![Which Internet Lead Referral Company Provides the Most Value?]()
by Diane Masson | Sep 9, 2012
When all the smoke and thunder blows away, which company can provide me the best quality leads that will increase my occupancy immediately? Keep reading for the answer. I was shocked to find out in my research how many Internet leads a senior housing community has to go through in order to get two sales – the answer can be about 100!
This is my third article regarding researching senior housing Internet referral companies. All the major players do a pretty good job of differentiating themselves from each other. Some companies seem to do a better job of identifying and targeting qualified leads than others. Some have great web sites, live care advisors, blogs or have fantastic placement on the Internet. A majority of the legitimate leads tend to need some help with the activities of daily living.
Pay Per Move In – In talking with a lot of administrators, in a variety of senior housing options, they tend to shy away from paying an entire month of rent for a move-in. It is a big chunk of change and I have personally experienced several bad outcomes with this choice. One challenge was when we offered the 2nd month free to get move-ins. The Internet company received one months rent, we gave the 2nd month away for free and the residents moved out at the end of the 2nd month. Yes, it cost us money to have these people live at our assisted living community.
I have also had great results with pay-per-move-in in the past, including increasing sales by 10% per month with straight independent living or assisted living rental properties. The key was working the leads immediately, because the Internet lead company would send the same lead to 5 or more of my competitors. The retirement community who called the lead first won and he who followed up two or three times also won.
Monthly Subscription – Monthly subscription Internet leads are not as high quality, because no live person filters them. About the only advantage I can see, is your community will be included in the paid search field at the top or side of a Google search (within that referral source). This will run you about $150 or more a month for this benefit.
Pay Per Lead – The companies that provide pay-per-lead have a wide variety of outcomes depending on their level of filtering the leads. You will pay $35 to $50 per lead with results ranging from 2% to 8% turning into move-ins. This means that every 50 leads your company calls will turn into a sale in the worse case scenario. The average for one company was about 4% or one sale in every 25 leads. One company claimed that the best quality sales people could produce one sale out of every 12 leads. Why the discrepancy? They said that lead results were better for those sales forces that proactively used quick follow up when the lead was received and then continued with multiple attempts of connecting with the prospective resident. I have found this to be 100% true with those I coach.
So the bottom line is the better the sales people, the lower the cost per lead. Internet leads come in, then sales people are supposed to turn them into tours, so they can become sales and finally become a move-in. What can you do if your sales people don’t manage leads effectively and you need to increase your occupancy now? A couple ideas would be to hire a sales coach or have stricter monitoring and management of metrics to set goals in your sales lead tracking system, both of which would help to increase existing performance on all your leads.
Pay Per Tour – There’s a new model that I’ve recently come across, pay per tour, which seems to address the efficiency and ROI challenges of all the existing models. This model addresses the lead efficiency issue that I’ve seen with some companies managing Internet leads while getting a reasonable effective cost per move-in.
It’s a new program being launched by Seniors for Living and based on their preliminary data they show an average of a move-in for every 4 to 7 tours (depending on the community).
The cost is around $400 per tour, so if my sales people provided great tours, an Internet move-in would only cost me around $2000. This would save me the hardest and most time-consuming part of the sale process which is following up the lead and qualification to get to the tour. I have spent 14 years in senior housing and have trained hundreds of sales people on how to turn inquiries on the telephone into great senior living tours so I know what it takes to get to a tour.
This pay per tour sounds like it will be the best approach, particularly for those retirement communities with sales teams already spread thin from their other sales activities. As part of my researching for this blog series and speaking with Seniors for Living I have begun working with them on their advisor training to help them refine their process to generate a better tour and the best overall experience for prospects and communities. Since this is a new approach I’m eager to see how this works with wider use by more senior living communities.
I look forward to hearing your feedback on all these models. What’s your experience?
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | Jul 30, 2012
Does your team need to recharge their enthusiasm? Has the marketing team gotten off track? Do you need to sharpen your sales techniques?
Try a weekly marketing book review. Whether your senior living team is one sales person and the executive director or your team consists of three to six marketing people, it’s time to get the creative juices flowing again! If a sales team is not learning and growing, it becomes complacent and stagnant.
First, select a book to review. There are lots of great choices out there. Look around on Amazon.com, ask your sales people for ideas or get suggestions at senior housing conferences. My marketing teams are currently reading “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” by Diane Twohy Masson. (Yes, this is my book.) We have completed four chapters in five weeks. Our next book review conference call is chapter five scheduled for Tuesday.
It has been wonderful to watch the teams grow together. Participants include entrance fee sales people for independent living in Continuing Care Retirement Communities, assisted living marketers and skilled nursing admissions. They come from five areas and as the weeks progress the team members feel freer to share what has worked or has not worked in their area and other team members benefit from their experience.
We have had some great discussions including how many calls (in the existing database) it takes to get X amount of tours or people coming to the community for events. Best practice numbers for one team member were 157 voice-to-voice calls in 3 weeks, which resulted in 23 families coming into view the community. These are great numbers and after the call, other team members started asking for help on how to do this themselves. It seemed to bring out a natural – healthy – competiveness amongst the team.
Everyone starts thinking team and has a better understanding of the goals, because they are discussed at the weekly book review meeting (if you have multiple teams – do a conference call). Executive directors, regional marketing directors and directors of sales and marketing in senior housing often assume that everyone on the team knows the goals. Maybe they do or maybe they don’t. Why not review the goals weekly during your team book review? The number one goal is to have 100% occupancy, but what do they need to do this day or week in order to hit that goal this month or this year? Break it down for them and be their coach and mentor during the book review…try it… it works like a charm!
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information:Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | May 14, 2012
There seems to be a new sales tactic to show future residents the brochure and floor plans – before touring the senior living community! This makes no sense to me. Most people cannot look at a floor plan and decide to give up their 3000 plus square foot home of 30 years and just move into a smaller sized 1000 square foot apartment. Some professionals or retirees were former realtors, designers or architects – these folks would most likely be capable of picturing all their worldly possessions on a 8 ½ by 11 inch – floor plan. So let’s just assume the rest of the people can’t visualize a space based on seeing a retirement community floor plan.
Some senior living sales people actually asked me if I would like the bathroom placement or closet placement here versus there. What?!? I asked them to show me in person. They seemed surprised that I needed a real visual. Others showed me one bedroom and two bedroom floor plans and wanted me to select my favorite floor plan to determine what to go see in the building – nuts! Be a better sales person and figure it out for me. Ask better questions to learn about my lifestyle and needs.
Senior living floor plans are a tool to help someone visualize the placement of furniture in their apartment home. Use it after the prospective resident has already seen and has expressed interest in a certain style apartment at the retirement community. A floor plan can be a helpful reminder of what you saw an hour ago. But if they want to see the apartment in person one more time – please take them back to see it again.
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | May 7, 2012
Please enjoy this published article I wrote for seniorhousingforum.net for my friend Steve Moran. – http://seniorhousingforum.net/
Here are my top 10 positive and negative first impressions after touring 15 senior living communities in 3 days. (Part 2)
By Diane Twohy Masson
My top 10 positive first impressions of touring 15 senior living communities were talked about in Part 1. My goal was to put myself in the shoes of the adult boomer child looking for the right retirement community for an aging senior parent. What would be his or her overall impression after viewing 3 to 5 senior living communities in a couple of days? Now, in part 2, let’s talk about how some senior living communities chose to put their proverbial foot in their mouth and some of the reasons why they did not make a good first impression for this adult boomer child.
What were my top 10 negative first impressions of 15 senior living communities?
1) Driving up and seeing a weed filled garden, the lawn too long or the building in any type of disrepair. (If they can’t weed the garden on a regular basis, maybe they won’t be able to take good care of my mom on a consistent basis.)
2) A sea of people in walkers and wheel chairs staring at me as I walked in the building or looked in the dining room. If they were having a stimulating dining room conversation with their fellow residents or staff, they would not even have looked up at me (instead they were bored and ALL looked at me).
3) Bad smells – from walking in a dining room and knowing someone needed his or her depends changed to smelling that old building smell.
4) No activities happening and the residents looking bored.
5) Having a resident say the food is bad (this literally happened).
6) Being shown an apartment that was not rent ready with equipment lying around or was being used as a storage room. This was surprisingly very common!
7) Not being offered a cold refreshment when it was 90 degrees outside. This happened at half the communities.
8) The majority of marketers sat me down and started grilling me on my mom’s medical needs. It was all about medical questions and they didn’t focus on her as a person or my concerns as an adult child.
9) Seeing a resident eating alone in the dining room.
10) Experiencing a receptionist on the telephone, hold up her finger to me to wait, say something rude to a resident, hang up, roll her eyes and then ask me what I wanted…
Most of these negative first impressions can be easily corrected with good management and coaching the senior living marketer. Even the best communities out there can’t predict what some of your residents would say to a tour. But if your residents don’t look happy – what can your team do to redirect the seniors into an engaging activity? Look around your retirement community with the fresh eyes of an adult boomer child. What do you see? Can you say that all of the first impressions of your new future residents are great?
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Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or emaildiane@marketing2seniors.net. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web:www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | Mar 19, 2012
Are you looking for the secrets to occupancy success? How can you fill up your retirement community now? Maybe you work at a stand-alone assisted living, CCRC or independent living community?
Here are three keys being utilized by a 98.4% occupied assisted living community sales person!
1) Referrals Through Outreach – The assisted living sales person built relationships with hospital discharge planners, skilled nursing/rehab social workers and other assisted livings that provided lighter care. The relationships were built by meeting each of these people monthly and offering interesting/fun events for referrals to visit his assisted living on a monthly basis. When referrals toured his assisted living community they could experience firsthand how happy the residents were and see the quality of the care.
When an assisted living resident was suddenly out-placed to a hospital the resident family members might ask which skilled nursing or rehabilitation center would be the best for the recuperation of the parent. The community could share knowledgeable communication about the available choices, because they visit them regularly. When the family member selected a choice for their parent (with the doctor’s input of course and after visiting at least two choices), the sales person would call to their referral choice and let them know what the family selected. Outreach sources quickly realized the assisted living community cared about their residents even when they weren’t currently residing in the community and now their healthcare referrals have increased 50%.
2) First Impressions – If a guest called ahead, the sale person would walk the possible tour path to pick up an accidentally dropped Kleenex on the floor or straighten up by putting away all the walkers by the front door. He’d train the front desk staff to be welcoming – by standing up and greeting all guests with a smile and a handshake. He would have chocolate chip cookies baking right by the front entrance, so it would be the first thing they smelled walking in the building. There would always be a framed sign on the front desk welcoming the guest by name. Checking the parking lot for cans and cigarette butts was always on his list too.
3) Orchestrating a Great Tour – When new people wanted to tour the community, he did everything within his power to make sure it would be a great experience. Instead of giving everyone the exact same tour, he would tailor it to the guest’s needs and interests (after he spent some time sitting down with them to find out exactly what prompted the visit and what they hoped to see). He went out of his way to introduce key staff to the guests, like the dining director, administrator or director of nursing (again it would depend on their needs). When he showed an apartment, it would be rent ready and appeal to their needs and budget. Then he would sit down again with them (before they left), to find out if they had any additional questions and to offer to take the deposit check for the apartment they liked the best (He always asked for a deposit). If they decided not to deposit, he assumed they would, when he made a follow up call the next day.
Congrats to my friend and colleague for 98.4% occupancy. He was just promoted to a larger community. It has been my pleasure to coach and mentor him!
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. For volume discount pricing or to inquire on Diane’s availability to coach and/or train your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
