Connecting to Modern, Educated Insurance Buyers

The insurance sales techniques that let you connect to modern, educated insurance buyers are different from the sales techniques that worked 10 or 20 years ago. Whether you’re working with the best aged leads or exclusive real-time leads, it’s important to know the modern insurance buyer does things a bit differently. They’re world-wise, on-the-go, and almost always online.

Here’s what you should know about today’s modern, educated insurance buyer and how you can stay on top of your sales game.

What’s Different About Today’s Insurance Buyers

Today’s insurance buyers tend to do things differently than past generations. The way they shop, interact with people, do their homework before purchase, even the way they read is different. For starters, these folks spend a lot of time online:

• Basically everyone — 98.4% — checks their email at least once a day at this point.
• Almost 40% check their email ten times or more per day.

And a lot of that time spent online is spent on a mobile device. These are not insurance buyers chained to their desktop computer. These people are on-the-go! Consider that:

• The average time spent using a smartphone is over two hours per day — 145 minutes.
• Consumers go back to their phones again and again — about 76 times throughout the day.
• There’s a whole lot of tapping and swiping going on, about 2600 phone interactions per day.
• And almost nine in 10 will check their phone after midnight at least once a week.

Modern buyers spend a lot of time interacting online.

• Two out of every three adults use Facebook.
• And 79% of internet users overall are on Facebook.

Today’s online shoppers are not dull people. They’re very savvy, and they know how to do research and seek out advice before making a purchase decision.

• About 81% of consumers do their research online before making a purchase.
• Many seek out advice beyond that of their friends and family.
• 88% trust online reviews as much as they trust the recommendations of people they know.
• 65% of today’s buyers read multiple reviews — between four and 50! — before making a purchase decision.

The psychology of insurance sales hasn’t changed that much. But if you want to have that opportunity to build relationships, educate about needs, and offer solutions, you’ve got to adapt to your customers changing behavior patterns.

The importance of online connectivity, mobile web accessibility, and online social networking in the lives of modern, educated insurance buyers can’t be ignored if you want to connect.

How to Connect to These Modern, Educated Buyers

To connect to these prospects, it should be clear that you need to meet them where they are — online. Not only that, you’ll need to engage them online with information and value-adding content. Give them what they need to find in their research to become your customer. Finally, manage your funnel and your cross-selling online, paying particular attention to mobile. Here are some specific steps you can take today to reach these buyers:

Website Check

Pull out your phone and visit your website. Is it readable on your smartphone screen? Does it look good? — Good enough to inspire confidence and trustworthiness? Is the information about products, services, and your business organized so that these research-avid buyers can browse through your site and find what they need? If your website isn’t mobile-ready, find a web design agency that can help you get up to speed for your web-savvy clientele.

Researchable Content

Modern, educated buyers want information that educates them about their needs, reminds them about their pain points, and informs about product and service solutions. If you don’t already have a website blog, start one now. This will help you build a library for these voracious info researchers. It will also help you generate more traffic for your site, which you will find helps with your lead generation efforts.

Small Yes, Small Click

In the offline world, a popular sales technique is to get leads to say “yes” to a small request. A series of yeses primes people to also say yes when you ask for the sale. You can do the same thing online. Offer a free report through an email campaign but have them click a link to get the report. Ask them to complete a form on your site, download a white paper, share their thoughts on your latest blog post, or give you a positive review on Facebook. All these small yeses add up.

Give Value

Remember that sales is not about collecting payment, it’s about offering a solution and building a strong customer relationship. All of those clicks and form submissions should give value back to your prospects and clients in the form of information, feedback, attention, and service. Make a list of how you can start giving value back to your website visitors and online leads.

Explore Automation

The personal touch matters, even online, but there are only so many hours in a day, and there’s only one of you. Think about how you can use marketing automation to build deeper relationships. You’ll have personal touches when you need to, but drip emails, follow-ups, reminder notes, newsletters, and confirmation messages can be automated. This kind of setup is what will let you get the most out of a strategy like aged leads.

Final Thoughts

Modern, educated insurance buyers doe’t have to remain an elusive mystery. These folks think about insurance much the same as past consumers. Their way of researching, shopping, and buying has just evolved in the modern world. You can meet these buyers where they hang out online and on their mobile devices. Give them the info they want, show them your great reviews, your mobile-friendly website, and invite them to interact online, and you’ll see these consumers become your insurance clients.

Ready to get started cross-selling today? Try a fresh supply of high-quality aged leads from The Aged Lead Store. You’ll find thousands of sortable aged leads, ready to boost your sales, whether your business is auto, life, health, Medicare supplement or homeowners insurance, annuities, auto warranty coverage, or mortgage refinance.