen, I require the FULL support of all the community ED’s!