Are you headed to the Future of Aging Services Conference and Leadership Summit next week? If so, be sure to come and visit SB&A and Brooks Adams Research at booth 907. Along with having our executive team onsite to answer any of your questions and provide information about our services, we will be offering tutorials on our FREE application, SB&A Sales Blast. To learn more about this app prior to the conference, please click on the icon below:

Please also follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates and posts throughout the conference:

We look forward to seeing you in Washington, D.C.!

SB&A and Brooks Adams Research
Contact Us
207 West Franklin St.
Richmond, VA 23220
804.649.3704
www.SBandA.com/FOAS
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Tracking metrics and analytics has always been important, but today there are more reasons than ever to button up your benchmarking process. Why? Because of the level of change that is impacting our marketing on three fronts.

First, the economic changes of the last three years have clearly had a lasting impact on the way seniors make decisions about their future. Second, interactive and social media are changing the way senior prospects and their adult children learn about retirement options. And finally, we are now in the midst of the long-anticipated Age Wave – beginning to serve a new and quirky generation of Boomer Consumers.

The old standbys of print and direct mail aren't out of the picture, but they certainly aren't the whole picture any more. We are testing everything from e-blasts to QR Codes to SEO. We're evaluating not just the potential for building awareness, but the conversion rates and cost per lead/tour/sale of new media. And we're evaluating the optimum creative approach to these new opportunities as well.

Tracking and metrics have never been more important as we try to establish benchmarks for entirely new media options.

Even if you’ve been actively tracking metrics, it’s essential to examine the new data sets that need to be collected. If you haven’t, there is an important opportunity to set up systems that keep track of information, analyze data on a regular basis and determine whether to change or stay the course depending on results.

Here are a few tips to stay ahead:

• Make it part of your marketing plan to measure results and revisit the plan on a monthly basis.
• Make sure your company communicates changing benchmarks with regular updates to key people.
• Question the statistics that you hear at conferences and in publications to learn EXACTLY what is being reported. Often there are key differences in the way consultants and owners measure outcomes. Ask exactly what formula is applied and at what point in the project the data was collected.
• Track trends (i.e. how is traffic growing on my website or is my e-newsletter continuing to add new readers).
• Identify goal benchmarks for each medium (i.e. We would like monthly visits to be at 1,500 and would like to have conversion pages such as a "contact us" page be in the top 5 for viewed pages).
• Report whether goals and objectives are being met.
• If efforts are not working, be willing to change directions (fewer visits to your website may mean that you need more relevant content or a stronger marketing campaign that sends more leads to your site).
• When you do something new and innovative, make it an experiment. Closely track your critical success factors and pay attention when trends are moving in either direction.

SB&A offers onsite sales consulting and management to CCRC clients across the nation. Projects range from blue-sky developments to expansions and turnarounds. Being onsite allows SB&A to conduct ongoing sales training, to help client teams better manage the sales pipeline, to polish the use of tracking and reporting systems with regard to critical success factors and to offer an outside perspective on ways to become more efficient and successful with sales and marketing efforts.

Thinking Partner Selling™ is the basis for our consultant philosophy. The Thinking Partner Selling (TPS) philosophy encourages sales counselors to partner with their clients, rather than to persuade them. Working together, the sales counselor/prospect team can match what the client needs with what a community offers. By being a partner with their clients and embracing shared goals, communities can form relationships that lead to both sales and friendships that may well result in future referrals.

Anthony Herring manages our onsite sales teams and has seen significant results on behalf of numerous client communities. A graduate of James Madison University with a degree in business administration, as well as certification from Recruitment and Hiring Training, Field Management Training and Motivation & Leadership Training programs, Anthony brings diverse educational and work experiences to SB&A. With more than a dozen years in residential real estate sales, staffing, construction and operations, most recently for a national Active Adult community builder, Anthony has a proven track record of detail orientation and customer satisfaction. He has also helped multiple senior communities to sell in the midst of a difficult economy. Anthony consistently offers innovative solutions to the most challenging sales dilemmas and effectively manages a talented team of SB&A sales consultants who contribute to client sales success.

Early on in the first appointment you should lay the groundwork for the second appointment, so that momentum – and inevitably the sale – doesn't slip away. This can be done very simply in casual conversation with your prospects:

"Mr. and Mrs. Jones, today's visit will probably generate more questions than it does answers. Let's plan on spending a few hours together next week so that I can answer all of your questions that come up. I would like to make sure that, after our conversations, you have a comprehensive picture of the community."

As you are wrapping up that first appointment, you can easily ask your prospects what time(s) will work for them to come in and meet with you again. This approach makes closing a second appointment seamless.

1. Montgomery Place website redesign

TARGET AUDIENCE – Prospective residents, adult children, referral sources, prospective employees and current staff, current residents and their families.

MARKETING OBJECTIVE – Externally, to continue the evolution of the website, addressing all of the key publics and promoting the quality of life at Montgomery Place and to increase the opportunities for interactivity in the visitor experience. Behind the scenes, the site is built to incorporate strong organic search tools and to provide extensive analytics and metrics.

MARKETING STRATEGY – Montgomery Place added helpful new features to its site in addition to a fresh look and feel. New features include: an RSS feed from The New York Times' blog The New Old Age, quarterly updates from CEO Michael Apa, video testimonials, an interactive financial planning calculator, an interactive floor plan, a live roof cam showing lake views and more.

RESULTS – Analytics have been exceptional thus far. Key highlights from the most recent two-week period include:

• 77.48% increase in new site visits
• A 25.63% increase in time spent on the site
• Excellent SEO results, including 74.14% of viewers finding the site through a search engine and 8.69% of traffic originating from referral sites
• Higher conversion ratios on key pages
• An overwhelmingly positive response from prospects who find the site both interesting and user-friendly, with one prospect saying that "looking at [the site] increased [her] interest for an appointment to get an even better look at Montgomery Place."

TARGET AUDIENCE – Pacific Springs Village's existing lead base and age- and income-qualified households from the primary market.

MARKETING OBJECTIVE – To bring prospective residents to a Pacific Springs Village event, where they could learn more about the community and get a better idea of the resident experience, meet staff and other prospects, make an appointment and be offered the opportunity to make a Priority Reservation deposit.

MARKETING STRATEGY – These informational events brought prospects out to the community and allowed potential residents to ask questions about living at Pacific Springs Village. The sales team could: get to know individuals and families better; present information about the benefits of becoming a resident; introduce the upcoming, state-of-the-art expansion and share specifics of the Priority Reservation Program.

RESULTS – The event resulted in an influx of new leads for the community (450 to be exact) and a high lead-to-appointment conversion ratio. The new Priority Reservation Program is off to a great start.

TARGET AUDIENCE – Target audience included both leads and age- and income-qualified prospects.

MARKETING OBJECTIVE – To drive event attendance by offering information about how to downsize and to convert event attendees to one-on-one appointments at the community's "Field Day."

MARKETING STRATEGY – The soft programming event "Rightsizing Your Retirement Living" brought in active leads who were interested in learning more about the expansion as well as how to simplify their life. Katie Hamann with Door to Door Solutions and Wendy McSweeny from Photo Lively were on hand as subject-matter experts. Covenant Woods also held a drawing at the event and lucky participants whose names were chosen received an Amazon Kindle.

RESULTS – The event was an overwhelming success, with better-than-expected attendance. New leads also came to the event and numerous attendees requested Field Day appointments.

TARGET AUDIENCE – Village Manor's lead base of prospective residents.

MARKETING OBJECTIVE – To bring prospective residents to an on-campus Village Manor event, where they could learn more about the community and its maintenance-free lifestyle.

MARKETING STRATEGY – Many of Village Manor's Lunch and Learn events have been held off campus, so one of the main objectives with the St. Patrick's Day event was to have prospects visit the community. Village Manor created a fun, lighthearted event where prospects could get a feel for the community's lively spirit and learn more about the advantages of becoming a resident.

RESULTS – The event drew larger-than-expected attendance, and better yet, the majority of attendees stayed for a personal tour of the community's campus.