Colette Rees, CMO at Mary’s Woods – Selling a Transformed Convent into a High-End Assisted Living Community

Colette Rees is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mary’s Woods, one of the largest assisted living facilities in the Pacific Northwest. Also an Emmy-award winning TV producer in her former life, her extensive work merges the worlds of media, marketing, and meaningful service.

Christian Banach sat down with Rees to discuss her thoughts on moving between industry and the nonprofit world and how to measure success in the community-oriented world of assisted living.

Where to find Colette Rees: LinkedIn

Where to find Christian Banach: LinkedIn

Early forays in broadcast media

Banach:

Did you always want to be on television? 

Rees:

I did—I was a big Jane Pauley fan from the Today show, and from an early age, I knew I wanted to be in television. In college, I interned in the newsroom at the ABC television station, but they also needed me in the promotions department, which I dutifully did, even though I didn’t know what it was at first. I noticed that I was much better in the advertising department than on the news side, so I “converted” to the promotion team and learned a lot at the station.

In television, you move up by moving to different markets—my dad was a professional baseball player, so I was used to that. We would move a few times a year—spring training, learning new cities—and I was used to that. I found my way from Kentucky to Washington State to Portland, OR, where I ran the in-house ad agency for the NBC and ABC affiliates.  

When I stopped working in television, I transitioned to philanthropic work. I took something of a mommy break as I stepped out of the workforce and put my energy into volunteering, which was more family-friendly. 

That ended up being a second career for me! I started putting together things like school auctions thinking, “I’ve managed events for television; how hard can it be?” and learned that getting people to work for you for free is not the easiest thing, either.

Banach:

Wow, what a story. Is there anything that stands out from your past experiences—in TV or working with schools—that had an impact on how you operate today?  

Rees:

Sure, the ability to set a vision for a team and be energetic about it, for one. Energy and positivity can win the day, especially when you’re building a team of volunteers. It is also applicable if you are coming into a new organization with people who may be used to doing things a certain way.  

To go back to a baseball analogy, you’ve got to know who’s on your team—who’s your pitcher, your catcher, your shortstop—and you craft a strategy around the people you have on your team about how you’re going to win the day. 

You want to build up your team, too. And eventually, though you’re selling your product, not to lose sight that you’re “selling your team,” too.

Marketing in the Assisted Living World

Banach:

What have you taken from the nonprofit world that could apply to the corporate world, or what could others benefit from?

Rees:

Nonprofits think in a mission-forward way that I think private industry can benefit from. Sometimes companies can become obsessed with a product, but leadership should be a little broader in their thinking about the place your business has in the world. 

Once they have that perspective, bring it into the microfocus of your customer and how it fits into their more global place.

It’s teetering between the micro and macro visions. Listen to your customers, but also think about your place in the world. 

Banach:

You’ve been at Mary’s Woods for a number of years, but you’re new to the role of Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. I assume you’re thinking about marketing toward seniors who might live in your facility but their families as well. How do you prioritize that?

Rees:

We really are a community–a city in miniature–with amenities like retail spaces, medical offices, dental offices, a coffee shop in our main site. So we have a front-facing component to the community now but tailored toward our particular population.

Regarding who we market to, we think of our residents as the primary decision-makers. The community infrastructure is supported by investments from residents—usually from something like the sale of a home that might be too difficult to keep up maintenance on as residents age, so we take seriously our residents’ investment in our community.

Our campus is amazing, so that’s something that helps residents who might have to leave their own beautiful homes. We just had some residents who were biology professors who created a walking tour of the trees on the property because they were so excited about our campus grounds. 

Safety and security are also a big concern for us and a center of marketing. If you’re going to higher levels of care, there are always nurses and caregivers there to help, in addition to our security staff.

Something that might be difficult to put in a print or digital ad is the people that we have here. There is anxiety about a move like this, but the beauty of embracing a community is that the opportunity for new friendships is there. People who are interesting, who are in a similar place in life as you are—it’s a gift of friendship that people can share

Banach: 

How are you tracking performance? What are your most important KPIs?

Rees:

Our non-profit status comes from the Federal government, which converted all facilities like ours into non-profits some time ago. This means a few things, including the fact that residents can’t be kicked out if they run out of money. 

Occupancy is a central KPI for us. We’re also looking at conversion rates for customers. We have a waitlist, which represents our “sales qualified leads.” You can use that waitlist to convert customers primarily, so that’s a major target as we narrow our marketing funnel.  

Rees’ Team and Agency Collaborators 

Banach:

Before we started, you mentioned you were bringing marketing in-house. What does your marketing team look like? Why did you decide to bring it in-house? Advice for agencies that want to work with organizations like yours.

Rees:

We worked for several years with an in-house agency, which was essential because of their digital expertise and marketing collateral. Thanks to them, we were at 96% occupancy for The Village, one of our latest expansions, within just a few years. 

As we were reassessing after COVID, we thought we could expand our marketing department and allow our in-house team to learn. It wasn’t that the agency wasn’t doing well; it was that we wanted a holistic approach to how our business was going to grow. So in a way, it was a decision of the larger organization, not just for marketing.

We’ve been bringing in new leadership and internal communications expertise to manage our number of campuses.

We’re refining our “shiny objects” for the marketing team to sell! Wearing multiple hats for multiple audiences—internal and external—but all focused on learning and improving their skillset. Organizations shouldn’t miss the opportunity for personal development to be a part of their retention strategy. 

As with television, reading the room for what an organization wants out of their marketing might be the best advice for an agency. Understand the pressure a marketing executive is feeling. It’s not just about bringing customers in; it’s about understanding how marketing fits into the whole of the organization.

Banach:

With so much to keep up with–new innovations and tools available to marketers–where do you go to keep up with industry news and trends?

Rees:

Actually, I’ve lost too much sleep on TikTok, so it’s part of my personal funnel. The algorithm helps shape what you see based on your preferences, which is how AI-assisted writing became part of our strategy, too! Not all of my writers were exactly thrilled by that, but I assured them it’s a great tool, not that a robot can write better than them.

Banach: 

Anything you’d like to share that we could touch on?

Rees:

I want to encourage people who have had to take something like a parent break in marketing that their skills are translatable to whatever you’re doing to better your community and your family. Don’t hesitate to let volunteer work be part of your professional story. Being able to get people to work for you for free and get things done shows that you’re inventive and resourceful. 

A recruiter once told me: I prefer working parents because they get more done before 8 a.m. than anyone else! Be who you are, but don’t be afraid to take all your skills in your toolbox with you. 

Rees and Banach discussed much more, including building community and new friendships at an assisted living facility, her experiences learning to sail, and the philanthropic history of the northwest. You can hear the whole interview here.