Insurance Agent Marketing – Creating a Sustainable Lead Generation Pool
Successful producers know that quality, local insurance leads are vital to ongoing success.
Funny how the pen that writes up an order for new business is always tethered to the phone.
And today that phone is tied more and more to the internet.
The internet is rapidly changing. Insurance agents thirsting for relevant insurance leads need a competitive advantage. While a competitive advantage based on paying for every lead on a per lead basis can be effective, it means you are tied to:
1. Your own cost outlay (and budget) for each and every lead
2. The number of leads any given vendor can supply.
But, an alternate strategy for successful insurance agency marketing exists. No, not alternate–parallel. No insurance agent carries just one line; it would cripple the agency’s income. Multiple lines mean multiple chances to connect with customers.
Lead generation should work the same way. Your insurance marketing efforts should combine more than one tactic to put you in front of your customers.
And this is where search marketing comes in. Local search.
A recent stat shows that Google will soon account for 30% of all online advertising. Why? Because companies will pay good money to be in front of the right prospective client at the right time. And, they’ll pay even more money to get in front of that prospect with the right message at the magic moment in time.
That’s what you can do with successful search marketing It’s not easy, but it can be sustainable. Unlike pay per lead, a strong natural search campaign, coupled with thoughtfully placed paid search efforts can send your agency sales soaring.
Search can really be your best referrer.
12 Keys to Insurance Marketing Success
After working over 25 years with health, annuity, and life insurance marketers and recruiters, I am still amazed. Too many teeter around like inexperienced rookie insurance producers. They skip every opportunity that provides modern techniques, eliminates time wasting, and requires investing money in their success. MOST FAIL, thousands of others earn less money than a good experienced, and knowledgeable insurance agent makes.
The goal of this article is to make successful insurance marketing professionals more successful. For those not yet at that level, heading upward is rarely achieved without the guidance few others can provide. Because I like to tell it like it is, heed this warning. You should be currently mastering at least 9 of the key factors below. Otherwise your chances at recruiting or marketing success is slim to none.
THE 12 KEYS for Insurance Independent Marketing Organizations, National Wholesalers, State Managers, General Agents, Insurance Company Recruiters, Brokerage Directors, Independent Broker-Dealers, Insurance Company Regionals, Territorial Product Managers, MGA’s, and similar individuals or companies.
1. Understanding Your Competition Are they marketing the same product or how different is it from the one you are offering? Is their emphasis on higher commissions, better product benefits, or exceptional service. You should also know how many competitors in your territory exist, how they prospect for agents, how many producers are contracted, and copies of their brochures and contracts.
2. Why Insurance Marketers Fail As you might already know, in the first eighteen months of their career, 85% of life and health insurance agents fail to survive. Reasons broadly range from lack of management, ineffective prospecting, and poor planning to the unwilliness to spend money to make money.
3. Total Insurance Base Few marketers take the time to find out how many life and health insurance agents exist in their territory. How many of these agents are brand new. In contrast, what is the total that survived the critical first four years? The marketer or recruiter may be biting off more than they can handle. On the other hand, there has to be enough agents ready to bite.
4. Agents: Who to and Not Concentrate On This is what separates the young and old boys from the pros. Right now, thousands of agent recruiters are not concentrating their time on target marketing. Face the Facts! Not every life and health insurance agent wants your product. Nor are they healthy for your producer force. There are 4 basic groups of life and health agents, and your target lies within 45% of the total licensed representatives.
5. Importance of your Prospective Agent List A top priority item. Do you even have a targeted prospective agent list for your territory? If you do, you are in the smart minority. Even smarter, if your list closely matches agents currently selling a similar product to what you are offering. An experienced agent list compiler might be able to help you. Other sources, such as list brokers, directories, and even insurance departments rarely can.
6. How Types of Prospecting Differ Here is an area where recruiters and marketers stray far off. The choices include emailing, telemarketing, personal calling, trade magazine advertising, direct mail letters or postcards, attending association meetings, and others. There are not only wide differences in costs and personal time consumed, but in legal requirements. For example, a wrong phone call could cost you an $11,200 fine.
7. Best States to Recruit In This is critical knowledge for those whose territory is national or covers a grouping of states. Insurance marketers hit some states in your territory 7 times as hard as other states. Likewise, some agents in your marketing region receive 10 times the solicitation of others. Learn why sometimes it is better to stay out of big metropolitan areas. Test your territory to explore results, or talk to an experienced insurance recruiting advisor.
8. Increasing Income Techniques It is a fact that you are going to have to invest money, and consistently have a plan of continuous insurance marketing and recruiting. So many recruiters do not know what ROI stands for, or how to figure it out. A good ROI-Return on Investment (over 3 years) for recruiting agents could range from 5 to 1, or much higher. Experienced insurance marketers will respond that a producing agent/broker is worth at least $3,500 to them. That amount is more than at least 30% of self-considered marketers invest on recruiting in a year!
9. Prospecting Techniques to Reach Willing Agents To be successful in developing an agent to write your insurance products three things must be present beforehand. All three are almost of equal importance. First, your message must go to the right qualified agent. Second, your product must excite a need in the agent to want to sell it. Third, you must reach this right agent, with the right product, at the right time.
10. Tricks and Tips Increasing Response Very few worthwhile tips will be extracted from your competitors. Some you may luckily stumble upon. Marketing masters close guard the secrets to their success. One of the big tips is to make your marketing sparkle with tricks and tips not practiced by your competitors. Just implementing one good trick can increase your response rate by an additional 40% increase. P.S. Some insurance marketing writers, like me, will share them in insurance articles.
11. Wording and Designing Your Insurance Message Over 80% of insurance messages made visible to agents by ALL prospecting techniques will never be fully read. Most messages through out bait like vacations, cruises, bonuses, and tripling income within 12 months. Sadly, few realize the simple fact, “what is your product going to do to benefit me”.
12. Agent Recruiting Seminars This is one of the greatest ways to recruit numerous agents to produce business for you with one informative face-to-face meeting. To pull it off, you need to know how many qualified agents are in driving range. Next, you need to develop a formula of the correct prospecting techniques, tricks, and treats to get the maximum traffic to virtually guarantee success.
Remember that insurance marketing success is an upward journey. It is not a destination point where golden eggs are then constantly produced.
Become a successful insurance agent, don’t remain mediocre
If you have been giving a career as an insurance agent a thought then you have a lot of hard work to do. Insurance agents need to develop a lot of skills in order to be successful. It is no just enough to become an insurance agent. You have to be successful too.
Case study
Karen, 25 years old, works with an insurance company and has 3 years of experience. Justin 33 years old, works for the same company and has 5 years of experience. Karen has a better annual conversion rate as compared to what Justin has. Here lies the difference between a successful insurance agent and an average agent.
The reason behind Karen’s success is that she is fast enough to learn the tricks of the trade which Justin has not been able to pick up.
If you want to be a successful insurance agent take a look at the following tips:
1. You must be extremely familiar with the insurance industry and especially with the main types of insurance – life, health, auto, disability and home. You must have the latest insurance news and must be aware of what is happening in the industry.
2. You must have a great level of energy. This may sound weird but if there is no enthusiasm, there cannot be passion. Without passion you cannot get in to the details of any process.
3. Aim to become a trusted advisor for your client. Remember it is not just a product that you are striving to sell; your product must also be helpful for your client. Identify the customer’s needs and then think of a product to sell.
4. Develop time management skills. Every customer is important. Everyone has unique needs and you must identify those needs and refer a product to suit your customer’s needs. All of this has to be done within a time frame. You cannot dedicate all of your time to one client only. So time management is really important.
5. Learn to put your clients at ease. Do not sound businesslike because there is mostly an emotion attached with insurance. Some insure health and some family. So, let your customers feel that they need to have insurance instead of it just being an investment.
6. Learn the art of ‘listening’. Listen carefully to what the customer is saying, and ask them the right question.
A successful insurance agent is one who can think from the perspective of the customer and not for his own good. Unless the customer can trust you, you cannot sell anything. Gaining trust is a very important factor. Remember every success comes with time. Even if you want to hurry things, success will come to you only when you deserve it.
Three Things An Insurance Agent New York Does
Busy people appreciate their insurance agent New York. This person saves them time, money and gives direction on how to maximize coverage and reduce premiums. This specialized agent knows the insurance business inside and out and makes three suggestions that benefit clients. The first suggestion covers the coverage needed for each individual or business. The second suggestion is on the limits of this coverage necessary to protect the financial futures of all concerned. The third suggests ways to reduce the cost of the insurance premiums in the future by taking positive action. People use professional insurance agents NY for their knowledge and experience in navigating the insurance maze.
Even purchasing something as simple as automobile or homeowner insurance requires the expertise of a knowledgeable agent. Most people buying automobile insurance do not know what under insured motorists or gap insurance is; most importantly, they do not understand why they might need it. Under insured motorist allowed the car owners insurance to pick up the difference in liability or medical bills if required. Gap insurance covers the difference in value between an automobile that has been totaled and what is owed to a finance company, eliminating the need for a car owner to pay the hundreds or thousands of dollars difference. Likewise, someone buying homeowners insurance along a river needs to be aware flood insurance is a separate and desirable product.
An insurance agency NY will have guidelines on limits of liability protection individuals and businesses should carry. A new driver without assets, an older car and high insurance premiums may be okay with minimum liability limits. A young professional with a home and family needs more coverage to protect all that. Taking a few minutes to discuss the lifestyle of a client allows an insurance agent New York to make suggestions on ways to protect this lifestyle against unexpected occurrences.
Reducing insurance premiums in the future is a smart, long-term financial goal of astute individuals. People will be paying for insurance as long as they drive a vehicle, live in a home or operate a business. An insurance agency New York will have ways to reduce the risk of any group of people. New, inexperienced drivers can take safe driving courses to gain experience and reduce insurance premiums. Alarms systems can be installed on homes and buildings. Businesses can reduce their exposure by industry specific risk reduction programs.
Finding ways to use the expertise of an insurance agent New York is easy. When a person is shopping for insurance of any kind, that person should interview each agent to see what that agent can do for them. These professionals know the insurance industry and offer ways to reduce insurance premiums now and in the future, saving their clients time and money.
Insurance Agency Prospect Lists And Insurance Agent Leads – Need A Tune Up?
What’s the difference between an insurance agency list source and an insurance agency lead source? List sources are used as a mechanism to contact prospects, deliver a message, qualify the prospect and move into the agency lead funnel. Lead sources, at least theoretically, take care of the first two criteria, providing the contact and at a minimum, delivering a general message. Insurance agents must in both cases then qualify the prospect and subsequently move the insurance agency lead into the lead funnel. A better prospect list or lead source should ultimately yield a better insurance agent pipeline.
Let’s start with insurance agency web leads. There are many insurance lead companies, aggregators, and portals which sell leads under a vast array of plans. Prices range dramatically, from less than a dollar to more than $50, predicated on the type of lead and the number of agents which receive the lead. For example, a life insurance lead which will be sold to many agents is much less expensive than a health insurance lead which is sold to far fewer agents. In most cases, these insurance agency web leads are sold on a non-exclusive basis, requiring the insurance agents to rapidly deliver their value proposition in an attempt to win over this prospect from a multitude of other agents.
Another form of insurance agent leads comes from those derived on an exclusive basis from internal agency resources or from an outsourced insurance marketing agency relationship. In these cases, dedicated outbound and inbound insurance agent marketing programs drive leads into the pipeline. These programs are typically higher cost, but result in leads that are completely exclusive to the agent and agency, offering an opportunity to deliver the value proposition in a much less competitive venue.
Insurance agency list sources are a completely different animal than insurance agency lead providers. Prospect lists range the gambit from providers who actually source the information to those who merely resell or broker the information. No two lists are alike and some can be truly problematic. If an insurance agent wants emails included with the demographic information, costs can increase dramatically, and procuring quality emails can prove challenging. Even then, if high quality emails are purchased, there is an array of challenges which awaits agent and agency with the CAN-SPAM laws now in place. It’s fine for agents to call on these contacts directly, but be careful using your list for email marketing, even if you have purchased an insurance agency web marketing platform or use an eMarketing engine. Remember, if someone hands you a fistful of wrenches, it doesn’t mean you should open your hood and tune up your car.
There are several important tips for insurance agents considering a list source or procuring web leads.
Choose your list or lead source wisely. Start with a sample (perhaps even a fee sample) before making large scale purchases. Be selective when downloading lists and choose the best contact information fields for your prospecting. Lists often include fields like tertiary SIC codes and credit rating. There are often useless and create data clutter. Create a list of ideal qualities and attributes for your ideal prospect, then target this profile specifically. Differentiate commercial line leads and personal line leads. If emails are involved, make sure your commercial emails are not contaminated with personal emails.
High quality insurance agent pipelines begin with high a quality prospect database. This list needs to be carefully culled to help agents guarantee they are working within a profile that yields the highest possible close ratio. And when it comes to using your list for eMarketing, either get some good advice or read up on current articles on the subject. A sure fire way to get in CAN-SPAM trouble is to buy a list of 10,000 prospects and “blast” out an unsolicited email. Regardless of the quality of your list, poor execution in this area will cause your insurance agency marketing engine to break down. If your agency intends to utilize your prospect list for email marketing, a good suggestion is to have an “eMarketing mechanic” tune up your engine before you start it up, ensuring your marketing vehicle will not break down.