Bringing modern marketing management and revenue-based concepts to senior living communities.

Marketing always plays an essential role in the growth and success of any organization, but it’s proven to be even more critical to senior living communities following the upheaval of 2020.

While managing the demands of lengthened sales cycles, and under increased pressure to completely revamp strategies to meet digital transformation, sales and marketing leaders need to drive more revenue to counteract lowering occupancy levels using shrinking or flattened budgets.

Despite these challenges, by applying key modern marketing concepts and integrating the necessary tools and processes with a disciplined approach, marketing can translate to increased occupancy and revenue in measurable ways that make day-to-day management both simpler and more successful.

Because even if you can’t spend more, you can still focus your resources and spend better … to do more.

Investing Wisely in the Right Tools that Enable Success

What are the most powerful foundational solutions that are most important to invest in first?

You have to build a strong foundation for your lead generation and nurturing strategy to be effective. Nonnegotiable elements that must be integrated into a modern marketing strategy include:

• A high-performing website that drives lead generation and keeps prospects engaged
• Connected customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation platform (MAP)
• Precision audience targeting to attract quality leads via all channels and media vs. casting a wide net that wastes budget
• Relevant and engaging creative and content that can be deployed throughout each stage of the buyer’s journey

Once you’ve laid the groundwork, you can implement strict lead management, prospecting and nurturing strategies as well as pipeline processes.

Implementing Strict Processes that Advance Sales

How do you establish objectives, accountability and alignment between sales and marketing?

• Lead Management and Prioritization: As inquiries and campaign respondents come in, the first thing to remember is that not all leads are created equal, and you should be qualifying them from the very beginning. You can drive prioritization and keep sales counselors focused on the leads most likely to convert by ranking them with lead scores.
• Pipeline Processes: Agreement between sales and marketing must be established on how you are defining and setting goals for Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and sales and conversion ratios. Establishing objectives and defining your ideal buyer personas will create a more cohesive experience.
• Timely Personalization and Follow-Up: Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales leads at 33% lower cost per lead. Crafting and framing a personalized approach, educating along the way, and finding true connection points will allow you to break through the noise.

Once you’re aligned and have established objectives, make sure you continue to track everything in your CRM and hold everyone accountable. Every lead, tour, campaign, etc., has to be documented so you can begin to understand your impact. If you can’t show your success or justify it, you’ll never be able to forecast accurately — putting revenue at major risk.

Performance Monitoring, Precision, and Optimization that Drives Growth

How can you tell the entire lead-to-revenue story meaningfully?

You have to have more than a high-level view of spend and occupancy in a modern marketing approach. Driving growth requires continued adjustment and a deep understanding of how each channel is working.

So much happens between a marketing tactic and occupancy, and if performance monitoring is done incorrectly, you run the risk of cutting the wrong things. Analysis of performance is also imperative for keeping up with competition as marketers become savvier than ever: 39.8% more marketers are able to demonstrate the impact of marketing spend on their business using quantitative tools than they were just a year ago.

An example of being smarter with your spend:

I was investing in retargeting ads monthly, but knew from performance analysis they weren’t showing the results I had hoped for. After digging into the tactic, I realized this was because the ads were being sent to anyone who landed on the website. That meant we were spending more money for bad leads. After implementing precision targeting using the parameters of our ideal client profile, we quickly shifted spend to improve performance and saved money while still getting higher-quality leads.

At the end of the day, modern marketing is about engaging with success and having a full understanding of what is generating revenue. If you attract the right leads and provide air cover, by the time they’re ready to buy, they’re yours to attain.