Crush Your Senior Living Marketing Goals With Lead Generation Surveys

For most senior living operators, maintaining steady occupancy rates ranks as a top concern, particularly in today’s economic climate. In fact, 54% of respondents in Aline’s 2025 State of the Senior Living Industry Report identified lead generation and personalized outreach as their top priorities for achieving growth.

Lead generation surveys make personalized outreach easier by giving you a clearer picture of your prospects’ interest levels and financial situations. Given that more than 17 million older adults over 65 are economically insecure, according to the National Council on Aging, this is especially critical. To maximize results, marketing practitioners should focus their time and resources on the leads most likely to move in.

Surveys also offer a cost advantage. Compared with events or referral programs, acquiring leads through surveys and web forms is significantly more affordable. When operators use surveys not just to gather information but to act on it, they can better target qualified prospects and keep occupancy rates strong.

Real-World Impact: Achieving Over 95% Occupancy

When families visit your website or call about senior living options, they rarely share the details you need to truly help them. Whether embedded in contact forms or sent after the first interaction, lead generation surveys provide the missing context you need to better inform your marketing and sales strategies. 

Here are some of the key benefits.

• Efficient lead qualification: Quickly identify which families need immediate placement and are financially prepared versus those just beginning their search, so you can prioritize efforts on the leads most likely to convert.
• Audience segmentation: Categorize prospects for personalized outreach. For example, someone seeking urgent, short-term care may need a different approach than someone exploring long-term options.
• More meaningful follow-up: Instead of generic sales pitches, your team can respond to the specific concerns prospects raise, such as memory care safety or future transitions from independent living.
• Operational insights: Spot trends in prospect behavior, like which channels deliver the most high-intent leads or which amenities matter most, to optimize marketing spend, staff time, and resources.
• Higher conversion: By focusing on high-priority leads and tailoring conversations to what matters most, you can build stronger engagement and move prospects further along the decision path.

In fact, senior living operators using Aline Roobrik Surveys say they get an additional 20% to 40% web leads and 20-plus data points that make converting them faster and easier. Such leads are also known to convert at up to two times the rate of standard web inquiries.Brightview Senior Living, for example, saw a 33% incremental increase in leads from web traffic in 2023 after the team started using Roobrik Surveys. Mike Thompson, director of marketing at Brightview, considers surveys “the unbiased nudge prospects need” to make decisions.

Key Survey Information to Guide Senior Living Marketing

Lead generation surveys act as a form of non-invasive discovery. Instead of your sales team pressing for answers, prospects naturally share what matters to them. In turn, your team gains the clarity and confidence they need to guide conversations toward the right solutions.

Depending on your sales goals, surveys can reveal a prospect’s readiness for change, care preferences, living situation, and even family dynamics. Here are some of the most valuable areas to explore.

• Demographic insights: Gather details on age range, family structure, and location. This information helps you build targeted campaigns, tailor outreach, and evaluate how well a prospect aligns with your community’s resident profile.
• Care needs and preferences: Identify health status, care requirements, and desired amenities, like dining or social activities, to better highlight what will resonate most with each prospect.
• Financial readiness: Understand budget ranges, funding sources, and affordability concerns. This early insight helps qualify leads and address cost anxieties with empathy.
• Decision-making factors: Discover what drives choices—whether it’s being close to family, balancing costs and amenities, or concerns about cognitive health. With this knowledge, you can schedule tours more strategically and remove potential roadblocks in advance.
• Pain points and motivations: Learn the “why now” behind their search. Whether it’s loneliness, a recent fall, or caregiver burnout, these insights help you connect on an emotional level and present your community as the solution.
• Communication preferences: Ask about preferred contact methods, such as phone, email, text, and frequency. Respecting these boundaries shows empathy and helps families feel supported rather than overwhelmed during a stressful decision-making process.

Tips for Effective Lead Generation Surveys

The most effective lead generation surveys are empathetic. Not only does this help you identify qualified prospects but it also guides families through a respectful, informative process that makes it easier for them to recognize when they’re ready to take the next step.

Here are some best practices for creating surveys that convert.

• Keep it short and focused: Limit surveys to three to five closed-ended questions that speak directly to immediate needs or preferences. Families researching senior living are often stressed. Shorter surveys feel approachable and improve completion rates.
• Use empathetic language: Acknowledge the weight of the decision and show that your goal is to help. For example: “This brief 3-minute survey helps us understand how we can best support you during this important transition.” Setting expectations and expressing care upfront builds trust.
• Ask about buying power and goals: Include qualifying questions around the budget and decision timeframe. This allows you to prioritize families ready to act while still nurturing those in early research phases.
• Mix question types wisely: Use multiple-choice or rating scales for easy analysis, and to capture deeper insights from those willing to share more, consider one optional open-ended question. An effective one is: “What’s your biggest concern about senior living?”
• Require contact info with consent: Collect an email or phone number and secure opt-in for follow-up communication. This demonstrates respect for privacy and ensures compliance with data regulations. Offering a small incentive, such as a coupon or resource guide, can encourage participation.
• Distribute surveys strategically: Share surveys across multiple channels — think email, social media, website embeds, and SMS — to reach prospects wherever they are. Some Aline Roobrik customers even see success with direct mail. Track which channels deliver the most engaged leads, and then double down on those.
• Follow up and nurture leads: Use responses to personalize outreach. Reference their concerns, share care-specific information, and provide relevant resources. According to Aline’s 2024 Benchmark Report, it takes 20 to 50 touchpoints to move a prospect from initial contact to move-in, so every personalized interaction counts.
• Test and optimize: Run pilot surveys to identify drop-off points and refine wording. Since senior living decisions often involve multiple family members, make sure your survey reflects that complexity.

For inspiration, we created a sample “4-minute” senior living survey, featuring close-ended, multiple-choice questions with prompts that explain why each question matters and what prospects should consider before answering.

How to Translate Data Insights into Occupancy

The value of your lead generation surveys lies not just in the data collected but in how you put that data to work. In fact, 32% of respondents in Aline’s 2025 State of the Industry Report said they plan to improve their sales processes to boost lead conversion rates, underscoring the importance of execution.

Here are some practical ways to turn insights into results.

• Personalized outreach: Survey data allows your team to have meaningful, relevant conversations from the very first touchpoint. Instead of generic calls, you can reference specific concerns and show how your community addresses them. Pair this with prospect-centered selling, which focuses on leading with empathy and centering every interaction on the individual’s unique needs and motivations. 
• Optimized marketing spend: Use insights to refine campaigns, content, retargeting ads, and lead nurturing. For example, if surveys show that memory care is a top concern, create resources on “addressing dementia progression” and share them with interested prospects. Targeting your spend this way ensures marketing dollars go where they matter most.
• Enhanced sales efficiency: Score and prioritize leads based on their stated needs and decision stage. Families seeking urgent, short-term placement can be fast tracked while those still in early research can be nurtured over time. This balance helps you manage both quick wins and long sales cycles, keeping occupancy rates steady.
• Strategic operational planning. Survey insights can inform more than sales. If you discover strong demand for memory care, pet-friendly policies, or certain amenities, you can adjust staffing, training, renovations, or service offerings to better align with what prospects value.

Case Study: Aline Roobrik for Lead Generation

Holland Home, a continuing care retirement community (CCRC), faced a familiar challenge: how to engage website visitors who were actively researching senior living options but not yet ready to speak with sales. This “hidden audience” often slipped through the cracks of traditional lead generation methods.

In 2023, Holland Home integrated Roobrik decision-support surveys on its website. This gave families a comfortable, low-pressure way to share sensitive details, such as finances and care needs, before any direct interaction with sales.

Within a year, Holland Home generated 150-plus Roobrik-qualified leads and secured four CCRC move-ins directly attributed to the platform. Holland Home’s survey performance also outpaced Roobrik’s industry benchmarks:

• 48% survey completion rate (Benchmark: 40-60%)
• 14% conversion rate from website visitors to qualified leads (Benchmark: 6-12%)
• 44% opt-in rate among survey completers (Benchmark: 20-40% benchmark)
• 2.6% move-in rate (Benchmark: 2-5%)

Here’s what Michael Loughman, vice president of sales and brand marketing for Holland Home, said:

The success has been so significant that Holland Home now uses survey data not only for immediate sales conversations but also to shape its long-term lead nurturing strategies.

Meet Prospecting Goals with Lead Generation Surveys

For senior living providers, lead generation surveys offer a non-intrusive way to create empathetic, resident-focused sales conversations. Over time, this translates into higher occupancy rates and greater resident satisfaction.

Roobrik Solutions by Aline makes this possible with surveys built on motivational interviewing techniques. The result is a low-pressure experience that guides prospects toward confident decisions — even on sensitive topics like care needs and financial readiness.

Let’s talk about how Roobrik Solutions by Aline can support your prospecting strategy.Want to see how other lead generation strategies can improve your sales performance? Download our guide “Improve Sales Performance With Better Lead Generation.”