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Getting the Most Out of Third-Party Website Tools & Integrations

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Third-party website tools and integrations can be an excellent way to elevate a prospect’s experience on your senior living website. The right products can boost engagement and conversions, but the key word here is “right.”

Below, we discuss what to consider when selecting and using these products as part of your senior living marketing strategy.

The primary question to ask when choosing a third-party website tool or integration

The following questions should always be in the back of your head as you consider different products:

  • What’s the goal?
  • What does success look like?
  • How will you measure results?

But one over-arching question that encompasses all of the above is this: How does the tool fit into your strategy?

Remember, every good marketing decision begins with the right strategy to achieve your goals. Common goals include:

  • Getting more leads in the pipeline
  • Booking more tours
  • Getting more phone calls
  • Shortening the sales cycle
  • Advancing marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to sales-qualified leads (SQLs)

Your marketing toolbox should have various website tools to help achieve these outcomes. Here are some popular ones to consider—and how to get the most out of them.

Website Tools & Integrations to Consider

Surveys/Assessments & Decision Tools

When prospects visit a senior living community’s website, they often want to better understand their situation and determine which level of care is the best fit. Survey and assessment tools can help.

Some of these tools focus more on the clinical aspects of the decision (e.g., Roobrik), while others are more aligned with lifestyle and socialization preferences (e.g., Waypoint).

Surveys and assessment tools can work well as an initial conversion point, but we often find even better results when used in lead nurturing and marketing automation campaigns.

Where to use them:

  • Place them strategically throughout the website.
  • Use them on thank-you pages to advance prospects to take the next step.
  • Link to them in your lead nurturing email campaigns to advance prospects into the next stage of their buying journey.

Chatbots, Live Chat, or Virtual Sales Assistants (VSAs)

These tools empower prospects to get information without speaking on the phone (or in person) with a sales rep. Our data shows that returning visitors are more likely to engage and convert using one of these tools and that chat is frequently the touch point that converts anonymous website visitors into contacts.

  • AI-based tools can mimic humans and respond to frequently asked questions, freeing your sales team and front desk from having to repeatedly answer the same questions.
  • Live human chat that connects more personally can elevate this experience even further. The prospect might feel more relaxed communicating through a screen (rather than on the phone or in person) while still appreciating that there’s an actual human on the other end of the exchange. This could be especially helpful for adult children researching communities on behalf of a parent. The adult child likely uses this form of communication for other tasks (like cable, banking, etc.).

The good news is that plenty of solid options exist, including SiteStaff Chat and Further.

  • PRO TIP: Think about the experience you want to create. An AI chatbot is a different experience than a human interaction. A bot is better on a mobile device since typing entire conversations on a cell phone is difficult. However, human chat might be better for visitors using a desktop. You could also opt for a hybrid solution that combines human live chat during business hours for laptop users and AI bots for mobile visits to your website and after-hours coverage.

Call Tracking Tools

Call tracking tools like CallRail provide valuable insights, such as . . .

  • Which marketing channels are making your phone ring
  • How well your inbound sales calls are being managed (for example, answered vs. not answered)
  • The quality of the sales interactions (which you can learn about by auditing recorded calls)

To get the most out of these tools, you must set up each marketing channel with a unique local phone number, monitor your dashboards, and audit calls regularly.

When you review the analytics, pay attention to the following items:

Call attribution. This will tell you which marketing channels and campaigns are generating phone calls. An important caveat: You must monitor calls to ensure you’re not wasting precious marketing dollars on generating calls from staff members, job seekers, vendors, or families trying to reach residents.

Missed opportunities. The dashboard should show you how many calls from your marketing channels go unanswered, are abandoned, or go to voicemail. Peak times often correspond with morning and lunch hours.

Call quality. Audit recorded calls to see how your sales reps interact with prospects. Things to listen for include the ability to build rapport, the percentage of time they spend talking vs. listening (the prospect should be speaking 70% of the time), how often the salesperson asks open-ended questions, and whether the salesperson tries to advance the prospect by offering them a tour, lunch, or an invite to an upcoming event.

Documentation. Go into your senior living CRM to see if the lead has been entered and if comprehensive notes summarizing the information gathered on the call exist.

  • PRO TIP: Integrate your call-tracking tool with your marketing automation (like HubSpot) to enroll prospects into SMS lead nurturing and follow-up campaigns.

Bounced Lead Retargeting

“Not all who bounce are lost,” according to NaviStone, a software company that helps marketers drive growth to their brands. NaviStone’s research shows that 95% of all website visitors leave without taking action.

But with NaviStone, you can retarget prospects who bounce with personalized direct mail sent to their home address. Yes, you read that right: They can send snail mail to anonymous website visitors on your behalf. (About 70% of website visitors can be matched with physical snail mail addresses.)

This product empowers you to find your hidden market of anonymous visitors and bring them back to your community.

Marketing Automation

Every marketing channel and conversion tool becomes even more powerful when it integrates seamlessly with a marketing automation platform. Once prospects engage with a website conversion tool, your automation should send personalized follow-up communications as part of a lead nurturing workflow.

Why? Well, most conversions will be marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), meaning they’re not ready for a sales interaction yet. That’s OK. You still have an excellent opportunity to build your sales pipeline for future move-ins with MQLs.

  • PRO TIP: We’ve found that tours scheduled through chat have a higher no-show rate than tours scheduled through calls. To reduce no-shows, create a workflow in your marketing automation platform that confirms the appointment, reminds them of the appointment, pushes the tour notification into the CRM, and alerts the salesperson to connect personally with the prospect pre-tour.

We’ve written extensively about marketing automation. Here are three articles to dive into next:

A caveat about empowering leads to disqualify themselves

Early-stage marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) may just want a quick answer about the price to self-qualify or self-disqualify. Some web chat tools allow prospects to check “cannot afford” after the pricing is revealed and self-disqualify without ever speaking with a salesperson.

Is this what you want? Do you push all of these “cannot afford” leads into your CRM? Or do you only push over sales-qualified leads (SQLs) who are ready to tour or want to speak with sales? Are you sure that every prospect who self-disqualified using a bot understands potential funding resources (like the Veterans Aid & Attendance benefit)? Are you ready to let them go without any follow-up?

We had a client who converted seven “cannot afford” prospects into move-ins because we nurtured and educated them about available funding solutions they were unaware of.

  • PRO TIP: Integrate your chat tool with your marketing automation platform. Segment your leads into SQLs and MQLs and create workflows for each.

Remember, website tools won’t increase your website traffic

One of the most important considerations when choosing a new toy for your website is your website traffic volume. Website tools do not generate traffic. They only convert the traffic generated from search channels (organic, paid, direct, and referred).

Only a small percentage of your website visitors will engage with these tools. If your site doesn’t get a lot of traffic, you’ll have fewer conversions. You should address that issue before you focus too much on adding bells and whistles to your site.

And guess what? We can help with that. Contact us to discuss your senior living website strategy.

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Overcoming Email Fatigue in Senior Living Marketing

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I recently attended an enlightening 36 hours at the Senior Housing News (SHN) Sales & Marketing Conference in Tampa, Florida.

Amidst the whirlwind of networking, insightful presentations, and thought-provoking discussions, one topic stood out: the debate around so-called email fatigue in senior living marketing.

The Myth of Email Fatigue

One of the conference attendees stated that senior living prospects have become increasingly overwhelmed with email and are experiencing “email fatigue.”

At Senior Living SMART, we’re witnessing a different story. More than 50% of our clients attribute half or more of their move-ins to effective email nurturing, thanks to marketing automation.

Here’s the thing: Our clients’ prospects don’t initially engage with the community by choosing a sales action, such as scheduling a tour, clicking to call, taking a survey, or requesting a call back. Instead, they choose to give their email in exchange for something educational, like a brochure, guide, or eBook.

The email part is critical!

After getting the email, the community’s marketing automation enrolls the prospect in a multi-step email nurturing campaign. Through email alone, the prospects advance themselves (hello buyer enablement!) to taking a sales action, like booking a tour. The prospect decides when they want the sales interaction, and once they do—they tend to be excellent leads with greater conversions to move-ins.

But it all starts with email.

The Real Culprit Isn’t Email Fatigue, It’s Lackluster Content

So, why the stark contrast in results between what our clients are experiencing and what other communities at the SHN conference were talking about?

It boils down to the quality of the email’s content and design. Emails heavy on text, lacking originality, or feeling overly salesy are the true culprits behind so-called email fatigue.

In contrast, emails rich in valuable resources like videos, guides, FAQs, infographics, testimonials, and vibrant imagery resonate well with prospects.

Revitalize Your Email Marketing Strategies for Senior Living

Before dismissing email as a viable marketing channel for your community, consider revamping your approach:

  • Conduct A/B testing: Experiment with various elements of your email campaigns, including landing pages, content, design, and workflow cadence. However, remember to test one element at a time to accurately measure impact.
  • Write engaging subject lines: Test different styles to improve open and click-through rates. Emotional appeals, questions, and emojis can make your emails stand out in people’s inboxes. I recommend following Jay Schwedelson, Nancy Harhut, and Andy Crestodina for inspiration.
  • Don’t skimp on visuals: Incorporate authentic videos, virtual tours, and images to make your emails more engaging. Authenticity connects with prospects, showcasing real-life community experiences.
  • Leverage your marketing automation: Pay attention to analytics to get the most out of your marketing automation software, like HubSpot. Measure your email campaign’s effectiveness. Adjust email workflows based on open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates to fine-tune your strategy.
  • Consider the cadence: Recognize that not all decision-making processes are the same. Adjust your email cadence to match the sales cycle length for various care levels. For example, memory care decisions tend to be shorter than independent living. You may need a four-step workflow for one and an 18-step workflow for the other.

Bottom Line: Email Marketing Is Still Relevant

Not only is it relevant, but email marketing offers excellent ROI. So don’t rush to nix it from your marketing strategy or replace it with SMS/text messaging.

Sure, integrating SMS into your strategy is smart. But email marketing still reigns—at least for now. To get the most out of it, focus on producing better emails.

Need help? That’s what we’re here for. Our agency’s sole focus is senior living marketing.

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More Tech Stack Tips for Senior Living Marketing

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Multicolor boxes stacked in various patterns.

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion at the Senior Housing News sales and marketing conference in Tampa alongside Sherrie Bebell and Wade Goodman.

The session, “Tech Stack Transformation: Innovating Senior Living Sales & Marketing in 2024,” offered a fascinating look into the collective drive to enhance the prospect experience, minimize decision-making friction, and refine the integration of marketing and sales for improved lead quality and conversion rates.

Of course, choosing the right tech stack can be challenging for senior living marketers since many legacy technologies haven’t adapted. Not to mention, there are so many new bright and shiny things to choose from.

We recently shared an article about the tech stacks all senior living marketing and sales teams should use. Now, let’s take a deeper look at three critical areas (and let’s use a fun analogy to explain them: shopping malls).

What do shopping malls have to do with your senior living community’s tech stack anyway?

Like shopping malls, today’s marketing tech stack has anchor stores, lots of smaller boutique shops, and a food court in the middle.

In this shopping mall analogy, the senior living website and CRM are at the ends of the mall, anchoring the smaller boutique shops. The marketing automation platform is the food court—it feeds the marketing machine. The small niche shops are your website chat, surveys, blogs, floor plans, videos, and so forth—the stuff that engages prospects as they pop in and out of their shopping experience.

Just as malls have had to rethink their structure to remain competitive, senior living operators should rethink their three anchor technologies: website, CRM, and marketing automation.

Outdated website? Here’s what to do next . . .

If your senior living website hasn’t been updated in over three years, consider this your sign for a makeover. Modern prospects expect a mobile-first, fast, intuitive, and easy-to-navigate online experience that allows them to research anonymously.

When doing your website makeover, emphasize original photography, comprehensive 3D floor plans, transparent pricing, trust signals like reviews, and robust educational content to keep prospects engaged and loyal to your brand.

Build your site on WordPress, own your hosting license, and avoid falling prey to proprietary websites that you cannot access and do not own.

Learn more about the ins and outs of effective senior living websites here.

Crappy CRM? Time to upgrade . . .

A great senior living CRM integrates with your chosen marketing tools, including your marketing automation, email marketing, chat (live or widget), surveys, call tracking, third-party aggregators, call center (outsourced or internal), Google Analytics, and social media.

The best CRMs also allow integration of choice rather than limiting the selection to only their preferred partners, which they monetize through forced bundling.

Today, with open APIs, Zapier, and custom middleware, operators should expect their CRM technology partner to provide bilateral integration with all marketing tools and platforms.

If your CRM doesn’t offer all of the above, it’s time to upgrade.

Is your marketing automation too basic? Time to upgrade here as well.

Your website (along with Google Analytics) should be able to capture the initial prospect journey information, such as lead attribution sources, most visited pages, entry and exit points, and conversion insights (where and how prospects are converting from anonymous website visitor to lead).

Your CRM picks up the prospect when they have advanced to a sales-qualified lead and documents all sales activities, effectively closing the loop when prospects advance to move-ins.

Your marketing automation, however, is the engine in the middle that works 24 hours a day to nurture and advance prospects throughout their journey. The connection between each of these three platforms ensures that there are no blind spots in the prospect journey and that no lead is left behind.

We recommend HubSpot above all others because of its reporting capabilities and the marketing dashboards you can create by ownership group, portfolio, region, and level of care. These dashboards allow you to visually display the entire lead pipeline by stage. You can see the ROI of every marketing dollar spent by channel, which is critical intel.

Don’t forget to integrate bespoke experiences for added panache, personalization, and conversions.

To complete our analogy of comparing the martech stack architecture with a shopping mall configuration, we can’t forget the smaller boutique stores that connect the anchor stores and the food court.

In our analogy, these would be all the third-party integrations that plug into your tech stack, including chat, surveys, call tracking, videos, map features, and the like.

Just as mall shoppers pop in and out of the niche store as they move between the large anchor chains and the food court, senior living prospects will use these tools when they visit your website.

Our approach to creating this foundational tech stack for our clients

Our clients have enjoyed great success using WordPress CMS, HubSpot marketing automation, and Welcome Home CRM. This combination of products provides complete visibility into the prospect’s entire journey.

From there, we can reverse-engineer move-ins to better understand:

  • The original lead attribution source
  • All the touchpoints along their decision path (engaging with social, paid, content, video)
  • Measure their engagement (number of website visits, landing page conversions, content downloads, and emails opened and clicked)
  • The number of days between first conversion and tour, first conversion and move-in, and tour-to-move-in by persona and level of care

Ready to rock your senior living marketing tech stack?

For communities that want to increase their lead generation and conversion rates, embracing a well-rounded tech stack is key. And we can help! Schedule a brainstorming call with us today, and let’s explore how we can transform your marketing tech stack.

Clos up of an arm demonstrating senior living marketing.

Senior Living Marketing Tech Stacks: The Ultimate Guide

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When it comes to adopting the right marketing technology (a.k.a. “martech” or “tech stack”), senior living marketing and sales teams can’t afford to fall behind the curve.

You must have a reliable tech stack that effectively supports your marketing strategy so you can grow and maintain occupancy.

So, what should your community have in its tech stack?

Keep reading to find out.

Martech essentials for senior living marketing

Marketing automation

Marketing automation empowers you to send the right message to the right prospect at the right time. (That’s a simplified definition.) Marketing automation is a must-have if you want your community to remain competitive.

CRM

The most important point we need to drive home is this: Your senior living CRM shouldn’t live by itself in a silo. Why? Well, if your martech platform isn’t connected bilaterally to your CRM, you’ll end up with two systems that are blind to each other.

One system will house initial source attribution (and possibly prospect behavior before people convert, depending on how sophisticated your system is). However, once the leads go to the sales team, the marketing team will be out of the loop since sales will use the CRM that doesn’t pass info back to the first system.

Instead, you should choose a CRM that integrates with your marketing automation platform to capture data from social, paid, organic, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), event registrations, etc. This centralized marketing portal should allow you to create custom dashboard reports that you can easily filter by location, portfolio, region, and investor group.

Data and analytics

Google Analytics 4 is a must (and it’s free). Keep in mind that GA4 is COMPLEX. You’ll want to make sure everything is working properly from a back-end perspective and that you have someone who can correctly interpret what the data is saying.

Marketing automation software (like HubSpot) also offers robust analytics. Again, the challenge is making sure someone knowledgeable in statistics interprets the data.

Website platform

Avoid templated websites (also called “websites in a box”). Unfortunately, promises of rock-bottom prices and so-called ease of use can lure people in. But like so many things in life, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Templated websites offer little to no flexibility, break easily, are too generic, are rarely built with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, offer barebones customer service, and become more expensive in the long run.

Instead, invest in a custom website that reflects your brand and is designed for your prospect personas.

  • PRO TIP: If you put the work and money into your website, make sure you OWN it. Using older, closed, or proprietary platforms will limit your ability to own your strategy, decisions, and results. How can you tell if your website is yours? If you can’t get into the backend or you have to submit a ticket to make changes, you don’t own it. Ditto if your marketing agency manages your website hosting, Google Analytics account, or Google AdWords account. Don’t settle for this! Everything should belong to your community.

Website accessibility

Have you heard of the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)? In a nutshell, WCAG’s ultimate goal is to make web content accessible to everyone, particularly people with disabilities.

Making your senior living website accessible to all visitors doesn’t just happen. You must be thoughtful in your approach—and aware of the latest WCAG requirements.

Working with an accessibility compliance partner to help make sure your site is always up to snuff should be another item in your tech stack. (Remember, accessibility will remain ongoing, given how quickly technology evolves.)

Call tracking

You can’t know what you don’t measure. Unlike other industries, the phone is still a popular way for prospects to contact senior living communities. (More on this topic below.) But you must effectively track and link those calls to their corresponding marketing campaigns.

Call center

No, we’re not talking about your grandma’s call center (or even your mother’s). Good call centers today are much more sophisticated—and can serve as an excellent way to manage leads. (See further down in this article for a deeper discussion about this topic.)

Interactive website tools

Tools like live chat, chatbots, interactive surveys, 3D floor plan renderings, and the like make for a “sticky” website where visitors spend more time engaging with different elements and soaking up info about your community.

  • PRO TIP: Check out one of our favorites: Roobrik.

SMS/Text

People read and respond to texts faster than email or phone calls, so it’s not surprising that more and more businesses are adding text messaging into the marketing mix.

Integrate text message marketing into your lead nurturing processes by triggering text messages to prospects based on their online behaviors.

  • PRO TIP: We recommend Salesmsg to keep communications cohesive across all platforms and devices.

Should an old-fashioned telephone be part of your martech stack?

Phone calls are still relevant, but you need a modern way to manage them.

Too often, communities rely on a front desk greeter or receptionist to field calls from people who want to know more about the community. The problem is that they are not trained in sales.

But expecting your sales reps to be available to take sales inquiry calls as they come in is also unrealistic. Your reps will be busy doing tours, meeting with families, and networking.

A better solution is to contract with a call center to manage all inbound inquiries. A good call center can qualify, score, and segment leads appropriately. Sales-qualified leads (SQLs) will go to the sales team (along with helpful notes). Marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) can go into relevant nurturing campaigns. You won’t have to worry about leads falling through the cracks.

The key is finding a call center with expertise in handling senior living inquiries and that trains its employees on your community’s specific workflows. Not all call centers are created equal, so make sure you work with one that helps your sales process, not hurts it.

  • PRO TIP: At Senior Living SMART, we’ve developed an answer to the above problem: LeadGenie. LeadGenie acts as a virtual welcome center for prospects. It can also cover vacant sales positions, do pipeline work to warm up older or colder leads, manage events, and handle crisis communication. It’s not just a call center—it’s a total lead management solution.

Bottom line: The right tech stack can make or break your senior living marketing and sales efforts.

Get in the habit of auditing your tech stack every year (at least). Many technologies renew automatically whether you’re using them or not. Cancel subscriptions for software and tools that no longer serve you, stay current on software updates, and be open to new products that can improve workflows and results.

And if you need help figuring out any of the above, give us a shout. We can audit your existing tech stack, review contracts for big-ticket items, and give you our honest opinion.

hubspot for senior living

7 Reasons Why We Love HubSpot for Senior Living

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We think HubSpot for senior living is the bees knees. And no, we’re not saying that because we’re a HubSpot Solutions Partner. We became fans of HubSpot long before we entered their Partners Program, and the main reason is simple. (Cue Tina Turner, please.) HubSpot is simply the best. Better than all the rest! Here are seven reasons why.

1. HubSpot remains the leader in inbound marketing.

While there are many inbound marketing pioneers to thank, from Seth Godin to Meerman Scott, the founders of HubSpot are the ones who made the concept stick. Today, businesses around the globe embrace the inbound methodology. And even though many competitors have popped up, HubSpot remains the leader.

2. HubSpot believes in continuous innovation — and practices what it preaches.

One of the reasons HubSpot holds onto its leadership position is because it refuses to rest on its laurels. (Doing so is the fastest route to obsolescence.) Since its founding, HubSpot has constantly innovated and reimagined the marketing software that made it famous. 

From developing a CRM that can hold its own against all the big guys (like Salesforce) to developing marketing automation that’s equal parts robust and intuitive, HubSpot continuously impresses.

Best of all? It listens to its customers and community. HubSpot bases updates and product improvements on community feedback.

3. HubSpot for senior living is more than just marketing automation software.

When we talk up HubSpot for senior living with our clients, we often lead with marketing automation, since that’s the foundation upon which effective inbound marketing is built.

But HubSpot offers senior living marketers and sales reps so much more: an excellent CRM (or the ability to integrate with popular CRM brands), powerful analytics, and easy-to-use content management tools (just to name a few impressive product features).

Different levels of HubSpot make it easy to find the right package for your community’s size and its goals. And if you’re not sure which level is right for you, don’t worry: HubSpot works with partners (like us!) who can help. Which brings us to our next point.

4. HubSpot values partnership.

HubSpot values creating strong relationships with its customers and its formal partners (like us). HubSpot’s Solutions Partner Program enables us to deliver the best experience to our clients. So when you choose us and HubSpot, you get the support and backing of the entire HubSpot ecosystem. (Read more about the platinum tier that we achieved in 2021.)

Download our Hubspot for Senior Living Guide

5. HubSpot practices what it preaches and makes it easy to learn how to do inbound marketing right.

Visit the HubSpot website, download a piece of content, follow HubSpot on social media, and/or interact with HubSpot sales folks, and you’ll quickly get a lesson in effective inbound marketing tactics.

And when you need a tutorial for how to do something within HubSpot, you don’t need to look any further than HubSpot itself. It has an impressive HubSpot Academy where you can earn accreditations that’ll transform you into an inbound marketing rockstar. (And many of the certifications are free and clear, meaning you don’t even have to be a paying customer.)

6. HubSpot has great reviews and stacks up well against popular competitors.

Don’t take our word for it; read independent reviews on meaningful places like Capterra and G2. Capterra breaks down reviews on different HubSpot products (for example, CRM, CMS, HubSpot Sales), but that doesn’t make a difference: HubSpot always has at least 4 out of 5 stars (and regularly shows 4.5 stars).

Reviews on other reputable sites, like G2, are equally impressive.

7. HubSpot for senior living works, and our clients are proof.

Remember, we’re not just HubSpot promoters—we’re also a HubSpot customer. We wouldn’t recommend something that we didn’t believe in or use ourselves. Our clients are proof that HubSpot for senior living works. Check out our case studies. Then, get in touch and let’s discuss how we can help your community rock HubSpot.

Let’s Chat!

Marketing Strategies for Senior Living: The Marketing Hourglass

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When it comes to effective marketing strategies for senior living, we follow the marketing hourglass, which our friends at Duct Tape Marketing developed.

The marketing hourglass involves seven important steps: Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Retain, and Refer. This differs from the classic marketing and sales “funnel” approach, which typically involves Awareness, Consideration, and Purchase.

Duct Tape Marketing contends that the funnel ignores an important fact: that happy customers are often your best tools when it comes to lead generation and referral generation. The hourglass approach, on the other hand, takes customers into account (especially in the “retain” and “refer” steps).

Let’s break down the seven steps so you can apply them to your marketing strategies for senior living . . .

Step #1: KNOW

Basically, can people find you? If you operate a senior living community in Dallas, Texas, and someone in Dallas searches on “senior living near me” or “senior living Dallas,” will your community’s website come up on the first page of Google? If the answer is yes, great. If the answer is no (or you’re not sure), then you’ve got some work to do!

For your community to be “known,” you need to create a highly secure and highly optimized digital presence. This includes doing the following (at the very least):

  • Make sure your site is optimized with relevant keyword phrases. You want to use keyword phrases that your ideal prospects are searching on. (This requires research and know-how.) Then, you want to use these phrases naturally throughout your site, both on the page itself and in the meta data (the title tag and meta description).
  • Make sure your site has SSL security. How to tell? Call up your senior living website in a browser and look at the URL. Do you see a warning that says it’s “not secure”? Google penalizes sites that don’t have SSL security, meaning you’re less likely to rank well in organic search.
  • Make sure your site is optimized for mobile devices. More and more people (yes, even seniors) conduct searches on their phones or tablets. Your site needs to automatically “respond” to different devices (and screen sizes). Again, if your site isn’t built for mobile, Google will penalize you.
  • Make sure you site is speedy. It needs to load quickly! This is critical for the user experience (no one likes watching an endless pinwheel while a page loads). Again, Google takes note of slow sites as well. Incorrectly sized photos, bloated and unnecessary code, and big videos can slow down sites.
  • Make sure your Google My Business listing is up to date. Google cares about Google products. Google consistently serves up Google My Business listings when people search for things, particularly physical locations, like senior living communities. Consider your Google My Business listing as a mini website. Apply the same level of care you would on your main site. Include updated contact info, compelling text, great images and videos, and lots of reviews.

Step #2: LIKE

Once prospects find your senior living website, what happens next? Keep in mind that people have only so much patience when it comes to websites. If they don’t see what they’re looking for within a few seconds, they WILL bounce off your site—and go to a competitor’s site.

To encourage website “stickiness,” make sure . . .

  • The website navigation is clear and intuitive. Make it easy for people to work their way through the site. Keep in mind you’ll be dealing with older eyes. Think larger fonts and good color contrasts.
  • The keyword-phrase that brought people to the page is relevant and fully “dealt” with in the copy. For example, if someone landed on a page about “senior living community prices in Dallas,” the page better thoroughly deal with that topic and deliver the goods. (Rule of thumb: each page of your site should have one main keyword-phrase focus.)
  • The design is welcoming . . . and authentic. DON’T USE STOCK IMAGES. If someone is doing research on senior living communities in Dallas, chances are good they will see the same tired and unoriginal stock images on multiple sites. Don’t let your site be one of them. Invest in custom photography that highlights your community—and that helps people remember it.
  • The website is truly helpful. Make sure the site has a Resources section, contact info at the top of every page, and, ideally, some sort of Live Chat function so people can get answers right away.

Step #3: TRUST

You’ve lured prospects to your site. Now, you need to build trust. A variety of “trust signals” exist. The best websites will use a combination.

  • Both text-based and (ideally) videos of real people talking about how much they love your community. (A combo of residents and staff can work well! A happy staff indicates a happy place, too!)
  • Relevant logos for any awards, recognitions, certifications. Your website—particularly the home page—is a great place to highlight “best of” and other awards.
  • In-depth resources that you offer for free. Position your community as the go-to place for information about senior living in your area. Offer educational content on hot topics like financing, how to move, checklists for evaluating options, resources for family members, and so forth.
  • A clear and compelling “team” and/or management page. Prospects want to get a sense of the people behind the scenes. Supply warmly written bios and photos that capture the people who bring your community to life.
  • Relevant info about COVID-19. For the immediate future, you need to have information front-and-center about how your community is navigating COVID-19. And guess what? This section isn’t static. It NEEDS to change to reflect what’s going on in your community. (Hint: Check out our free resource on how to market your senior living community during a pandemic.)

Step #4: TRY

Today’s prospects expect websites to be interactive. Yours should provide opportunities for prospects to “try” out your community so they can picture themselves or their loved ones living there.

  • Offer virtual room builders/floor plans. Room builders allow people to get a sense of space and décor. In addition, they help people envision how their belongings would work in the space.
  • Offer “on demand” tours. In this case, we’re referring to a tour you’ve recorded on video. While being able to experience a community in person is always preferable, it’s not always possible—due to things like COVID-19 or even location. If someone in Boston wants to get a feel for your community in Florida, an on-demand tour or other virtual event can help.
  • Let people download menus and activity calendars. It’s one thing to tell people about everything your community offers. It’s a whole other thing to allow them to see a breakdown on a real day-to-day calendar.
  • Make it easy for people to access your YouTube channel, Facebook, Instagram. Your social media channels are a great place to go “behind the scenes” in your community. While professionally shot videos and pictures are great for your site, your social channels can house the candid shots and videos (which often come across as more authentic and relatable anyway).
  • Allow people to schedule tours (in-person or virtual) directly on your site at a day/time that’s convenient for them. This empowers the prospect and eliminates unnecessary back-and-forth between a sales rep and the prospect.

Step #5: BUY

You need to make it easy for prospects to buy from you. Now, we know what you might be thinking: “If someone wants to buy into our senior living community, all they need to do is talk to a sales rep.”

But that’s not how most people buy today. People do their homework first (as we described above). For senior living especially, prospects also try to self-qualify by researching and requesting pricing.

So ask yourself: How transparent is your senior living website when it comes to things like pricing, financing options, and so forth? Even if you don’t list pricing, you need to ADDRESS pricing so that people have a sense of ranges—and an understanding about what’s included. Then, beyond that, how easy is the overall buying process when someone does indeed want to buy?

Focus on the following:

  • Evaluate your website from a “I’m ready to buy now” perspective. Is there an area that clearly addresses the buying process soup to nuts? Bottom line: you want to enable prospects to buy from you.
  • Audit the overall buying process from start to finish. Begin with the moment someone says “Yes, I want to move in.” How easy is it to make a deposit? What happens next? Do you offer transitional services? Have you streamlined paperwork? Do you provide move-in checklists and downsizing tips?

Step #6: RETAIN

A prospect who becomes a happy resident will be your best form of advertising going forward. So the question is, how do you keep your residents happy?

  • Make sure you have programs in place designed specifically for new residents and their families. Think welcome kits, orientations, and “meet your neighbors” events that help new residents acclimate.
  • Conduct surveys. We recommend doing surveys two weeks after move-in. Why? Because 17% of all move-outs happen in the first 30 days! If you can get feedback/insight into how new residents are acclimating (or not), you and your team can identify any issues and (hopefully!) address them before someone decides to move out.

Note: The insights you gather during the “retain” step can inform your marketing and sales efforts. For example, use positive quotes from surveys and highlight them on your website.

Step #7: REFER

Did you know resident and family referrals have a 30 – 35 % closing rate? (For comparison, third-party leads close at 3 – 6 %).

  • Make sure you have an easy system in place for soliciting referrals from residents and their family members. One idea: “I’ve just moved!” postcards that you supply as part of your welcome kit to new residents. Encourage them to send these to their friends.
  • Make it easy for residents and their family members to review your community. In addition to referrals, the words of real residents can be incredibly compelling. Encourage people to leave reviews on your Google My Business page and via social media.

Let’s Chat!

Our Senior Living Marketing System

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We recently became part of Duct Tape Marketing, a network of marketing agencies and consultants from around the world.

As the Duct Tape Marketing website explains, “Duct Tape Marketing is founded on the simple belief that marketing is the most important small business system. And we just so happen to believe that small business owners are the true heroes of business, so we’ve made it our mission to build, train, support, and teach small business marketing strategies and tactics to as many of these heroes as possible.”

For us, we joined Duct Tape Marketing for three reasons:

  1. We wanted to bring in thought leadership from outside the senior living industry.
  2. We wanted to participate in a community of professionals who are as passionate about marketing as we are.
  3. We wanted to use a proven system that simplifies digital marketing.

Being a part of the network has helped us refine how we work with our clients. This has resulted in our ability to offer clients more choices, dependable delivery of work within budget and timeframes, and consistent results.

So, what is this marketing “system” that Duct Tape promotes? The system’s foundation involves creating three levels of marketing support: Build, Grow, and Ignite.

For the Build phase, we create a solid digital foundation that enables prospects to easily find your senior living community.

A strong digital foundation includes many components:

Once that work is complete, we move into Grow.

This is when we focus on content, such as . . .

When it comes to content, we create compelling pieces for all stages of the prospect journey so they will keep coming back to your website. With this new content, we can also optimize a variety of social channels (think Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest). In addition, we often start (or re-start) a monthly email newsletter to re-engage existing leads.

Then, we move to Ignite.

We fire up the lead generation turbo booster known as marketing automation. Marketing automation offers many benefits, but the biggest one is that it automatically scores and segments leads.

Remember, not all leads are created equal! Some leads are in the early stages of their journey, conducting research. They have no interest in talking to sales—yet. Other leads need to decide soon. And still other leads will fall somewhere in between.

How you treat different leads will—and should—vary, based on where the lead is in their journey. Your marketing team will work on nurturing the “not ready” leads (i.e., marketing-qualified leads or MQLs). In the meantime, the sales team will work on the sales-qualified leads (SQLs).

The marketing automation system makes this process seamless, by automatically serving up the SQLs to the sales team (and, ideally, your senior living CRM). For the MQLs, the marketing automation funnels them to appropriate lead nurturing workflows based on how they engaged with your site and what answers they provided on opt-in website forms.

This saves everyone time, and it increases conversions, since your sales team will only be focusing on high-intent leads rather than ALL leads.

During the Ignite phase, we often implement paid advertising to increase the number of qualified prospects coming to your site. We are good stewards of client budget. And we don’t recommend pursuing paid advertising until we reach the Ignite phase. After all, why waste money driving people to a bad website with poor navigation, limited content, and nothing to do when they get there?

This three-prong approach to senior living marketing has many advantages.

First, it aligns expectations and timelines for deliverables. Second, it keeps everyone focused on results. And, finally, it works! Interested in learning more? Let’s set up a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session so we can discuss your senior living marketing and sales challenges.

Connect with us to learn more!

Let’s chat about your senior living marketing and sales challenges.

Let’s Chat!
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Senior Living Marketing Automation Platforms: How to Choose

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If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you know we’re big fans of marketing automation platforms for senior living communities.

Last year, we provided some tips for evaluating different platforms. That discussion resulted in some good questions from readers, including costs and our recommendations. So we’re addressing some of these questions here.

What’s the most important thing to consider when choosing marketing automation?

The most important thing to consider is the functionality your marketing and sales teams need. THIS WILL VARY COMMUNITY TO COMMUNITY. Survey your teams regarding what they want and what they feel is currently lacking when it comes to things like scoring leads (marketing-qualified vs. sales-qualified), segmenting leads, nurturing leads, and analyzing leads and conversions.

For example, maybe you simply need lead nurturing, not a centralized marketing hub that does everything (including your laundry).

Or maybe your teams have gotten adept at deciphering Google Analytics. If that’s the case, you might opt for marketing automation that provides only basic key performance indicators (KPIs) rather than endless options for sophisticated reports.

Or perhaps you already have a thriving blog on your senior living website. You won’t need blogging functionality, which tends to be a popular option in many high-end automation platforms.

How much does marketing automation cost?

Price points vary just as widely as the products themselves. And here’s the thing: Pricier products aren’t always better. Typically, the more expensive, the more functionality. (But, of course, some products might have inflated price points. Always make sure you understand what you’re buying.)

Remember, buy for your marketing and sales teams’ needs. Start with what the automation software must do. Then, look for companies that offer products that match those desired capabilities.

Going back to our example above: If you don’t need blogging capabilities, don’t consider products (or product tiers) that have a blogging function since that will only jack up the price.
A few other things to consider when comparing price points:

  • Will you be paying monthly or annually? Some marketing automation companies offer a discount if you opt for an annual subscription.
  • How does the automation company base its subscriptions? Is it based on the entire number of contacts in your database? How does it alert you if you’re skirting close to the next subscription tier? (Which can often result in a price increase.)
  • Do you need to consider who will be managing the marketing automation implementation and ongoing management? If you outsource this to a marketing agency, like ours, you need to consider those costs as well.
  • Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples. This should be obvious, but in case someone needs to hear it, there you go!
Download our Hubspot for Senior Living Guide

Should my senior living CRM integrate with my marketing automation platform?

We believe integration is critical because you want marketing and sales to work in harmony. No more silo mentality here! Marketing automation, when implemented correctly, will serve up sales-qualified leads to sales while continuing to nurture the marketing-qualified leads until they’re ready for a sales interaction.

Connecting your CRM and your marketing automation software helps “close the loop” and supplies important insights to both teams about the quality of leads and conversions.

That said, buyer beware! You should NOT settle for an inferior marketing automation product that is “built in” to your senior living CRM.

Ugh, so does this mean I’ll be limited in marketing automation platforms based on the CRM I’m already using?

Not necessarily. The best solution is to find the marketing automation platform that best meets your needs and then find a CRM integration partner (like us!). We’ve done successful marketing automation integrations with almost all of the senior living CRMs.

What marketing automation platforms do we recommend?

HubSpot is an excellent “Cadillac” solution with plenty of sophisticated capabilities, like lead scoring, personalization tokens, smart CTAs, and amazing analytics (just to name a few items). ActiveCampaign marketing automation (not to be confused with ActiveDEMAND) is an excellent budget-friendly option for basic emailing and lead nurturing functionality.

If someone wants to have a centralized marketing portal to run their paid/social campaigns, blog, and lead nurturing plus CRM integration and robust custom reporting, HubSpot is the way to go. But we recommend that you work through a HubSpot certified partner (like us!). An integration partner will make sure you get the right package. In addition, they can negotiate pricing on your behalf. We recently saved a client over $70,000 in first-year licensing fees!

Still need help choosing a marketing automation platform? You're in the right place!

Trust us, we get how overwhelming it can be. We’d be happy to provide guidance and/or our thoughts on the products you’re considering (even if you plan on handling everything in-house!). Get in touch and let’s chat about your marketing automation needs.

Let’s Chat!
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Senior Living Website Audits: 6 Signs You Need One

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Most marketing and sales teams understand the benefits of a senior living website audit. The question, however, is this: When should you conduct one? Here are six signs that it’s time.

1. You haven’t done one since . . . ?

Ideally, you should audit your online presence at least once a year. (In addition to assessing your website, you should review your social media, Google My Business listings, and the overall competitive landscape.) If you can’t remember the last time your team has done any of this, schedule an audit ASAP.

2. You suspect something’s broken, but you’re not sure what.

Have you ever driven a car and it’s made a weird sound? You know something is off—or possibly even broken—but you don’t know what it is. The same thing can happen with senior living websites.

Maybe you’ve encountered a broken link on your site, and now you’re suddenly wondering how many other broken links exist. Or maybe a prospect mentions they had trouble submitting a form. Or perhaps you’re seeing a drop in traffic and you’re wondering about SEO.

Schedule an audit! After all, you get your car oil changes, tune-ups, and multi-point inspections, right? You should do the same with your website.

3. People complain about your site.

This goes hand-in-hand with the previous point. Maybe you’ve been hearing more complaints, like the site is slow. The opt-in forms don’t work. The navigation is confusing. Or the content is full of typos and just plain unhelpful.

If you’re hearing more complaints in general—either directly from prospects or from review sites—pay attention. Even more so if the complaints consistently gripe about the same issues. All are signs that it’s time to schedule a website audit so you can see what’s what.

4. Your senior living website isn’t delivering the ROI you’re looking for.

Remember, your senior living website should attract targeted traffic and convert that traffic into bona fide leads—leads that ultimately book tours and become move-ins. If your site isn’t consistently doing this, it’s failing you.

How to perform a quick gut check? Ask yourself if any of the following sounds familiar:

If you answered yes to one or more of the above, it’s time for a senior living website audit.

5. You want to refresh or redesign your senior living website, but you don’t know where to begin.

Even if you know where to begin, take a step back and perform an objective audit of where your site is today. An audit is a smart and cost-effective way to get a sense of what’s working, what isn’t, what you should “take with you” (to a new platform, for example), and what you need to do differently.

An audit might even convince you that you don’t need to make as big of a change as you were originally anticipating. Plus, having a baseline will also make it easier to measure how well the refreshed website performs in comparison to the current one.

6. Your team is too close to it.

We’ve all been there where we’re too close to something to see what’s really going on. This is especially true with websites. You stop “seeing” the look and feel or what’s broken (or what’s working).

Or the opposite can happen as well. Because you spend so much time on the site, day in and day out, it’s tempting to think you need to change things up simply because you’re getting bored. The reality might be that the site is fine “as is.” An objective third-party website audit can provide an honest and fair assessment.

 

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3 Tips for Better Senior Living Advertising Campaigns

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Want to create better senior living advertising campaigns—ones that entice people to click, call, or visit? Here are three tips to keep in mind.

1. Don’t put all your eggs in the same advertising basket.

If you were advertising to, say, twenty-somethings, you’d likely focus most of your advertising efforts online. With older adults, however, you need to spread your advertising dollars across different media—print, radio, direct mail, pay-per-click, and remarketing.

This isn’t surprising, considering the demographic. After all, older adults grew up reading the daily paper and listening to the radio, habits that continue even in this hi-tech age.

  • According to Statista, 23% of adults aged 60 or older read a print newspaper daily, 13% read the paper several days a week, and 18% once a week.
  • According to Statista, older generations are more inclined to listen to the radio regularly.

At the same time, however, older adults are also embracing technology and spending more time online. Consider the following stats:

  • In 2000, 14% of those aged 65 and older were internet users; now 73% are. [Source: Pew Research Center]
  • Baby Boomers spend more time online than Millennials, and a staggering 92% of Boomers shop online. [Source: The Shelf]
  • 75% of all Boomers are on Facebook, and 35% use business-focused networking sites, such as LinkedIn. [Source: Kenshoo]
  • Boomers are almost as likely as Millennials to own a tablet. [Source: Marketing Charts]
  • 68% of Boomers own a smartphone. [Source: Pew Research Center]

So, how should you allocate your advertising budget?

This will depend on a variety of factors. Recent past success is often a good indicator of future success, so you can start by evaluating what has worked best in the recent past (within the last year or two).

For example, if the best ROI has historically come from running spots on your local country radio station, it probably makes sense to allocate a chunk of your budget to a new radio campaign.

But even as you rely on “tried and true” methods, you should continue to experiment with pay-per-click and remarketing ads. (The latter refers to ads that seemingly “follow” people around after they visit your site.)

And you should avoid dismissing an ad vehicle—especially a digital one—simply because it didn’t work in the past. For example, just because Facebook advertising didn’t work well for your community eight years ago, that doesn’t mean it won’t work today. Quite the opposite, in fact. As more Boomers spend time on Facebook, chances are good that Facebook ads will work better now than they did a decade ago.

2. Measure, measure, measure.

The biggest mistake that senior living communities make is that they spend all this money on advertising, but they haven’t built in ways to measure success. Talk about a waste of valuable marketing budget!

Make sure you’re following best practices when it comes to measuring an ad campaign’s effectiveness:

  • For online ads, make sure tracking URLs are set up. Tracking URLs will help you see which online ads are delivering the most traffic and conversions.
  • For any print or radio ads, make sure you include ad-specific phone numbers and/or website addresses. For example, for all the radio ads you run on that country station, you’d use a specific phone number that you only include in those ads. Ditto website URLs. (Companies like CallRail can help with this.)
  • Make sure your website’s backend provides the insight and visibility you need. Ideally, you’ll want to have some sort of “traffic resources” option available in your marketing automation software that easily breaks down the traffic referral sources.
  • Make sure staff always asks the question “How did you hear about us?” And make sure you have a central repository for recording this info.

Allow the metrics to inform your ad-buying decisions.

Complacency can easily take over when it comes to advertising. Not to mention, you might have long-term relationships with sales reps, newspapers, radio stations, and so forth. Still, you need to make decisions based on real data, not relationships.

For example, if you’ve been running radio ads for years on the country station, but the ads are no longer delivering results, ask questions. What’s changed? Is the copy stale? Do you need to adjust the flight schedule/time of day the spots run? Has something changed with the station’s demographics? (Maybe the country station has tweaked its format to a more contemporary feel, rather than classic country tunes. As such, it’s skewing younger.)

Yes, you should resist dumping something the minute it stops working. But be open to moving on if the metrics are indeed telling you something is no longer delivering ROI despite tweaks and fixes. And make sure you’re paying attention to the right metrics. A boatload of website traffic can feel good. But unless that anonymous web traffic is converting into leads and those leads into tours and move-ins, what’s the point?

3. When it comes to the ad’s content, be human.

You’re selling a very personal experience to older adults—the next chapter of their lives. (And, for many, the final chapter of their lives.) This is a BIG deal. Listing a bunch of amenities isn’t going to make your community memorable.

So, what can you do to create personal content? Tell stories. Humans love hearing stories. Stories help us experience another world and another life, which is precisely what you want your ads to do—to help the reader or listener picture themselves living in your community.

For example, imagine coming across this blurb in a nicely designed print piece and/or direct mailer:

Meet Margot Benoit. Margot is 87 years old. She worked as a nurse for thirty years, raised a family of four, and is a proud grandmother to six. Margot loves extra dry martinis, knitting, yoga, collecting lighthouses, and watching The Crown on Netflix. She’s been residing in Maple Grove since 2018 and loves playing bridge with her neighbors, going out for cocktails in our pub, and organizing day trips to New York City with all the friends she’s made in our community.

Margot calls Maple Grove home. You could, too.

Ready to stop by, meet Margot, and learn more about us?

www.MapleGroveCommunities.com/meet-margot

Stories can involve residents, but also staff—your head chef, your groundskeepers, the facilities manager, etc. You could also highlight adult children who helped get Mom or Dad into the community. And the stories could serve as themes. The Margot “story” could work as a print ad and direct mailer. But you could also have Margot voice the radio spot and be part of a video ad that you run on Facebook.

Let’s Chat!