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15 Insurance Lead Management Tips to Sell More Policies

October 29, 2022

0 49 13 minutes read

Do Babies Need Vision Insurance? – Bennie

Any good insurance agent knows how important a sales channel full of potential insurance customers is to your business.

Maybe you are interested

But when it comes to managing insurance leads, even good insurance agents leave money on the table.

Reading: How to manage insurance leads

So, in today’s post, we’re going to share 15 insurance lead management tips to help you sell more policies.

These tips will increase your sales conversion rate with new leads as well as upsells, cross-sells, and referrals.

Also, the tips are backed up by some real life examples of insurance agencies using them at the end of this post.

note: We surveyed insurance professionals across the country who helped us put together this list of tips, and we’ve also included some examples of their exact insurance lead management systems and processes at the bottom of the post. .

create valuable content targeted at your buyers

This first tip is about generating insurance leads in your lead management process.

Insurance agents, agencies, and any small or medium business should focus on generating inbound leads.

Inbound lead generation needs to be done efficiently because it will directly feed into your insurance lead management process.

Content creation and digital marketing are some of the best ways to generate insurance leads.

In this age, it’s not uncommon for successful insurance agency owners to learn about seo and ppc and even become google ad certified.

At a minimum, insurance agents should understand and implement landing pages and sales funnels, and use a crm.

You don’t need an expensive insurance lead management software system, but you don’t need any generic crm either.

find a crm for insurance agents that facilitates your specific actions with your potential clients. (ie automated welcome text, email drip campaign within x number of days to close x% of new leads, policy expiration dates, and more).

Do you want to offer value to your customers? then create helpful content that educates them and provides real value.

With an exit strategy in mind, you must start an entry content strategy.

With a content strategy in place, you can consistently create seo-optimized content and support your content with link building and social media promotion.

Consistent delivery of value through content creation will lead to a higher quantity and quality of incoming leads.

Before you start blogging weekly, the first step to creating great content is creating buyer personas that help you understand the type of content your customers need.

customer journey tracking

After creating your buyer personas, define leads by interest and intent.

This allows you to decipher where your customers are in their journey and the type of content and how much care they need.

You can then assign leads to drip campaigns (emails that filter different content to leads in different buckets over time).

for leads who aren’t ready to buy, placing them in the right buckets of lead nurturing will keep your brand top of mind.

make sure your scoring system is in place to determine where your customer is in their journey, and make sure it’s up to date and equates correct scores with level of purchase intent.

This will help determine if they are qualified to move into sales or if they need more care.

Finally, track which programs generated which leads and the outcome of your customer journey, giving you all sorts of pertinent insights.

This insurance lead management tip comes from omar r. fonseca, medicareplanfinder.com

test your lead generation forms

When it comes to managing insurance leads online, testing and optimizing your lead generation forms is essential to improving your lead management process.

Similar to insurance lead generation forms, one of the main obstacles surrounding creating a lead generation platform for a legal or financial advisory business is the difficulty of creating one. qualified end-user lead that is fully completed by the consumer. .

A ‘qualified lead’ should acquire enough information to make the lead useful, but not require so much information that the consumer won’t want to complete the form.

There is an art to striking the right balance between the number of fields you can expect a user to fill out before they leave the form without completing the entire application.

We have found that for most web forms related to legal, financial and insurance matters, a consumer will not complete more than 9 fields before deciding to abandon the questionnaire, so keeping the form short is critical and simple.

this insurance lead management tip comes from david reischer, attorney, legaladvice.com

immediate follow-up

following up with a potential client is finicky and the only proven rule we use at our agency is urgency.

The first follow-up doesn’t have to be a phone call, although this is ideal, an email is also great, especially if you mention a phone call coming up soon.

The faster you follow up with a lead, the better your chances of conversion. As for the process, documentation is king.

what we see with many of the companies that outsource to us is that they don’t even have a crm to track leads.

You should record every interaction with every potential customer, software like zoho or salesforce have integrations with call technology like dialpad or aircall that can make the process easier.

this insurance lead management tip comes from michael sheen, kinectcorp.org

call potential clients today

As we just discussed, when it comes to converting leads, timing is key.

which is why you should call new leads as soon as possible, even if you have an automated email that goes out to them right away.

The sooner you follow up with your new leads after they first ask you for information, the more likely you are to make a connection.

Due to the speed of technology these days, consumers expect an immediate response more than ever.

on the other hand, the longer you wait to contact them, the colder the prospects will become.

That’s particularly true when it comes to seniors, who may forget they requested information on medicare supplements or final expense insurance when the agent finally calls them back.

timing can mean the difference between looking like a suspicious spam sender or a helpful agent responding to your call for help.

be persistent in calling back

There’s a fine line between being pushy and persistent, so timing your trail camera can sometimes be tricky.

Typically, the standard is approximately 48 hours between each of your calls. for the first week, agents can call every day, then for a couple of weeks about every three days.

If leads don’t respond after a specific number of calls, agents may want to try a different approach, such as knocking on the door, direct mail, or email.

to leave or not to leave a voice message

some agents feel compelled to leave a voicemail every time they try to call a potential client.

Other agents avoid leaving messages altogether, relying on potential customers to be curious and call them back for more information after googling the phone number online.

then others may only leave a message three tries or so, trying to strike a balance between not being too annoying and being persistent.

Currently, about 77% of seniors have cell phones, more than ever. even people who have landlines probably have caller ID, you can safely assume that most older people will see that you tried to call.

There are some agents who would rather their prospects answer their call, rather than leave messages that might give them a reason to screen your calls in the future.

however, leaving a message can make your potential customers suspicious and think you’re trying to catch them off guard.

Remember, older adults are taught to be suspicious of people who take advantage of them, particularly when it comes to financial matters like health care and insurance.

When you leave a message, it shows that you are a professional who sincerely wants to help them solve a problem that they have recognized that they already have.

create a sales pipeline to follow up

Of course, it makes sense to focus your attention on potential customers who are ready to buy.

However, that doesn’t mean you should neglect your warm leads or even your cooler leads at the top of the funnel.

If you can’t connect with your leads after leaving multiple voicemail messages, try using a different channel and add them to your sales channel so you can follow up after a couple of months or weeks.

When you stay in touch, you may be able to capture leads after their lives change and their interest is rekindled.

This could be because they recently had a birthday that raised their rate, or their health didn’t qualify them the first time you called.

Life circumstances change, so it’s important to stay in touch and follow up.

take notes

Taking detailed notes of every conversation you have with your prospects will put you in a better position to follow up.

When you call a lot of leads every day and have similar conversations, keeping detailed notes can be a helpful reminder about each of your lead’s unique circumstances and where they are in the sales cycle.

which allows you, or another agent or assistant on your team, to easily pick up where you left off.

which goes beyond the “official” notes from your lead management system about current plan details and the lead’s health conditions and includes more detailed notes about who they are.

As useful as your notes can be, they can also show your prospects that you care enough and paid attention to remember a few personal details about them.

When you mention details or names from previous conversations, it shows you were listening and reminds prospects that you already have an established relationship.

prioritize leads and communicate accordingly

prioritize your inbound leads into three separate tiers and create specific nurturing cadences for each of those tiers.

accounts at your highest level (those that would be most valuable to win) should have more touchpoints and where you should focus the most effort.

These accounts should receive more personalized attention: instead of an email template, they will receive personalized messages.

Personalized messages are things like short introductory videos from a sales rep talking about your specific needs, or a personalized written proposal that clearly outlines your offering and the benefits they can expect from working with you.

Using this type of account-based marketing (ABM) strategy helps make the best use of limited resources, while also acting as a reminder that not all accounts will have the same long-term value to your business. company.

this insurance lead management tip comes from emma valentiner, leadcrunch

leverage your multi-channel touchpoints

requires multiple touches before prospects become customers. You’ll hear quite often that it takes 8 touches on average before a sale, but other research claims this number could be even higher.

jeff hoffman’s basho sequence is a popular method, involving a series of four combined voicemail and email taps, ranging from “introductory” to “persistent”.

if the prospect doesn’t respond to any of their first three attempts, then a “breakup” phone call or email is attempted, leading to a very good response rate quite often.

industry surveys report that insurance agents make 5-8 calls on average to telemarketing leads.

There are some agents who continue after only 3 calls, while others make up to 15 calls before doing it, and then there are some who continue trying after that.

Nearly 25% of agents surveyed say they keep leads in their pipeline indefinitely (or, as one agent put it, “until they die or buy”).

Unless you’re directly asking a potential customer which mode of communication they prefer (which is a good idea), you may not know which channel they’re most likely to respond to. Reach out often and call early, and then use as many different avenues as you need to reach your prospects.

try calling, emailing, knocking on doors, if your potential customers live nearby. sending a letter or card can add a nice personal touch that is increasingly rare in this digital age.

differentiate

If one of your prospects has returned your direct mail card or responded to your telemarketing call, there’s a good chance they’ve also responded to other marketing requests.

Either way, chances are you’ve heard of other options for saving money on medicare supplements or taking care of your final expenses, whether it’s going to the salon with your friends or watching TV commercials.

The point is that you’re probably not the only one talking about your insurance options.

To stand out and have a good chance of prospects staying in your funnel instead of slipping out of the hands of another agent, it’s important that you stand out from all the other agents.

Even if the solution you offer can save a potential customer more money, keep in mind that the only differentiator is not price. in fact, if you lead on price, the prospect might think commission is all you care about.

You really want to set yourself apart based on the service, showing seniors that you really care about them and will go the extra mile to help them.

Don’t forget what we said earlier about aligning your sales cycle with the prospect’s buying perspective.

try an answering service

If your business relies on a large proportion of phone contacts, consider investing in a telephone answering service.

Basic telephone answering services can offer 24-hour coverage without significantly increasing your overhead, which can otherwise be a bottleneck for growing service businesses.

virtual receptionists go a step further by also offering services such as sales order confirmation, technical support, appointment scheduling and more.

There are insurance answering services available that can initiate the phone call and transfer the call to you when available or take a message if you are not.

this insurance lead management tip comes from joe goldstein, contractercalls

build a strong brand online

In today’s digital age, insurance agents can’t afford to ignore the internet. Increasingly, your online presence plays an essential role in your brand recognition and overall reputation.

Building a strong online brand starts with an optimized insurance website design.

close each follow up you do with a call to action

Your next steps should be very clear so your prospects know what to expect from you.

Do you want them to go to your website and download a white paper to learn more about plan f before I call you back?
Should they be on the lookout for a package you’re mailing them?
do you want them to call you back or do you wait for them to call you back at a certain date and time?

tell potential customers what you’d like them to do to move to the next stage of their sales pipeline that brings things closer to a sale and saves them money (or their peace of mind) that your solution offers.

* examples of insurance lead management processes *

In this section, we’ll share some real-life examples of the financial advice and insurance lead management processes used by insurance agents and advisors across the country.

life insurance prospect management example

In my opinion it is very important that leads are automatically transferred to a crm that has the ability to send emails and text messages. When a person fills out a quote form on our website, that person’s contact information is fed into a CRM. then the crm sends an email saying that we received your query and will contact you shortly to answer any questions.

If they don’t answer when I call, I leave a voicemail and my crm also sends a text message. I let them know that I can help them by buying from many insurance companies, on their behalf, to save them time and money on this important purchase.

I will normally call twice a day for 5 days. Every other call will also receive an email and a couple of text messages during the call period. if we don’t connect, then a drip email campaign is launched. These emails are a combination of education about the life insurance process and a little push to get in touch with us so we can help you get life insurance.

It is very important to automate as much as possible. I use vanillasoft as my crm and convertkit for email drip campaigns.

*bottom line:* automation and constant follow-up by call, email and text are keys to converting leads into customers.

chris abrams, abramsinc.com

income protection & insurance lead management example

Managing incoming leads can be a daunting task that can easily spiral out of control if you don’t have the right systems in place.

When a potential customer fills out one of our online forms, several things happen.

first, the lead is automatically imported into our crm and our rules-based system creates tasks for the agent responsible for follow-up.

Secondly, the prospect is immediately sent a text message that their information was received and that we will send them an email (sent 5 minutes later) with a few more questions. The goal in doing this is to stop them from entering their information on other websites and to respond to our email.

and finally, the agent calls as soon as possible. we try to make telephone contact with the potential client several times in the first days, but in many cases, we are already communicating with them by email, where we can begin to build trust and credibility.

If none of this is successful, we have a drip campaign set up in our crm that includes emails, phone calls, and text messages. we’re actually just looking for people who want to buy now, so this process only takes three weeks, after which we mark the lead as dead.

raymer malone, owner – high income protection.com

example of lead management for a business insurance agency

When I worked with some of the major insurers in France, I did some analysis to help them optimize their quote-to-client conversion rate.

We realized something that was hidden in plain sight, which helped us optimize the overall conversion rate: Your agents (and we’re talking thousands of local agents) had lower conversion rates as of Friday evening. late until Monday morning.

nothing out of the ordinary if you think about it since no one responded to quotes on weekends. We dug deep and learned from customers that some insurance products (such as health insurance) need a quick response. Qualified leads stayed qualified for 12-24 hours, after which it was too late.

We decided to implement different strategies to help agents optimize their lead pipeline on the weekends: less media coverage these days, marketing automation to keep the lead qualified a little longer, and a team of outside sales who worked extended office hours. worked pretty well!

guillaume robez, independent.io

loans & example of funding opportunity management

My best advice to help manage incoming client requests would be to make sure you communicate quickly with requesters.

Specifically, my company has a 30-minute callback time on any incoming request. this guarantees that we secure the relationship with the client and incorporate it into our portfolio of services as quickly as possible.

After our account managers pre-qualify an applicant, client information is entered into our proprietary crm which then provides the account manager with updates and notifications to communicate with the client.

The biggest complaint we see from clients in our business is that they are not updated on the status of their application in a timely manner. we eliminate this with daily messages and immediate phone calls whenever a problem arises. customer service is extremely important to my business and portfolio management of inbound customers is the key to our continued success.

daniel a. digiaimo, bakerstreetfunding.com

insurance lead management insights

Alright, if you’ve made it this far, go ahead and pat yourself on the back because you’re now an expert in managing leads for insurance agents.

That was nearly 3,500 words of expert advice from insurance lead generation experts and some great insurance sales agents from around the country.

These folks are in the trenches every day and are experts at managing insurance leads, so let’s wrap up with their biggest takeaways.

respond immediately: We know that the faster you respond, the higher your conversion rate. can start with an immediate automated text or email quickly followed by a phone call from your sales team.
keep following up: most sales require at least 5-7 taps before closing, so make sure you keep following up with leads at least 7 times.
use a crm + automation: your crm should capture every touch and conversation that occurs while leveraging automation to move on to the next point of contact.