If you’re trying to figure out how to find small business insurance leads, you may be tempted to focus on methods that can have quick results, like advertising on social media. While doing so has its place, that’s not the only way to find insurance leads. To maximize your ability to find small business leads, you also need to assess how to find customers who may not necessarily be shopping for insurance policies now, but may be in the future.
By playing the long game regarding how to find leads, you can potentially draw in a larger customer base. In some ways, doing so can even make finding leads easier overall. Instead of always having to come up with new campaigns to pull prospects in, you may be able to create some content or do some other type of marketing once and let the effects play out in the months and years to come.
With that in mind, this guide will explore three solid yet underrated long-term solutions for how to find small business leads.
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Tell Everyone You Know and Meet
If you’re struggling to figure out how to find leads, one solution may be to be more vocal about your business. That doesn’t mean you need to constantly launch into a sales pitch, but, generally, the more people who are aware of what you do, the types of clients you serve, and how they can reach you, the better.
Ask for Reviews and Recommendations
One place to start in terms of getting your name out there more and finding new leads is to ask for reviews and recommendations. It may feel a bit uncomfortable, but it’s often worth it in the long run. For example, you can:
- Thank current clients for their business and direct them to where they can review you online. Also, let them know that you’re open to new clients and would appreciate any referrals such as to friends, family or other professionals they might think need insurance. Even if this doesn’t lead to a new customer right away, down the road a client might think to recommend you to someone they know that starts a business.
- Send a note to former colleagues or professional acquaintances. You don’t have to specifically say that you’re trying to figure out how to find leads, but you could mention that you’re trying to scale your business and would appreciate any recommendations to business owners they think you should connect with. This doesn’t have to be a direct referral but perhaps just a recommendation for someone that you may want to connect with to help you grow your business, like a marketing professional. You could then offer to return the favor if you think of anyone you can recommend who might be a good fit for their business.
- Ask friends and family. Especially if you’re a new insurance agent or expanding to a new line of policies, you could let friends and family know what you do and ask them to keep you in mind if they hear of anyone looking for commercial insurance. Even if you’re an experienced agent, perhaps you run into an old friend who doesn’t know your profession. Don’t be shy to explain what you do, and if it feels right, you could even provide that contact with some business cards to pass out if they think of anyone who needs your help or who would generally be good to connect with.
Introduce Yourself
In addition to turning to people you know, another solution for how to find leads is to introduce yourself to more people. Like with current customers, friends, family, etc., you never know who might be a new lead or could introduce you to someone who needs your services. So, whether you meet someone on vacation, at a networking event or anywhere else, it doesn’t hurt to share what you do professionally. If it doesn’t feel too salesy, such as if the other person is asking a lot of questions about your work, you could then trade business cards or offer to connect on LinkedIn.
Get in Front of New Audiences
To get in front of new audiences to find new leads, you can:
- Write a guest post for another blog; many publications post submission guidelines online, or you can ask a publisher/blogger if they would be open to you contributing.
- Be a guest on a podcast; browse social media to look for openings, or reach out to podcasters directly.
- Speak at a conference; look at conference websites to see if they’re seeking speakers, or ask organizers if you can contribute.
- Join a webinar; similar to speaking at a conference, you may be able to find organizations that frequently create webinars and thus need guests.
- Jump into social media conversations; commenting on another professional’s post, for example, enables that other person’s followers to see what you wrote.
If you’re struggling in these areas as you try to solve how to find leads, you may benefit from working with a public relations professional. A PR expert can help you get your name out there in a positive light so that more potential customers and others who can add value to your business can learn about your brand.
Create Educational Content
Although it may be tempting to go for the sale, sometimes the solution to how to find leads is to reel them in slowly but surely through educational content. If you can create materials that help small business owners improve how they run their companies, they can grow to trust your brand and eventually may decide to purchase insurance policies from you. Yet if you jumped right in with sales content, they may be turned away before they ever get a chance to learn about you.
Plus, creating educational content can be a good way to build your database of leads. You may get more people willing to sign up for your email list if that gets subscribers access to, say, an ebook on scaling a startup vs. an ebook on insurance policies.
Some of the ways to create educational content as a solution for how to find insurance leads include:
- Write a blog post where you interview a client about some obstacles they overcame
- Share some of your own business successes in an email as a way to inform new business owners of ways to grow
- Create social media graphics with bite-sized business tips
- Produce a webinar that aims to solve a challenge your target clientele faces
- Write an ebook or whitepaper that goes in-depth on a specific issue, e.g., how to hire your first employee
By creating these types of educational content, you may find that they have more longevity than a current sales pitch. For example, a prospect might be just as likely to search for content on risk management a year from now as they are today. So, if you have a good blog post on that topic, it could continue to draw in leads.
Keep Going
There are many solutions for how to find small business insurance leads. If one doesn’t work for you, don’t feel like you’re stuck. Any of these methods might work for you, so keep experimenting to find your preferred path. Over time, you may also find that success in some areas makes it easier to find leads in other ways. Creating popular blog posts, for example, may lead to a publication asking you to submit a guest post, which may lead to a speaking engagement. Stay the course and you may be able to grow your leads in due time.