With each passing day, the importance of insurance is increasing. But so is the competition of insurance agencies. There are thousands of insurance agencies that have sprung up over time. But only a handful of them survived. Do you know the reason behind it? The right way to generate leads. This article will tell you the best insurance agency lead generation methods. A study by a market intelligence company reveals that the marketing expenditure of the insurance industry surpasses every other U.S. industry by nearly 8%.

What is online lead generation?

Lead generation is an ongoing process that seeks to attract and convert targeted web visitors into qualified prospects. Lead generation as a process requires many tools, marketing services, and an investment of time and money. The ultimate goal is to increase sales. It can be done both online and offline. Technology has taken a leading role and a major number of people are doing everything online. That is why there are better scopes on online lead generation than offline.

Why is online lead generation important for insurance companies?

Lead generation is a very important aspect of any business. Without lead generation, the business may find difficulties in increasing their sales and expand their business. When it comes to insurance companies, the importance doubles up. 

Finding new insurance clients isn’t always easy, even for the most seasoned agents. And that’s why lead generation is so important. Insurance Agency lead generation is critical in the industry, as it ensures a healthy pipeline of potential customers. It is the key to having a thriving insurance business.

Lead generation is not only critical for insurance companies, agents, aggregators, and partners. It also helps insurance policy seekers. The journey your customer takes on their path to purchase isn’t random. 

When you carefully and intentionally create each step of the journey, you build a streamlined pipeline that delivers the information your leads need at the precise times they need it. According to market research, about 69% of consumers search online for the best options before finalizing an insurance deal.

Benefits of Lead Generation Methods

Generate a high volume of leads

In case you’re just starting out, an insurance agency lead generation program can result in increased brand awareness, new relationships, higher quality leads, and more sales. To optimize an existing program, you may want to reevaluate your audience profiles, buyer journey, channels, and tactics. Keep your goals, customer concerns, and challenges in mind. Deliver content that solves their pain points. Keep nurturing those relationships—soon, you’ll have a funnel filled with qualified leads.

Delivering high-quality leads

There are several reasons why your sales team is struggling to convert leads into customers. First, sales and marketing should be in agreement on what forms a qualified lead. Or when that lead should be handed off. All those, keeping in mind that the majority of people visiting your website aren’t ready to buy yet. Lead quality is important, but it’s a major challenge for marketers. Thus, it may take some time to start bringing in qualified leads.

Having a strategy around what to do next – Generating leads is just one part of lead generation. Once you bring these leads in, you must utilize lead scoring and nurturing to qualify said leads before sales can do their job. Everything in the insurance industry should be done step by step to achieve success in the long term. 

Demonstrating the return on investment of the marketing team

To show the impact of your marketing team, you’ll need to plan out a strategy and determine what to measure, when to measure, and how to measure. Choose metrics that show how marketing is increasing effectiveness across the board, generating qualified leads, amplifying sales pipeline velocity, and improving sales and marketing alignment through leveraging lead generation software.

Swap with a new lead generation program

If your insurance agency lead generation strategy has yet to catch up to the age of the self-directed buyer, it’s time to reevaluate. Using modern lead generation software can help leads find you by increasing brand visibility. You will capture interest with informational content buyers can use during their own research before they’re ready to purchase.

Common Mistakes in Insurance Lead Generation

• Not following up – If you have a solid system in place, you’ll be less likely to neglect following up with your prospects. Get in the habit of following up on leads as soon as you can. You must know that voicemails and emails are an acceptable first contact where you can introduce yourself and share your contact info. Also, letting the client know you still value their business after the sale can do wonders the next time you contact them for renewal.

• Not asking the right questions – Open-ended questions that start with “wh” work really well to know about the customer’s journey and their needs. In order for the listening sales approach to work, you have to learn how to ask a question that tells you more about the prospect’s needs, priorities, and sales objections.

• Aggressive Sales Practices – Though sales play an important role in determining the business ROI, it might work as a con for customer retention in case you are too pushy and taking an aggressive approach. Remember, you’re still building that rapport and common ground that lead to the prospect trusting the agent. Instead, let the prospect do most of the talking and continue to ask questions about any objections you hear or sense.

• Failing to keep up with the trend – It is indeed hard to work hard continuously, but that’s how you stay ahead of the crowd and are able to compete. Nowadays, the market shifts every day, and when it changes, you need to change as well. If you’re an independent agent, diversify your product offerings. Opportunities to meet new needs for current clients in other areas will come up. 

Once you spend the time building a rapport and trust and following up with them regularly, cross-selling becomes a natural next step for your business. Suppose you’re not an independent agent, network with other professionals. You may be able to take turns trading referrals when you can’t supply the product the prospect needs.

• Getting right into the Sales – An insurance business is all about building trust and strengthening the bonding – that is what helps to retain the customers. Instead, if you get into the sales right away, rejecting the primary step, you might end up losing customers. There are always things that bind strangers together. Your sales will improve when you find such a topic for each prospect, make a note of it, and open every sales conversation with it.

Best Lead Generation Methods for Insurance Agencies

Did you know 74% of customers research insurance policies online, but due to the complexity of the purchase, only 25% end up buying them online? And the rest prefer to speak to a live agent or walk into the insurance offices! Isn’t that strange? Do you know what it lacks? – A great insurance agency lead generation procedure.

Unlike B2B lead generation, which involves many buyers and a lengthy sales process, insurance agencies just need to connect with one or two buyers to close a deal.

It has been found that about 69% of consumers search online for the best options before finalizing an insurance deal. It shows the importance of productive insurance agency lead generation and the need to digitize a brand’s online presence.

• Go for lead magnets – A lead magnet pops up on your landing pages, asking your visitor for their contact information. The lead magnet asks them for their phone number and tells the prospect you follow up with a phone call consultation. However, without an incentive, people will find your lead magnets irritating. It can be a free e-book or a free webinar, or anything of the sort. People are willing to trade their information in exchange for yours. Be creative and add value with your lead magnets.
  

• Exit Detection – Imagine how great a pop-up box with a value offer and a lead magnet would be when you’re exiting a screen? It’s a great addition to your marketing strategies, designed to get your prospect to re-focus on your value offer and take action if they haven’t already. On occasion, your prospect might land on a page, find what they’re looking for, and navigate away back to Google. Exit detection gives you a last chance at capturing your prospect’s details.

• Free Downloads – The idea of a lead magnet value offering is to create interest in your client, causing them to reach out to you. However, to create value in your lead magnets, you need to think about freebies to give your prospects. Your value offering should present value but not diminish your service level offering.

• Press releases – These are handy tools to capture attention. Your website is a great place to issue press releases regarding recent industry events and changes. While the prospect is on the site reading the press release, you can hit them with a lead magnet asking them if they want to join your newsletter. The prospect leaves you a name, phone number, and email to gain access. 

• Podcasts – Though podcasts rose to prominence recently, the podcast gives you the freedom to talk about a range of topics in a long-content format. Podcasting adds credibility to your brand and reputation, bringing you more leads. If you have experience in the insurance industry – sharing that through a podcast can land you leads.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – To get the best ranking, you’ll need to spend time optimizing your site to meet the search engines’ requirements. With the right optimization strategy, you’ll start dominating search, bringing your business a stream of fresh leads. You can optimize landing pages, make your templates mobile-friendly, and get rid of duplicate content and pages. Also, look at your site speed, and get the latency as low as possible for fast page-loading times.

• Facebook Marketing – Facebook Ads give you a fully functional marketing platform to find more leads and close more deals. With more than 2-billion users, Facebook is the world’s leading social media platform. You can reach out to your prospects directly in their Facebook feed.

• YouTube Marketing – Starting a channel gives you a fantastic way to share product launches, interviews with clients, and your podcast. However, YouTube is not only a platform for creators but also a platform for advertisers. If you create a 60-second ad, and YouTube plays it in front of videos in your niche, it gives your company more exposure and a source of a bunch of new leads.

• Guest Posting – A permanent link on an authority site boosts your ranking score, elevating your site in search. The purpose of the link is to create a virtual bridge between your sites. If you create enough backlinks, you’ll begin to dominate search, and the leads start pouring in.

• Email Marketing Campaigns – Email marketing is the modern equivalent of direct mail, giving you a powerful follow-up system for keeping in touch with your clients. However, your email marketing strategy needs to be more informative than pushy. It is a time-testing marketing practice with excellent results for insurance lead generation.

• Attractive Landing Pages – Your website acts as your primary lead generation tool, capturing contact details and issuing quotes automatically – thus, your website design makes a great difference. Using a great design for your landing page gives you an attractive website with all the features and functions you need in a lead-generation tool.

• Provide enough CTAs – CTAs improve your conversion rates by asking your prospect to take action on a piece of content or a specific area of your site. CTAs are a critical part of online marketing, promoting your prospect to take action and become a client. You can do that in the “About Us” page by including a headshot featuring all your salespeople, and under the biography, leave a clickable button that says, “Click to arrange a consultation.” For example, you may create a CTA that says, “Contact us for a free quote on your home insurance.”

• Include Live chats – A real-time chat with a real consultant gives you a chance to capture clients’ details right there, adding them to your sales funnel. Adding a live chat feature to the corner of the screen allows your prospect to reach out to you directly from within your site. There’s no need for them to find your contact details and write an email or pick up the phone. You need one of your consultants (not chatbots) operating the chat round-the-clock to ensure you maximize every opportunity at capturing leads.

• Blogging – Every successful insurance website has a blog. Blogging is a way to show your audience that you’re an expert on a particular topic – like health insurance. If you don’t have any writing skills, hire a writer, and have them produce the content for you. Use a content marketing strategy for your blog that keeps visitors coming to the site. By building credibility with your audience, you create confidence in your prospects. When they think of anything insurance-related, it’s you that has their top-of-mind awareness, and that’s where they’ll send their business.

Compared to traditional marketing, it generates 50% more leads, which is why content marketing and email marketing offer a competitive lead generation strategy. For example, if you offer life insurance, you may create a blog post that discusses when a person should invest in it. This type of content could appeal to new parents, as well as adult children caring for their parents.

• Engage with Twitter Communities – Spend some time using the Twitter search function, and you’ll find a host of tweets relating to the insurance industry, spend a few hours a week engaging with people asking about insurance questions. People will engage with your posts and follow your account, giving you a reputation online. As you build your credibility, you’ll find you start receiving tweets/messages from people asking you to help them choose the right insurance policy.

• LinkedIn Marketing – LinkedIn offers you the opportunity to post on your page and engage with a like-minded community. LinkedIn users spend more time on the site than other social platforms, and they tend to dwell on pages for longer consuming content. LinkedIn provides you with another source of qualified prospects, and a means to build your reputation. Start growing your presence on the platform, and increase your connections with relevant contacts.

• Post on Quora – As an insurance salesperson, you have plenty of expertise in structuring and analyzing insurance policies, and there are people on Quora looking for that information right now. People come to Quora to find answers to pressing questions. Spend a few hours each week answering Quora questions, and you’ll find it surprising how many leads you get. 

Tips for Insurance Companies to Generate More Leads

• Actively participate in your community – Volunteering is a good way to establish a reputation as a caring and committed member of your community. But you can also show off your insurance industry by hosting insurance seminars for small business owners, assisting clients’ friends or relatives when appropriate, or advising local charities on their insurance purchases. 

• Start a referral program – By launching a referral program, you can make more of your leads than it is now – but not for free. Throw in incentives like lottery tickets, gift cards, movie tickets to make referrals more exciting for your clients. 

• Networking is key – Networking is all-important to your business. Your city or town is likely to have networking groups where professionals from different industries meet regularly to socialize, swap strategies, and refer business to each other. Find these groups and get involved.

• Provide Local Resource Materials – Most people need insurance at some point; the trick is to be top-of-mind when that point arrives. One trick to achieve this success is to provide your customers with wallet-sized referral cards that they can carry with them. Include contact information for local emergency providers and other key resources, along with the phone number for your office.

• Publish Video Content – Video marketing has become vital to digital success as video consumption has risen every year for several years. Videos allow you to present information and resources in a more engaging way. Offer tips, insights, and answers to common marketplace questions, and embed calls-to-action that drive viewers to your website for more information on your insurance products.

• Use the Internet for insurance agency lead generation – The most prominent approach to generate leads is by utilizing the Internet. The Internet can assist you with associating with more customers and developing your business. Without a website, lead generation can almost be impossible or ineffective. The website should make your business stand out with your business name on the flag. Send out emails to potential prospects and clients to make them feel appreciated.

• Upload Informative videos – Tackle a significant point or answer a typical inquiry and post your recordings on your site and online media pages. Hotshot your business character. The objective is to get leads to connect with you on an enthusiastic level. Insurance companies can get more fascinating ideas about video postings. They can help you follow suitable ways to make and upload videos.

• Use targeted lead capture forms – When a user visits your website, you want them to give you their email address, phone number, or other details. If you offer something valuable in return, they are more likely to give you their personal information. That’s the concept behind lead capture forms. Provide your customers with a report, case study, infographic, webinar, or anything they may be interested in. Let them know about what you have to offer via a lead capture form.

• Create content based on user intent – Think of long-form questions that your buyer personas are likely to search for. You can leverage advanced SEO tools to understand popular search trends. When you are creating content for your blog, you need to keep this in mind. If you want your post to make it to the top of SERPs, you’ll need to make sure that it answers questions that users might have.

• Make the most of LinkedIn – The target audience for LinkedIn is business professionals and decision-makers for businesses. For B2B lead generation, this is the segment that matters the most. After all, they call the shots when it comes to closing deals. By increasing your visibility on the platform, you are likely to reach out to the right target audience.

Conclusion

Proactive insurance agency lead generation is critical to prevent erosion of your client base and to grow your business year after year. However, with new technologies and marketing channels available at your fingertips, it’s possible to generate more leads without exhausting all your time. Keep in mind that using just one strategy won’t take you too far. Use a mix of the above-mentioned tactics to get more qualified leads and grow your business.