Insurance marketing tricks & treats for nurturing prospects
Every producer has them: prospects that are stuck in the sales funnel, usually near the top. You know that sending them “just checking in” emails are the fastest way to alienate them. So what do you do instead? How do you nurture, not nag? Read on to discover two insurance marketing tricks & treats for the month.
How to handle those online leads
You have a pretty good website that’s optimized for your clients (and prospects) so that they can find the information they need. You’re fairly active on social media, constantly trying to drive leads to your website. And your website has capture/lead forms that do a good job of capturing lead information. Now, how do you handle those leads? Glad you asked. Stay tuned as we unpack our bag of insurance marketing tricks & treats with a few quick do’s and don’ts.
- Don’t purchase lead lists. We can promise you that the data is at least six months old, probably older. The quality is poor; plus, that same list you purchased for hundreds of dollars has already been sold four times to your competition. You’ll spend hours trying to contact and nurture them, and you’ll see very little results. They’re not worth it. So don’t go there.
- Respond immediately. When you follow up within five minutes of the prospect returning your form, that prospect is nine times more likely to convert, said PropertyCasualty360. They’ve done their homework on line, most likely, and now they’re ready to talk face-to-face (via chat or phone). Don’t make them wait. InsideSales.com says that 35-50 percent of sales go to the company that responds first. (That means also that you shouldn’t assume you’re the only agency that the prospect has contacted!)
- Continue to reach out. One email or phone call isn’t enough. Many CRMs have a string of sample emails that you can send out as follow-ups. You’ll want to tailor those to fit your agency – and this prospect. Then interject a phone call or two at various times during the follow-up period. Call at different times during the day or evening. Don’t leave a message until your third attempt. Then give it a few days and try again. Continue following up frequently (once a day for the first three days, then twice a week for the next two weeks, then monthly for at least six months.
Related: Nail 3 new marketing skills to grow your book of business
3 things your prospects and clients hate most about email
(And how to make sure you’re not guilty of this insurance marketing trick)
We’re all savvy enough to recognize spam emails and delete them right off our phones. But we’re not talking spam here – we’re talking about business emails that we send and receive. (By the way – we’re talking commercial emails here with a salesy message – not one that’s providing details about their policy, asking for additional documentation, etc.) According to email marketer Emma, these are the top three complaints – and we’re calling them insurance marketing tricks, not treats.
1. I get way too many! The guilty culprit here is the overzealous sales agent. Twice a week is the absolute maximum you should email – and don’t even send that many every single week. Vary it – a lot. Otherwise you’re guaranteed to encounter email fatigue, where they’ll mark you as spam, unsubscribe, or just delete your emails (that’s called gray mail, and you don’t want that either, as it will eventually hurt your ability to send to specific IP addresses.)
2. They don’t apply to me. No doubt you’ve been the victim of these over-eager emailers yourself: They send you emails about a sale on kids’ clothes – and you don’t have kids. They send you cat toys, and you have a dog. Or AARP sends you invitations to join – and you’ve just passed your 40th birthday. Shame on these emailers – and you, too, if you don’t segment your lists. Just because you have their email addresses doesn’t mean they want to receive every email that you send, so don’t batch and blast. Note your clients’ demographic data in your files (age, location, range of kids’ ages, etc. for personal lines; the size of their company, their industry, etc. for commercial lines). Then only send the emails that apply to that group.
3. They’re too hard to read on my phone. Since more than half of us read our emails on our phones nowadays, this is crucial. What looks good on a PC will not necessarily look good on a mobile or tablet. Keep your design one-column and simple. Keep your text size at 14-point for body copy. Make links easy to click on.
Related: Insurance agency marketing tactics for top performing emails
Here are the last of this month’s insurance marketing tricks & treats: It’s a good idea to vary the time of day that you send out emails, testing to see when you get the best open rates and click-through rates.
What’s a click-through? It’s a link you included in your email, to show them what their next step should be: View more information. Download this offer. Sign up to attend.
Plan your email like this: When you’re creating your message, you should have just one or two goals. One or two actions that you want them to take, whether it’s to call you or to read your latest blogpost on a topic they’re interested in. Then write your email message so that it leads them straight to the next step they need to take. Make it easy and make it clear: use bold, larger fonts in a different color so that it’s easy to spot their next step.
Don’t bog them down in too many details, introduce non-related topics, or give them too many options. That’s making them think too hard, which often results in paralysis and clicking “delete”.
Follow these insurance marketing tricks & treats to help you nurture – not nag – your hard-earned prospects.