Insurance Leads - Seven Tips For Selling Internet Insurance Leads

Internet leads are different from other sales leads. They are generated differently. They are delivered instantly. Most importantly, they represent a different kind of prospect. Not surprisingly, an effective sales approach for Internet insurance leads differs from the approach for traditional insurance leads.

An Internet insurance lead is generated by a consumer who uses a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN to find a website that offers information about whatever the person is looking to buy, such as insurance or a loan. The lead then completes an online form, asking to be contacted. These circumstances set it apart from others. An insurance lead represents a proactive person who is actively seeking to solve a problem. Their interest is high, and they are expecting to resolve their problem quickly.

1) Focus. Even on the phone-without visual cues-the prospect can detect stress, worry, or impatience in your voice. Make certain you have a positive attitude when you call. If you have been having a bad day, give yourself a little pep talk before you call. Remind yourself, that the road to your success passes right through your prospect's phone. You are building a business, and the person you are about to talk to can help you meet your goals.

2) Call instantly. An Internet insurance provider can "scrub," enhance, and deliver the lead via email in a matter of seconds after it is completed by the consumer. If you call the lead as soon as it is delivered, you may be able to speak to the person while he or she is still online and in the ultimate buying frame of mind. If you choose to have your insurance leads sent as batches or if you were not in the office when the lead arrived, be sure to jump on the lead immediately. Waiting even a half an hour can open the door to a competitor, if the consumer has filled out a form on another website. Be first, and you will be sure you have done your best.

3) Email, too. One of the things that set an Internet insurance lead apart from other leads is that it includes the prospect's email address. Be sure to leverage this important advantage. Create a strong email that introduces you and expresses your eagerness to help. Be sure to phrase the email as a response to the consumer's inquiry, reinforcing the fact that they initiated the contact. Remember, the person behind the Internet lead spends a lot of time on the computer and conducts a great deal of business online. It may be their preferred method of managing information, including sales information. Turn this to your advantage. Be sure to include several points of contact in your email signature: phone, fax, mailing address, and website address.

4) Call until you make contact. Failing to reach a new prospect can be deflating. To avoid emotional ups and downs, have a plan for calling new insurance leads at least six times a day. Your best chances to reach a person in the office are right before the workday begins, 7 to 9 a.m., around lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and around quitting time, 5 to 7 p.m. Leave a message on the last call of the day. Start again first thing the next day. Keep calling until you make contact.

5) Use the Internet to your advantage. Successful sales people do not sell, they serve. They convince the prospect that they are on their side, advocating for their best interest. It is easy to establish a service posture with Internet leads, because you are responding to their request. Be sure to mention their Internet search as you introduce yourself. You will come across as not only as a service professional, but also as technologically advanced and, as such, especially qualified to help find the best solution for them.

6) Stay aggressive. A service posture is not a passive posture. Dig into the problem, ask questions, listen carefully, and keep the conversation focused. Speak directly and a little bit louder than the prospect to project confidence. Smile as you speak; a smile can be heard even when not seen, and it projects warmth and honesty. Never assume the business is yours. Stay in charge, continuously selling yourself, your company, and your solution.

7) Ask for the commitment. Once you and your prospect have agreed that a product meets their needs, ask the client for a definite commitment. Suggest a positive next step, such as emailing the documents to be signed or setting an appointment. Do not hesitate to ask for a commitment. You have earned it.

An award-winning author of books for young adults, Bradley Steffens is a frequent contributor to online and print publications, including Discovery Channel Magazine, Gig and Broker Agent Magazine. A copywriter with 25 years experience, he creates website content for cloud desktop computing, health insurance, life insurance, and homeowner's insurance professionals. His most recent book, Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, is the world's first biography of the medieval Muslim scholar known in the West as Alhazen.

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Managing Internet Insurance Leads

If you've thought about buying Internet leads to supplement your insurance marketing make sure that you have thought through the entire process. After all marketing (even if outsourced) and sales need to fit together seamlessly.

Buying Internet insurance leads is only half the battle. Effectively managing leads to the point of closing new insurance policies is the real goal. To achieve that goal consistently we need to take a little time to think through the best customer experience and process we can offer the new prospect. That takes thought and planning.

Most importantly you need to think about how you are going to actively manage and follow-up on every insurance lead you buy.

Initial Contact - Before the first lead comes in be ready. You want to start every new lead off on the right foot, which means an immediate response to the customer's inquiry.

Don't let a moment slip by without reaching out to your newest Internet insurance leads. Whether you are buying real-time or aged insurance leads you need to make sure your sales process is highly responsive. Internet customers expect it.

I always encourage a quick (automated if possible) email reply to the customer. This note should simply let them know that you got their Internet inquiry and to expect your call back shortly.

Setting Expectations - Notice I used the word "expect" in the initial contact advice. This is critical. Whenever you contact a sales prospect you should be foreshadowing the process--foreshadowing the process. Your emails and telephone calls should always wrap-up with next steps and remind them of anything you need from them to complete the transaction.

Managing Follow-up - When you're working many leads at once it's very easy to miss something or someone. Make sure that your follow-up system is rock solid. Either use lead management software or a very good tickler system to remind you of what the next step is and when to follow-up, for each customer.

Lead Nurturing - Not every deal closes. That means you need to develop a lead nurturing campaign. This is a simple, but consistent follow-up plan to stay top of mind and add value even to consumers that you haven't sold to yet. If you continue to touch and reinforce your value to these consumers, many will close in the future.

Lead management often is the most critical component of the lead conversion equation. This is especially critical if you are investing in aged insurance leads. They are cheaper, and this is a big opportunity if you manage them with superior follow-up and service. Aged insurance leads can be a gold mine to the insurance agent with a solid lead management process.

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Internet Lead Generation For Insurance Agents

Insurance agents have two sources of leads when it comes to Internet lead generation. An agent can buy leads from an Internet lead generation company, or they can build a lead generation web site and create their own leads.

Buying Leads

It's important to buy leads from a company that has experience generating Internet insurance leads. New Internet lead generation companies have a tendency to rely upon questionable marketing tactics, and this can affect the quality of your leads.

Internet insurance leads can range from $5-$30 each, depending on what kind of lead it is (life insurance, annuity, auto, etc.), and whether it's an exclusive lead or not. An agent should verify if the leads are exclusive because some lead generation companies sell the same leads to multiple agents.

Also, legitimate Internet lead generation companies will credit you back for bad leads. You should be able to call into the lead generation company and speak with a service representative on the phone in case you need to discuss a bad lead so that you can get credited for it.

Building a Lead Generation Web Site

There is a good opportunity for agents to build a quality lead generation web site of their own. An agent can create a web site in their local market and build pages based upon what people are typing into the search engines. For example, if an agent lives in California, he/she can research keywords like 'insurance', and 'California', as well as specific towns or counties in his/her area ('keywords' is a term used to describe what people are typing into the search engines). So if an agent discovers that people are searching for 'California insurance broker', and 'San Francisco insurance agents', he/she can create one page for each of these keyword phrases.

As an agent digs deeper into their keyword research, they may uncover quite a few keywords and keyword phrases. But one page is not going to do it. You need a combination of dozens of pages because each page will get a few searches per month, and this can add up. Plus the more pages you build, the better chance you have of getting ranked in the search engines. Web sites with multiple pages of content are called 'content' based web sites.

The key to success in building a successful content based web site is to focus on quality content first. The reason that content is important is because you don't want your web site to look like you're trying to sell something. You want to build pages that relay good quality information in order to build trust with your prospect.

The second mechanism that is needed is an 'opt-in' lead generation system. For example, offer a free quality newsletter, and/or a free course that your prospect can subscribe to via an autoresponder (an autoresponder is a simple web based marketing tool that automatically sends information to people who 'opt-in' for your information). This way, you capture names and e-mail addresses (as well as mailing addresses) for your Internet direct marketing and direct mail efforts. But if you do not have quality content and you ask for someone's e-mail address or mailing address to sign up for your newsletter or auto responder, you may not get good results.

Fortunately, the time you spend building this web site can pay off because big commissions can arise from just one lead, paying for the time and money you have invested.

An alternative to the content based web site is a 'landing page' web site. A landing page is basically a one-page web site and its main goal is to get the prospect to subscribe to a free report, mini-course, or newsletter. Instead of relying on your content to build credibility and trust, you will have to rely upon your copywriting ability to get your prospect to give up their contact information on your landing page.

A landing page web site usually does not get good placement in the search engines, so in order to generate Internet insurance leads, an agent will have to rely on 'pay per click' advertising (where you pay for traffic to your web site), and other advertising mediums.

An insurance agent can build a significant clientele buying leads from reputable insurance lead generation companies and building a quality web site. All it takes is a little bit of due diligence and patience.

Copyright 2006 Brian Maroevich

Brian Maroevich is an Internet marketing entrepreneur and has written courses on lead generation and marketing for insurance agents, financial planners, and small businesses. You can read Brian's articles for free at http://www.insurance-leads-advisor.com

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Purchasing Insurance Internet Leads - Tips & Hints - Buy Rehashed Or Recycled Leads?

Buying quality internet insurance leads is not a simple purchasing process.  Just how reliable are the internet leads you plunk hard cash to receive? Learn hints and tips before purchasing these rehashed and recycled internet developed leads.

Any shrewd internet insurance lead company is going to maximize their profit potential without thinking about your pocketbook. Did you know that many of the internet lead companies are also licensed to sell insurance? Others sell the same lead numerous times, and others lie, saying they are providing so-called exclusive leads.

Often the going price for an internet generated life insurance lead is around $15.00. With great variance, some vendors might charge $6.00 and others charge $50.00 per lead. The internet lead costing $6.00 often generates more agent buying interest than the rest. Often cheapness prevails over quality. Countless agents leap forward in a raging fire, missing the prize. Doing that inflicts painful third degree financial burns.

A true qualified lead allows you to present your insurance product to a currently interested prospect that is medically and financially qualified. Do you think cheap internet leads match all of this description, or just part?

Be careful if you purchase a shared non-exclusive lead. These recycled leads are the lowest cost, and for good reason. If the internet lead firm says they will sell this same-shared $10.00 lead to six other agents, immediately double the number of agents.  With this style of purchased lead, you might close 10 percent. Now your lead in reality costs you $35.00 plus extra time and gas. Perhaps your normal closing rate is 35%, but not with these leads. With time considered, over $100.00 total would be the actual true cost of possibly making a sale.

An additional choice you have is the exclusive luxury lead. You are the only agent that will get this lead. That is true in part. Here is a tip that has dawned only on a tiny amount of internet lead buyers, and should save you hundreds. As I am not  in the business of selling internet leads to agents, this is a freebie tip.

Check closely to see if the internet lead company selling you the exclusive lead is also licensed to sell insurance. Examine their web site entirely, looking for a form where clients check off boxes for insurance information. If you cannot find the form, ask the internet firm where on the internet you can verify their source. If they are reputable, they will tell you. Check to see if the client has the opportunity to first buy a policy directly from them.

Are these insurance leads rehashed? Consider that another internet firm that sells insurance direct to consumers over the internet may have sold leads to the lead company you are exploring. This is a result of the first firm not convincing the client to buy. What closing ratio opportunity do you potentially have on an already worked exclusive lead?

Here is another valuable tip. Some internet insurance lead producing firms receive 90% or 100% of their lead responses from shotgun email blasting. Other times they purchase a responder list. This is a list of people that have at least once responded. The person's response could be to any internet product offering or even a survey. Countless people just love to respond to just about anything and everything. These names can be mixed into the leads you buy. These factors stop them from truly being an exclusive qualified prospect for you.

So which vehicle is going to get you quality insurance leads with the best return on investment? Right off the bat, you must test and not commit to a long term buying commitment. Stay away from any firm offering free leads. Certainly, the post office is not willing to give you free stamps to test. Free lead offers are a gimmick of an internet lead company out to grab your attention. Personally, I would choose an internet lead company's ad giving away free stamps. At least this way I know that I actually received something useful.

With insurance internet leads, the desired effect is increasing your closing ratio, and lowering wasted appointments and gas costs.

Another hint is to check the internet for Direct Mail insurance leads, where all the leads come back only to you. The initial cash outlay is higher. However if you plan to make a career of selling insurance, you will see that the return on investment is the true measure to evaluate results. Your appointment rate is higher, your sales ratio is pumped up, and the average sales amount will make you proud.

Rehashed, recycled, and unsuccessfully sold insurance prospects hold back your career from progressing. These are not true leads, just true grit. Good insurance internet leads do exist, but do your homework on how to obtain them first.

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How to Generate Your Own Hot Internet Insurance Leads

Are you tired of throwing money at supposedly hot internet leads that aren't? What if you could generate your own real leads through the internet? Think it's impossible? Well, it's not.

Yes, you can generate your own internet leads for highly qualified prospects. All you need is a simple one page web site to do it. Before you get started there is a common misunderstanding you'll want to avoid.

Most people think their website is a marketing tool. Wrong. Your website is a sales tool.

In your case your web page is selling your web visitor on the idea of giving you their name and email address in exchange for something they want. This first sale is important for two reasons. First, by giving you their email address they're giving you permission to market to them over time until they're ready to buy. Second, this is the first step helping you to filter your prospects for the people ready to buy now.

You can put up a one page web site for almost no cost. It's so easy to do anyone can do it. There really isn't anything keeping you from having a one page website and generating your own leads.

As you build your web page there are three questions you must answer for any visitor you send to this web page. The first thing you must do is confirm the visitor is in the right place. Your marketing communication sent them to this page.

They took the time to visit the page because they're interested in your marketing communication. Once they get there the easiest way you can confirm for the visitor that they're in the right place is to use the same language you used in your marketing communication to get them there. Eliminating this confusion means more of your visitors will get to the next question in their minds.

Now that they know they're in the right place they next want to know what they can do on this page. When you give the visitor options and have links that take the visitor away from this page you're increasing the likelihood that visitor will leave your web page without doing what you want them to do. Keep it simple by giving the visitor one and only one option on this page.

Finally, your visitor is going to ask themselves if what they can get is of greater value than the cost of sharing their information with you. That means you have to give your visitor information you know they want.

And there you have it. As easy as one-two-three you're generating your own highly qualified hot internet leads increasing your sales.

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Internet Insurance Leads the Cost Effective Way

Millions of consumers turn to the internet when they want to research insurance. They may be looking for a private health insurance policy. They may have just been hit by a large rate increase, and they may wonder if they can find cheaper car or homeowners insurance. Even affluent annuity shoppers research products online. In fact, internet shoppers tend to be more affluent and better educated than the average consumer. These sound just like the kind of clients we insurance agents love.

Pay for What You Get!

When you advertise in your local paper or put an ad in the phone book, you pay for a listing. You may or may not actually get a return from your investment. But when you order internet leads, you only pay for the prospects that are delivered into your in box. What's more, leads are delivered as soon as the quote forms are filled out so you can contact your prospects right away, before another agent has found them!

Take Advantage of Filters

If you would prefer to sell car insurance to drivers with clean records, or health insurance to those without health conditions, you can set up filters. Of course, you may limit the amount of leads you can buy that way, but you will get insurance shoppers that best fit the products you sell! You may also have products that accept higher risk applicants, and you can user your filter system to find those insurance shoppers.

Check Out The Return Policy

No internet insurance lead company can prevent some bogus leads from slipping through. You may get "Mickey Mouse" once in awhile. But a lead company should have a policy which credits those leads, or issues you a refund. When you are selecting an internet lead company it is very important to check out the credit policy for bad leads.

Take Advantage of the Internet

Even if you cannot sell the consumer right away, you should stay in contact with them. Take advantage of the fact that the consumers are comfortable with the internet and be sure to add their email address to your list so you can send them a monthly newsletter. A periodic, friendly and informative newsletter won't cost you any postage if you deliver through email! It will remind the shopper of you, and the next time they are shopping for insurance they will be more familiar with you and the insurance products you sell.

I have phoned internet leads when they were busy, and figured that I had lost the sale. However, several times, after sending out a periodic email newsletter, I got a call or email for them, asking for more information! Sometimes when clients tell me they are too busy to talk, they really are! But that doesn't mean they won't be in the mood to buy in a week or two!

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Internet Insurance Leads

It is a fact that more and more people everyday use the Internet to get insurance coverage. The number of online customers is massive compared to "traditional" business, and it is increasing day after day.

However, as the online market grows, the number of "garbage" leads increases accordingly; there is a huge amount of price-shoppers out there that cares more about getting a cheap policy than about getting a good one. And paying attention to such requests is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of money.That is why you should get pre-qualified leads. Internet insurance leads that have been filtered to eliminate unserious ones were found to have about 80% effectiveness.There are many lead services on the internet; what differences one from another is this filtering process.

There is no doubt about it: if you want to reach the largest amount of people possible across the nation, then you should start getting internet leads. It is the most cost-effective way to achieve an astonishing number of sales. And, of course, this huge number of potential customers is a great chance of getting plenty of referrals. Everyone knows someone that needs a policy. It's the good old basic equation: More customers = more referrals.

Be sure to choose a lead service that fulfills your needs, have them pre-eliminate those dead-end quote requests, and the rest is doing what you are good for, that means, selling insurance policies.

If you need healing, you pay a visit to a physician. If you want to get yourself a new car, you don't enter a pharmacy to buy it. It's that simple: if you really want to increase the amount of your customers, then you need to get in touch with a quality internet insurance leads service provider. That is what makes the difference in the insurance world nowadays.

If you find this information useful you should visit the site [http://www.official-insurance.net] where you will find lots of interesting articles related to this topic, all original and wrote by Andreea Dinescu.

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