An Insurance Agent’s Guide to Finding & Converting Online Leads

Modern consumers shop online for everything from groceries to new homes. It only makes sense that they’re looking to the web for insurance polices as well. After all, why would they pick up the phone and call an agent when they have unprecedented access to information online?

Readily available, summarized information is helping consumers compare policy options to make smarter purchasing decisions, and the trend is only gaining momentum. Depending on the insurance vertical, up to 83 percent of consumers would use the Internet to conduct research before making a purchase if it were an option.

As an insurance agent or company owner, it’s time to consider how your business is responding to this shift. To continue to grow your book of business, you need a strategy to harness the power of the Internet. Your options are plentiful: buying leads, creating websites, running Facebook ads, updating Facebook pages, etc. All of these modern channels allow you to track and automate sales practices.

I’ve heard on more than one occasion that all of this seems overwhelming and expensive. Without a plan, that can certainly be true. However, the best practices mentioned in this article will not only prevent you from getting overwhelmed, but also help your business flourish.

Define your target audience. The first step is figuring out what types of customers you need. Ask yourself these initial questions:

• Are you targeting more home items this year?
• Do you need to grow life production?
• Is auto what you open the sales process with?
• Or is all of the above a priority?

Determining your target consumer segment allows you to discover where and how these people use the Internet, positioning you to determine how to get your business in front of them. In most cases, this requires hiring a lead generation company to purchase leads for your sales producers to work.

Hire a lead generator to ensure you’re purchasing quality leads. Many lead vendors outsource much of the work, meaning they have little control over the quality of the leads they produce. Working with companies that control the process through internal operations produces more effective outcomes, but be wary of aggregated, incentivized, and co-registered leads. They’re often low-intent consumers used by suppliers to boost lead volume and inflate your cost-per-policy metrics.

Build a follow-up process. A reliable, thorough follow-up process is necessary to effectively work your leads and minimize waste. You have to build rapport with clients to create long-lasting relationships by being readily available when they call and actively checking in with them from time to time.

Test your processes again and again. Working with the same company for a long time can leave you prone to missing opportunities.

The market changes every day. You need to test early and often so you don’t get too comfortable in your routine – even if it’s currently working.

Leverage social media. While you’ll likely have to pay for some lead generation if you want to consistently fill your sales pipeline, there’s also plenty of online marketing you can and should be doing on your own, namely through social media. Make sure you leverage your company’s social media presence to tap into online traffic and target audiences.

Think Like a Lead-Converting Pro

For these tips to work, you may need to change how you look at online consumers. There are many effective tactics to convert leads into customers, but the key is the follow-up process, which is often overlooked or undervalued. Here are four tactics for successful online conversion.

Be agile. Don’t treat online leads like referrals or walk-ins. Studies show that you’re 76 percent more likely to make a sale to an online lead if you contact the customer within the first three minutes after an inquiry. When it comes to online leads, there are two types of agents: the quick and the dead.

Be consistent. Persistence is the key to success with follow-ups across all industries and lead types. On average, you should make nine to 10 calls to reach someone. The most successful agents have a sophisticated follow-up process to contact leads multiple times – first per day, then by week, then by month, and always across multiple communication channels – until the person either converts or opts out.

Use technology. Following up with leads consistently is virtually impossible without technology, especially since your lead generation services will (hopefully) be funneling thousands of prospects into your pipeline. Automated dialing platforms, lead management systems, email marketing systems, and auto-quoting platforms are vital to making leads work for you right from your office. Ask your lead provider whom you should work with.

Work smarter, not harder. Of course, you need the right people to make it all come together. The best way to use your people is to automate the follow-up system as much as possible. This way, your salespeople can focus on building relationships with clients and developing new sales strategies rather than making mundane follow-up calls and sending emails. Use technology to make your sales processes smarter.

The shift to online shopping and digital marketing is quickly reshaping the landscape of our industry. On one hand, this challenges business-as-usual approaches to reach customers and close deals. On the other hand, this change represents huge opportunities for agents and carriers that can quickly adapt with the shopping habits of consumers. It takes modern agents to flourish in an era of modern consumers.

Topics Agencies