Focus on Your Number of Sales AND What's in Your Pipeline
Effectively managing your sales pipeline happens when you cultivate a pattern of conversion within your lead base. This means that you and your team develop an expectation of actionable steps that occur in the period of a day, week and month. You must determine critical success factors you will use to gauge your success; generally, these should include: completed calls, email-outs, tours, appointments, event attendance, move-ins and sales. You need to figure out the number of each critical success factor you and your team must complete that will lead to a sale and also that will move different levels of leads up the pipeline. It is important to concern yourself with both selling and moving leads up the pipeline because you want to set yourself up for success in both the short- and long-term. Conversion ratios vary depending on numerous factors – including a community's market – but be sure to set standards to meet your goals for both sales and pipeline movement.

1. North Oaks Hurricane Ad

Target Audience – Primary Market Area, residents and staff.

Marketing Objective – To help residents recognize the efforts of the staff who gave generously of their time during Hurricane Irene. The residents suggested the idea after the storm was over.

Marketing Strategy – To produce a piece that expressed North Oaks residents' gratitude for the efforts of the community's staff during Hurricane Irene.

Results – North Oaks staff members received numerous comments from residents and colleagues about their positive impact on the community during Hurricane Irene. As a side benefit, the advertisement allowed prospective residents to see the community spirit at North Oaks.

2. Montgomery Place Resident Care Assurance Fund Brochure

Target Audience – Residents and their families, friends of Montgomery Place, staff and prospective residents.

Marketing Objective – To create visibility, to educate friends and family of the community about the Resident Care Assurance Fund, and to encourage people to donate to the cause.

Marketing Strategy – Montgomery Place and SB&A created this brochure to inform people about the Resident Care Assurance Fund, which is a fund that helps support Montgomery Place residents who need financial assistance (due to unforeseen fiscal occurrences) to continue living in the community. The team created this piece in time to be distributed at Montgomery Place's 20th Anniversary Celebration, which celebrated 20 years of offering an exceptional quality of life to residents. The piece also recognized the need to create an endowment to protect this lifestyle for all future residents and encouraged friends of Montgomery Place to donate.

Results – A number of contributions to the recently established fund were made in honor of Montgomery Place's 20th Anniversary Celebration. In addition, every member of the Montgomery Place board has agreed to participate and the fund will continue to support current and future residents in need of assistance.

3. The Village at Woods Edge Multigenerational Advertisement Series

Target Audience – Age- and-income qualified prospects in the Primary Market Area.

Marketing Objective – To educate prospects about The Village at Woods Edge and to continue building the waitlist.

Marketing Strategy – These advertisements incorporated residents and various members of their families to give prospects a sense of the community's culture, where family and intergenerational ties are a central focus. As Franklin, VA is a small town where people often know each other, the team anticipated a high interest in the ads.

Results – The viewers of the ads generally knew the resident models and were excited to learn more about their stories, which generated buzz. The Village at Woods Edge also received inquiries about the community and the waitlist.

4. Oakwood Village University Woods and Oakwood Village Prairie Ridge Rebranding Advertisements

Target Audience – The larger Madison community, Oakwood Village University Woods' Primary Market Area and Oakwood Village Prairie Ridge's Primary Market Area.

Marketing Objective – Oakwood Village University Woods (formerly Oakwood Village West) and Oakwood Village Prairie Ridge (formerly Oakwood Village East) are owned by the same company and are in the same city, but are two very different communities. The SB&A and Oakwood Village teams' objective was to educate prospects about the two communities' name changes and to share each individual community's unique brand.

Marketing Strategy – Prior to creating advertisements for each community and rolling out the brand, SB&A conducted research to understand the differentiating factors, lifestyles and individual identities of Oakwood Village University Woods and Oakwood Village Prairie Ridge. Through this research the team learned that the Primary Market Areas for each community were different, the prospects in these individual markets enjoyed different media when compared to the other community's PMA prospects, and found that each community had its own unique personality and style. The team rolled out new taglines for each community: Oakwood Village University Woods – "Life's Explorations Continued" and Oakwood Village Prairie Ridge – "Life on the Rise." The imagery in the ads reflected each community's unique personality.

Results – Increased awareness about the communities' new brands, increased leads and increased sales.