Most senior living marketing campaigns are throwing good money after bad. In other words, they’re actually wasting time and resources. Before you come for me, consider the following basic truth: only 1% of Boomers can afford a LifePlan or CCRC and only 0.4% will actually consider moving into one. So if you’re relying on the same tactics and strategy you used to attract their parents, you’re using last century tools for a 21st century audience. We have a better idea. We believe smarter tools like Market Signal Intelligence can make a significant difference in your census and bottom line. It all starts and ends with smarter data.
Where do Leads Come From
Let’s start with the basics: where do most of your high-quality leads come from? I’m assuming you’re tracking this, because you need to know if your newest residents were a lead from your website or if they came to a specific event. Most communities will say their best source of leads is their website. Which leads to two key questions: 1) which webpages are these people visiting most often, and 2) why are you wasting most of your budget on non-converting events? Yeah, I know that’s how you’ve always done it. But why are you still doing it? (And yes, we know events are important, so we’ll talk about smarter invites in another blog.)
Why do we think you need to know which pages these people are visiting? Because if you know that, it means you’re using a smart tool, a small snippet of code called a pixel. With that pixel, you could be tracing AND identifying every visitor and then matching them to your conversions and event attendees. And if your best leads, i.e. people who choose to move into the community, come from your website, it stands to reason you want more of them. Not just a generic look-alike list of names, location, and income. And that’s where Sabal Strategy comes into the picture.
Smarter Leads
Market Signal Intelligence was developed by our partners, The Wheelhouse. This digital tool sifts and sorts through 7 billion web events a day. Each event is classified into a defined intent category. Think of it as a file folder. When a person or a business demonstrates repeated interest, they are assigned as qualified intent signals. Signals are filtered using a host of different tags beyond just their actions. These can be demographic, firmographic, income and/or net worth, profession, or predictive model scoring for example. Then a qualified audience will receive personalized omnichannel marketing, such as direct mail, programmatic radio, display and social ads, CTV ads, and email.
What Makes MSI Different
You might already be familiar with market intelligence, and maybe you’re using a form of it. But Market Signal Intelligence is superior to its competition in five ways:
- Uses real-time data: continually gleaning from the non-stop stream of digital events.
- Analysis delivers an audience with full personally identifiable information (PII).
- Clients can set custom filters and intent categories to ensure the audience is highly qualified and not just a look alike.
- Data is processed daily, not monthly, so you’re reaching people when your offering is top of mind.
- This real-time data is based on actual searches and site visits, not surveys or data dumps from DSPs.
Intent data is a hot buzz word in marketing, but most rely on DSP data and use no filters. That’s why we believe it’s vital you know where the information comes from, how it’s being analyzed, and what you’re getting when you choose MSI from Sabal.
IMPs are the Secret Sauce
So why do we think MSI should be part of every senior living marketing toolkit? Because unless you have an audience with IMPs, you’re just speaking into the void.
IMP stands for intent, means, and propensity. Intent is defined as wanting something like a fast sports car or moving into a nice independent living home. Means looks at whether or not the individual who wants a Rosso Granturismo Tricoat red Maserati can afford to buy it. If he’s 96 years old, he might have the bank roll; if she’s 15 years old, maybe she should buy a Hot Wheels version. Propensity looks at key indicators beyond age and income to include key demographic and modeling factors to determine the likelihood of actually stepping into the dealer’s showroom. When intent, means, and propensity align, you’ve found an ideal audience, and it’s time to act by engaging with them instead of just adding them to the next mailing list. (And how to engage them is also the subject of another upcoming blog!)
The Next Step
Are you ready to leverage IMPs and MSI to supercharge your next campaign? Do you need a little more info before you take the plunge? Well, we get it. It’s a lot. But we also know this can be a difference maker.
Twenty years ago, understanding keywords made all the difference in getting your website found on Google, Bing, and other search engines. Today, understanding actual marketing signal intelligence offers the same type of impact. Reach out to me, and I’ll be happy to schedule a call with you to answer your questions. Because marketing without understanding your audience is just wasting precious budget and resources. And buying lists based on 5-year-old census data is a no-win situation. That’s why using MSI to find those who want what you offer now is the smarter way to go. Isn’t it time you use every tool you can to reach the right people now?
