5 Simple Ways to Align Your Marketing & Sales Strategies

Generating sales qualified leads is hard. Here are 5 ways to produce leads your organization can execute!

McKnight’s Senior Living’s Lois Bowers recently reported that “the number of occupied units increased 0.9% in the second quarter, whereas total units grew by only 0.2%.” This means that effective lead generation is still a strategic imperative for most senior living operators. 

We have found that generating leads the way your sales team prefers to take them increases the likelihood of follow up and acceptance. Below are 5 ways to produce leads for your unique sales team.

Does Your Sales Team Prefer Phone Calls?

Some sales teams prefer to manage leads over the phone. Use these tools to direct–and track–calls right to those teams.

Call Extensions Offer a Trackable CTA

Google Ads allows you to display a phone number in your search ad letting prospects call directly from the ad without even visiting your website. This is an extremely effective way to connect instantly with families and talk with them while they are “in the research moment.” Better still, Google will track those calls and optimize your campaign to generate more calls like them when it understands their importance. 

Call Tracking Categorizes Calls

Call tracking is a must for any organization working to optimize phone traffic. Call tracking tools identify a call’s source, providing valuable insights about the marketing efforts generating telephone leads.  Advanced tools like Call Intelligence take this a step further by categorizing calls automatically so you easily identify and count qualified leads and other non-sales related questions.

Does Your Sales Teams Prefer Web Leads?

Some sales teams would prefer to contact a prospect when they have more time to talk with them. Use these tips to provide more insights when they make that follow up phone call. 

Direct Prospects with a Clear Call to Action

To successfully generate leads from your website, prospects need to clearly understand what they should do next and why. “Schedule a Tour” is a clear action that should be accompanied by a contact form. Make that contact form visible, simple and consistent with your brand and message to help the website visitor understand the action you want them to take and why.

Use Content Marketing to Engage and Educate

Visitors land on your website with questions. Well-designed content in the form of resources or guides provides valuable information to the potential customer. In exchange for that information, require the reader to provide contact information. You establish your position as an authority while also beginning a relationship with the prospect.

Guide the Buyer Journey with Email Marketing and Automation

Not every lead is ready to make a decision; some need nurturing. Through email marketing, you can provide additional information, and ask the prospect questions, to maintain a relationship and guide the buying journey. Use a marketing automation platform to automate an email nurture sequence that engages future residents and family members and provides critical information to support the sales process. Knowing that a move-in is the ultimate goal, email marketing with automation turns prospects into qualified leads by guiding the prospects down a conversion path slowly and strategically.

Match Marketing and Sales Tactics to Close the Census Gap

The more your lead generation programs match your sales strengths, the better your overall results will be. Understand your core competencies and make sure your marketing strategy is aligned properly.

Anybody can generate leads. What you want to do is generate leads that your sales team will follow up on and ultimately close. To generate sales qualified leads, you must consider their follow up preferences. If you are not sure how to create those leads, ask Markentum to provide a digital marketing evaluation.