Several months ago I attended a breakout session on senior living sales and marketing presented by a sales/marketing executive who works for a well-known senior living provider. During the question and answer portion of the presentation someone in the audience asked the presenter (nope, not even giving you the gender) about the role of the internet in getting communities full and keeping them that way. The presenter’s immediate response was that, while it was necessary to have some type of webpage, it wasn’t all that important because the selling process was all about the relationship.
Just Plain Wrong
This person was just plain wrong about the importance of an internet presence for senior living. While the close itself is an interpersonal experience, we know that around 80% of the time, when a prospect walks through the door of your senior community for the first time, they will have checked you out on the internet. Not only does every single senior living company need a dedicated web page, they also need a Facebook page and a robust and active email list.
Consumers Love Aggregation Sites
Your own webpage and Facebook page just barely gets you in the game. To gain real success you absolutely need to be partnered with a lead aggregator like Caring.com (a Senior Housing Forum Partner). The biggest single reason you need this relationship is that consumers love and trust aggregator sites way more than they trust your website or Facebook page. Here’s why:
1. They Rank High in Web Searches – This means they are easy to use and easy to access. In fact, they are so prominent they are hard to avoid. You can be 100% certain that, if a consumer has looked on the internet, they will have visited a senior living aggregation site.
2. They Tell the Whole Truth – or at least a lot more of the truth. We all know that, to a greater or lesser degree, all senior living websites use the same stock photos and the same tried and true language (if you doubt it, see my recent article on restaurant dining). The data on aggregated websites has enough granularity to be able to see all the differences between the various communities.
3. They Have Prices – There continues to be a huge debate about whether or not senior living communities should post prices. They should and you should, but you probably don’t. Good aggregation sites like Caring.com provide useful pricing information in a consolidated, functional fashion.
4. They Have Reviews – Well not all of them . . . but one of the big appeals of sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor is that you can see what other real people (as opposed to marketing people) have to say about whatever they are looking for. Because a senior living choice is such a major life decision, reviews provide extra value and that is hugely important to prospects. Caring.com has hard, quantifiable data that demonstrates senior living communities that have reviews, even when they are not perfect, get 14 times more leads than those that don’t have reviews.
What’s In It for You?
The bottom line is more screened leads, which means more move-ins. And that means more happiness for everyone. Caring.com has created one page guide titled: “5 Ways to Help Make Your Directory Listing Attract Great Prospects” exclusively for the readers of Senior Housing Forum. 
In your own experience, what percentage of your prospects have checked you out on the web before walking through the door? Steve Moran If you like this article (or even if you don’t) it would be a great honor to have you subscribe to our mailing list HERE
I agree wholeheartedly, Steve! One added benefit is the TIME a good website with engaging photos and 360-degree video tours saves the sales staff. By the time prospects contact us they have a good idea of our features and benefits. Relationships are integral, but a salesperson could potentially spend 2-3 hours providing an initial tour that could easily be accomplished online first.
Steve your right and so is he in my opinion. Yes it is a personal decision. One of the things our client like about our solution is that you can have shoppers or prospects get more of a feel for the community by accessing the Resident Portal free from the community website. Prospects can view the resident directory, ask questions of staff, see all the community information as if they were a resident, all this prior to even setting an appointment. Furthermore staff can use the system as a sales force automation tool and communicate via the system with the prospect. Yes communities need the Internet, the question is how best to apply it, while facebook is great, it is not the only way to go.
Hey Steve,
As someone who manages several referral channel relationships with different aggregator sites, I have to agree with you on their overall value. Sites that have real reviews, offer direct links to the properties shown, and a reasonable method for responding to reviews truly offer value to consumers in the middle of a difficult decision.
My objection is to the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” sites that seem to offer all of these, but actually point consumers toward referral agents without disclosing it explicitly to the shopper. Those agents offer no additional value–just an onslaught of unsolicited calls from the competitors of the original community. I get that there’s little we can do about it except call it out, so I’m doing that here in the hope that others will see it and repeat our objection to this behavior.
Thanks for your insightful and honest observations about our field–you help hold all of us to a high standard!
Steve,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I work in sales for a company (YoloCare.com) which works exclusively in the Senior Healthcare and Rehabilitation world creating, hosting and maintaining websites. I am dumbfounded by the number of conversations I have, both over the phone and in person, in which I am told an online presence is unnecessary. While it is true that relationships matter most – both with discharge planners and the local community – a website is often the first contact the family will have with a facility. If the facility does not have a great website, often people will turn to Yelp, news articles and reviews to form their opinion. Places like Caring.com are great, but if a facility doesn’t have a quality website as well, business and referrals are likely to go elsewhere.
Thanks for all the work you do running the Senior Housing Forum. There is a ton of great information here.
Brian