Posts Tagged ‘lead generation’

Fee-for-Placement Services: The Debate

Monday, September 5th, 2011 by Angela Stringfellow

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!

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Posted in Buying Internet Leads, Long Term Care, Senior Housing Marketing, Senior Living News | No Comments »

Holidays Spell Opportunity in Assisted Living Marketing

Monday, January 3rd, 2011 by Angela Stringfellow

It’s back to the daily routine for most of the world today, after the busy holiday season has come to an end. But many adults have a new item on their list this week: Searching for care for an aging parent. 2011

The post-holiday season is a great time for assisted living marketers to improve occupancy rates. Many families who live across the miles will gather together during the holidays, giving adult children and other loved ones a perfect opportunity to monitor the status of a loved one’s independence. Many issues that may go unnoticed by children who live out of town become obvious when several days are spent together under one roof, such as medication compliance, mobility concerns, and memory loss.

Assisted living marketers can begin making a push by publishing a useful checklist for loved ones to utilize to gauge an aging relative’s safety and independence at home on the company’s website. Post it on your company Facebook page and Twitter feed. Often, the need for assisted living or other long-term care doesn’t cross a family’s mind until it becomes blatantly obvious that a loved one is no longer safe to remain in his or her home alone, and some of the more subtle signs of a loss of independence don’t come to mind until they’re pointed out. Think medication non-compliance, expired foods in the refrigerator, and clutter in the home.

So what do adult children do when they come home from a holiday visit with suspicions that an aging parent isn’t safe to live alone any longer? Most of the time, they turn to the internet to search for information to confirm their suspicions. Make sure your checklist and accompanying advice are visible in the search engines by using keyword optimization, social media, a blog post, and even a press release to get the word out.

The next step most consumers take is to search for potential facilities — near where they live or near their family member’s current home. If there are many miles between those locations, the search can be more difficult but is simplified by online directories like SeniorHomes.com, which list senior housing communities in cities across the country. A simple search by city and state brings up dozens of listings, whether you’re searching for assisted living, independent living, or nursing homes.

If you’ve followed the first few steps by offering relevant and timely information and making it visible through online media, but your facility lacks a presence on senior housing directories where many families begin their in-depth search for assisted living, many of those post-holiday leads might land with your competitors.

Image Copyright ba1969 on Stock.xchng

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Posted in Assisted Living Marketing, Home Care Marketing, Nursing Home Marketing, Senior Housing Marketing | No Comments »

Referrals Top Elder Care Marketing Methods

Friday, April 16th, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

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!

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Posted in Assisted Living Marketing, Buying Internet Leads, Home Care Marketing, Nursing Home Marketing | No Comments »