Yes, it feels like a huge suck out of your wallet when you consider the prospect of buying lots of leads, and you know that you’ll need to buy a considerable amount for a strong return on investment. It’s hard to tell which lead company is good and which is terrible. It seems like you hear equal parts groans and applause for a company half the time.
Before you start getting annoyed that you can’t simply generate enough leads by yourself to keep growing, keep in mind that sales leads are a budgeted necessity for most businesses. In the insurance industry, buying insurance leads is standard for most agencies and carriers. Without purchased insurance leads, companies would lose thousands of dollars in sales. Buying leads has become a necessary evil, so to speak: Buying leads is an essential task for those who want to maintain their competitive edge.
There are ways to save money when buying insurance leads too. Most important is to find a company that generates leads that work for you. Here are some tips on how to shop for a lead generation company that will yield positive results for your agency.
1. How to Spot Quality
It’s perfectly acceptable if you ask your lead company to tell you how they generate their leads. In fact, a very savvy company will love the chance to boast by showing you all their SEO skills with blogs and several proprietary websites. It shows that a company is invested in having staying power in an arena where quality truly is king.
Unprofessional ads will bring you iffy shoppers while ads that employ the most effective keywords will bring in a more promising batch of prospects. It’s a good idea to search the Internet for the company’s ads to see for yourself. What are they promising to consumers who fill out the forms? What kinds of questions are being asked? You can see how your lead company gets you all the important data you need to make sales.
There’s also the myth that leads generated from affiliate programs are poor quality leads. This is not true, just as it isn’t true that all organic traffic makes for good quality leads. In most cases, lead generation companies use several ways to drive traffic and that includes organic traffic, pay-per-click (PPC) and affiliate traffic. If the affiliate program is a good one, the leads generated from that traffic will be quality leads. The same goes for the quality of the website(s).
2. Testing the Product
Tip 1: Ask to see a sample data lead before you buy a bundle.
Tip 2: Makes sure your company has a strong credit policy: bogus leads will make it into the mix even with the best lead generation companies.
Tip 3: Test different filters before you make a final decision about using the company long-term.
3. A Good Question to Ask: “What Kind of Insurance Leads Should I Buy?”
The best answer to this question would be, a diversified mix, with bundles of the more affordable kind, sprinkled with the caviar-leads. To understand better, we’ve broken down the lead types for you below.
Real-time Leads come to you as soon as they are captured, usually seconds after the prospect fills out a questionnaire or form. This type of lead costs more than other types of leads but they are easier to close because the consumer is actively shopping when they are contacted. If buying these in bulk, however, you’ll want to consider an auto dialer to optimize the process of contacting each lead as soon as possible. The main disadvantage of real-time leads is that there’s very little time to verify if the lead is legitimate and the contact information is real and accurate.
Live-Transfer Leads are consumers who call for a quote and are connected with you through a call center if they fit your filters. These calls are a bit pricey, but the nice part of live-transfer calls is that the consumer is contacting you, so you don’t have to worry about falling to the wayside due to dialing time and/or competition. With that said, you must be ready to receive all of these calls or the lead may be wasted. While live-transfer leads work well to enhance an already-robust leads program, it’s not advised that you rely on these types of leads as your only source for leads. When possible, schedule calls to come in at certain times of the day when you know you’ll be able to take calls without interruption.
Exclusive Leads ensure that you will be the only agent working these prospects. That is, unless they filled another form elsewhere or started a quote before being put in touch with you. Exclusive leads are limited, so using exclusive leads as your main source of leads may not work out. Supplementing your existing lead program with these types of leads is a great idea.
Shared Leads go to multiple agents at once, so calling right away is imperative. Even though shared leads are shared with others, there is a maximum number of agents who receive each one (the industry standard is a maximum of 8 agents; some lead generation companies have a much lower maximum, like 4 or 5, so the odds are not stacked against you.). Plus, using certain filters ensures that you will not have too much competition from other agents.
Data Leads are the product of prospects’ searches for insurance on the Internet. When clear interest is shown in getting an insurance quote. With these types of leads, being the first one to make contact is the most important step to closing deals. Competition can be fierce with search leads, but the pricing is very fair. These are great to buy in bundles, but act fast in making contact.
