Custom Data Delivers Better Results

According to all the experts, sales is all about connecting those with a “problem, challenge or friction point” to your “solution or product” which answers their need. So when you want to buy or sell a house, you turn to a Realtor. When you want to travel, you check with the airlines. And when you age… well, that’s the rub isn’t it for senior living marketing. You’re in the business of selling something your audience isn’t necessarily looking for or seeing you as the solution. So how do you make your quarterly sales goals? How do you move cold calls to hot leads? You use the right data. Because the right data beats generic data every single time. It mirrors your ideal audience, those who want what you’re selling.

Generic Data vs Specific Data

What’s holding your sales team from hitting and exceeding their goals? No matter what they’re selling, the single biggest difference maker isn’t a new strategy, different channels of communication or luncheon menu. It’s all about the data they’re using. Generic data is going to deliver generic results. Let me repeat that for those in the back. 

Generic data delivers generic results.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Sabal Strategy is in the business of data, so, of course, we’ve got a reason for promoting specific data over generic data. But here’s the thing: We’ve got the receipts.

The Right Data = Results

Earlier this year, Sabal Strategy and Illumia worked together on four separate campaigns for four LifeSpire of Virginia communities. The four communities were within a 1-3-hour drive of one another. And we were tasked with creating four separate data lists to avoid multiple mailings to the same households. Now, if they wanted the same-old, same-old results, they could have simply used lists based on age and income qualified  ZIP™ Codes. And that generic data would have gotten generic results. But they wanted better results and more qualified leads.

The Illumia team began by doing a deep dive into each community’s CRM to determine the relevant date to model for each community. Based on that information, we delivered four customized MicroModeling® Reports. Based on the individual reports, the top 12,500 prospects became the target audience for each campaign.

Each marketing team ran a similar campaign consisting of a postcard invitation to an event, two follow-up emails and 3-month social and digital ad campaigns with modest budgets. Retargeting ads were also served to website visitors.

The results speak for themselves:

• All events were fully booked and exceeded attendance caps for each community.
  • Two communities added fully booked events to meet demand.

• One community had a 29.73% conversion rate for new waitlist depositors for confirmed mailing list prospects. The community is located in a census-designated place of ~3,000.
  • They added 75 new members to their waitlist in the first 6 months of 2024.
    • In 2023, they had a total of 70 deposits for the entire year.

• One community had three scheduled events that were fully booked with 173 attendees and 218 RSVPs. This community is located in a small city of 80,000 which has 20 senior living communities in it. It is also only 47 miles from a sister community.
  • Between January and June, they welcomed 38 new waitlist members for their planned expansion.
    • They had a total of 16 in 2023.

The Right Audience

When you target the right audience, you get measurable results. We know this to be true. We’ve seen it happen over and over again. So why isn’t everyone seeing these types of results? They’re relying on generic data. Analyzing CRM data takes time and manpower, two resources usually in short supply. And custom data can be slightly more expensive than generic data. But saving money by using generic data costs you more in the long run. You have to market to more people, which is more expensive. You’ll see fewer qualified leads. Your sales team will waste their time speaking with lookie-loos and plate lickers. And when your quarterly sales misses the goal, it generates panic, pointless meetings, and poorly attended events. We’ll be publishing individual case studies on our Data Resource page about each of the four campaigns over the next few weeks. We hope you’ll take a look as we share them. If you’re interested in learning more about our custom MicroModeling Reports and how they can drive measurable results for your next campaign, call or email Maribeth today. Because when you speak to the right audience, you get the right results!