The New York Times features an article covering fee-for-placement services, including some information from an interview with two members of the SeniorHomes.com founding team, Chris Rodde and Jay Goldstein. There are a few different types of senior care referral services:

• Pay-per-lead: This is the model used by SeniorHomes.com, as we outline in our “How we make money” section. We list all providers in a geographic area, whether or not we have a business relationship with them, but featured providers are listed at the top of a geographic page with photographs. We refer families to any facility that may meet their needs, regardless of whether we have a business relationship with that particular facility.
• Pay-per-move-in: This business model relies on whether or not an individual actually moves in to a facility, and the referral service gets paid only if a move-in occurs. The issue here is whether these referral services will recommend facilities with which they do not have a contractual relationship.
• Pay-for-service: This describes the typical geriatric care manager relationship, in which the family or individual pays the professional for referrals to appropriate facilities, instead of facilities paying for leads.

In any case, the professional agency or individual making the referrals is getting paid, whether by a facility or by the family. Not surprisingly, this has sparked a discussion on the NYTimes site, and we’re interested in hearing your thoughts. Is the issue here merely a matter of transparency, whether the family is aware that the referral agency is being paid? Or does the issue lie solely with referral services who refer families only to facilities that they will earn money for, theoretically (in some cases) ignoring what could be a better fit for the resident?

Is the business model any different than, say, a job site, such as Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com or any number of other websites? In terms of job leads, it works in a similar fashion: In some cases, an employer pays to post an opening. In others, job seekers pay for a membership to the website in order to view open positions. In either case, the website is making money.

Please weigh in with your comments, either here or on the NYTimes article. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Internet inquiries are a rapidly growing source of leads for assisted living and other senior living providers, with surveys indicating about 30 to 40 percent of leads are coming from internet sources in the senior living industry. Providers are reporting approximately 25 percent growth in the percentage of leads generated through internet sources over a 12-month period.

Eighty percent of baby boomers use the internet at least once per month; 47 percent of seniors (age 65 and over) use the internet at least once per month and steady growth is projected.

If you missed the Mature Market Sales Source webinar last week, check out the recording here with guest speaker Chris Rodde, CEO of SeniorHomes.com. Chris reviews the types of internet lead generation companies in the senior living vertical, outlining the differences between pay-per-lead, pay-per-move-in and subscription-based services. Learn these basics and outline your own strategy for maximizing leads obtained through internet sources with effective follow-up planning.

Check out the video recording of the recent webinar hosted by Mature Market Sales Source with guest expert Chris Rodde:

Chris Rodde, CEO and co-founder of SeniorHomes.com, will be hosting a webinar in conjunction with Mature Market Sales Source, “Top Seven Ways to Get the Most Out of Internet Inquiries.” The webinar will take place on Tuesday, August 16, 2011, at 10:00am PST. Join Chris and Deena Neste, Principal and co-founder of Mature Market Sales Source, as they walk you through incorporating internet leads as part of your sales strategy, maximizing your website for lead generation, and more.

“Top Seven Ways to Get the Most Out of Internet Inquiries” is free for participants. Register today to learn from Chris’ many years of expertise in internet lead generation. Topics to be covered include:

• Incorporating internet leads in your marketing strategy
• Designing systems, strategies and protocols for effective engagement
• Maximizing your website for lead generation
• Selecting the best internet lead vendors
• Using tools and strategies for maximizing engagement
• Most effective methods for thorough follow-up
• Benchmarking and comparing results
• Optimizing your sales and marketing budgets

Register today and join Deena Neste and Chris Rodde for this complimentary webinar for maximizing your internet lead generation strategies. Click here to register for “Top Seven Ways to Get the Most Out of Internet Inquiries.”

When it comes to gaining admissions, many assisted living providers are still under the “provide great care, the admissions will follow” school of thought that became outdated the moment “website” was a household word. While providing quality, compassionate care is a core component of running a successful assisted living facility, residents have come to expect exceptional care — they are, after all, paying for it.

Offering stellar amenities, friendly and accomodating staff, and pristine living conditions aren’t enough to make you stand out from the crowd in the information age. Savvy senior care providers know that great care is just one component of an overall marketing campaign — one that drives visitors to your company website, encourages happy customers to share their experiences, and makes it easy to find you online. The fact is, most people searching for an assisted living facility will make the web their first stop.

Your web presence should compliment a great reputation and positive word-of-mouth marketing. When a customer hears about the great care your facility offers, and they visit the web to learn more about you, what do they find? Do they find a great Facebook page, a quality website, news articles, listings in senior care directories that allow them to submit a query online, and photos and information about the happenings in your community? Or do they find a yellow pages listing with a phone number but no link to a company website?

Today’s consumers want instant information at their fingertips. You must make it easy for the community to learn about you and your services. Savvy seniors — and their family members — want their need for technology to be met.  If you don’t have an online presence, it can lead people to assume your facility lacks technological amenities. It can also turn some consumers off because they have to do more work to find out what they want to know (i.e., now they have to pick up the phone to schedule a tour, but they really wanted to check you out online prior to making that kind of commitment).

If you’ve got a great reputation that you’re not enhancing with an online presence, you’re missing out on a ton of leads. It’s simple and easy to list your community with us, and it’s a great place to start your online marketing campaign.

Image Copyright channah on Stock.xchng

Follow-up is a critical factor in the success of your marketing efforts, particularly when you’re dealing with internet leads. The reason? It’s likely that your prospective residents have inquired with a number of facilities. You and your competitors likely offer the same basic services and accomodations. You might (you should) have a unique selling proposition (USP), but if your competitor shares their USP first, you might have lost the referral.

How soon should you be following up?

If you’re like most marketers, you’re not sitting idly by the phone and email waiting for leads to come your way. You’re out actively networking with the community, giving tours and completing move-in paperwork with other residents. Follow-up times within one or two minutes might be impossible, if not a bad idea altogether. You want to be prompt, but you also don’t want to appear overzealous. It’s a good idea to respond to a lead within one to two hours of the initial inquiry. When it comes to senior housing, it can easily end up being a first-come, first-serve basis, because many families don’t have much prior knowledge and go with the first option that meets their needs.

Even if you happen to be sitting in front of your computer when the lead comes in, wait five to ten minutes before calling. It leaves the impression that inquiries are very important to you, yet you’re busy enough that you aren’t desperate.

After the initial contact

 The importance of follow-up doesn’t end with the first contact, however. If you’re dealing with a family who plans to shop around before making a decision, you’ll need to stay on top of the relationship in order to stay top-of-mind. The key is to find the balance between being an annoyance and being proactive. It’s also possible that the family was making inquiries, yet decided not to make a move right away. Make a contact every so often, but have a reason.

Call to let them know about a new program your facility is offering that you thought might interest them, to invite them to an open house, or even let them know about a community event. It’s the simple things that can leave a lasting impression, and maintaining a friendly contact takes minimal effort yet could earn you an admission months down the road.

Image Copyright brick red on Flickr

Traditional advertising vehicles, like television, radio and newspaper ads, are viewed as the least effective marketing methods by elder care marketing professionals, according to the Elder Care Marketing Industry Report. The report, a comprehensive view of the elder care marketing industry based on a survey of 166 industry professionals, was released by Ryan Malone in March.

According to the report, referrals and affiliates programs top the list of the most effective marketing vehicles, demonstrating a key shift from traditional offline marketing to online lead generation methods. Online marketing offers the ability to track leads, and therefore return on investment, much more effectively than traditional advertising. Search engine optimization, informational seminars, social media and press releases were also included in the top five.

Most companies aren’t measuring lead generation

Surprisingly, nearly one quarter of respondents said they were not measuring the effectiveness of their lead generation activities at all. We had the pleasure of speaking with Ryan Malone directly, and he felt that this fact was one of the key findings from this research. The other? That most companies recognize the value of social media and have incorporated it into their marketing activities, yet many don’t really know how to utilize it efficiently to generate referrals.

It’s so much easier to track online marketing activites, and it’s all the more reason to transition more of your marketing budget to online lead generation. 20% of your marketing activities are bringing in 80% of your leads. Why not identify that 20% and allocate your budget accordingly?

Grab your own copy of Ryan Malone’s Elder Care Marketing Industry Report!

The broad concept of “leads” has been around ever since there have been sales, but the Web provides a viable platform for leads that makes them more useful than ever.  As a result of this increasing popularity, there are many types of leads.  There are those focused on quality (the primary goal of Senior Homes), and those which are focused on quantity.

The quality vs. quantity question exists in most businesses.  Chevrolet looks to provide a level of quality that enables them to have lower prices versus their competitors, and that, in turn, means they focus on higher volume of sales for success.  Lexus sells a lower volume of cars, but they get higher margins for the quality they provide.  This is replicated in fine restaurants vs. McDonalds, Wal-Mart vs. Nordstorm’s, etc.  The same is true with Internet-driven leads, though there is one important difference.

The difference with the other products mentioned is expectations.  With McDonald’s burgers, Chevy Malibus and clothes at Wal-Mart, most consumers have an expectation of what they will get, and that expectation is typically met.  Unfortunately, too often expectations are not appropriately set for leads.  There are some vendors who push to provide a high volume model of leads to an extreme, but they often do not warn about the lower quality of their leads.  Often, as a result, this affects the perception of leads, even when many reputable suppliers exist.

When choosing a lead vendor for assisted living, independent living or other facilities, you should require them to be explicit in setting your expectations (on conversion rate, volume, information included, type of traffic source, etc.). If this is done before an agreement in made, you can decide if you are receiving an appropriate quality for your marketing dollars.

Some buyers are willing to take lower quality leads, because they want greater volume.  All buyers, however, should have a defined bar that they apply to their suppliers.  Reputable suppliers will be able to stand behind their quality.

We know we will.

Here’s a link to a lead gen conference presentation with additional useful information on this topic  from an lead generation industry analyst

Jay