How to Use LinkedIn for Insurance Sales Leads

Social media can feel a bit chaotic at times, as there’s so much content across so many platforms. Yet through it all, LinkedIn has held steady as arguably the top business-oriented social network. In particular, LinkedIn can be highly valuable in the business to business (B2B) world, with 63 million decision-makers on the platform. That means insurance agents have vast opportunities to connect with other business owners and executives who may be interested in purchasing policies. Still, it’s not always easy to determine how to use LinkedIn for sales leads.

Even though all these decision-makers are using this network, that doesn’t mean insurance agents will automatically have success pitching random professionals in the hopes someone will want to buy a policy. Nor does it mean insurance agents can simply post content and expect that to instantly lead to new clients. Instead, insurance agents need to learn how to use Linked in multiple contexts and thoroughly engage on the platform to generate sales leads.

In this guide, we’ll examine some of the top solutions regarding how to use LinkedIn for insurance sales leads, as the platform has many unique components.

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Creating a Strong LinkedIn Profile

As part of building up your digital marketing presence to sell more policies online, you should make sure that your LinkedIn profile is not only up-to-date but that it showcases you in a strong light. Because just as you might research sales leads and see if they’re a good fit for you, other business owners might look you up on LinkedIn to get a sense of whether they might want to work with you. 

The good news is that there’s a lot of flexibility when it comes to creating a LinkedIn profile. You could create a simple profile that states what you do, has your contact information and lists your experience, or you could flesh out your profile by adding sections, such as to showcase your content marketing. Doing so could help you draw in LinkedIn sales leads who might not otherwise see your website.

Some of the more notable profile features you may want to examine as you try to figure out how to use LinkedIn for sales leads include:

Headline

While many people put a basic job title as their headline, such as “Insurance Agent at Company X,” you may want to come up with something more specific and geared toward using LinkedIn for sales leads. For example, you might say that you’re a “Commercial Insurance Agent Specializing in Small Business Property Coverage.” That way, a potential lead will quickly get a better sense of whether you could be a good fit for their needs. You also might be more likely to show up in searches for the terms you put in your headline.

About

Expanding on what’s in your headline, your “About” section should also be specific. Feel free to elaborate on what makes your insurance brand unique, who you help and how you go about helping these businesses. You also may want to add a bit of personal color, such as sharing some of your hobbies or volunteer work if you’d like to try to develop relationships with clients that dive a bit deeper.

Featured

As you share content on LinkedIn, you can pin featured posts toward the top of your profile. So, if you have a strong blog post, for example, that you want to use to draw in sales leads, you could put that within your “Featured” section so those who browse your profile can get more insights from you than just seeing your resume.

Recommendations

Another valuable part of your LinkedIn profile that can help regarding how to use LinkedIn for sales leads is the “Recommendations” section. Ask colleagues, customers, vendors, or others that you’ve worked with if they’d be willing to leave you a recommendation, and you can do the same for them in return. That way, prospective clients can see social proof of why you’re great to work with.

Making Connections on LinkedIn

Once you’ve built a strong profile, it’s important to start making connections on LinkedIn. Yet you don’t have to jump right in and start connecting with prospects. If you connect with those who you don’t know, you may come across as overly salesy, if not spammy. Instead, make sure you first build out your connections with those you know, such as:

• Current colleagues
• Former colleagues
• Customers
• Vendors
• Other business professionals
• Friends
• Classmates

As you connect with these people, you can potentially increase your exposure and credibility to new audiences. For example, LinkedIn displays degrees of connection. So, if a prospect takes a look at your profile, they might see that you’re a second-degree connection, as you both know, say, one of your customers. That might then encourage that prospect to get in touch with you.

Plus, as you engage with your connections, your profile might show up in other people’s feeds. If a friend comments on your post, for instance, then that comment might show up in a business owner’s feed who’s connected to your friend. So, they might see your post, visit your profile, and want to get in touch.

Expanding to Prospects

Once you have a good foundation by first adding people you know, you can set your sights more on connecting with prospects. Still, you don’t want to overdo it. Part of figuring out how to use LinkedIn for sales leads is finding the line between connecting in a helpful, friendly manner vs. seeming pushy.

If you meet a prospect at a networking event, for example, it might be natural to offer to connect on LinkedIn. But if you start sending out connection requests to a business owner you unsuccessfully cold-called, then that might not be the best approach.

Try to put yourself in a prospect’s shoes and ask yourself if you would want to connect. If it seems like a good next step, such as after you were introduced via email through a mutual friend, then go for it. But if it seems forced, see if you can form more of a connection off LinkedIn first. For example, maybe they have a blog where you can comment on one of their posts.

Using Search and Search Alerts

To find connections on LinkedIn, take advantage of the platform’s search capabilities. You don’t have to know the name of the person you’re searching for but can instead filter by parameters like industry and title to find relevant sales leads on LinkedIn. 

To gain more advanced features, consider signing up for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This premium membership costs roughly $80 per month (depending on payment terms/promotions) but helps you find connections that can turn into customers. For example, you can set up search alerts and receive automatic emails if a new prospect fits your search criteria, such as if you want to track leads who recently changed jobs. 

Engaging on LinkedIn

Connecting with others on LinkedIn can help you build out a strong network, but it’s important to put that network to use if you want to use LinkedIn for generating sales leads. That’s not to say that you have to be posting multiple times per day, or even every day if that’s not your speed. But engaging on the platform on a fairly regular basis that feels comfortable for you can help you get much more out of LinkedIn than if you just use it as an online resume.

Create Original Content

Within LinkedIn, you can create original content such as blog posts. These might be adaptations of similar articles you’ve posted on your own blog but perhaps shortened and tweaked so that it’s not duplicative.

You also can simply share status updates that are content in their own right. For example, you might write a few sentences on productivity or marketing that you think others would find useful.  

Or you could post videos as content. Linking out to third-party sites like YouTube might not look all that professional, and it can be tough at times to convince people to click out of LinkedIn and into another network. Instead, you can engage your audience by sharing videos directly to LinkedIn. For example, you might post a short video where you discuss risk management tips for new business owners or upload some behind-the-scenes footage of a podcast you recorded.

Share and Engage With Content

In addition to creating content that’s shared directly on LinkedIn, you can also share content that lives on other channels. For example, you might share a link to one of your recent blog posts or invite your network to a webinar you’re putting together.

You can also share and engage with other people’s work, as you don’t want to only promote yourself. Being social and engaging with others can help you build up goodwill and encourage them to share your work too, which can ultimately help in solving how to use LinkedIn for sales leads.

So, be sure to comment, like, and share other people’s content. That can even be a way for you to stay in touch with clients. Rather than formally meeting with ones who don’t want an annual review, for instance, you could simply stay on their radar by commenting on their posts from time to time.

Using InMail

A more direct way to engage on LinkedIn is to use InMail, which is like email or direct messaging within LinkedIn. Often users are limited to messaging existing contacts, but one of the benefits of choosing a premium LinkedIn membership, such as Sales Navigator, is that you get a certain number of credits (depending on membership level) to message anyone, regardless of whether you’re connected.

When using InMail, keep general email best practices in mind. You wouldn’t want to be off-putting by launching into a sales pitch before you ever interacted with that person. Instead, keep your messages short and respectful with the goal being to continue the conversation. For instance, you might send an InMail to a prospect saying you enjoyed content they recently shared, and you could ask if they’d like to connect on the platform to keep in touch.

Joining Groups

Another way to engage on LinkedIn is to join groups. When using the search feature, you’ll find a tab for groups that fit that search criterion. You might search for insurance-related groups to network with other agents, or you might join a different type of group that applies to your work, such as a small business networking group.

Some groups are private and require certain criteria to join, whereas others are more open to anyone. Before joining, try to get a sense of what the engagement looks like in the group and whether you’d be able to add value. If everyone in the group is just posting promotional information and there’s no engagement among members, it might not be worth your time. But if the group is instead full of actual conversations, you may benefit from joining.

When you do join groups, remember to add more value than you take. Engage with other people’s posts more than you post your own content, if at all. Pay close attention to a group’s rules to see what types of posts are allowed.

Learning on LinkedIn

While not necessarily the most direct way to use LinkedIn for sales leads, also keep in mind that LinkedIn can be a great learning tool. Even if you decide to be more of a passive participant, you can still learn a lot such as by reading the content that others share, which often has to do with improving marketing, sales and other topics that can help you learn how to find and nurture more leads.

Plus, LinkedIn offers learning modules through the platform. So, if you want to learn about a new topic that you think can ultimately help you find more leads, such as how to improve your website, you can often find these resources on LinkedIn.

Overall, LinkedIn has a lot to offer to help you find more insurance leads. You don’t have to do everything on the platform, but odds are you can find a few components that help you grow your business.