How to Sell Insurance to Businesses

Figuring out how to sell insurance to businesses can be challenging for any agent. Even those with existing agencies can face obstacles. A high volume of clients are needed to grow by finding new leads and expanding your reach. With small commercial businesses, it’s not always easy to find a consistent surplus.

There are steps you can take to simplify the process of building out your lead pipeline. You still have to put in the time to network, build relationships, and understand what clients want. But you can improve your odds by establishing a clear value proposition. Then go after more specific groups of potential clients.

This is a guide on how to sell insurance to small commercial businesses. We’ll explore these areas in more detail so that you can reach these prospects and sell more policies.

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Determine Your Value Proposition

Figuring out how to sell insurance to businesses often requires taking a step back. Determine what your value proposition is so that you can then have a more succinct and powerful message. Now you can utilize a stronger strategy when targeting new leads.

“A value proposition is a simple statement that summarizes why a customer would choose your product or service. It communicates the clearest benefit that customers receive by giving you their business. Every value proposition should speak to a customer’s challenge and make the case for your company as the problem-solver,” explains Help Scout, a customer service software company.

How do you go about figuring out what your value proposition is for your insurance business? 

Part of the solution may be doing some internal reflection. Think about what sets your insurance business apart from others. Focus on the context of the small commercial businesses you’re trying to reach. 

For example, you sell primarily to tech businesses. You have a deep expertise of how this industry is evolving. You read tech blogs, attend conferences, and have long conversations with clients about their risk management. Your value proposition might be that you understand what small tech businesses are going through. You can customize your insurance recommendations to solve customer challenges. If you were more of a generalist, you might not be able to get into the weeds in this industry.  

Perhaps your value proposition tends to be more about your service model. You have an original process that helps you onboard clients efficiently. Or you conduct renewal meetings in ways that help you deeply understand your clients’ businesses. This puts you in a specific position to make better policy recommendations.

In addition to thinking about what you’re trying to offer with your insurance business, you also may want to look back at what drew clients to you in the first place. 

“The best value propositions use voice of customer copy. That is, they use the exact words of your current customers to hook your future customers.” Think about how customers would answer questions like, “Why do they choose to associate with your brand?” explains Shopify.

Focus on Specific Audiences

Another key aspect of solving how to sell insurance to businesses is to focus on specific audiences. This ties back to your value proposition. You can explain how your insurance business specifically helps other types of businesses. If you go too broad, then that might not resonate very well. It could be too vague to motivate business owners to take action.

You can focus your messaging on more specific audiences. A small manufacturing business in Southern California or startup tech businesses in Northern Virginia. These could be leads you are able to connect with more easily. Your messaging can make leads in these groups feel like you’re speaking directly to them. As you focus on a specific audience, your sales and marketing efforts can also move in that direction.

Now you can take steps like:

• Create sections of your website explaining how you help specific types of commercial businesses.
• Follow relevant accounts on social media that help you break into circles where your leads tend to interact online.
• Joining business groups or attending events that help you network with the types of small commercial businesses you’re trying to reach.

You don’t have to limit yourself to just one type of audience; it’s okay to have a few if you can still be specific. The point is that being more targeted about who you’re trying to sell insurance to can help your sales and marketing efforts.

Think about it from your own perspective. Would your eye catch a web design company that “helps businesses create websites”? Compared to a web design company that “helps independent insurance agents with no coding experience create their first websites”?

Build Out Your Marketing

Knowinghow to sell insurance to businesses means keeping your value proposition and specific audiences in mind. You can start to build out your marketing in ways that help you find more leads and ultimately land more clients.

Whatever areas of marketing you decide to use — whether that’s building an email list to send e-newsletters, creating an SEO-friendly blog, making connections on LinkedIn, etc. — keep your value proposition and ideal audiences top of mind. 

Small commercial businesses that have first-time business owners at the helm. To Target them, you might create marketing content like blogs that explain some of the challenges that first-time entrepreneurs experience. 
You can position your insurance agency as a valuable resource to help clients solve these types of challenges.

You can also do this by having problem-solving conversations as you start to meet with leads. If you just go for the hard sell it can be off-putting and potentially drive away customers. You don’t have to cast a wide net with your marketing. It can be crowded with so many other insurance agents and brands. It’s often easier to stand out by creating marketing materials that speak to a particular group. 

“Contrary to popular belief, however, niche marketing does not dilute the firm’s overall brand; in fact, defining niches – and showcasing the strengths of your people in return – means establishing core specialties that easily help differentiate the firm,” explains Megan Carpenter, co-founder and CEO at financial services marketing agency FiComm Partners, in an article for WealthManagement.com. While she’s talking about financial advisors in this article, the same logic applies to insurance agents.

One way to make your marketing more specific is to use tools like Wheelhouse. Through this platform, you can create targeted landing pages that connect to your marketing campaigns. You run Facebook ads to reach small restaurants in your city. You could then send those prospects to a landing page built for this audience. These clients feel specifically engaged, rather than directing them to a more generic website page. 

You can lead prospects in whatever direction through your funnel. That could mean providing more resources like blog content to help you build client trust. Or encouraging prospects to generate quotes via Wheelhouse if you think they’re getting close to making a purchasing decision.

There’s not one universal answer in terms of how to sell insurance to businesses. By communicating your value proposition to more specific audiences and developing corresponding marketing materials, you may be able to increase your chances for success.