August 30, 2016
Real-time insurance leads are the best form of insurance marketing. Insurance leads are 100% consumer initiated and is someone that is looking to purchase insurance, at the time that you receive their contact information. The insurance lead can come from a mobile application or traditional website.
The insurance buyer enters their personal information into an online form. The lead information can be 100% complete, missing information, contain typos or have incorrect information. The key is that you are able to get the person on the phone to build rapport, quote and write the policy.
Once the consumer submits their information, it is matched with an agent and is immediately emailed. The lead is sent to an agent within seconds of being submitted. The agent receives the lead and initiates the sales process.
The following are 20 best practices that are used by the most successful buyers of real-time insurance leads.
1. Use CRM or other lead management system. Keeping track of all your prospects or leads can be a challenge for both large and small agents. At any given time, you will have leads at various stages of the sales funnel. The CRM will remind you to follow-up and help you to nurture your leads. You should have your lead company send the lead information directly into your CRM to minimize additional work.
2. Have the best producers work your insurance leads. Some agency owners purchase auto and home insurance leads for their newest, most inexperienced agents to work. This is a mistake. When internet insurance leads are worked by your most experienced agents or producers you will see a higher close ratio and a higher return on investment. Working insurance leads still requires sales skills, you are not strictly fulfilling an order that was placed online.
3. Talk first, quote second. Some home and auto insurance lead buyers will take the lead information, when it is delivered, and immediately start to put together the quote. They do this without ever talking with the consumer. The insurance agent assumes they have all the information they need and that they won’t need to speak with the consumer to put together a good quote. This is a mistake. The lead information may be incomplete and a delay may mean the insurance buyer obtains a quote from another agent, in the time it takes for you to start putting together a quote. It is important to get the lead on the phone, then quote.
4. Move fast. Real-time internet leads are just that. Every insurance lead you receive should be worked with a sense of urgency. Consumers are shopping for insurance when you receive the insurance lead and want to be helped right away. The longer you wait to call a lead, the less likely you will be able to write the business.
5. Have insurance leads sent to your phone via email or a text message. The most successful insurance agents are always selling and working their leads. You should have a message sent to your phone when you receive each lead. You can them immediately contact your leads to develop rapport and begin the quoting process.
6. Call, email & text your leads. The moment you receive an insurance lead, you should immediately attempt to call the prospect. If you do not reach the lead, you should leave a message and then immediately email and text. You should not give up after one or two attempts to contact. The faster and more frequent you contact the lead, the more likely you will be able to get them on the phone.
7. Verify information and build rapport. The information you receive on the lead may not be 100% perfect, you will want to verify all the information and while you are doing that, build rapport and look for opportunities to bundle other policies.
8. Understand the needs and what is important to the insurance buyer. While you are verifying the lead’s information and building rapport, you should try to determine what is important to the lead and what will get them to buy a policy from you. When you understand the leads decision making process, you will be able to make sure that the insurance quote you provide meets those needs. Keep in mind that price isn’t always the most important decision making factor.
9. Ask about current coverage (if they have) and their likes and dislikes. The more information you have from the lead, the better you will be able to put together a quote that the lead will want to buy from you. When you know what the insurance buyer likes and dislikes about their current insurance, you will be able to us that in your sales pitch. Remember that even though the lead is looking for insurance, you will still need to sell them on how you will be better.
10. Don’t assume that you are the only agent the buyer is speaking with. Insurance agents, even when they buy exclusive leads, should assume that the lead will be speaking to other insurance agents or companies to get the best policy. You should work hard to close every sale.
11. Ask for the sale. After you provide a quote to a lead, you must ask for the sale. You need to let the consumer know you want their business and that you want to provide them with insurance. Some agents will send a quote to a lead and stop the sales process there, this is a mistake. You must ask every lead for the sale after you provide them with a quote. In some cases you may even need to ask a few times.
12. Say thank you. It is important to thank the lead for the opportunity to provide them with a quote. Even though you purchased the lead, you should express appreciation for the opportunity.
13. Follow-up. In many cases, you may not write an insurance policy on the initial sales call. You will want to use your CRM to schedule follow-ups and contact the lead after providing the quote to write the business. You should not assume that the lead will contact you, if they want to obtain the policy you quoted them for. Keep in mind that selling insurance is extremely competitive.
14. Nurture lead. If you do not close the policy on the first contact or two, make sure you periodically send the lead a newsletter, information about your agency, information about changes in insurance requirements and more. By nurturing the lead, you will be top of mind when the consumer is ready to complete their insurance buying process.
15. Ask for referrals. You should use every opportunity you speak with a lead to ask for referrals. A spouse, children co-workers and more. Everytime you speak with a lead you should be asking if they know of anyone that needs a quote for insurance.
16. Work night and weekend leads. Evening and weekend leads are some of the best leads available. Consumers have more time to speak with an agent about their auto insurance needs and the insurance agent has more time to work with the consumer. Consumers are looking to buy insurance 24/7, you should make yourself available to help consumers as many hours as possible, to maximize your sales opportunities.
17. Take leads from your entire state. The more leads you purchase, the more opportunities you will have to quote, the more business you will write. When you purchase real time insurance leads from your entire state, you will have more opportunities to grow your book of business.
18. Allocate a majority of your marketing budget to leads. Auto, home, health and life insurance leads have the highest ROI, compared to other marketing programs. You should allocate a majority of your marketing budget to buying and working leads.
19. Limit filters. Some agents will try to filter out leads so that they only receive what they believe will be perfect leads or people that they can write. This is a mistake as the objective should be to quote as many people as possible. The more quotes you send out the more policies you will write.
20. Allocate time to working leads. Some agents will buy insurance leads and then say they don’t have the time to work them. If you are purchasing insurance leads, you should allocate the time necessary to make them a success. The more time you allocate, the better results you will achieve.
August 18, 2016
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - Aug. 18, 2016 - PRLog --Contactability, the national insurance lead generator, to both captive and independent insurance agents, announced that its insurance leads marketplace is fully integrated with the Blitz. The all-in-one Blitz platform helps insurance agents and agencies to use technology for their follow-up with leads, current clients and past clients. Blitz helps insurance agents to implement sales automation into their sales, marketing, retention and other activities so that they don't have to manually remind themselves to follow-up properly and close sales. The integration allows Contactability to send its insurance leads and call data directly into the Blitz automatically.
"We are excited about this integration with Blitz, and look forward to helping more agencies with sales automation" said Contactability CEO, Lev Barinskiy. "By working closely together, we help our mutual clients work insurance leads more efficiently and profitably."
Contactability generates high converting life, auto, health, and home insurance leads and calls for insurance companies, call centers and both independent and captive insurance agents. Insurance callsand leads are being delivered to thousands of P&C, health and life insurance agencies, many of whom utilize the Blitz to make routine communications easier and help agents respond faster to high-priorityauto insurance leads. When combining Contacability's high converting insurance leads with Blitz, insurance agencies are able to work leads smarter and write more policies.
"I am happy that Contactability and Blitz integrated their products with a seamless software integration," said Blitz President, Archie Heinl. "Insurance agencies will be able to grow their sales and improve retention in a more cost effective manner with our software and the Contactability insurance calls and leads."
About Contactability
Contactability is a leading insurance ad-tech company focused on delivering targeted, high-intent traffic for our insurance clients. We use proprietary customer acquisition software to connect in-market insurance consumers with our network of insurance agents and carrier partners nationwide. Contactability operates an innovative real-time bidding marketplace that gives our clients ability to target and optimize their marketing campaigns to maximize ROI.
Founded by a team of insurance and technology experts, Contactability focuses on delivering measurable results and exceptional service. With offices in Columbus, OH and Newport Beach, CA, we are one of the fastest growing insurance customer acquisition companies in the US. We are hiring top talent and building a world-class technology and client services team with ambitious goals of streamlining insurance
About Blitz
Blitz (developed by Double A Solutions a computer software company) is a web-based application used to help automate sales and marketing follow-up. Blitz's belief is to follow-up with referrals, leads, clients and past clients and eliminates the manual activities that you are doing every day. Automating those tasks saves not only time, but also allows companies to focus on closing more deals. To learn more about Blitz, please visit their website: nowblitz.com.
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
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