April 9th, 2024
Does your website make it clear, easy, and compelling for your residents and their families to refer your community to others?
Are you one of the over 80% of Senior Living communities whose website plays no identifiable role in sourcing direct referrals? If it does play a role, could it be more effective?
Why not get that next occupant directly by word of mouth? It’s free, so it should be a no-brainer, right?
In part 1 of this 4 part series, we answer how to make it clear, easy, and compelling on your website for residents, their families, and even employees to refer your community to others.
We’ll end by visiting the Bigger Picture where we share what we think are important elements of a complete workflow for proper execution - making it clear, easy, and compelling for you to follow-through with the care required to preserve trust and multiply its effects.
Making It “Clear”
First and foremost, you need to make it clear that you have a referral program and that you actually want people to share their recommendations to refer you.
Think about it this way: Your primary Call to Action is “Schedule a Tour,” right? This common Call to Action is always given prime website real estate. It’s usually
accompanied by global navigation to Services, Locations, Contact Us, and so on. That’s great for prospects who are researching their options and find your website through
search or a paid service. But what about the current and past relationships whose trust you’ve already earned? They’re more likely to visit your website directly and
routinely. Give them another Call to Action: “Refer a Friend.”
Key Recommendations:
- Make “Refer a Friend” a global Call to Action.
- Place it 1-click away, regardless of the page a visitor has landed on.
- In similar fashion to “Schedule a Tour,” make it community-specific.
- The headline on the resulting page or dialogue should immediately appeal.
Takeaway:
Most people grasp the concept and value of referrals. Make it clear to them that it’s important to you. They will act accordingly if they’ve had a good experience with you.
Making It “Easy”
Why make it burdensome for someone to do you a favor by providing you with the highest quality lead imaginable?
Yet, we see lots of examples of Refer-a-Friend programs that are challenging to act on.
Programs that aren’t easy to act on see high rates of abandonment, including those like “Call Us to Learn More” or “Ask Our Staff”
or “Print and Mail This Form” and so on. Even a web form, when poorly designed, can be overly complex and visually intimidating.
Key Recommendations:
- Dedicate a page or dialogue to this Call to Action. Don’t bury it in a lot of other content.
- Briefly tell the brand ambassador what he or she needs to know. Title. Subtitle. Simple.
- Provide a minimal form. Think of it like your “Schedule a Tour.” You don’t need much.
- Identify the ambassador and his or her friend(s).
- If you have multiple locations, make sure the form is specific to the intended location.
- Since it is a “recommendation” that you’re ideally capturing, consider quickly asking for a rating of 2 to 3 areas you think you do well in - things you might want the friend to know.
- Don’t write a book to describe your program or to disclaim it. Link to a separate dialogue for lengthy text, but absolutely provide necessary details, terms and conditions.
- On submission, make sure to thank the brand ambassador and state again what to expect next.
Takeaway:
People have short attention spans. Honestly, we’re happy if you’ve continued reading up to this point. Make it easy for the captive audience to craft and send their recommendation to friends and family.
Making It “Compelling”
This comes down to human nature, right? What’s in it for me? If it’s an organic lead that you stand to gain instead of one through a paid referral service, then you might have more flexibility
to offer an attractive incentive or a gesture of appreciation. This is up to you, but being able to offer your brand ambassador, and even the referred lead, a token of appreciation often goes
a long way. It’s certainly less expensive than surrendering a full month’s rent to a lead provider with exclusivity requirements.
Key Recommendations:
- Make your offer clear and attractive.
- Consider rotating a “limited time” offer with well-stated start and end dates.
Takeaway:
Offering an attractive reward significantly increases the likelihood that a brand ambassador will complete a recommendation, often doubling or tripling the rate of referrals compared to when no incentive is offered.
The Bigger Picture
If you successfully make it clear, easy, and compelling for your residents and their families to refer your community to others on your website, then “follow-through” is crucial to preserve and grow trust. Our focus at LeadTrust is the 360 degree execution required to effectively promote, capture, and reward organically sourced leads. That includes what the brand ambassador and friends might experience on your website, but it also includes what you experience as administrators. From our experience, here are some additional wants and needs to consider when you think about a Refer-a-Friend program on your website.
Additional Considerations:
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If possible, the brand ambassador should be given multiple ways to share a recommendation with others. Perhaps they know someone who has a need now or perhaps they don’t. Just asking for the name and contact information of a friend limits your program's exposure by limiting the brand ambassador’s options.
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For Known Persons With Immediate Needs
- Email Sharing
- SMS Text Sharing
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For Unknown Persons With Future Needs
- The Brand Ambassador’s Social Networks (Facebook, X, etc.)
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For Known Persons With Immediate Needs
- Facilitate the sharing electronically. Take any manual handling on your part out of the equation. This means that the friend receives the recommendation immediately, reducing the chance of a friend going through an external referral service to get to you or to someone else. Remember, if recommendations are just collected as form data requiring human review, they can be easily neglected. You provide value by helping a brand ambassador send a recommendation easily and immediately.
- Include a landing page for the friend to act upon when he or she receives the brand ambassador’s recommendation. This has its own workflow, of course, separate from the brand ambassador’s experience. The friend’s experience may simply be your existing “Schedule a Tour” Call to Action.
- Ensure that responsible parties are alerted internally when referrals are made and acted upon by a friend.
- Make sure that you can clearly track a friend’s action back to the brand ambassador’s recommendation. This can be tricky, but you need to see and understand the attribution.
- Acknowledge any rewards, provide status, and remit accordingly.
Final Takeaway:
If all of that sounds kind of hard… Well, it is… That’s why we built LeadTrust to make it easy.
Every community can source more of its own referrals from its existing relationships. The website should play a key role. Making it clear, easy, and compelling for your residents and their families to refer your community to others from your website is essential to upping your strategy.
In Part 2, we’ll explore other ways to drive organic inbound referrals through the role of Print and Display.