The first goal of marketing to seniors, families and referral sources is to provide helpful information to these audiences so they see your community as a trusted resource. Once you’ve established this trust, continue to nurture that relationship to the point where they either want to join or refer someone to your community. This process includes attracting, converting and closing leads, and then delighting these new members of your community so they become long-time residents who give you that word-of-mouth boost that will separate you from a crowded field of senior living operators.
An important part of this engagement process is developing good calls to action, or CTAs, within your marketing practices. Without good CTAs, you can’t get strangers or visitors to convert to the status of being considered a lead. Examples of CTAs include those cheesy “buy one, get a second one now” offers you hear and see on late-night cable TV; bold phone numbers listed on direct mail calls; or, in the online world, buttons and links to landing pages where forms can gather more information.
You can’t get older adults to live or receive care in your community without a conversion process. Because so many seniors are going online, this article will focus on the online CTA. In senior living, the CTA is the first part of a formal conversion process that also includes a landing page and thank-you page. Each of these has a clear function, corresponding best practices and requires careful planning. Below, find five best practices of creating a CTA that will support clicks and conversion to leads.
What is a CTA?
In simple terms, a CTA is a button that promotes an offer and links to a landing page. The CTA launches the conversion process by enticing a prospect to click the button. It must be designed and implemented to generate action. Follow these steps to get the most from your CTAs and lead-engagement process:
Make it action-oriented.
Don’t beat around the bush or try to be too clever with the CTA language. Just tell the reader or viewer what you are offering. Because good marketing is not about you – it’s about your prospect – let’s think this through. Maybe your offer, because it is helpful, is a guide for moving into an assisted living community. Let’s call it “An Assisted Living Move-In Guide.” In that case, an appropriate CTA, outlined on a button, might be “Download the free Assisted Living Move-In Guide.” The key action-oriented verb in this CTA is “Download.” Of course, “free” is enticing as well.
Use keywords consistent with your offer.
If you don’t, how will prospects know clearly what you are offering? In the example above, keywords consistent with our offer include “Assisted Living Move-In Guide.” We’ll use those words throughout the process.
Grab attention with your CTA.
Size, color, and location are all factors to consider with your CTA. You don’t want to be obnoxious, but make sure folks notice your CTA while being true to your organization’s brand.
Use strong but appropriate on-page placement.
A good CTA might be located at the end of a blog post, where it stands out and keeps the conversation going with a reader. For example, your blog post might be about how independent and assisted living are different. Then, a good CTA would be to place a button after the blog about your “free Assisted Living Move-In Guide.” Note that on-page placement for CTAs will differ for blogs, email and social media marketing.
Set goals for your CTAs, measure their effectiveness, then adjust if you are not hitting these goals.
A CTA click-through rate is a good goal. Common CTA click-through rates range from 1-2 percent. This means if a CTA is viewed by 10,000 individuals, you are shooting for 100 to 200 to actually click on the button and reach your landing page. A second goal might be clicks-to-submission. This means you want visitors to actually fill out the form! A good CTA clicks-to-submission goal is around 10 percent. If 10,000 people see your CTA, and 100 to 200 click it (1-2 percent), then you want 10 to 20 people to fill out the form. Now you have leads your sales team can check in with to see if their questions were answered by the guide, learn more about their needs, and answer any and all questions they have as they explore their options.
While this article discusses CTAs from an online perspective, they are just as critical with the other marketing efforts you employ. Always consider what you can offer individuals, how you can entice people to give up some of their personal information to get that offer and how you will continue the conversation at a later time.
Would you like us to assess your CTAs and conversion process? Contact us, tell us what you are offering seniors, and we’ll follow up with a quick assessment of what’s working and what’s not, for free.
