From Occupancy Recovery to New Construction Pre-Leasing
Client-reported outcome from the initial pandemic recovery campaign.
The Arboretum Villas launched with a dedicated strategy tied to construction financing milestones, run alongside the core Plymouth Place brand.
Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory and Transitional Care, and Skilled Nursing all built dedicated pipelines under one coordinated plan.
In late 2020, Plymouth Place called on AcrobatAnt to reverse a steep occupancy decline brought on by the pandemic. The community needed qualified leads fast, across a full range of care levels, at a moment when touring a senior living community was the last thing most families wanted to do.
The recovery worked, and it created a new challenge. Plymouth Place’s board approved construction of The Arboretum Villas, a new set of residences on the property. Marketing now had to do two jobs at once: keep generating leads and move-ins for the existing building, and build a pre-leasing pipeline for a property that did not exist yet, tied to real construction loan deadlines.
Senior living decisions are rarely made alone. Every campaign had to speak to the prospective resident and to the adult child who is often the more objective decision-maker in the room, without talking past either one. As the community grew to include Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory and Transitional Care, Skilled Nursing, and the new Arboretum Villas, that same two-audience logic had to be rebuilt for each line, each with its own timing, message, and channel mix.
Each planning year began with fresh market and competitive research so the strategy reflected what had worked the year before, not what was assumed to still be true.
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Geographic and income data at the county and zip-code level identified the specific pockets of the Chicago DMA where higher-income prospective residents lived, rather than targeting a broad radius and hoping for efficiency. Distinct personas were built for the prospective resident and the adult influencer, and again separately for the core Plymouth Place brand versus The Arboretum Villas, since a 73-year-old considering Independent Living and a 50-year-old evaluating options for a parent read different media, at different times of day, in different ways.
A survey of Plymouth Place’s existing database shaped a full calendar of low-pressure social events, meals, musical entertainment, and educational seminars that let prospects and their influencers experience the community firsthand. Media partners were chosen to match the audience rather than just its size: a custom NBCU Chicago Today integration, live-read sponsorships on WFMT Classical Radio, and NPR podcast placements put the brand in front of a loyal, affluent, and culturally engaged audience, in outlets they already trusted and turned to regularly.
Paid search and paid social ran as separate, service-line-specific campaigns for Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory and Transitional Care, Skilled Nursing, and Arboretum Villas, each with its own budget split and creative rotation. Print, broadcast sponsorship, and direct mail extended reach to the households that digital alone would miss.
The program was never left to run on autopilot. Lost lead lists were fed back into search and social exclusions so ad spend stopped following prospects whom the sales team had already disqualified. Geographic targeting was realigned after platform changes to keep spend inside the defined radius, and new audience layers were tested on social to improve lead quality without losing reach.
Always on, by service line
Independent Living ran continuously; Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, and Memory Care flighted around seasonal demand.
Consideration and trust building
Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal Encore, WFMT Classical Radio, and NPR podcast placements reached affluent, engaged audiences.
High-value household reach
Targeted, deduplicated mailing lists across a defined radius supplemented digital reach for both the brand and the Villas.
Beyond the media plan
Most engagements stop at driving the lead. For Plymouth Place, AcrobatAnt also built and managed the marketing automation behind it: a triggered email journey that engaged every new lead the moment they filled out a form, then continued nurturing them with relevant information as they moved toward a decision.
Building the journey was just the start. It was continually monitored, reported on, and optimized to make sure the program was capturing the right types of leads. Through an integration with Sherpa, the sales team could see prospect priority and website behavior directly, so they knew who had shown real interest and where, rather than working every lead the same way.
