One of the top challenges in today’s senior living marketing world is to ensure that the leads that your community(ies) are collecting are truly age- and income-qualified leads, who will likely yield deposits and move-ins in the future. If your community relies too heavily on leads from your website or social media, you don’t always know if these leads are truly qualified.

This can result in your sales and marketing staff wasting precious hours reaching out to leads who aren’t qualified or anywhere near being ready to move – and not knowing who their “hot leads” are. Your sales staff should be spending as much time as possible in the “selling zone,” not wasting half their day figuring out if leads are qualified or not.

The recent Aline Benchmark Report shared some tried and true methods of garnering leads that have been effective for The Roche Associates, Inc. (TRA) clients over the past 43 years – and that still remain effective today.

According to the Aline Benchmark Report, “Even in today’s digital world, direct mail remains an effective lead source with a conversion rate of 66%.” Although some marketers have leaned very heavily into digital marketing strategies in the past several years, forgoing other marketing tactics, according to Aline, “data shows [that direct mail is] still an effective tactic for converting leads to move-ins.”

TRA has continued to use direct mail extremely effectively for our senior living community clients. Especially when combined with creating free, educational Sales Traffic Programs around proven topics of interest for seniors and their adult children, direct mail to age- and income-qualified seniors or their adult children in your Primary Market Area can yield incredible results. We help our clients purchase lists of age- and income qualified seniors or responsible parties, so there is no time lost wondering whether or not the seniors attending your event are qualified prospects.

The Aline Benchmark Report also found that unpaid referrals convert at an impressive 64%. TRA has helped our clients tap into this potential goldmine of leads that convert as well. If you are not regularly getting referrals from your residents or from local professional referral sources, TRA can help.

Our unparalleled sales training program entitled “Getting The Commitment: How to Create A Sales Traffic Boom and Generate An Ongoing Stream of Leads From Referral Parties” offers a gold mine of proven ideas for capturing market share, increasing sales traffic, and gaining more sales results from the full spectrum of referral parties. These target referral parties include residents, their adult children, and business, health care and human service referral professional. This training is an intensive one-day program that can be offered onsite for your senior living community(ies).

By attending this valuable training program, your marketing and sales staff will gain increased knowledge about and learn how to:

  • Generate an ongoing stream of referral leads from residents, their adult children, business, health care and human service professionals;
  • Tap untapped referral sources like bank trust officers, health managers, elderly law attorneys and funeral planners;
  • Develop stronger referral ties with both existing and potential referral parties;
  • More strongly emphasize the benefits of your senior living products and services;
  • How to develop and present seven proven methods for increasing leads for the first spectrum of referral parties;
  • Establishing and presenting the product and price value of your senior living community.

TRA can also help you to survey your residents to be sure they are “very satisfied,” since a Margaret Wylde survey revealed that 87% of “very satisfied” residents of a community will refer others to the community. However, only 11% of “satisfied” residents will make referrals (source: https://www.seniorlivingforesight.net/87-of-very-satisfied-residents-will-recommend-you-how-to-get-there/)

Sometimes something as simple as finding out what common complaints residents may have, and finding a creative way to address the top recurring issue as a part of your strategic planning efforts as a community, can make all the difference in utilizing one of your most valuable referral sources: happy residents.

TRA welcomes you to schedule a complimentary consult with our founder, Joe Roche, if you would like to learn more about the above strategies and/or how we can help you expedite the process of achieving your occupancy and revenue goals. Click here to schedule your consult now – spots are limited!