merrill gardens - a relaborate case study

Andy Boyer | Co-Founder | [email protected] | @aboyer | @relaborate

Content Marketing, Simplified

CONTENT MARKETING, SIMPLIFIED @aboyer | @relaborate

Merrill Gardens is a national leader in the assisted living industry. The company is the 7th largest senior living company in the country, with 7,700 residents in 56 communities.

Merrill Gardens: A Relaborate Success Story


When people think of leaders in online marketing, they don’t always think “Assisted Living industry.” But one of Relaborate’s first customers was Seattle based Merrill Gardens. Here’s how their Marketing team is leveraging Relaborate to solve a crucial missing piece of their online marketing mix.


• Online Marketing Lead Generation is an important part of an assisted living communities overall Marketing strategy. Often, leads start as inquiries from the children of prospective residents. These 30-50 year olds are web savvy, and use online channels to research as much information as they can about all the different options available to them.

Why Is Content Important?


• The potential resident begins their information gathering process using search engines and social referrals. Companies in the rental space employ an SEO agency to help them make their web site as search friendly as possible. But recent changes to these search engines make a blog more important.

Why Content Marketing?


Adding Content Marketing to the Mix

• The potential residents begins their information gathering process using search engines and social referrals. Most successful companies in the rental space employ an SEO agency to help them make their web site as search friendly as possible. But recent changes to these search engines make a blog more important.

Adding Content To The Mix


• In 2010 the Merrill Gardens channels were built. In the beginning, there was no digital buzz and no fans or following.

• Over a two year month content marketing strategy, engagement is happening daily, Twitter continues to grow, and their Facebook has grown to over 1,200 fans.

The Beginning


Merrill Gardens & Facebook

• The company started their foray into social media like many companies do, with a Facebook presence (www.facebook.com/merrillgardens). This page serves as a hub for photos from all of communities around the country. The company finds this channel to serve a better purpose of retention and customer support, than as a source of new business.

Merrill Gardens & FacebookMerrill Gardens & Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/merrillgardens


Writers Block

• The Merrill Gardens Marketing team was stuck. They knew they would benefit from writing more content. But they couldn’t figure out how to get it done.

Merrill Gardens: A Relaborate Success StoryMerrill Gardens: A Relaborate Success Story

THE SOLUTION?


Life With Relaborate• The agency would also use the research tools inside Relaborate to find

background information or identify influencers who had written about similar topics.

• Relaborate’s feature set would alert the Merrill Gardens team and ask them to provide answers to specific questions.

• Once the post was completed, Merrill Gardens could circulate the post for approval or additional comments from the Merrill Gardens senior team.

• The agency would finish up the edits, publish the post, and syndicate the link through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.

Life With Relaborate


“Children of our residents love to see that their loved ones are in a happy, safe place, doing interesting things and actively enjoying life,” says Merrill Gardens VP of Corporate Communication Loree Wagner. “More than 1,000 people are following our page, but we see that most of these are already related in some way to our residents, not potential customers.”


Results – Increased ContentResults – Increased Content


Result : Increased Engagement


Companies Now Recognize This Need to Create Timely, Relevant, High Quality Content

Three Huge Trends Are Converging Which Can Save You from Content Marketing Failure

Your Young Workforce

Understands How to

Expertly Use Social

Channels

Ad Dollars Are Being Shifted to

Social Media Software and Content Marketing


Relaborate is the premier application being used by

Marketing Managers to easily get information from

subject matter experts that they can then use

in online and social channels.

CONTENT MARKETING, SIMPLIFIED @aboyer | @relaborateRelaborate is a web based content creation application with

Writing Guides Collaboration Tools Trending Topics.These make it easy for marketing managers to Get Content Started.

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Where we are going next

Email ContributionsMobile/Tablet Applications

Social Log-in and SharingSemantic Search


Who on Your Team Can Use RelaborateYour Content Managers, Social Media and Marketing Managers

Your Industry and Subject Matter Experts. Property Managers, Executives, even You


• Pillar Properties, Merrill Gardens and more than 100 other companies testing our current beta

• Finalist at Northwest Entrepreneur Network and Washington Technology Alliance Tech Showcases

• Angel Funded with Advisory board of CEO’s and CTO’s of Cranium, Zapd, Korrio and Classmates.com

Who Has Endorsed Us So Far


Before Blogger and Wordpress…You had to understand how to configure a web server to have your own voice online

Before Photoshop…you needed a degree in Graphic Design to manipulate images

Writing is the most common form of content, yet no one had been able to successfully develop a tool to make this task easier for subject matter experts.

We’re not just a “tech” product. We’re a marketing product that makes life easier.Before Front Page…you had to be a Webmaster to understand how to build a simple web site

Before YouTube…you had to understand how to configure a media server to post videos online

Before Instagram…you needed a design suite to add effects to mobile photos

This presentation is available for download at www.relaborate.com/blog

Content Marketing, Simplified

Thanks!Email me: [email protected] at: www.relaborate.comFollow us on Twitter: @Relaborate

merrill gardens - a relaborate case study

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