Today we’re talking about insurance sales funnels – specifically relating to cold leads. Cold leads used to be associated with the dreaded “cold calling“, but not anymore!
When I talk about sales funnels, I always like to begin by breaking down a prospect into one of three groups – cold, warm, and hot.
Imagine three buckets of water at each of these temperatures. These are your marketing buckets! You NEVER market to each bucket in the same way…they all have a different strategy and tactic. (You can get a better explanation of all three in this post.)
Today we’re going to focus on the cold water bucket!
These prospects don’t know you. They’ve never been a client, never requested a quote. They haven’t been to your office, met you at a networking event, and they don’t have a kid in the same class at school. They are totally COLD.
The Goal
Our goal with a cold prospect is to overcome all the noise and get them to request a quote.
Now this is not an INSTANT process. You won’t send one postcard and get a quote from every person on the list! You won’t run one Facebook ad and get everyone in town to ask for an auto quote. Typically in marketing, you’ll only get a response from around 1% of your marketing list with each campaign.
That’s why consistency and MULTIPLE TACTICS are so important (and what most agents are severely lacking in!)
Before you begin to do any marketing, stop and ask yourself WHO you want to quote. Who can you get the best rate? Who does your company (or companies) want you to target? For some of you, it will be a family with good credit that owns a home. For others it will be single men with bad driving records. Depending on what you sell, you must define who your ideal customer is FIRST.
Now ask yourself what their biggest problem is?
Rates too high? Not enough customer service? Do they get too much paper in the mail from multiple insurance companies? Do they lack time to deal with this stuff?
How can you solve your ideal customer’s biggest problem?
Write down the answer and THAT is the marketing message that you want to share!
So if you’re an independent agency and your client’s biggest problem is lack of time – your message might be that you’ll run them 5 comparison quotes in under an hour and show them which is the best. And you don’t charge a fee to do this and are paid directly by the insurance company.
If you’re a captive, you might say that when someone combines all their policies with your agency, they have no gaps in coverage, less paperwork, and have one person to call or visit in town when needed. You’ll even let them text your cell phone!
TIP: The more unique you can make these messages, the better your result because it will differentiate your from other agents. However don’t go so unique that people are confused or unsure what you actually do!
Once you’ve clarified your customer and your message, it’s time to get it out to the masses. Choose multiple tactics – email, telemarketing, direct mail, Facebook ads, networking, etc to reach out to people who haven’t heard of you. It’s not one direct mail blast and done! You need to pick several tactics and consistently send out your marketing message to these cold leads.
Once you create this, keep it going on a consistent basis for at least 3 months to give you time to measure the results. Adjust as needed!
We’ll be talking about Warm and Hot Leads in future posts, so stay tuned. And make sure to request a free copy of the Insurance Marketing Calendar below. You’ll get the calendar PLUS reminders of upcoming free blog content.