Insurance Agency Leads & Closed Loop Marketing

Posted on June 14th, 2013 by Alan Blume

Is your agency tracking your incoming insurance agency leads? Closing the loop on your lead handling process is important, and can yield great dividends from a modest time investment. Your agency lead generation process will likely leverage most if not all of these components:

  • Prospect Scorecard (Target Profile and Prospect Attributes)
  • Prospect List Generation (Master Prospect and Email List)
  • Data Repository (SFA/CRM)
  • Insurance Agency Lead Generation Strategy
  • Insurance Lead Generation Campaign Tactics
  • Lead Handling Process for Producers
  • Proposals/Quotes (Lead Source and Close Ratio)
  • Closed Business by Lead Source
  • Closed Loop Marketing
  • Lead Generation Plan Measurement and Refinement

If you don’t have these components in place, it will be difficult for your agency to determine where and how to invest your time and marketing dollars. For more information on Territory Exclusive Insurance Agency Leads contact the insurance agency marketing experts at www.StartUpSelling.com.

Insurance Agency SEO – On Demand Webinar

Posted on June 13th, 2013 by Alan Blume

To view this Insurance Agency SEO Webinar, The Top Ten Tips for Insurance SEO, click on the link below:

http://startupselling.com/blogs/johnscranton/top-10-tips-for-insurance-agency-seo-success-recorded-webinar/

Topics include Skill Sets For Your Insurance Agency SEO Initiative, SEO Specialist, Website Developer (HTML), Project Manager, Industry Expert (for content and keywords), Web Marketer  for Analytics, On and Off Page SEO Best Practices, Dynamic Content, Insurance Agency Blogging, Insurance Web Marketing, Insurance Agency Social Media Marketing, etc.

Insurance Agency SEO for Inbound Lead Generation

Posted on June 6th, 2013 by Alan Blume

You’ve probably heard a lot about Insurance Agency SEO, also referred to as Insurance SEO or Insurance Agency Search Engine Optimization. Join us for our upcoming webinar on this topic, and during the interim watch our 3 minute Insurance SEO video for additional information.

Date & Time: June 12 at Noon EST:  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/168657641

Insurance Agency SEO Video: http://www.startupselling.com/video/insurance-agency-seo-video.html

Incoming Insurance Agency Lead – Mr. Smith – 200 Employee Manufacturer

Posted on May 28th, 2013 by Alan Blume

Insurance Agency eCollateralIt’s a great way to start your morning, a lead came in requesting additional information about your agency, they would like you to email background information about your agency and areas of specialization. After reviewing the information, the CFO is open to setting up a conference call to speak with you about their challenges and coverages. They were unhappy with the increase on their last renewal, despite an excellent track record at their business. Now what?

  • What type information will you send them, and how quickly will it be sent?
  • Do you have some quality eCollateral to impress your prospect?
  • Or do you want to drive them to your website for fulfillment, offering quality resources to demonstrate your expertise?
  • Do you have an impressive Resource Webpage, an Insurance Agency Blog, or Agency Case Studies?
  • Do you have Insurance Agency Videos that explain your Value Proposition or Value Added Services?
  • You only have one chance to make a good first impression – are you ready to accomplish this important task?

If you can’t readily answer these questions and feel confident that you’ll leave a positive impression on Mr. Smith, it’s time to carefully assess all or part of your lead handling process. Do you have a clearly defined process with quality materials? For more information on Territory Exclusive Insurance Agency Leads contact the insurance agency marketing experts at www.StartUpSelling.com.

Insurance Agency Website Prospect Identification – Which Companies are Visiting Your Agency Website

Posted on May 23rd, 2013 by Alan Blume

Have you heard about StartUpSelling’s Visitor ID solution for insurance agency websites? It identifies companies that visit your website, which pages and blog entries they visit, how long they visit, and how often they visit. This technology works on almost any insurance agency website, and offers an abundance of statistics. For example we see that Marsh, AON, Gallagher and USI have been visiting our StartUpSelling website, and are interested in many of our insurance agency marketing blogs. Small and midsize agencies have been frequenting us too, and we reach out to all of these small to medium size agencies after they visit, to ascertain how we can further assist. It also determines which blogs and insurance agency marketing subjects are of greatest interest, and suggests where we should focus our content efforts. Do you know which companies are visiting your insurance agency website? No, Google analytics cannot provide this level of detail, nor can many of the expensive insurance agency website platforms. If your insurance agency is thinking about a website update, enhancing your blog, increasing your leads or learning about which companies are frequenting your website, call the insurance marketing experts at StartUpSelling, and ask about our territory exclusive insurance agency marketing programs.

The “e” in Insurance Agency Marketing

Posted on May 14th, 2013 by Alan Blume

Insurance Agency eCollateralDoes your insurance agency marketing plan have an “e” in it? As things go digital at an ever increasing velocity, agency marketers should ensure they have their eCollateral, eMarketing and “ePresentations” strategies in place. OK, I admit ePresentations is something of an invented term. That said, agencies should have a virtual presentation strategy and digital process in place as more and more of their sales process moves to the web. I remember speaking with a newly hired Director of Marketing at a $3 Million (commission) agency about a year ago. Their strategy to spread the word about their agency was “leave behinds”. Every time an agency would do an onsite presentation, they would leave a collateral brochure at the business next door. I remember that strategy well, and it served an excellent purpose in the 1980′s. Today, agencies are far more likely to need and use quality eCollateral. Think of these as professionally branded PDFs which include:

  • Insurance Agency Overview
  • Practice Areas
  • Case Studies
  • Client Testimonalis

Web based marketing and selling is an important part of a successful insurance agency lead strategy – your agents should have quality electronic materials to share with prospects. And no, your agency should not scan in a paper based brochure and consider it eCollateral. If your agency has yet to move from paper based fulfillment to electronic fulfillment, the time has come to do so!

 

Insurance Agency Leads and Closed Loop Marketing

Posted on May 9th, 2013 by Alan Blume

Let’s begin by assuming your insurance agency leads are tracked in a database. Your database might be a comprehensive, integrated CRM or SFA platform, or a simple spreadsheet. As long as all leads and leads sources are itemized, your insurance agency is on a path to execute closed loop marketing. The database is the first step in helping both agency executives and producers the ability to track, score and close the loop on all the inbound insurance agency leads.

Once this important tactical step is in place, insurance agencies can then ascertain lead generation ROI, allowing the agency to focus on marketing activities which generate more effective leads, and a higher close ratio. It may be easier for agencies to track leads when the leads are generated by a separate, targeted program such as an insurance agency eMarketing campaign or an insurance agency telemarketing and appointment setting campaign. And of course, the next critical step is to ensure that the producers record the final result of the inbound insurance leads. This can be as simple as “closed” versus “lost”, but better articulated by providing more granular detail, utilized in the Insurance Agency Prospect Scorecard methodology. For more information on Territory Exclusive Insurance Agency Leads.

eCollateral for Insurance Agency Leads

Posted on May 7th, 2013 by Alan Blume

Insurance Agency Leads - eCollateral StudyYou received an insurance agency lead, conversed with the prospect on a conference call, and they’ve agreed to meet with you in one week. What’s next, what interaction will you have with them prior to your meeting? This is an important aspect of your insurance agency lead handling process. You have one week to help set expectations for what should be a great meeting. Surely you would follow-up with an Outlook invitation to help ensure the meeting was on their calendar. And most agents would, or at least should, follow up with and email and some collateral about their agency and/or solutions. We refer to this as eCollateral, current, professional and branded agency collateral in digital form. This can be anything from a description of your customer driven P&C approach, to your consultative approach with PPACA compliance, to your unique discovery process used to uncover optimum coverages and value for each and every client. Producers can also leverage their original blog content, recorded webinars, cases studies and other forms of fulfillment. That said, a professional one or two page eCollateral PDF can and will have high impact and help convey the professionalism of any agency and Producer.

Insurance Agency Benefits Newsletter Exceeds 3,000 Subscribers

Posted on April 26th, 2013 by Alan Blume

Web Marketing - Content is King

Content is King

Content is king, we’ve all heard the phrase. Unique and relevant content reign supreme when it comes to web marketing and insurance agency leads. On behalf of a large benefits agency, we compile, format and electronically distribute their monthly insurance agency benefits newsletter  which now has over 3,000 Industry Executive and HR Professionals as subscribers. The newsletter consists of original content, links to additional resources and a small collection of timely articles from a variety of trusted external sources. Why do so many prospects and clients subscribe? Beyond the unique newsletter content, readers are offered:

  • Recorded webinars on topics such as PPACA, COBRA, Compliance, ERISA, Exchanges, FMLA, IRS and Healthcare Reform
  • Short, professional videos on Pay or Play, Broker Scorecard, HRA Projection Models and Defined Contribution Plans
  • Advanced PPACA Calculator
  • White Papers and an extensive, consistent and topically relevant blog

Insurance agencies seeking to differentiate themselves from the crowd should showcase their value add, thereby helping to attract new prospects (warming pool), while simultaneously providing ongoing content to their clients (retention). Those agents who think that product centric email drip campaigns are the goal (we sell P&C, we also sell group benefits, we sell home & auto, by the way – did you know – we also sell E&O) are investing in the wrong type of marketing strategy. Content is King, make the content about them, your prospective and existing clients, not about you.

 

Insurance Agency Leads – “Evangelizing” Your Agency Marketing

Posted on April 24th, 2013 by Alan Blume

Insurance Agency Leads

A simple and easy way to qualify and rank prospects

About ten years ago, a company in the behavioral survey research market, needed help developing their virtual sales and marketing strategy. They were new to the market and required an “evangelical sale”, as prospective clients would need to take a leap of faith because the company and solution were new to the market. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll define evangelizing as noted in Dictionary.com: “advocating a cause with the object of making converts“. Converting prospects to clients is a similar challenge for many types of businesses, be they technology companies, financial organizations or insurance agencies. Targeting new niches adds an additional layer of complexity.

The first step for my client, was to identify the target market and build a suspect list. The CEO had an insurance background and landed a few insurance company clients. We decided this would be the first niche market to target, a niche that would be reasonably easy to define. How did you build a comprehensive suspect list? We utilized several top 100 industry lists and imported them into a simple Microsoft database (we could have used a reputable list vendor for this exercise). We then, we called every one of these insurance organizations (there were about 300 initially targeted). These targeted cold calls resulted in up-to-date contact information, key executives, titles, direct phone numbers, and additional emails.

The Call To Action was an opportunity to attend educational/informational Web Seminars. Within a few short months, the database was quite comprehensive, and the suspect list began to yield a compelling prospect list. We used the Prospect Scorecard system to identify and qualify likely buyers. The group webinars helped drive prospects through the sales pipeline, as interested prospects moved to one-to-one web meetings. Out of the 300 initial suspects targeted, over 150 reviewed the solution in the first 12 months, and about 20 percent of them purchased within that same year. An impressive result for a self-funded, emerging operation selling 99 percent virtually, without travel or face-to-face meetings and the costs and inefficiencies associated with that model. Today, many years after we helped this client create a target suspect list, they continue to dominate their niche. The same methodology, techniques and tools that worked for this technology company can work for an insurance agency, broker, financial  company or almost any B2B oriented organization. For more information or territory exclusive lead generation programs and insurance agency leads, visit StartUpSelling.