After selling retirement properties successfully for our clients for over 20 years, we’ve made a name for ourselves at Harrison Carloss for our deep understanding of the senior living market.
We’ve developed highly creative strategies and data-driven campaigns that really do work to deliver the right results. In the process we’ve introduced thousands of older people to a better retirement across the UK.
It’s made us uniquely qualified to offer retirement living providers some solid, actionable advice, should they need to reignite a sagging sales funnel.
Take this recent case study as an example…
For Platinum Skies, sales in 2024 were stagnant, and poor lead quality was hampering the sales team’s efficiency.
We became Platinum Skies’ dedicated strategic marketing partner for 2025 and set about helping them improve sales of their retirement homes.
We spent over 50 hours researching their current model, analysing data and customer personas.
We also built a strategy that repositioned the brand as more affordable and approachable. We improved their targeting and data quality, and created a campaign concept that challenged the misconceptions around retirement living.
This all helped deliver a 40% increase in qualified leads and a 300% increase in sales. (Q1 2025 VS Q1 2024)
Read the full campaign case study.
Important features to build into your approach
Consider your positioning
Is your brand positioned correctly to appeal to your target demographic? Correct positioning helps you evaluate if your messaging aligns with your target audience and differentiates you from competitors so your offering is seen as valuable and unique.
A brand’s positioning is only correct when it communicates consistently across all channels, such as a website, ads, and social media.
For this reason, you should conduct customer surveys, focus groups, and analyse feedback to understand how the target audience sees the brand. Gather data to see if customers associate the brand with the desired qualities, like innovation, quality, or customer service.
Let’s talk targeting
Over 55s are not all the same. When seeking your ideal customer profiles, segmenting data and using it to target each pot with tailored messaging is a great way to create a better connection with the audience.
To target customers over 55, break them into specific profiles such as active retirees, empty nesters, or tech-savvy seniors, rather than a single group.
Your customer profiles should consider demographics, online shopping habits, and lifestyle/values, since this group includes a wide range of people from those seeking accessible housing to those prioritising travel or family time.
Consistency matters
When sales slow down, panic often sets in, promotions come out, and you end up lowering the value of your products permanently.
If you’re satisfied that your positioning and your targeting are on track, remain consistent and follow your strategic plans.
Remember buying cycles can sometimes be years long, so nurture customers by creating a consistent experience by building strong relationships through personalized communication and by providing value.
A strategic, long-term approach needs an understanding of customer needs, using data to create personalized content, and maintaining engagement throughout their journey.
Be campaign canny
Be bold, be creative, be clear. Don’t try to sell using fear. Instead, you need to sell the benefits that seniors haven’t thought about. Delight them with surprises they didn’t expect that set your offering above the competition.
Build an emotional connection by engaging them with an inspirational and highly relevant proposition they can relate to, the way we did with ExtraCare when we focused on independent, healthy and active lifestyles rather than just selling bricks and mortar.
It was an approach that appealed to them as human beings rather than as customers, and enabled us to build genuine retirement communities even as the bricks of those new communities were being laid, with the result that 75% of properties were sold off-plan.
Find out more about our retirement marketing.