How to Measure ROI on Your Unclosed Senior Living Leads

Topic Rundown

• Understanding the Senior Living Sales Cycle: Only 25% of leads are ready to move in immediately, typically due to urgent needs like memory care. The remaining 75% are “Planning-Focused,” taking months to decide, but these leads are often abandoned prematurely because sales teams misinterpret their lack of urgency as disinterest.
• The Cost of Abandoning Leads: Abandoning “Planning-Focused” leads represents a significant revenue loss. For example, nurturing just 7 leads with a $150,000 lifetime value can yield over $1 million in potential revenue, underscoring the importance of long-term lead engagement.
• The Importance of Lead Nurturing: Effective lead nurturing systems focus on maintaining connections with “Planning-Focused” prospects over time. Email nurturing campaigns offering tips, success stories, community updates, and financial planning advice help guide these leads through their decision-making journey without applying high-pressure tactics.
• Measuring ROI from Nurturing Leads: Success in lead nurturing requires tracking long-term conversions, engagement metrics, and the lifetime value of new residents. By comparing these results to initial marketing costs, senior living operators can better understand their ROI and refine their approach for stronger conversion rates.

In the senior living industry, sales teams often follow what SSDM calls a “P&A” approach — pounce and abandon. This sales style involves immediately contacting a lead within hours or minutes of receiving their information, usually through a phone call. The salesperson will often leave a brief message if the prospect doesn’t answer. Over the next few days, the sales team continues to call and even send texts, but if the prospect doesn’t respond, the lead is typically abandoned within a few days.

Experience shows us that many of these “abandoned” prospects are actually still highly viable leads, but they are lost to a sales system tha is too focused on immediate results. SSDM refers to these prospects as being  “Planning Focused” vs “Placement Focused.” Let’s break down why that happens and how senior living operators can measure the ROI on unclosed leads to improve their conversion rates and overall financial performance.

Many sales teams make the mistake of focusing only on leads who are ready to move in immediately (Placement Focused) when data shows that only 25% of senior living prospects are prepared to make a move right away. This is typically the portion of leads in a crisis situation — those who need to make a decision quickly, such as families searching for memory care. This small percentage is more likely to respond to a sales call within hours of receiving information and are often converted into residents quickly. But what about the other 75%?

This majority of leads will take more time to make their decision. These individuals or families are in the research and consideration phase (Planning Focused), exploring their options without an immediate need to move. Often, it takes them between three to six months or longer before they feel the need to make a decision. Unfortunately, most sales teams abandon these leads after a few days, assuming they are uninterested.

By prematurely abandoning the “Planning Focused” prospects, senior living communities miss out on significant revenue. Let’s consider an example using average monthly lead volumes and resident lifetime value.

Imagine a community with a monthly lead volume of 100 prospects. If the average annual rate for a resident is $30,000 and the average resident stays for five years, the lifetime value per resident is $150,000. Now, assume that only 9-10% of those abandoned “Planning Focused” leads actually become residents, even though they weren’t ready to make an immediate move.

Here’s the potential lost ROI:

• $30,000 (average annual rate) x 5 years = $150,000 (lifetime value per resident)
• $150,000 x 7 move-ins from abandoned leads = $1,050,000

That’s a potential loss of over $1 million in revenue, simply because these leads were not nurtured and were prematurely abandoned by the sales team.

The key to recapturing this lost revenue is to implement a lead nurturing system that keeps prospects engaged over time. By recognizing that only a small percentage of your leads are ready to move in immediately, you can adjust your approach to focus on long-term relationship building with the remaining 75% – your “Planning Focused” prospects.

One of the most effective ways to do this is through an email nurturing campaign. These emails should be designed to keep your community top of mind while building preference for your services. The goal is to guide (no high pressure sales tactics) these prospects through their decision-making journey by providing valuable information, such as:

• Tips on transitioning to senior living
• Success stories from current residents
• Updates about your community’s services and amenities
• Information on financial planning for senior living

These nurturing emails should be spaced out over weeks or months, giving prospects the time they need to evaluate their options while still maintaining a connection with your community.

To measure the success of this approach, you’ll need to track conversions over a longer period. Begin by looking at your current lead volume and identifying how many “abandoned” leads (Planning Focused prospects) later become residents through nurturing efforts. By calculating the lifetime value of these new residents and comparing it to the initial marketing costs, you’ll have a better picture of your ROI.

Additionally, tracking engagement with your nurturing emails, such as open rates, click-through rates, and responses, will provide insights into how well your communication conversion rates over time.

Many senior living sales teams make the mistake of abandoning leads too soon, focusing only on those ready to move immediately. However, by recognizing that 75% of leads need more time, and nurturing them through a personalized email series, you can significantly increase your conversion rates and boost your ROI. Don’t let valuable prospects slip away — develop a long-term strategy for nurturing the “Planning Focused” prospects in order to capture more residents and grow your community’s success.

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