Whether you’re a veteran insurance agent or are brand new to the industry, a lead generation process is essential to your business’s growth. But as with any essential business practice, there are many ways to do it wrong. Insurance agents need to be careful to avoid common lead generation mistakes that can cost additional money, time and overall make lead generation more difficult than if you followed some best practices.
In this article, we’ll dive into five common insurance lead generation mistakes to avoid for maximum lead engagement, customer satisfaction, and long-term success for your insurance business overall.
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Lead Generation Mistake #1: Not Tracking Your ROI
When trying to find leads, it can be tempting to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. But if you don’t know your return on investment (ROI), you may be wasting precious time and resources on a strategy that’s not very effective.
For example, if you invest in social media ads, it’s important to know metrics like how much website traffic those ad campaigns drive to your site. You also ideally want to know what percentage of those leads become sales. That way, you can hopefully calculate a clear ROI.
If you invest $100 in Facebook advertising, for example, perhaps that yields $200 in profit. If that’s the case, you may be able to scale up your advertising and grow even more. Yet if you weren’t tracking your ROI, you might not realize that for every $100 in Facebook advertising, perhaps you’re only getting $50 back, which would likely mean you’d want to change your lead generation approach.
Lead Generation Mistake #2: Being Impatient
The most effective lead generation strategy is often a well-rounded one, ranging from pay-per-click (PPC) ads to long-term organic marketing efforts like blogging. If you’re utilizing digital marketing as a part of your lead generation efforts (and you generally should), remember that these channels typically take time and ongoing commitment to producing results.
Even if you follow every inbound marketing best practice and use flawless SEO tactics, growing blog traffic, for example, isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it type of strategy. According to SEO expert Rand Fishkin in an article on Moz, content marketing results often spike at the beginning, but then it can take a lot of effort to keep things moving in the right direction over time.
After the initial bump, returns can plateau or even decrease, he notes. The reality is that content marketing results often take months of consistent content production and promotion to increase again. So, while you may not be seeing great results at the moment, don’t give in to impatience or discouragement. Trust the process and continue to create great content that’s optimized for search results. The leads will come—eventually.
Lead Generation Mistake #3: Casting Too Wide a Net
For an insurance agent, the right customer is any customer making a purchase, right? Not necessarily.
Not every lead is a good fit, and if you cast too wide a net, you could end up becoming less appealing all around. Leads in specific industries might think you don’t have the specialized skills/expertise to help them if you take too broad of an approach.
Instead, determine your target market. For commercial insurance agents, think about what types of business owners or executives are most likely to become your customers. One way to do this is to take a look at the customer demographics already at play in your agency.
If your firm deals largely with retail businesses like restaurants and clothing stores, you may not want to go after leads in, say, the oil and gas industry. These types of businesses likely have very different insurance needs, and you don’t want to overlook what’s worked for you already.
By niching down, you can tailor every marketing effort to fit the needs of your target audience. Be confident and vocal about who exactly your services are for, and those people will be more willing to start a dialogue with you.
Lead Generation Mistake #4: Not Following Up With Leads
Getting initial interest from prospects or making that first cold outreach often isn’t enough. After all, the purpose of lead generation is to convert them into sales—and you often won’t make it over that hurdle without following up with leads.
That doesn’t mean that you need to annoy your leads with constant emails and phone calls until they agree to buy from you. Being overly persistent can push leads away. Instead, you need to figure out the right balance, which might involve some trial and error.
Perhaps after you first make contact with a lead they’re not ready to request a quote, but they might be willing to sign up for your email list, for example. From there, you might decide to reach out with not only your regular email marketing newsletters but also with a personalized note seeing how they’re doing with their business and how you might be able to support them.
When following up with a quality lead, remember to keep the conversation focused on them. What are the prospect’s needs, and how can you help fill them? Ask your new lead open-ended questions and truly listen to their responses. You’ll then have the best chance of discovering how to meet them where they are in the sales journey, and, ultimately, close the sale.
Lead Generation Mistake #5: Ignoring Current Customers
It may sound contradictory, but the last area on this list of lead generation mistakes is spending too much time on lead generation. While making new sales is essential, don’t focus on lead generation to the detriment of your current customers.
Make it a habit to balance follow-ups with leads and current customers so that you don’t skew in one direction. Stay connected to the accounts you already service so that customers won’t feel ignored or that their needs are no longer a priority to you.
The simplest solution is to continue treating customers like leads even after they buy from you. Keep them in your contact database with regular follow-up dates, just as if you were still courting their sale. Call or visit regularly, ask questions, and listen to their responses. As your relationship grows, you’ll be able to better anticipate each customer’s needs.
The customers you already have should be confident that you’re prioritizing them at least as much as winning a shiny new sale, or you risk losing their accounts to a competitor.
Start Improving Your Lead Generation
If you want to maintain a thriving and healthy business, generating leads is a must. But many insurance agents run headfirst into a lead generation project without tracking their ROI or choosing a target audience. It’s also easy to assume that results will come quickly, but, in reality, many of the best forms of marketing take at least a few months to see organic results.
Don’t make the rookie lead generation mistake of ignoring follow-ups with leads once you have them, either. And of course, remember that lead generation isn’t worth ignoring (and losing) your current customer base.
Turning to InsurTech tools like Wheelhouse can help you overcome some of these lead generation mistakes. With Wheelhouse, you can create more targeted marketing campaigns to reel in insurance customers who would be a good fit for your business. The platform can also help you stay organized and efficient in terms of converting leads into customers, as well as following up with existing customers.