Does the current strategy you use to get new insurance clients need a boost?
Technically, insurance customers are everywhere, and everyone should probably review their insurance more frequently.
But that’s easier said than done—especially when people feel like they have more pressing financial priorities.
Building a successful insurance book of business requires a solid sales and marketing plan — a system to acquire new insurance clients as well as retain and cross-sell current customers.
Simply dialing for dollars is not necessarily the best way to build a sustainable insurance business anymore.
Here are several ways to get new insurance clients fast and successfully nurture your existing clients so you remain top-of-mind.
Insurance agent? Skip right to browsing thousands of qualified insurance leads.
Face-to-face networking
The prevalence of social media often leaves us forgetting about good old-fashioned face-to-face networking.
In a world craving connection, this can be your secret weapon in acquiring new clients for your insurance business.
Just remember to place relationships and genuine interactions above sales, or your efforts will fall flat. Being an active and engaged member of your community is enough to create a positive brand association.
Here are a few of my favorite networking opportunities.
Partner with professionals
Meet and exchange referrals with real estate agents, mortgage brokers, attorneys, and CPAs.
These types of partnerships are highly effective marketing tactics because they are mutually beneficial.
Insurance is an integral part of life, including in financial planning and homebuying. Provide a sheet of your services they can use as a reference or hand out to clients.
Inform them about the types of services you can provide for their clients and the benefits of your policies, and offer to refer your clients to them when they need financial assistance, legal assistance, or want to purchase or sell their home.
Community service organizations
Network through your local Rotary, Kiwanis, VFW, Elks, and other community organizations.
Offer to sponsor community events, volunteer in activities, execute a joint campaign, or conduct educational workshops or seminars.
Be sure to show your face at community events, and actively engage with attendees. Building a relationship with the members of your community will ensure that they keep you in mind for their insurance needs.
At the very least, sponsoring events and displaying your logo will bring your business to mind when someone needs it most.
Schools and churches
Anywhere you gather with friends and other families presents opportunities to network and grow relationships that you can possibly help in the future.
Sponsoring school or church events or fundraisers is a key way to demonstrate your commitment to the community.
Consider also conducting educational workshops for students and parents about insurance basics, offering to provide insurance for your local church’s assets, or advertising in church bulletins.
Local sports teams
Baseball, basketball, volleyball, wrestling, and a whole host of other little leagues, school athletes, and travel teams put us into contact with families that need better insurance.
Local sports teams also present opportunities for equipment, tournament, or team sponsorships.
No amount of technology can replace the power of personal, face-to-face, natural in-person relationship building. Simply building relationships and listening will present opportunities.
Keep your business cards on hand
Always carry plenty of business cards with up-to-date contact information.
Listen for opportunities and be prepared to introduce yourself and your business, and share advice about insurance in a brief, consultative way.
Not everyone will be interested in your products or services, but if you’re helpful and informative in sharing what you know most won’t mind the chat.
Even if they’re not interested or already feel confident in their current insurance, let them know that you would love to help anyone they might refer to you.
Start filling your pipeline with insurance leads.
Use a consultative sale
Consultative or need-based selling puts you more in the role of an advisor than a salesperson.
In short—speak less and listen more.
Whether they are personal relationships or new prospects, practice listening with the intent to understand their needs through the following strategies:
- Don’t just jump into your products and services — you’re the expert, but letting them talk first allows you to truly diagnose your prospective customers’ insurance needs
- Ask open-ended questions to get to the root of the issue, so you can offer the most accurate advice for their scenario
- Listen to their questions, what’s concerning them, or what might have changed in their life, family, or financial situation
- Customize your solutions to their needs, rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach
- Explain the value of your solutions rather than the features
- Avoid using industry jargon and instead, opt for language that’s transparent and easy to understand
- Take a collaborative approach, rather than telling them what they need
- Follow up and maintain open communication
The consultative sales approach is one of the most powerful for any financial services sale — and one that will undoubtedly set you apart from the competition.
Offer multiple products
Most customers need a variety of insurance products and can benefit from bundling personal lines.
To address a range of needs, consider partnering with multiple carriers to expand your product offerings.
Beyond that, many prospective customers have the need or ability to refer you to opportunities for commercial lines — errors and omissions, bonding, workers’ compensation, etc.
Don’t forget to also analyze market trends and think outside the box — more and more people are seeking pet insurance for their furry friends, and artificial intelligence is growing rapidly.
If you’re stumped, ask your existing clients what they would like to see, and evaluate your competitors. Is there a demand for what they offer in your market?
Cold-call small businesses
Don’t underestimate the power of cold calling, particularly when it comes to small businesses in your local area.
Small firms with 100 or fewer employees are often in need of competitive insurance to cover a variety of business and employee risk factors.
When using this approach, do a bit of planning and research about each of the businesses, their potential risks, and who’s potentially in charge of managing these matters.
Then, approach the business from a point of strength of knowledge — ready to offer a valuable consultation.
Related: Insurance Voicemail Script Tips (With Examples)
Create a referral system
Referrals are at the center of any successful insurance agency. But how do you create a consistent and sustainable referral system?
My favorite book on this topic is The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself.
This book goes beyond just asking for the occasional referral from a friend or colleague. Instead, it encourages you to build these referral systems into your business practices and operations.
Here are some steps you can take to build a successful referral system:
- Provide exceptional service that makes it easy for others to want to refer you
- Identify your ideal referral sources from your existing clients
- Offer incentives, such as discounts or gift cards
- Provide links or referral cards to make the process easy
- Make sure all team members are educated on the process and actively promote it
- Monitor and track your referrals
A good referral system looks for ideal moments and opportunities to ask friends, colleagues, customers, and past clients for referrals.
Building these surveys and requests into your processes and workflows makes asking for referrals automatic. It also increases your comfort level and makes asking for referrals more natural.
Dig into digital marketing for insurance
Digital marketing might seem too complicated, technical, and impersonal compared to face-to-face networking, but these marketing tactics are getting more and more accessible — and incredibly personalized.
Let’s start with the basics — a simple website and one or two social media platforms, then add some bigger strategies from there.
Determine your targets
This should always be one of the first steps to a new digital marketing insurance strategy because everything else builds from it.
Honestly, it’s impossible to effectively market or sell insurance without understanding who you’re targeting.
Start by analyzing your current products and services, and what makes them and you unique.
Then, analyze your existing customers to identify common characteristics, trends, and patterns, including:
- Age
- Income
- Location
- Interests
- Behaviors
From there, you can segment your clients into different groups, and address each group’s greatest needs and pain points.
The most effective digital marketing strategies include client personas, which are detailed, semi-fictional representations of your target clients.
Once you have identified your targets, you’re ready to roll.
Build a simple website
Today, building a website doesn’t require extensive technical knowledge.
You can use a platform such as WordPress or Wix to get started with customizable templates and quality content.
However, considering that a website is your digital office and many of your clients will try to find you online, you may want to hire a digital marketing agency or a web developer and designer to create your ideal website.
It can still be simple in design and functionality, but you’ll want to make sure it’s done right and has all the elements you need to post content and direct potential clients to it from around the web.
Get on social media
You don’t need to be on every single social media channel to be successful, and you wouldn’t want to be, anyway. Your target clients won’t be using every single channel, either.
Instead, determine where your target audiences hang out the most, and create your channels there.
For example, start by creating a Facebook page or LinkedIn account, and begin posting regular content such as photos, videos, or website links.
Both your website and social media channels are excellent spaces to answer and document common questions from your prospects and clients.
Use this content to not only help and inform current clients but also point new prospects to these resources.
One of the best ways to do this is by emailing your helpful content to your client database — you might be surprised how many clients have new insurance needs.
Start a blog
You can start simply with your blog and post just a couple of times a month. Just be sure that you’re posting consistently, and that the content you post is high quality.
This means that your content is directed at your target audience, and considers their biggest questions and pain points.
You want your blog to become an invaluable resource for all things insurance, which positions you as a trusted expert and also helps prepare your future clients for the process.
Blog content ideas for insurance agents include:
- Tips for choosing the right insurance coverage
- Types of insurance explained
- Debunking insurance myths
- Steps to filing a claim
- Dos and don’ts for a smooth process
- How to read and compare insurance quotes
If you need help brainstorming your content ideas, give AI a try. Sign up for ChatGPT through OpenAI, and ask it to come up with blog post ideas or outlines for any topic.
This is especially helpful if you’re going to be the only one creating and writing content right now. You’re busy — use the tools available to you to make life easier.
Create videos
Check out these 2023 video marketing statistics from Wyzowl:
- 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool
- 96% said video is an important part of their marketing strategy
- 92% of video marketers say video gives them a positive ROI
- 96% of people have watched a video to learn more about a product or service
Most of these figures are at all-time highs, which shows us that video is truly more important than ever for your sales and marketing strategies.
YouTube is the most widely used platform for video, followed by Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Curious about what types of content your audience would want to see from you? Reuse the content ideas from the blog section. The beauty of content creation is that most topics can be repurposed, which saves you time.
Video is just a more personal, engaging way to connect with your audience. Plus, research has shown that people generally retain more information from a video than text.
Your setup can be simple: Find a clean, well-lit area and set up your phone on a stand. Make sure you put on your friendliest face and speak clearly and conversationally.
If you’re not comfortable with the idea yet, practice makes perfect. Share with friends and family first, until you’re ready to share with the world.
Grow your email list
The next phase of developing your online marketing to get new clients is to start growing your email list.
You can grow your email list in several ways, including:
- Creating lead magnets (more on this next)
- Strategically placing opt-in forms around your website
- Offering a newsletter subscription
- Hosting contests or giveaways that require entry with an email
- Hosting a webinar or workshop that requires email signup
- Promoting your content on social media
The No. 1 way to attract more clients via email is to offer exclusive content that addresses their questions and offers solutions.
Lead magnets are one of the best sources because the sole purpose is to offer valuable content in exchange for an email address.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
Create lead magnets
Pop-ups are no longer an effective marketing tool because readers won’t even look at what they say — they immediately search for the “X” in the corner.
That’s why marketers started turning to lead magnets.
Effective lead magnets offer the following to readers:
- Easy to read
- Instant download
- Establishes your brand as a reliable, authoritative source
- Solves a problem
- Focuses on a specific topic
It’s called a lead “magnet” because it’s meant to attract and draw in your leads with something of value they can’t pass up.
Examples of effective lead magnets include:
- In-depth ebooks
- Case studies
- Quizzes or assessments
- Insurance checklists
- Insurance templates
- Webinars or video series
- Infographics
- Industry reports
- Resource libraries
- Discounts or offers
Lead magnets must be tailored to your target audiences, and address specific pain points.
Consider either creating a dedicated landing page for your lead magnet or a simple opt-in form that asks for their email in exchange for the item as soon as they hit “Submit” or “Download Now.”
Make sure you monitor the performance of your lead magnets to determine their success and adjust your strategy as needed.
Run some ads
Finally, expand your online marketing strategies and tactics to include paid advertising — Google Ads or Facebook (Meta) Ads — to increase your new insurance leads.
Where you choose to advertise depends on where your audience prefers to hang out and how they search for you.
For example, Google Ads is best for targeting specific insurance-related keywords that your potential clients use, while Facebook is best for targeting certain interests and demographics.
Paid advertising campaigns can be a lot of work to plan, execute, and track, so it may be best to hire a marketing agency or contractor to help you get the most out of your campaigns.
These digital marketing tactics will help you build a fairly robust lead gen system and lead nurturing system that will consistently and sustainably generate new insurance clients.
New technologies can always be daunting, but the opportunity to reach real people — at scale — who have expressed an interest in your products and services makes it worthwhile.
Leverage automation
The key to success for your digital marketing and sales efforts is automation.
Automation tools help businesses streamline their operations and enhance customer experiences.
Best areas for automation in insurance agencies include:
- Lead nurturing
- Customer communication
- Policy renewals
- Claims processing
- Reporting
The idea is to eliminate repetitive or rule-based tasks, such as data entry or reporting.
Common automation tools include CRM software, email marketing software, workflow automation, claims, and document management systems, social media management tools, and analytics tools.
Some of the most popular platforms today include:
- Customer.io
- Constant Contact
- HubSpot
- Mailchimp
- Marketo
You’ll want to choose tools that integrate seamlessly with any existing systems, including CRM or email marketing software.
Automation tools result in more personalized experiences for leads backed by data, which helps insurance agents more effectively target clients and nurture leads.
Buy aged leads
Purchasing a supply of high-quality aged leads is another time-saving approach that gives you access to leads who have specifically requested what you are offering.
Every day, thousands of people request a quote for insurance online. Some leads, about 2-5%, will buy right away — often from the first agent they talk to.
But what about the rest? About half of these thousands of leads will eventually buy, but many aren’t ready yet.
Aged leads are discounted web leads that are 30, 60, or 90+ days old. With the right tools and system, the ROI can be excellent.
What does the “right” system look like? Well, about 95% of agents give up on these leads after the first week, but these leads are still interested in insurance services.
That’s where you come in.
How do aged leads work?
Picture this: The aged leads put in an initial quote request, get hounded for a few days with sales calls, then ignored. The leads are overwhelmed and need more information, education, and sales nurturing to close.
This is a great opportunity for sales agents who know how to create sales and marketing systems to work these leads.
It can also be a great way to build a large book of business or grow your insurance business to the next level.
Here’s how it works at Aged Lead Store:
- Our lead optimization technology allows us to regularly aggregate leads from top real-time lead vendors, put them through an extensive quality control process, and then let you browse and select precisely the customers you can serve best
- To get started, you’ll use our advanced filtering to select your lead type, lead age range, states, zip codes, cities, counties, consumer age range, and phone type
- Submit the info and receive a count for the number of matching leads
- Enter the number of leads to add
- Add to cart
- Login or create an account
- Purchase your leads and start calling!
Aged leads are a fraction of the cost of real-time leads, which keeps your sales pipeline packed with potential.
Lead nurturing 101
Aged leads are most successful when combined with your unbeatable lead management process.
By building trust and relationships with your prospects, you naturally move them through the sales funnel.
Creating high-quality, personalized content, following up frequently, executing email campaigns, and providing exceptional customer service will guarantee your success.
Are you ready to build a client acquisition system?
The real secret to getting insurance clients faster — to build a large and sustainable book of business — is creating systems to network, grow an audience, and then market to them to generate leads.
Take one or more of the strategies above to get more clients for your insurance business.
Start by filling up your pipeline with a fresh supply of high-quality aged insurance leads.
You’ll find thousands of sortable aged leads that are ready to boost your sales, whether your business is auto, life, health, Medicare supplement, or homeowners insurance.
