Internet Insurance Leads – A Good or Bad Choice?

28. March 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Internet Insurance Leads · Tags: , ,

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.

Is Purchasing Exclusive Insurance Leads Worthwhile?

23. March 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Business Insurance Leads · Tags: , ,

Exclusive insurance leads are those that have been generated just for your company, and which won’t be resold or sent to anyone else. This is different from a majority of leads being sold by providers online, who give the same lead to many different companies. An exclusive lead won’t necessarily be obtained by online means – there are lots of different ways to get them. Let’s take a look at some of the different types of insurance leads out there and the benefits and downsides of each. That way, you’ll know whether exclusive leads are worth your time and money.

In recent years, a significant majority of leads have been generated online. Banner ads, affiliate websites, and other methods are used to obtain contact information about a person who may be interested in your business. Unfortunately, these leads are often pretty low quality, and there’s little to no assurance that they’re from likely customers. That’s because these leads are often generated by collecting information from people in exchange for other offers.

Even if the lead is appropriate to your business, you’ll need to remember that online shoppers are likely to compare and contrast much more heavily than shoppers looking offline. That reduces the chance of your lead turning into a customer. That doesn’t mean that online lead generation is useless, but it has its downsides, and on its own, it’s not the quick fix that many sites advertise. You have to find the right site if you’re going to buy leads online, and you’ll need to spend a fair amount of time checking up on the companies that you’re thinking about working with. The leads you get will only be as high in quality as the company that’s providing them – you want to make sure that they provide service that’s as good as the level you offer.

Generating leads via a mailing list is another method, and one that’s been around for a long time. Mailing list conversion ratios are fairly low – about a tenth of a percent. However, the cost is extremely low, too. That means that a well done mailing list campaign to generate exclusive insurance leads can still give you a good return on your investment. Of course, it’s hard to be assured that these leads are truly exclusive. After all, someone who responds to your mailing campaign may well respond to someone else’s as well. This is why other methods may be used to generate exclusive leads.

Telemarketing campaigns are among the most common methods of generating truly exclusive insurance leads. A company you hire to give you leads of this type will be prescreening and prequalifying each lead, and the chance that the lead is really exclusive is much higher. Look in your contract for qualifying questions to make sure that the lead isn’t currently talking to other agents, and make sure you’re doing business with a company that’s willing to guarantee they won’t resell these leads. It’s important to make sure the company you work with for telemarketing is a good one, of course, and one that respects no call lists. However, a quality lead generation company can help you filter out dead end prospects that won’t work for the kind of services you’re hoping to target.

Exclusive insurance leads are an excellent way to jumpstart stagnant sales in almost any area of the insurance business. Exclusive leads allow you to know that you’re not competing directly against other agents for a prospect, which will make the sale easier and more likely. No one likes to get calls from an enormous number of agents after all. Remember that not all lead generation companies offer the same quality of leads in all areas – you’ll need to check up on anyone you’re thinking of working with to find out what kind of results they offer. Consider tracking your success with lead purchases to find out how well you’re doing with a given company’s leads, and whether or not you should keep doing business with them. Used properly, exclusive leads are an excellent way to expand your customer base, but you should take care to get quality leads that will work well for you.

Will Purchasing Qualified Insurance Leads Help Your Business?

05. March 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Cheap Insurance Leads · Tags: , ,

At one point, door to door, face to face sales or telephone sales were pretty much the only option available for agents hoping to expend their businesses. Even advertisement or postcard generated leads require a lot of work on the part of the agent to convert them to sales. However, that’s not necessarily true today. More and more people are going online to look for their insurance and they want it to be easy. That’s why lead harvesting sites have popped up. These sites take the information of people looking for insurance, and then provide it to clients of their own – insurance professionals looking for leads. Sites selling ordinary or qualified insurance leads are turning up everywhere. However, you may be wondering if they’re worth the money.

The answer is that it depends. You may see articles promoting sites that promise their qualified leads are ready to buy right now, and that you’ll instantly get lots of sales. This just isn’t true. Even the highest quality leads take a little bit of work to turn into customers. Think about it – would you buy from the first person who contacted you? It’s more complex than that, too. Not all lead sites are the same, with some reselling the same lead to a number of clients, and others harvesting leads in a very general way that makes them less useful. After all, if you buy contact information about someone who wasn’t looking for your products, you’re going to have a much harder time making that sale.

That doesn’t mean that all purchased leads are useless. A qualified lead – one that’s guaranteed to be interested in what you’re offering – is more worthwhile than a lead that was harvested less deliberately. A company that’s offering truly qualified insurance leads will go over them carefully and do enough research to make sure that they’re likely to be good prospects. However, many companies are using the term qualified without doing all the research required. That means that you have to do more shopping for a lead provision company than simply reading their promotional materials. You’ll have to look into what’s being offered and what others think about that provider.

One way to find a good provider of qualified leads is to talk to others you trust in your field. They can tell you about companies they’ve had experience with and let you know if they’re likely to help you with quality leads, or if you’ll just be paying for a list of junk. Remember to find out if leads will be sold more than once, or if you’re likely to be the only professional getting that lead.

Find out what the lead provision company means by qualified, and see if they’ll credit you back for leads that turn out to be junk, like those with the wrong or out of date contact information, or leads that are just plain wrong. While no company guarantees every lead will turn into a sale, they should at least offer you the information for people who are actually looking for insurance. After that, the job is yours to turn that contact into a long term customer.

If you decide to purchase leads, it’s important not to rely solely on this method to get new business. After all, your source of leads, even if it’s a good one, may not be consistent enough to keep you growing. That’s why you should also work on creating new products for existing customers, getting customers you already have to recommend you to friends and family, and keep working on the old fashioned methods of lead generation. Every marketing plan needs to be diverse, so that you won’t have trouble if one of your approaches slows down or becomes unreliable.

While they’re not the cure all or automatic business builder that some lead providers may claim, purchasing qualified insurance leads can be an effective way to expand your client base. You just have to know that you’re working with a reliable, reputable company that’ll provide what it claims it will. Check out any prospective lead provider carefully, and be sure not to neglect other areas of lead generation. That’ll keep your business healthy and allow you to take advantage of all the options available to you.

Cheap Auto Insurance Leads – How to Find Them

26. February 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Car Insurance Leads, Cheap Insurance Leads · Tags: , , ,

If you’re in the insurance business, chances are that you’re always on the lookout for prospective customers you can help find the right insurance for their needs. Auto insurance is one of the biggest insurance areas, since just about everyone who drives has to have insurance of some kind. However, that also means that there are a lot of agents out there offering this kind of policy. If you want to out compete them, you’ll need to find people who are interested in what you have to offer. That means generating high quality auto insurance leads, then demonstrating to those people that you’re the best choice for the job. Here’s how to do it.

First, find a niche to concentrate on. This can seem counter intuitive. After all, you want to get every customer you can, don’t you? However, this market is big enough that a given niche should keep you well supplied with customers, and you’ll offer better service if you can concentrate on just one area.

One way to determine a good niche is finding out which carriers have good rates for a demographic that your area has a lot of. If you work with a carrier that offers great rates on commercial auto insurance for electricians, for example, you can concentrate on that small segment of the population. Focus your efforts on them and find the auto insurance leads that will make your business grow and help you match people to their perfect policy. You’ll be surprised at the difference it can make.

You’ll next need to get a list of companies in your niche – businesses are often a better choice than private individuals. One method is simply to buy a list. However, you can also go through the businesses in your area manually and find the best choices to contact. Remember that a smaller business is less likely to need a commercial insurance policy, and may not be the best target as an auto insurance lead.

Commercial auto policy leads will, in most cases, have several trucks and a number of employees. The average one man business won’t need what you’re offering. Of course, the biggest companies probably already have arrangements directly with insurers, and you may not be able to beat them. So, look for a company that has between five and fifty employees, for example. Make a list of these companies and write down a few notes about each. Don’t overdo it – just add enough that you’ll be able to remember them and personalize your communication.

Remember that it is important to know what you’re doing – you’ll need to talk to an underwriter and have a good, detailed list of questions. That’ll get you the information you’ll need to have when auto insurance leads call you to discuss their policies. If you have to keep going back and asking for more information, you’ll look like you don’t have the experience to serve your leads well. Fortunately, if you’ll just dedicate the time to learn what kinds of coverage your leads should have, you’ll come across as an expert, not a beginner.

The last step is to send out a well written letter that will convince your auto insurance leads that you’re the person to call. Give it a good headline, a personal voice (not mechanical or too legal) and focus on the prospective client. A good letter or postcard – not an email or telephone call – is vital to getting the most out of your auto insurance leads. Stay focused on the benefits you’re going to be able to offer your prospects, and don’t talk about yourself too much.

The fact of the matter is that most professionals aren’t aware of how to write a good marketing letter, even if they’ve been in the field for years. The quality of your letter can have a lot to do with how well your lead generation methods work. That means that the reader has to learn what he or she is going to get out of working with you – don’t just make it a sales letter for you. Put in some specific details that make it obvious that this letter is just for them, and be sure you have a company logo and contact information displayed somewhere obvious. Then, wait for their call!

Business Insurance Leads – Making Your Leads Count

26. February 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Business Insurance Leads · Tags: , ,

Every business needs insurance, even if it’s just a simple liability policy. If the business is operating on a loan, it may also be required to have insurance for any stock and equipment, as well as insuring the premises where the business operates. That means that most businesses will be on the lookout for good insurance policies – something you know how to provide. However, you have to be able to find them, and that means getting your hands on great business insurance leads, then knowing what to do with them. Let’s take a look at some techniques that’ll help you convert your leads into new clients.

As an insurance professional, you know the benefit of a good policy, and you should also know that providing insurance to businesses can be a valuable choice for you. Many agents make the mistake of ignoring business insurance in favor of homeowners, life, and auto insurance leads. However, businesses can be great for your business! After all, business owners can be valuable sources of referrals. If you give them a good policy at a fair rate, and you make the process easy and painless, you can be sure they’ll recommend you to others. However, there are lots of other agents out there. What you need to do is get the word out that you’re the best option your lead can choose, and make that message stick.

If you’re like a lot of other agents, you probably make a point of attending social functions for area businesses. After all, these aren’t just places to meet the business owners in your community and get to know one another, though they’re great for that, too. They’re also an excellent source of business insurance leads. Most cities, towns, or regions have a Chamber of Commerce or similar organization that’s there to help promote local businesses. It’s a smart idea to get involved with these for a number of reasons.

Being part of a local business organization underlines your legitimacy in the eyes of other business people, and in those of your current clients. Plus, almost every area has events organized by the local Chamber of Commerce or other organization to help owners of local businesses find out more about one another. These semi formal events are often called things like Business After Hours, and they help you get in touch with others who could be valuable business insurance leads. However, there’s more to it than just meeting new people who might be interested in the policies you have to offer. You have to follow up correctly and make sure they know that you’re the best choice for them. Here’s how.

First, make sure you get a business card or other contact information, and don’t just file it somewhere. Start up a database for business insurance leads and enter those cards into it. Add a note about the person – just ten to twenty words – that’ll help you remember what you need to know about them when the time comes to talk about the policy further.

Within two days of your initial contact, make sure you write a follow up letter. It’s best if this is a real, paper letter on your letterhead. Formal thank you cards work well, too. You just want to make sure you use something that’s a little more formal than an email, and which has your logo and contact information on it in an obvious place. You don’t need to make this a long letter – just make sure it’s polite, and that it includes a relevant piece of information about the person.

That helps them realize that you aren’t just sending out letters blindly – you remember them and you can be a big help when they need to find their next insurance policy. It can also be a good idea to include a small promotional item, such as a refrigerator magnet, for your company. This will help you stick in the minds of your business insurance leads. Remember that attending networking functions can be a great idea, but if you don’t do anything with your business insurance leads to stay in their minds, they probably won’t be much of a help.

Life Insurance Sales Leads – What Are They And How Can They Help My Business?

26. February 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Life Insurance Leads · Tags: , , ,

Life insurance sales leads, prospects or contacts can be a big help to insurance professionals who are looking for new clients. A lead is simply the name and contact information of someone who wants to buy life insurance. However, these simple pieces of information can be incredibly helpful for insurers and their agents, if they’re interested in selling more policies and expanding their businesses.

There are a number of ways to get life insurance sales leads, including word of mouth, recommendations by existing customers, cold calls to possible customers, mass emails, and leads obtained through websites and more. However, one of the most popular methods that many insurance pros use to find leads is buying them through an online service.

There are plenty of options available, with some specializing in particular insurance areas or even subcategories within life insurance. These leads can be considered a worthwhile investment. However, like any investment, you have to make sure that the company you’re working with is reputable and will be selling you quality leads. What makes a good life insurance sales lead? The contact information should be up to date and accurate, and the information about the lead should have been obtained relatively recently – old or inaccurate leads aren’t worth your time or your money.

There are a number of ways these online services get the information that becomes life insurance sales leads. One method is to create an informative website about life insurance in general, and offer people looking for more information about policies a form where they enter their name and email address. This amount of contact information is a minimum – sometimes personal details like age, habits, or gender might be requested, as well as state of residence and phone number.

More information in a lead makes it a lot more valuable to you, because you can figure out in advance if the lead is someone who would benefit from using your services. In addition, the more information you can get, the more you can control the contact. Some people prefer to call, while others prefer to send emails with links to their websites. A more personal approach is considered better by many, but requires a great deal more time investment in the lead, as well.

The information given to a lead provider should be obtained legally and willingly. After the form has been filled out, the information will be gathered, and one of two things happens. Either a prescripted email from you will be sent to the lead, or you’ll be given a list of contacts gathered over a pre-agreed period. Daily, weekly or monthly lead emails can be chosen, depending on your volume and the service you’re working with.

You do need to make sure, if you decide to use a service to provide you with life insurance sales leads, that you work with someone who has a good reputation. That means avoiding services that may have obtained their leads in an unethical manner, services that habitually send the same lead to multiple insurance professionals or services that have a tendency to send out spam. A solid company is important if you’re going to find leads that are in need of your services, instead of merely making annoying sales calls.

When you choose a contact service to provide you with leads, there are a number of things to pay attention to. Consider talking to others in your field to see which services they prefer to work with. Remember that the majority of online services operate nationally or even worldwide. There are also local services offering leads, but they’re becoming less common as more people take their insurance search onto the Internet. Make sure you’re working with someone that others trust and that matches your own quality of service, and you’ll have greater luck getting quality leads.

Lead buying is an inexpensive and effective method of marketing, especially when compared to radio commercials or telephone book ads. After all, you’ll set your own limits on how much you spend. Pricing is available on life insurance sales leads via a particular number of contacts, by monthly subscription, or even by individual lead. Pick out much you want to spend – usually not much at first while you learn to handle these leads – and increase your spending if you have a lot of success.

Long Term Care Insurance Leads – Knowing What They Are Looking For

26. February 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Long Term Care Insurance Leads · Tags: , ,

If you work in the insurance field providing long term care insurance, you almost certainly want to keep your business growing. Most insurance professionals do, after all. However, there’s more to it than just jumping on the first lead you encounter. You need to know what your long term care insurance leads want out of their policies, and what’s best for them.

After all, just selling your clients the most expensive policy you can isn’t going to make you any friends. You have to find the one that’s best tailored to their wants and needs. Let’s take a look at what long term care insurance clients should be looking for and the best ways to help your leads get the kind of policy that will work for them.

Our overall increase in life expectancy also means that long term care in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or in our own homes is becoming more common. Many people can expect to need this kind of care, but it’s extremely costly, with nursing home care averaging about two hundred dollars per day.

With an average stay of two and a half years, that can be well beyond the budgets of many retirees. Since government programs offer very minimal coverage for long term care, it’s important for anyone expecting to need this kind of care to plan ahead. Long term care insurance meets this need and provides coverage for long term care of many different kinds, including nursing homes and home care. However, all policies aren’t created equal.

Long term care insurance leads over sixty-five years of age may not be aware of how costly their premiums can be, for instance – as much as a thousand dollars per year in annual premium. This can be daunting for many – the majority of leads for long term care insurance are near or at retirement age. However, the people who can benefit most from these policies are younger people. They can lock in lower rates over the course of their lives, since insurance companies regard them as a lower risk. One thing that probably all insurance leads have in common is that they’re interested in the best coverage for the lowest price. It’s important to help your leads understand that the earlier they start with this kind of insurance, the better their rates will be overall.

Features to go over with our long term care insurance leads include the services covered in the policy, the duration of benefits and when those benefits begin and end, how long the elimination period is (the length of time that policyholders must have their policy before benefits will be paid), any disability thresholds which apply, and the maximum benefit amount. It will be important to make sure that your leads understand the pros and cons of decreasing benefits to get a lower premium. Whether or not the policy will require that physical and cognitive disabilities be independently verified by tests should also be covered.

Many people interested in long term care insurance will also be looking for inflation protection. Automatic increases of five percent annually are common on policies, but require a significant premium increase to compensate. If a lead seems unsure about this option, but is still interested in inflation protection, you may wish to offer policies with an alternate method.

The policyholder will periodically be offered the ability to increase the premium and benefit amounts to take inflation into account. This puts the premium and the coverage under the control of the person holding the long term care insurance policy. Remember to discuss the options for how benefits are paid with your leads, too. Reimbursement for exact expenses up to a maximum daily amount is one option, while other policies offer a fixed payment, no matter what expenses are actually incurred.

Most leads are significantly concerned by the amount of their premium. They should know in advance that a fixed, level premium may not be as fixed as they expect. After all, while a level premium is a promise by the insurance company that the individual person’s premium won’t go up, it does not cover cases where the prices are increased for an entire class of policyholders. Leads should be aware that this is a possibility, and should be prepared for it.

Whether or not a plan is tax qualified is another factor that many long term care insurance leads are concerned about. After all, a tax qualified plan has to meet certain rules set down by the federal government. Policies that do qualify, of course, are partially tax deductible. In addition, benefits paid by them aren’t taxed. However, you need to tell your client about the age variable cap on this deduction and the need to itemize it on their returns. Keeping your leads informed is an important part of making sure that they purchase a policy and remain your customers. Know what they want and need out of their policies and provide it for the best results.