Internet Insurance Leads – A Good or Bad Choice?
It’s getting a lot harder for agents to find qualified, worthwhile leads. That causes many people to start looking on the Internet in the hopes of finding leads that’ll work for them. However, if you’re considering Internet insurance leads, you may wonder whether or not they’re worthwhile. With the number of people on do not call lists increasing and more and more agencies going online, they can be worth it. Let’s take a look at some of the places you can find leads online, and the benefits and downsides of each.
Buying Leads Online
There are a number of popular sites that will sell you Internet insurance leads for just about any insurance field. Buyers often look for offers through these sites because it’s easier for them to fill out a single form instead of calling their local agents to compare rates. Starting in one of these sites is relatively easy – sign up and enter payment information to get qualified leads.
You’ll probably get a lot of leads and it’s easy to set up, plus you’ll be able to specify particular types of lead that you’re looking for. However, there are some downsides. These leads may be shared with other agents in your area, for instance. In addition, you’ll still have to make a sales call or at least send a sales email, which is more work and can be off-putting to the lead.
Advertising Your Services Online
Another option is to fish for leads yourself online, by advertising yourself through search engine ads. Yahoo Search Marketing and Google Adwords are two of the most popular. You buy a pay per click ad from them, where you promise to pay a given amount each time someone clicks your ad. These advertisements are in text format, and show up on the edge of the page, alongside the search results when someone looks for the keywords associated with them. That makes picking the right keywords vital.
You pay when someone clicks the ad, and you’ll want to target words that will result in Internet insurance leads you can use. Many agents use localizing keywords to make sure they’re dealing with people looking in their area, for instance. This makes it easy to get in touch with local users who are using the Internet to find insurance, and it’s easy to set up your own pay per click campaign.
However, you’ll have to closely monitor that campaign to keep costs from building, you’ll have to put it together with care, and it can be expensive. You also have to have a well designed website in place for visitors to be directed to if you want to harvest leads by this method, since they’ll judge you by your site. That means that online advertising can be combined with the next method fairly effectively to help you get the benefits of both.
Build a Webpage
If you’re going to work online and don’t want to pay for advertising, but still want to get Internet insurance leads to expand your agency, one option is building a site and allowing search engine traffic to work for you. You won’t have to pay a thing, and you’ll still get a number of people looking for your services. The trick is figuring out how to stand out from the rest. Getting other sites to link to you and using correct site structure and wording can help you build a site that’s put together in such a way that it’ll rise to the top of some searches.
If you choose your optimization correctly, those searches will be made by people you’re looking for. Remember to make it easy to get a quote through your web page if you choose this method. A lot of people in younger generations would rather fill out an online form than call for a quote. They find telephones intimidating, and it’s easy to fill out a form while you’re doing something else.
Of course, the possible free traffic you’ll get via this method is balanced by the fact that you’ll need technical knowhow to build the site, or you’ll have to hire someone else who has it. It can also take several months to be listed by the search engines, and seeing results can take even longer – this is not a short term solution for finding Internet insurance leads, though it can be an extremely effective one for people who are willing to take the long view.