4 Ways Lead Scoring Can Improve Conversions for Senior Living Sales 

As competition becomes increasingly difficult, senior living sales and marketing teams need to work smarter to turn those leads into conversions. In addition to implementing an integrated CRM, today’s powerful marketing automation tools help sales and marketing teams work more efficiently and better focus their efforts, especially when leveraging lead scoring. Successfully converting an inquiry to a move-in takes a quick response to keep leads hot, but without an objective, automated way to prioritize your efforts, your most promising leads could quickly fall under the radar and turn cold.

If you still manually or randomly assign lead scores to prospects without any sort of methodology to identify the best prospective residents for your community, it’s time to rethink your strategy.

What Is Lead Scoring?

Lead scoring uses a predictive algorithm to rate prospects based on their sales activity to determine which leads are most likely to turn into residents. The scores are listed in a report format that ranks active prospects by their lead score. Prospects can receive a lead score from 0 to 100 with higher scores indicating a prospect is more likely to move in and lower scores indicating a prospect is less likely to become a resident.

The best leads have engaged in more activities further down the sales funnel. Face-to-face interactions, such as tours, assessments, and home visits, score higher than early-stage interactions, such as filling out a web form.

To optimize your sales efforts, lead scores are not static. As a lead engages in more bottom-of-the-funnel activities, their score increases. Likewise, if a lead suddenly stops engaging, their score drops. This gives you real-time visibility into the quality of your leads.

How to Use Lead Scoring for Better Conversions

Now that you have a clear picture of your top leads, you can create a sales strategy to help improve your conversions and get the most out of your lead scoring report.

1. Understand intent: Not all leads come in at the same stage of the decision-making process. With automated score assignments based on prospect behaviors and interactions, you can better understand a lead’s intent and readiness. This allows you to adjust how you approach your conversations with these prospective residents to better meet them in their journey.

For example, a prospect with a high lead score after a home visit and multiple tours may be ready to discuss deposits and pricing for a quicker conversion. But a prospect with a low lead score after a couple emails may need more buy-in on transitioning to senior living.

2. Prioritize engaged leads: Communities that want to nurture leads into conversions more quickly should focus their sales efforts on prospects who meet a certain lead score, which predicts the likeliness of a move-in. That way, sales and marketing teams don’t waste too much of their efforts on colder leads who haven’t shown as much interest. Timeliness is crucial when it comes to follow-up and conversion.

Of course, that’s not to say you should completely ignore colder leads. While colder leads may need more nurturing and require more time, they aren’t necessarily a lost sale. Structure your time that you spend most of your efforts trying to close with a smaller percentage dedicated to early-stage prospecting. Or you could even have a junior sales rep spend the bulk of their time on leads with lower scores while your experienced sales reps focus on prospects more likely to convert.

3. Optimize your follow-up strategy: Deliver a more effective follow-up communication strategy by segmenting your leads based on scores and tailoring your outbound messaging and email campaigns to their journey and individual needs.

For instance, you can take leads with the highest scores and send them an email campaign with a CTA of sending a deposit. However, for prospects with lower scores, asking for a deposit may seem overly aggressive. They would likely respond better to a campaign that highlights your happy residents through testimonials and case studies. This personalization helps build a more meaningful connection with your prospects and increases your chance of converting them into a resident.

4. Provides a sales performance benchmark: As you collect lead data, you can establish a baseline of the types and numbers of interactions it takes to turn an inquiry into a resident. With that information, you can use these averages to set performance goals in your CRM and keep your efforts on track.

Let’s say you know your average prospect takes multiple tours before closing. However, you’re currently engaging a warm lead who has only hosted you for a home visit. In your next interaction, it’s time to nudge them to the tour stage to increase your conversion chances and keep them moving down the sales funnel.

Related: For a complete look at industry performance metrics, download the Aline Sales and Marketing Benchmark Report.

Smarter Insights and Sales Enablement Solutions for Better Outcomes

With your hottest leads clearly defined and the right sales strategy in place, you’re on the path to converting more prospects into residents and building a thriving senior living community. Lead scoring is the ultimate tool for working more intelligently and efficiently.

Along with lead scoring, Aline’s suite of marketing automation and contact center solutions are designed to connect directly to your CRM. In this one integrated space, you have everything you need to streamline your sales process and maximize your outreach efforts. Learn more about how you can use these powerful solutions and even more in our guide “Improve Sales Performance With Better Lead Generation.” This guide will walk you through how to create an effective strategy for optimizing your lead generation efforts, supported by innovative technology for big results.