Obviously finding a way to quickly and systematically get high-quality life insurance leads is what it is all about when it comes to life insurance sales. Before the Internet became such a huge force for change, agents employed all sorts of creative and interesting methods to acquire or create insurance sales leads. Direct mail campaigns, educational seminars, or mini events in places where potential prospects might congregate (i.e. a mall) were a few methods commonly employed. Agents still rely on real-world face-to-face meetings for creating rapport and trust as well as a list of callbacks. The Internet however, just as it has transformed everything else on the planet, has also changed the job of the life insurance agent.
Diversifying your efforts and continuing to use old-school methods must still be a good idea, but here’s how the game is different because of the Internet: more and more often people are starting their search for life insurance via the net, so if you have an understanding of how to get those searches to lead to you, will have an enormous new source of life insurance sales leads. There are two primary ways you could do this…
Finding Life Insurance Leads By Advertising
First is to set up your own web presence, with a website that will motivate potential customers to leave you with a way to get in touch with them. You’ll need an advertising budget with Google, Bing, Yahoo or other search engines to place ads/links that lead back to your website from their search engine results pages. Naturally there are a million sites on which you can choose to advertise, but the advantage of doing so via the major search engines is that you can target keywords entered into them by searchers who are most likely to be looking for exactly what you have to offer. Now this is a science unto itself, and it has a learning curve associated with it. It can also get expensive quickly if you do not know what you’re doing. However, if through trial and error and extensive testing you can arrive at a set of keywords that will deliver you, through paid search, customers who give you more business than the amount it costs you to acquire them, then you have built yourself an automated sales machine. You would still have to tweak the keywords that you are targeting on a regular basis, because the number of people searching on given keywords and the cost of incorporating them into your advertising campaign will change constantly. Still though, it is quite possible to have all this result in a positive return on your investment.
Buying Life Insurance Leads
The second way that the Internet can help you get that life insurance sales lead can be every bit as expensive as using keywords to advertise, but it is a whole lot easier to set up, and will take much less of your precious time. You can essentially outsource the creation of the infrastructure needed to attract sales leads. There are many companies with professional looking websites and advertising budgets that are far larger than anything an independent life insurance agent could afford. These companies make it very, very easy for you to focus on selling. It’s simple: you tell them exactly what life insurance products you specialize in selling, and then when a person who matches your area of expertise and specialization fills out the form on their website, he is routed to you immediately. The process is so efficient that it’s possible to receive a telephone call from the prospect before they have entirely finished filling out the form on the sales lead site. It is hard to overstate the value of talking to someone who has actually approached you because they have an interest in what you are selling, and the time is right for them to talk about it with you, the expert. The downside with this method is that it too can get very expensive, but you won’t know if your conversion rate makes it worthwhile to deal with these lead-selling companies unless you give them a shot. Usually when you open an account with them they will give you several free leads in your startup package.
The goal of both of these methods is for you to free up as much of your time as possible so that you can focus on selling life insurance. With all the sales competition in the industry, the job will never be easy. If the tools have improved, remember that everybody has access to the same tools and methods, and is prepared to do what it takes and spend what they have to, to get good life insurance sales leads.