In part one of our Understanding ROI in Senior Living Sales series, we explored ways in which marketers could better understand and measure ROI. We also discussed the importance of setting goals that you want your tactics to achieve.
For marketers in the senior living industry, this could include:
• Increasing awareness of your senior living or active adult community
• Expanding the lead database with new prospects
• Increasing revenue and profit
Once you’ve determined what the goal of the campaign is, have established your benchmark cost-per-lead (CPL), and have tracked and measured the return of your tactics, there are several steps you can take to ensure that you are getting the best bang for your buck from your marketing. Below, we’ve provided insights on four effective ways to improve ROI.
1. Use More Integrated Marketing Campaigns
Let’s say your goal is to increase leads for the sales teams at your community, something that will be measured by the number of new inquiries your tactics generate. Perhaps initially you tried a digital ad-only route and the CPL is acceptable, but you are still short of your lead goal. There are several additional tactics you could add to the mix. Consider adding:
• Direct Mail
• Print Ads
• Purchased and database emails
• Social media campaigns
Having one consistent campaign that is adapted to multiple channels will amplify your results compared to if you only use one of these channels in isolation. Be sure to also monitor your organic lift and organic leads, as you should expect this category to increase with more tactics in the market. Assume and allocate a percentage of the new organic results to your marketing tactics as well.
2. Don’t be Afraid to Experiment to Increase ROI
A/B testing is an effective method for optimizing your marketing campaigns. For example, you can A/B test several aspects of an email campaign to determine what’s resonating with your prospect.
It could be as simple as designing one email, but sending it to half of the email list with one subject line and the other half with a different subject line. When evaluating open rates, if there is a large percentage difference between the opens using one subject line compared to the other, that’s an indicator that you should use the subject line with the higher open rate in future emails.
A/B testing can also be done with ad creative, graphic elements, landing pages, copy and several other creative aspects of any campaign in order to gain better results.
3. Remarket to Your Audience
We’ve all had it happen to us. We visit a website for a couple of minutes and then leave and go to another website. Yet, once on a new website, ads from the site we were on previously continue to be served to us, begging us to go back and tend to our abandoned shopping carts. This tactic can be effective in re-capturing the attention of prospects who has previously been exposed to a community’s marketing in some form. If this wasn’t added in your initial digital tactics, this could intensify your digital lead count and lower your CPL.
4. Adjust & Re-Allocate
Based on your ongoing ROI analysis, you should be able to determine which channels are providing the ROI you expected, or whether it may be time to experiment with new tactics. Don’t be afraid to cut your losses and try something new if a campaign isn’t yielding results. But also remember that some campaigns take time to optimize and produce the desired outcome. The key is being patient and knowing when to take action.
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