Thanks so much to all of you who took a few minutes to complete our survey of lead generating web sites and their effectiveness in bringing inquiries that turn into admissions. One hundred and twelve people completed our survey, which gives us a good response on which to base our report. Of those, 87% were owners, CEOs, or administrators of private duty home care companies.
The respondents were evenly divided between franchises and independents – 45% each. And we had 5% each of affiliated companies, and multi-location independent companies. We had a pretty even distribution among company sizes ranging from 250 hours per week to 3,000 hours per week.
What did we learn?
The general conclusion is that the vast majority of home care company leaders do not see many results from working the lead generating web sites. The most frequently used site was A Place for Mom, with 49.5% of companies saying they used this service in the past 12 months. However, A Place for Mom averaged 11.05 leads, and only 1.44 of those actually converted to an admission. That’s a 13% conversion ratio.
The company providing the most leads is Elder Care Link, which averaged 51.57 leads per company, and converted 2.19, or 4.2%. Several other companies were in the double digits lead category. Service Magic/Home Advisor generated 18.02 leads per agency, and converted 1.49 or 8.2%. Caring.com generated an average of 13.94 leads per agency, and converted .94 or 6.7%.
Which Sites are Most Effective?
To get more helpful information, we asked respondents to rate the overall effectiveness of the sites on our list
using a scale of 1 to 5. The highest rated site is A Place for Mom with an average score of 2.09 out of 5. That’s in the “not very good” range. Here are the ratings of the top five sites:
- A Place for Mom – 2.09
- Care In Homes – 1.76
- Service Magic / Home Advisor – 1.74
- Caring.com – 1.70
- Best of Home Care.com – 1.67
Which Sites Would you Highly Recommend?
We asked the survey respondents to tell us which of the sites they would “highly recommend to your colleagues in private duty home care”.
- A Place for Mom – 48.1%
- Caring.com – 22.2%
- Care Scout – 14.8%
- Service Magic / Home Advisor – 14.8%
- Best of Home Care.com – 11.1%
- Elder Care Link – 11.1%
What’s the Real Value of These Services
Because there is a wide range of pricing structures, and we wanted to keep this survey simple, we did not ask what respondents paid for their leads. We recognize that is an important piece of data for you to have in considering the value of working with these lead generating web sites. The next step in our research will be to explore the pricing of the most effective lead generating web sites, and give you some more specific data about the overall cost and value of using these sites. We will then be writing a white paper giving you the full details.
This white paper will be FREE of charge to Premium Members of The Academy for Private Duty Home Care®.
This survey and the coming white paper are part of the continuing efforts of The Academy for Private Duty Home Care® to learn about the most effective techniques to grow your private duty home care business. Visit the Academy for more details on research results that are available.
What would you like to know about the private duty home care industry? What surveys would you like to see us conduct? Post your research questions below and we’ll ask our readers to respond.
