One of the top overarching use cases for insurance APIs is to generate leads. However, it’s not so much the APIs themselves that automatically help you generate leads but rather what APIs enable you to do.
APIs act as connectors, allowing insurance agents to integrate applications or website features with one another. That way, if an agent wants to, say, be able to provide multiple policy quotes on one webpage, rather than directing prospects to different carriers’ websites, they can do so. Or, if they want to link together the information from something like an accounting platform to their payroll system, APIs can help.
In essence, APIs help insurance agents increase efficiency and provide a more seamless customer experience. That can help when it comes to generating insurance leads, especially when leveraging use cases for insurance APIs that more directly support sales and marketing efforts.
If you want to use APIs to generate more leads and close sales, we can help. Get in touch today to learn more.
In this guide, we’ll explore some of these use cases for insurance APIs in more detail to help insurance agents boost their lead generation.
Use Case #1: Using Social Media APIs for Lead Generation
While the overall use case an insurance agent may be aiming for is generating leads, there are some more specific use cases that ultimately drive toward that goal. One of the areas where insurance agents can use APIs for lead generation is social media. Doing so can help enhance social media marketing efforts to find new leads. These use cases for insurance APIs include:
Integrating Social Media Channels With Your Website:
Before you become aware of someone as a qualified lead, they might come across your website, such as via a search engine. In that case, you want your website to look good enough for that prospect to get in touch with you and become a qualified lead.
One way to potentially enhance the look of your website is to integrate your social media channels within your site. Social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn have their own APIs that you can use to easily add information like your recent posts to your website. Some visitors may like to look at these posts while on your site to get a sense of your brand, rather than, say, read your full blog articles.
Streamlining Social Media Management:
Social media management tools also use APIs to pull in social media information in one convenient location. As such, you can keep tabs on multiple channels at once, such as to see if you have any notifications from potential leads that you can follow up on.
You can also follow multiple hashtags at once, so you can see what potential prospects are talking about. For example, you might be following conversations on entrepreneurship. Always logging in to a platform like Twitter and typing in relevant keywords can be tedious and inefficient. If you can easily track multiple keywords in one social media management tool, it can be easier for you then to determine topics to leverage in your marketing as part of your insurance lead generation strategy.
Enhancing Social Media Post Creation:
APIs can also make it easier and more effective to create social media posts, helping you then generate more leads. For example, the social media management platform Buffer leverages an API to enable users to add images from the photo site Unsplash.
Since everything can be done within the platform, that makes it a lot easier to use images in posts, which might help draw in new prospects.
Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images.
Buzzsumo
If an insurance agent had to visit another site every time they wanted to find a social media image, then download the image and upload it onto a social media platform to create one post, that might cause insurance agents to skip the hassle of adding images to posts.
Use Case #2: Using Email APIs for Lead Generation
Similar to how there are several social media API use cases for insurance agents that ultimately help with lead generation, email marketing platforms also tend to have many API integrations. Using these can help with:
Linking Email Marketing With Your CRM:
If you have a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, linking that system to your email marketing platform can help you learn how to attract more leads and move them through the funnel.
For example, APIs can link tools like Mailchimp and Salesforce together. Then, within Salesforce, you can see how certain types of leads interact with your emails. That can spark insights, such as realizing that your marketing performs better with retail businesses than e-commerce ones. In that case, you may want to market more directly toward retailers to generate new leads.
Automating Contact Form Data Integrations:
Another way to enhance your website, beyond adding social media content through APIs, could be to add a contact form to your website that looks clean and operates smoothly. But you might not want that data to only sit within a website content management system, especially if you do not realize it’s there for a while, causing you to miss out on a lead.
You also wouldn’t want to have to manually type that information into your email marketing system. If so, a typo could be the only thing separating you from a new lead and a bounced email. APIs can automatically sync contact form data into your email marketing system. That way you’re ready to reach these new leads in your next email marketing push.
Creating More Relevant Emails:
APIs can also help you create better emails, much as they can improve how insurance agents create social media posts. For example, the email marketing platform Campaign Monitor can integrate with tools like Movable Ink to automatically pull in data, such as that related to web browsing, to personalize emails.
Use Case #3: Improving Your Sales Process With APIs
While improving your sales process with APIs may not seem like it has much to do with lead generation, a smooth sales process can go a long way toward earning you recommendations and positive reviews. For example, if customers automatically get notified about upcoming renewal dates and can easily complete renewals online, they may be more likely to tell a friend shopping for insurance to get in touch with you. But if your sales process is clunky, that could scare away future leads.
APIs can also be used in ways like embedding reviews directly onto your website. That way, other customers might be reminded to make a referral. Or a happenstance website visitor may see positive reviews and decide to then get in touch with you.
When a new lead inquires about policy pricing, you may be able to close the deal quicker by leveraging APIs. With a tool like Wheelhouse, users can see multiple policy quotes in one location.
Altogether, the smooth sales process could prompt you to gain more leads through word of mouth and turn more leads into paying customers. And when it’s time for renewals, you can have more leads in the sense that you may close a higher percentage than you have in the past, which might reduce your need to find brand new leads.