Senior living community sales teams know that the jump from website visitor to qualified move-in candidate is a big one. But they may not know that what they’re leaving off of their websites is making that all-important conversion even less likely.
Many senior living community websites are just plain shy about their pricing, April LaMon, the co-founder of Pennsylvania-based Lead InSite, told Senior Housing News. This financial information, however, is one of the most important content areas that website visitors turn to to pre-qualify themselves for a senior living community, according to Lead InSite’s new ORB 1.0 report.
Communities opting not to make pricing information available on their site are taking the wrong approach, reveals the report, which analyzes data gathered from more than 2.5 million individuals who visited more than 1,700 senior living community websites between 2013 and 2015.
“Senior living communities should take a good hard look at providing more transparency about the financial aspects of the decision,” LaMon said. In the journey to conversion, financial information is the second-most visited and researched section of a community’s website, the report says. The section on residential information—housing options, floor plans, finishes—has been visitors’ top destination for the past two years.
Communities that made the decision to add financial information to their websites experienced a 35% boost in website engagement by those who ultimately converted into their lead bases, the findings show. Additionally, once a visitor has researched financial information and determined that information meets their requirements, they convert. As they complete their purchase, their focus moves to other areas, like residential and lifestyle requirements.
When financial information is available on a community’s website, it means that the sales team can concentrate on selling, as opposed to pre-qualifying, with value-added information—not pricing, the report says.
The findings also shed light on how to attract traffic to a community’s website in the first place. In 2015, 39% of first-time visitors to a senior living community website came from organic search, the report says. Paid promotion tools like banner ads, SEM and content sponsorship accounted for only 6% of first-time traffic.
Meanwhile, for return visitors in 2015, 40% of website traffic came from directly typing in the website’s URL.
“There’s a natural tendency to rush to a Google AdWords campaign to drive traffic, but really, the best quality visitors are coming organically,” LaMon concluded.
Other key findings include:
- 56% of lead base conversions came from a return visitor in 2015
- Sites have added 140% more interactive content—quizzes, polls, video—since 2013
- Financial sections made up 25% of content on sites in 2015
Written by Mary Kate Nelson
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