As a senior living provider, you may have heard terms like “widgets,” “pop-ups,” and “virtual sales assistants’’ thrown around. While these may sound like technical jargon, they’re just simple tools that can help improve your online marketing efforts. But what do these terms mean, and how can they benefit your business? In this article, we’ll summarize the features of each of these tools and how they interact with your website’s visitors.

What are Widgets?

In the world of online marketing, widgets are interactive tools that you can add to your website to perform a specific function. They can do all sorts of things, from showing weather updates to displaying your latest blog posts. Widgets are a simple way to add some extra functionality to your site without having to do any coding yourself. They’re like little mini-apps that you can easily customize and add to your website’s sidebar or footer.

What is a Pop-Up?

A pop-up is a message or advertisement that appears in a separate window or box on top of the main website. Pop-ups have developed a notorious reputation for being annoying and disruptive, but they can be used more strategically and effectively. When done well, pop-ups can grab a visitor’s attention and encourage them to take a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter or scheduling a tour of your senior living community. The key is to design your pop-ups to be tasteful and not too intrusive.

What is a Virtual Sales Assistant?

Last but not least, we have virtual sales assistants. These are a bit more advanced than widgets and pop-ups, as they use artificial intelligence and natural language processing to simulate a conversation with a real salesperson. Virtual sales assistants are designed to help customers with their buying journey by answering questions, providing recommendations, and guiding them through the process of scheduling a tour of your community. The benefit of virtual sales assistants is that they can provide personalized assistance to customers at scale, without requiring a human to be available 24/7.

VSAs can be especially helpful for older adults and their families who may have questions about pricing, amenities, or healthcare services. And sometimes it’s just nice to have a friendly, engaging, and approachable virtual assistant to chat with!

Widgets, pop-ups, and virtual sales assistants serve different purposes, but they all are designed to enhance the user experience and make interactions with websites and apps more engaging and helpful. Just remember, whether you’re using a widget, a pop-up, or a virtual sales assistant, always keep your audience in mind and use tools that are approachable and easy to understand.

If you’re looking to increase website engagement, generate leads, or provide better customer service, Waypoint’s Navigator can help you achieve your goals.

Contact us today to schedule your free demo!