The year 2020 changed everything for the senior living industry. Although always fiercely competitive, new resident leads dried up for everyone last year, declining by as much as 41%.¹ This drop in leads resulted in a corresponding decline in new resident move-ins, which were 22% lower than before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faced with these numbers, the task ahead for senior living community operators and marketers may feel overwhelming. You need to recover the losses from 2020, but with a drop in new resident leads meeting your targets may feel impossible. And at an average of $431 per lead, senior living is one of the most expensive industries to market.² On top of all that, factor in a 30% average conversion rate, and you’re looking at a complex—and potentially costly—challenge.

Maximizing your senior living inbound marketing can help you offset high lead acquisition and conversion costs. Not familiar with this term? Whether or not inbound marketing is something your team has been intentionally deploying, you’re probably already doing it.

What’s Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is the process of helping leads find you through social, content-based, and SEO marketing like blog posts, events, and more. These are marketing mediums people naturally seek out for information, like visiting a social media page or reading original content. These types of marketing activities reliably generate inbound leads.

Why Does Inbound Marketing Work?

Inbound marketing has incredible conversion potential. Studies show that well-designed inbound marketing campaigns are ten times more effective at converting leads than traditional outbound campaigns.³ They generate 54% more leads than their outbound counterparts, and inbound marketers’ average site conversion rate is usually twice that of outbound marketers.⁴

But if that isn’t enough to demonstrate the effectiveness of inbound marketing, consider this. We’ve already covered the exorbitant lead acquisition and conversion costs in the senior living industry. Inbound marketing tactics, when performed consistently for five or more months, can reduce the cost per lead by 80%.⁴

How Do You Convert Inbound Leads?

Gathering inbound leads is just the first step. Converting those leads into residents of your senior living community is another. Effectively dealing with those leads in a way that yields tangible results is critical. Here’s how you can make the most of your inbound leads.

1. Focus on Quality

Focus on the low-hanging fruit. Remember, the higher quality the lead, the lower it hangs! And you can find those high-quality leads by assessing their behaviors.

For example, User A visits your site, stays for a few minutes, and fills out a contact form. This lead is probably moderate-quality, since they took the time to complete the contact form but didn’t explore your content further. Meanwhile, User B stays for 15 minutes, reads a blog article, watches a virtual tour, and then fills out the contact form. User B is a high-quality lead you should nurture as soon as possible.

That doesn’t mean you don’t nurture User A. You should, and with a lead nurturing campaign specifically designed for moderate-quality leads. But focusing on the leads most likely to become residents maximizes your sales and marketing efforts to increase your conversion rates.

2. Offer a Virtual Tour

Tours are an essential part of the decision-making process for prospective residents. Obviously, that changed in 2020 when in-person tours declined by 27%.¹ Fortunately, technology allows a new way for seniors and their families to familiarize themselves with senior living communities through virtual tours.

Virtual tours are a great way to hold the interest of high-quality leads. Half of consumers say they watch virtual tours when researching a product or service.⁵ And site visitors stay 5 to 10 times longer when a website has a virtual tour.

3. Hire a Chatbot

We know three-quarters of seniors begin their search for a senior living community online.⁶ And in the last year alone, those searches increased by 15%.⁷ That means there are more potential residents looking at your website than ever before. But once someone’s found your website, what happens next? How do you inspire your site visitors to take action?

Chatbots give your visitors the nudge they need to convert from a casual browser to quality inbound lead. More than half of businesses believe their chatbots⁸ generate higher-quality leads.

Ready to start making the most of your inbound leads? Call us today at 888.307.7304 to schedule a strategy session.

 

For a list of references, please contact us.