For commercial agents, insurance selling strategies might not always be as straightforward as it is for consumer agents. The B2B buying process can be longer and more complex. For one, B2B insurance selling strategies might depend on forming relationships and convincing several stakeholders within a company to make one sale. Compared with the one-on-one process that often occurs with B2C.
“B2B consumers often involve multiple people and teams in their purchasing decisions. Rapport can still be built, but it will take longer and requires more investment by all parties,” notes BlueCart, which provides software to the hospitality industry.
Even for small businesses, multiple founders or partners might be involved in the buying process. In cases where there’s only one decision-maker within the company, they still might want to dive deeper than the average consumer. Like if the policy limits are higher than they typically deal with or if they’re new to a certain line of insurance that doesn’t apply to the consumer level.
There are still several ways commercial agents can improve insurance selling strategies. Keep in mind that the process might involve more relationship building and more time to close the deal. In this article, we’ll explore five insurance selling strategies for commercial agents. They can help insurers generate new leads and progress them through the journey from prospect to customer.
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#1: Run Targeted Digital Ads
Running digital ads for commercial insurance doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll quickly close new deals the same way an e-commerce ad might. E-commerce is geared toward a consumer to make an impulse buy online. But you can start the sales process through targeted ads.
For example, learn what prospective customers tend to be researching online. That can then lead to insurance agents creating targeted search ads that apply to relevant keywords. You could run an ad for “small business insurance.” But an insurer might target more specific terms like, “financial risk for restaurants” or “workers’ comp for manufacturers.” To find these terms, you might use a mix of keyword research tools (e.g., Ahrefs). Or look at your website’s internal analytics, ask customers what they’re trying to learn about, etc.
You might run targeted social media ads to get in front of the types of customers you specialize in. This could be more successful than trying to appeal to all types of small businesses.
Those targeted digital ads can lead to content on your website. Or a separate landing page that helps explain your offerings and enables prospects to see the value your offerings could provide to their businesses. The actual purchasing process can still take time. Ideally you can make prospects aware of your company and start to build relationships from there. A great and simple start is to get them to sign up for your email list.
#2: Give Leads a Reason to Share Contact Info
Agents ideally want to give leads a reason to share their contact info. After they click on a targeted digital ad, you could send them to a landing page for a whitepaper that provides educational information they want for their business. In exchange for downloading this whitepaper, you might ask visitors to fill out a form with their contact info and agree to be contacted by you.
You might not necessarily get as many readers as you would if you just made that whitepaper readily available online for all to see, but you could gain the benefit of getting high-quality leads to share their contact info directly with you.
“If a content marketing team creates gated content, it forces only those that really want the ‘free gift’ in exchange for their personal details to sign-up. Although the content marketing team may register a drop in the total number of leads, the quality of leads will greatly improve,” explains UnboundB2B, a lead generation company.
#3: Partner With Other Businesses
Another useful insurance selling strategy is to partner with other businesses on sales and marketing when possible. Doing so can expand your reach.
One option might be to partner with others who are closely involved with business formation, such as lawyers or accountants. That way, when a new business owner is getting started, another professional can recommend your insurance services as a value-add to their clients. Just like a real estate agent might recommend a contractor who can help a new homeowner with renovations.
You might find opportunities to partner with other types of businesses for joint marketing activities. An insurance agent might team up with an HR consultant to create a whitepaper about how startups can improve employee retention. Doing so could help you create better content that draws in more prospects. As you both put resources into marketing the content, it could potentially drive more traffic than either of you could do alone.
#4: Become a Presence in Your Community
This doesn’t mean commercial insurance agents need to abandon local, offline efforts. Instead, becoming a notable presence within your community can help you become the go-to commercial insurance agent for other small businesses in your area.
“Ideally, that kind of local notoriety can become self-perpetuating, with the business’s reputation doubling as free advertising, drawing in new business and allowing owners to focus on keeping their customers happy and reputation thriving,” notes BenchmarkONE, which provides small business sales and marketing software.
To form this presence, you might take steps like:
- Sponsoring community events/activities, e.g., youth sports or volunteer events
- Joining and getting active with business/community groups, like your local Chamber of Commerce or Rotary club
- Utilizing visible office space; even though office space needs may have changed over the past couple years, you still might find that maintaining an office in a highly trafficked area, where your name can be prominently visible, could lead to better brand awareness
#5: Upsell Current Customers
Lastly, don’t overlook your current customers. One of the best insurance selling strategies can be to go deeper with your current customers. Whether that means upselling them with new lines of coverage or getting them to expand their existing policies.
You don’t want to be overly aggressive with upselling. Instead, it may work better to frame these additional sales as value-added opportunities you’re offering to clients at convenient times. Like during renewal periods. If you offer a free consultation to review their business needs before they renew, for example, you might together find that there’s now a greater need for adding lines like cyber insurance.
Even if it doesn’t work out right away in terms of selling more to current customers, you might be able to form deeper relationships with clients during these types of reviews. That can lead to more sales later, while also potentially encouraging current clients to recommend you to new prospects.
Close the Deal
Using these types of insurance selling strategies can help you find more leads and move them through the funnel. You still need the right tools to actually close the deal. That’s where solutions like Wheelhouse come in. Prospects can easily generate quotes online and insurance agents can use the platform to simplify the sales process. Rather than prospects getting frustrated with the time and energy it can take to obtain quotes and process the paperwork. A smooth sales process, supported by Wheelhouse, can help insurance agents close more deals.