August 27, 2018
Happy Monday, Agents! Whether you’re new to insurance or have been in it for years, it’s never too late to get started on your personal brand! Creating an online persona allows you to craft an image that reflects your personal values and highlight your professional skills. Even if you only use social media occasionally, the content you create, share, or react to feeds into this public narrative. We wanted to highlight some basic social media guidelines to help you get started: The more social media outlets you use, the easier it is for potential clients to find you. When potential customers want to learn more about you, they may search for you on a number of social outlets. Presenting yourself in a consistent manner means no matter where they find you, they will receive the same message about your brand. The last thing you want is a profile to show up that has content or images that don’t represent you well. Keeping up with social media can be (and is) a full time job. On a daily basis, you should be sharing and producing content across all social outlets. Creating engaging content means taking a fresh approach to the types of updates you share with your network. To connect with your audience and potential customers, don’t be afraid to occasionally talk about your own achievements as well as add engaging posts about your personal life. Be sure to mix it up with images, videos, articles, and even questions to keep your audience interested. Help people find you by inviting everyone you’ve had contact with to follow you on social. Many social platforms (such as LinkedIn) use an import tool for your email contacts from Gmail or Outlook and find them on your social network so you can easily invite them to follow you. Increasing your number of connections on social outlets means more eyes on your brand. These contacts could then be sharing your content with their networks increasing your brands reach. Show others that you’re an expert in your field by joining various groups, discussions, and chat boards. Post new discussions or add your voice to current topics and make yourself visible. Joining a group but not actually participating won’t help people in your industry notice you. Too often people only post about their business but don’t engage in other topics. Prove your trustworthy by showing others why you’re the best agency they should be working with based on your knowledge in the industry. The Takeaway: Building you agency's brand on social media can take some work and finesse, but it could help you find your next loyal customer or help you to foster valuable connections. Always look at the big picture and remember to be flexible by evaluating what's working and now working. Find your next happy customer. - Contactability
August 22, 2018
Welcome back, Agents! We’ve covered why real-time insurance calls and online insurance leads are important but what about best practices for making the most of those leads and turning them into paying customers? You’ve spent your agency’s marketing dollars to get these great leads, now lets increase your ROI! After many years in the insurance space, we’ve learned a thing or two about turning leads into happy customers. Below are 6 ways to increase your chances of closing a sale, as well a few tactics to avoid. Know What You are Buying Your agency has invested in online leads and it is important to understand what you’re buying. Spend time with your lead supplier’s account management team to know what filters are on the leads and the price you are paying. While you may think it would be best to only buy the ideal “prospect”, sales is a numbers game and the more leads you buy, the higher the chances of closing more deals. More quotes = more policies sold, it’s simple! Keep a Sense of Urgency When you receive a new online lead, what you do next and when you do it are of critical importance. The insurance leads you are buying are sent to you in real-time, which means that lead was just online looking for a quote. This is why it’s important to call the lead as soon as you receive it. Consumers will not be waiting around for someone to call them. The more time you wait, the more time they will spend shopping until they find someone to help them with their insurance needs. To be sure you don’t miss anything, request your lead company send you a notification when you get new leads via text, as well as by email. Use Multiple Communication Channels and Set a Schedule These days, everyone is using multiple channels to keep in contact: phone, email, text, etc. To reach your new insurance leads, you will need to employ multiple forms of contact. Start by calling your leads first and then follow up with an email referencing the message you left if unable to reach them. Setting up a contact schedule can help you stay consistent with your contact. An example of this looks like the following: Day 1: Call and follow-up email Day 2: Send a text Day 3: 2nd call and follow-up email Day 4: Reach out to them via social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn Day 5: 3rd Call and Follow-up email When you don’t schedule follow-ups it can be easy to forget about a lead. Use your CRM task manager or calendar to set a new follow-up right after you’ve tried to contact your lead. Contact Leads at Various Times If you’re not able to immediately reach your lead try back at various times, including the weekend. We can all understand that people work during the day, are busy with home life, or are only available on weekends. Just because a lead hasn’t responded doesn’t mean they’re not interested, you could just be calling at a time that is inconvenient for them. When scheduling your next follow-up, set your reminder for various times so you can be sure you’re spicing it up! Always Ask for Referrals Whether you write a policy or not with a lead, always ask for referrals! These referrals will allow you to quote more and book more business. As we’ve discussed before (see Why Word of Mouth Referrals are So Important), referrals provide a never ending reach and can make the most loyal customers. By not using referral marketing your agency could be losing out on a great resource that can bring in more long-term customers. Track Your Activities and Results One of the best ways to keep up with leads is to track every activity, conversation, and the result. This data can help you to continuously improve your performance as well as never forget where you left off with a client. Sharing this information with your lead provider will allow them to potentially modify the leads they are sending to help you achieve more optimal results. Don’t Let the Lead Go Stale The first few hours you get a new insurance lead are critical. The last thing you want is a lead to go stale. It can be harder to re-engage a lead after they were previously interested in a quote. The longer you wait, the higher the potential they find another agent to help them. It’s also better to be late than never respond! If you get an introduction while on vacation, reply when you get back even if it was a time sensitive thing and the opportunity seems as if it has past. Don’t Be Available Anytime There’s nothing worse than hearing the vague sentence: “I’m available anytime”. When you say this it shows a few things: your time isn’t valuable, you’re too lazy to take the time to check your schedule, or you’re leaving it up to chance. When you say you’re available anytime it means you expect the other person to look into their schedule and pick out slots of availability for you. Giving direct time frames can create urgency, show organization, and help to book a time faster. At the very least, using a calendar scheduler for specific days can make it easy for people to find a time that works for everyone. The Takeaway: These are just a few key ideas to making sure you hit the mark on bridging connections. It’s not all about the next big opportunity, it’s about cultivating long term relationships with potential customers! Find your next happy customer. - Contactability
Agent Ethan Kosmin Generated over $200,000 in premiums during first year in business thanks to Contact Concierge.
A look at some surprising facts and shocking statistics from the insurance lead industry.
