15 Effective Ways to Generate Insurance Leads Online
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One of the toughest aspects of owning an insurance agency is generating new leads. There are multiple online lead generation strategies available but finding the ones that work best for you can be challenging. How do you choose the most effective ones? You should remember one key rule: even though lead generation is happening online, ultimately, the foundation of an insurance business is strong relationships. If you want to thrive, you need to first establish and nurture solid relationships with potential clients.
If you're looking for effective ways to generate insurance leads online, we've compiled a list of 15 strategies that could significantly help you improve your success rate.
1. Customer Referrals
Your current customers are a gold mine! By asking them for referrals, you not only turn them into brand ambassadors but also increase your chances of conversions. In fact, studies have revealed that people are 4 times more likely to buy from you after a friend has referred them.
Start a referral program and give discounts to people who send business your way. This will also make your customers more loyal.
Here are quick tips to make your referral program a success:
- Ask for referrals right away when your customers are still excited about your products.
- Use the right channel to request, e.g., via email or in person.
- Don't be afraid to ask twice.
Most importantly, close the referral loop by letting your customers know that you appreciate their leads.
2. Use Social Media
Social media is no longer a tool that's solely meant for people to keep in touch and connect with their friends and family. It has also become an invaluable business development channel. Think about it; Instagram and Facebook now have a marketplace where businesses can sell products to potential clients. Why aren't you leveraging these platforms to generate insurance leads?
Some of the effective social media lead generation strategies to include;
- Instagram Marketing for insurance leads
- Facebook Ads for Insurance leads
- Twitter for Insurance leads
To increase the efficiency of your social media ads, make sure you use the targeting options available to ensure that your ads are being shown to the right audience or people who are highly interested in your insurance products.
3. Google Search Ads PPC
While Google doesn't reveal how many searches it gets per day, it's estimated that it handles an average of 63,000 queries per second. This is impressive! Now imagine what kind of exposure you would get if you appeared on the first page of Google.
Google search ads put your products in front of the right audiences at a time when they need them most. For instance, if you run ads for an educational policy, depending on your targeting options, you'll appear among the first search results every time a customer searches for information about such policies. This kind of real-time targeting enhances the efficiency of your lead generation efforts.
4. Purchase Lead Lists/Purchase Ready Leads
Generating leads is difficult, but you can now purchase ready lead lists online. This gives you access to people who are already interested in your products, and all you have to do is reach out to them. Understandably, most salespeople are skeptical about the efficiency of lead buying. However, if you purchase them from a legitimate seller, all you have to focus on is converting them into paying customers.
Buying leads also saves a lot of time, is cheaper than advertising, and gives you instant access to a large database. Just make sure that you buy leads that are tailored to your industry.
5. Community Building
People don't buy from businesses. They buy from the people that run those businesses. This is why most insurance companies are working on humanizing their brands, as it allows them to create deeper connections with their customers.
Community building is an effective lead generation strategy because it helps you foster trust between your company and your target audience. Focus on being the insurance champions in your community, sponsoring local charity events, participating in school district functions, working with local school staff, hosting golf tournaments, etc. This will not only increase your referrals but also increase awareness of your company.
6. Create a Good Website
Your website is your official online home and also one of the most effective lead generation tools. If your website isn't capturing any leads, there's a high chance it has one of the following problems;
- It's outdated
- It's unresponsive on some devices
- It lacks enough content to be ranked on search engine results pages.
- The available content isn't optimized.
Redesign your website, make it secure, and create helpful content. Don't forget to include a call to action on various pages. If you're unsure of where to get a web design agency that focuses on insurance websites, you should check out Forge3 and Advisor Evolved.
7. Get Listed on Reputable Review Sites
Before people make purchases, they first look at online reviews. What are your current and past customers saying about you? How do you respond to negative reviews? What's your rating on online review sites?
If your insurance agency is not listed on reputable review sites, then you're missing out on potential clients! Create an optimized listing and then ask your loyal customers to leave positive reviews. This also acts as social proof for potential clients who are unsure if you're the right fit for them.
8. Host Webinars
To increase the success of your lead generation efforts, you need to exert industry dominance and highlight your expertise. Show your potential customers that you are the best at what you do by sharing helpful and relevant information that's not promotional. You can easily achieve this by hosting educational webinars. For instance, you can find out the most pressing questions that your target audience has and then address them on your webinar.
Collect dec pages upfront, write more new policies, and sell more multi-line policies. Sign up for an InsurGrid demo.
9. Have Excellent Customer Support
Studies show that a whopping 90% of customers use a company's customer service to decide whether they'll conduct business with them. Your customer support team is like the face of your insurance agency, so invest in them. The way they handle customer queries highly determines your lead generation rate.
An excellent customer support team will also increase your customer satisfaction rate, increase sales, improve your reputation and boost customer loyalty.
10. Networking
Networking exposes you to multiple opportunities that other lead generation strategies will not. Think about it; you gain direct access to potential customers if you partner with lending officers and mortgage brokers. These professionals interact with your target audience daily and have fostered connections that could prove beneficial to your insurance agency. They also know the people who are most likely to convert, so you'll get highly qualified leads.
Check out our referral partner finder to start networking today!
11. Provide Valuable Content
Quality content marketing is the best way of attracting potential customers to your website. Create valuable content that's meant to educate, solve customer challenges and engage. You could leverage various types of content, including videos, articles, white papers, ebooks, etc.
Try out a mix of content marketing strategies and then focus on the ones that your customers are engaging with the most.
12. Create a Blog
One of the mistakes that insurance agencies make is creating blogs for the sole purpose of ranking well on search engines. If your customers find this content irrelevant, your lead generation rates will still remain low.
Conduct extensive audience research and find out what kind of content that your potential customers really need. Ensure that your blog is also aimed at helping potential customers, as this will also help foster trust between your agency and your customers.
13. Podcast for Insurance leads
Podcasting is quickly gaining popularity, and more businesses in insurance are leveraging this for lead generation. Podcasts are easy to start, highly engaging, and help build personal connections. As an insurance agency, you should use your podcast as an alternative to video content and educate your customers about your products.
You can even appear as a guest in a podcast instead of creating one.
14. Listed on Online Business Directories
If your local visibility is minimal, then your lead generation rates will also remain low. Listing your agency on online business directories amplifies your online presence and makes you more discoverable. It also complements your SEO efforts and increases your brand awareness.
Start by listing your business on Google for Business. It's free, and it allows people within your locality to find your business.
15. LinkedIn Marketing
LinkedIn is rapidly gaining popularity in the insurance industry, and it's not hard to see why. It increases your networking opportunities and plays a huge role in driving traffic, and leads to your agency. Since LinkedIn is a professional platform, having a business page also acts as social proof and increases your credibility.
Bonus tip: Creating Facebook and LinkedIn Groups
Position these groups as a way for clients and the insured to gain more knowledge about the insurance industry. Most people know very little about insurance, and providing them with the inside scoop lets them know you are there to help them!
People want to work with people they are familiar with and can trust. Once their renewals are up, they're shopping around for a new insurance plan; the first insurance agent they'll consider is you!
Leverage the Above Tips to Improve Your Lead Generation
Lead generation doesn't have to be difficult. You just have to find a strategy that works for you and then streamline and focus on it. The above 15 tips are a great place to start; they are affordable, have been tried & tested, and are highly effective.
Are you looking for effective ways to increase your close rate and engage customer retention? Sign up for an InsurGrid demo today!