The Mission
Watermark Retirement Communities creates extraordinary and innovative retirement communities where people thrive. Based in Tucson, Arizona, Watermark is a privately held company managing senior living communities across the United States for more than 30 years, with a reputation for integrity, innovation, financial stability, and high-quality service.
The Challenge
When seniors and their loved ones evaluate retirement communities, they often call to RSVP for events and book tours. Visits and tours are a key part of the Watermark sales process, as prospects always want to see the community as a first step. Despite the importance of phone calls, the team didn’t have a reliable way to track the phone leads its marketing campaigns generated. It also lacked insights into how well the sales team handled the phone leads marketing sent them.
The Resolution
Getting Attribution for Phone Leads Driven by Marketing Campaigns
With its previous call tracking vendor, Watermark could track which marketing campaigns drove phone calls, but they needed analytics into which calls were leads. This prevented them from proving the full ROI of campaigns and allocating budget effectively. Now, with Invoca’s Signals, Watermark can track the quality of the phone calls its marketing campaigns drive, and understand which ones lead to event RSVPs and tour bookings.
With our previous call tracking provider, we could see that a call was generated, but our analytics stopped there. When we switched to Invoca, the Signals were an immediate upgrade for our team — they showed us the quality of our phone calls, not just the quantity. We can now optimise our calls by driving more RSVPs and tour bookings, which lead to increased occupancy.
—Laura Katterhenry, Director of Creative Services at Watermark Retirement Communities
Driving More ROI from Direct Mail Campaigns
The team uses Invoca across all marketing channels, including paid search, website, and direct mail. Direct mail is one of Watermark’s most effective tactics, driving most of its phone leads. With Invoca, the team can A/B test different direct mailer copy and creative and understand what messaging generates phone leads. This has allowed the team to develop higher-converting mailers and reduced its cost per lead.
Direct mail is one of our company’s most valuable marketing tactics, and Invoca has helped us take it to the next level. With Invoca’s attribution, we can track what kind of events and offers get the best feedback from our customers when they call in. It has helped us understand our audience’s needs on a deeper level and create messaging that resonates with them.
—Laura Katterhenry, Director of Creative Services at Watermark Retirement Communities
Scoring Marketing Calls at Scale with Signals
Before using Invoca, Watermark had no formal method of flagging calls made to each community they operate. Community teams were asked to listen to a sampling of their call recordings on a monthly cadence, and that was the extent of the quality assurance process, as managers lacked the bandwidth to manually listen to all calls and give sales directors personalised feedback.
Now, the sales team uses Invoca’s Signals to automatically flag phone calls at scale. Since Invoca analyses 100% of phone calls instead of a small sample, the team can rest assured that scores are accurate and unbiased. Managers can easily pinpoint areas of improvement for each associate and personalise coaching accordingly. Managers can also comment directly on Invoca transcripts and @mention associates, so they can highlight teachable moments and give associates feedback between regularly scheduled coaching sessions.
Invoca has really helped us bring our sales and marketing teams together. Sales now have full transparency into how many leads the marketing team sends them, and marketing can see how well sales converts those leads. The collaboration has been amazing.
—Laura Katterhenry, Director of Creative Services at Watermark Retirement Communities
The Results
- Enterprise reduction in cost per lead by 7% after implementing Invoca
Invoca’s customer service is incredible — I’d give it a 10 out of 10! They went above and beyond during the implementation process and helped us get up and running quickly. I can always count on Invoca’s team to get back to me promptly when I have a question, and they’re full of ideas to help us improve our results with the platform.
—Laura Katterhenry, Director of Creative Services at Watermark Retirement Communities
