We are excited to be kicking off a new feature on our blog this week! “A Conversation with…” will spotlight thought leaders in different areas of content marketing, SEO, SEM, and digital. We are hoping to zero in on people and companies that are doing great things with inbound marketing, especially those working in the senior care industry.
Our first guest is Jason McCloud, the Director of Internet Marketing for Elmcroft Senior Living. We thought Jason would be a terrific person to start with because he really is one of the true experts in this area. He understands the decision journey families take, in addition to all things digital. He has also worked with and for senior living lead generation companies. As we all know, that is a rare combination in our industry.
A Conversation with Jason McCloud
Shelley: How would you describe Elmcroft’s new approach for generating internet leads?
Jason: We consider our approach to be a holistic strategy. Since the beginning of the year we’ve been investing more in our own SEO and SEM. Putting more resources in to developing our own content. We are also continuing to work with a select group of national third party lead vendors and working with more local referral agencies.
Shelley: Elmcroft has worked with a lot of lead generation agencies over the years. So what’s really changed is that you are investing more in content marketing and search engine marketing (SEM)? Developing your own articles and resources for the Elmcroft site?
Jason: Correct. We think content marketing will help us build our own pipeline. The same with SEM.
Shelley: Any idea how much this shift in online strategy has increased your site traffic?
Jason: We are only nine months in but so far it looks like total traffic is up by about 15%. What’s interesting are the analytics surrounding the articles on our site. Visitors who read articles stay on our site four times longer and visit three more pages per visit. Our bounce rate for those who read articles has fallen by 30% down to under 10%. Conversions are also significantly higher for those who read our articles convert on their first visit to our site.
Shelley: Do the demographics for online leads parallel those generated offline?
Jason: They do. 80% of our leads are coming from females. Usually the adult child. They tend to be anywhere between 48 and 65 years old. Most of those leads come to us during traditional business hours with Monday and Tuesday still the busiest days. Very similar to offline leads.
Shelley: What would you say is the average closing time for your leads?
Jason: For assisted living, our average close is 30 days or less.
Shelley: Let’s talk a little bit more about the lead gen agencies. There are so many of them out there now. How do you sort through them and decide which ones to work with?
Jason: There are a lot of them out there now. We receive at least two or three requests for new contracts each week. For the national agencies, we were breaking them down in to pre-qualified versus pre-screened. Now that SeniorLiving.net eliminated their care advisors to move to a call center approach, A Place for Mom is the only national agency out there with pre-qualified leads. They have local advisors who know the market and actively work with the lead to pre-qualify them before we receive them. All of the others are all a pre-screened model now. We are willing to pay more for the pre-qualified leads because they save our marketing teams time. But we still value the pre-screened leads, such as the Caring.com model.
Shelley: And you are having good luck with local referral agencies whose staff is very well connected at the local community level?
Jason: We are finding the local referral agencies have good value. They know the local market and are able to generate a better quality of leads because of their lead sources: physicians, hospitals, and more. Those are generally very active and qualified leads.
Shelley: Leads from hospitals and physicians that are getting harder to come by, you mean?
Jason: Yes. In some markets our community teams have been almost shut out of those avenues, but local referral agencies are still able to get those leads.
Shelley: Do you think professional referral sources (hospitals, physicians) see these local agencies as a way to help patients without really endorsing one senior living community over another?
Jason: I think they might.
Shelley: One final question. For those who are newer to working with lead gen agencies, what advice can you offer?
Jason: I would say get to know the strengths and weaknesses of each and negotiate contracts accordingly. As I mentioned before, pre-qualified leads are more valuable than pre-screened because they save our staff time. Also, be aware that the majority of the referral agencies buy their leads from the same places. You need to have a method of tracking duplicates so you only pay the agency that sent you the lead first. It is too expensive to have to pay several agencies for the same lead. We are currently working on setting up filters to make that process easier for our teams.
Shelley: Jason, thank you for your willingness to share this information with others in our industry. I know there are many people out there that are really feeling they are behind the times with regard to inbound marketing strategies. I’m sure this will help.
Jason: I’m glad to do it. I think it helps our industry as a whole to have resources that help educate them on how to improve the customer experience online.
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