It’s easy to get lost in trying to score more sales when you’re a new agent.
And let’s be honest—there are a lot of lead-generation methods out there. It’s easy to overspend or get tunnel vision focusing on limited methods you hope will work.
It’s understandable—being a new agent can be overwhelming. The solution lies in crafting a holistic approach that combines several lead methods and streamlines your sales process.
And in this article, we’ll show you how to do exactly that.
It’s a common scenario: after passing an insurance exam, you landed a job at an awesome agency.
It’s your first Monday at the job, and you’re excited. You pick up the phone to start dialing, and suddenly, you feel nervous.
You’re not the only one.
Some of the top-performing agents out there struggled with sales at first. The trick is to push through your issues and understand why they’re happening.
Once you recognize the situation, you can take action to correct it.
Your job might feel overwhelming. Post on Facebook, make cold calls, share blogs, send emails, reach out to people—it goes on and on.
As you learn the ropes, you may feel more like a marketer than an insurance agent. But that’s entirely wrong either—if you want to sell your product effectively, you need to learn to market it.
Here are a few tips for getting your marketing feet wet:
You can’t just check the ROI of offline sales with charts and measuring tools. But that doesn’t mean you’re left out to dry—there are a few ways to keep on top of things:
Many software solutions can help you manage the numbers if you’re into online marketing. Plus, you can use existing formulas to track your progress.
Negative thinking is one of the biggest challenges many new agents face. For example, you’ll start your day thinking you:
Pulling yourself out of this mindset is crucial because, as they say, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.” Instead of focusing on the negatives, accept that failure is a part of growth.
Yes, you may make mistakes. Or maybe your day will go perfectly. Either way, your goal is to move the needle forward, not measure the outcome of each day individually.
As long as you’re improving in the long term, you’re on the right track.
Now that we’ve covered the potential pitfalls, let’s start generating leads. Below, we’ve outlined some of the most effective ways for new agents to attract clients.
Cold calling is the pillar of lead generation in the insurance world. Tragically, it’s also one of the most challenging methods.
You have to start early in the morning—sometimes as soon as you get to work. You’ll have to dial massive amounts of numbers, often to the same lead multiple times in a row.
Some will answer right away, while others will never respond. Every day will be different, producing different results. Some days will be awesome, other days will drag on—either way, you need to learn to push through it.
But once you’ve earned enough experience, you’ll develop your own systems. You may measure succes based on quantity, by effective segmentation, or by another method.
However you develop your system, it’ll eventually translate to more and more sales. Believe in yourself, remain consistent, and you’ll become a pro.
There’s no better way to develop prospects’ buyer journey than through a seminar. It’s an opportunity to introduce your agency’s products in person, rather than over the phone or computer.
Plus, event marketing helps with growing your:
In addition to direct mail, live seminars also generate leads effectively. We recommend combining them for maximum effectiveness.
In the insurance industry, direct mail has always been a staple. It’s personal and up close, and sometimes ignored by other agents due to the effort required.
But the personal aspect is why it’s so powerful. Your prospects engage with your letters hands-on and respond independently, translating to a much higher conversion rate.
That said, there are a few downsides:
In addition to direct mail, live seminars also generate leads effectively. We recommend combining them for maximum effectiveness.
Live transfers might seem confusing at first, but they’re easy to understand.
Long story short, you (and your agency) will work in a call center. Your call center acts as an intermediary, dialing every lead as soon as they fill out a form. They process and qualify the prospect, then transfer them to the sales team to close the deal.
Live transfers tend to convert more since they express direct interest in your product. The catch is their higher cost thanks to involving the call center.
Done right, digital marketing can be intrustumental in your lead–gen efforts. That said, it requires lots of trial and error before finding a system that works for both your agency and your products.
That’s why you’re best of committing your time and budget to channels proven to work for other agents. This includes Google and Meta Ads, plus social platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook—with Facebook being the most popular right now.
With an effective digital marketing strategy, you’ll experience lower expenditure per lead thanks to the process being mostly automated. However, you’ll also see higher competition thanks to the pure volume of other agents bidding on ads.
Even so, an effective digital marketing strategy is worth pursuing if you’re serious about remaining competitive.
Facebook (now part of Meta) is still kind of insurance lead generation. Out of the total 4.7 billion social media users, today, Facebook is home to 2.9 billion of them.
With the massive variety of demographics available, this practically guarantees you’ll find your target audience—as long as you have the right approach.
Let’s be honest—anyone can set up targeted ads on Facebook. The trick is to not only remain profitable, but to do it better than the competition.
You need to think outside the box. For instance, if you see an insurance ad from your competitor, turn notifications for that post on.
You’ll get notifications whenever someone posts a comment. You can then reach out to them at your competitors’s expensive (just be sure to remain compliant with spam laws).
Besides creaitng ads, you’ll also want to join relevant groups.
If you sell car insurance, for example, look for car enthusiast groups. For home insurance, look for people interesting in real etate—you get the picture.
But however you approach your target market, you need to provide tangible value.
People buying a new car want to know how their driving affects their insurance, and those upgrading their home want to know how safety upgrades can lower your premiums. They don’t know that stuff by magic, so it’s up to you to inform them.
Just don’t go around sharing random links and spamming people—Facebook penalizes that. Be a real person, aksing questions and being fun while still providing valuable information. Answer questions honestly without being overly-promotional.
Still, don’t just go around sharing links and spamming – Facebook doesn’t like that. Ask questions and make it fun while still providing valuable info. Answer honestly without instantly promoting your services.
Engage consistently and build real relationships by making your personal account “public.” Let people see you, your family, your pets, and your daily life.
It’s possible some prospects will reach out right away. Others might not be capable of buying, or your insurance product won’t solve their current problem. But when they need it, they’ll remember you.
Posting and commenting are best done in primetime hours, which tends to be before work and around lunch breaks (but it ultimately depends on your location).
Referrals are often the cornerstone of a business’ revenue, and your insurance agency is no exception.
Word-of-mouth is powerful since it comes from people who’ve tried your product/service for yourself and want to share it with their friends and family. This results in high-quality leads eager to experience the same value their colleague has.
You can’t force word of mouth. It derives from creating a high-quality product that provides genuine value to your clients.
If your business is one-of-a-kind, referrals are inevitable.
Getting featured by established online publications like Forbes can do wonders for building your authority as an insurance agent. While you can’t feature your product on them directly, the social proof deriving from a feature does wonders for boosting your conversion rates elsewhere.
Start by pitching to lower-level publications and working your way up. As you gain more and more clout, you’ll be able to secure progressively more valuable features for greater social proof.
Show off your features on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and wherever you have a public presence. People will take note of your features and instantly recognize your credibility.
Last—but absolutely not least—optimize your agency website for organic search. Sure, insurance terms are competitive, but that’s no reason to throw up your hands and ignore this crucial channel.
The truth is SEO is not that complicated. It comes down to three main things:
The more organic search traffic you receive, the more high-quality leads you’ll receive passively, and without any additional effort. SEO might be costly (and require lots of patience), but overtime it more than pays off with massive amount of organic leads.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the lead generation methods and metrics you need to keep track of. But at the end of the day, it’s not the gimmicks that make or break your success—it’s the relationships.
You need your prospects to trust both you and your agency. They need to be able to rely on you to help them with any issue related to insurance.
This trust doesn’t happen overnight—it’s the result of months, if not years, of delivering a quality service. But over time, you’ll build more and more of these relationships, cementing your status as a top insurance agent.
Truthfully, these lead generations tips only touched the surface. Each of these still packs a ton of depth and nuance, waiting to be explored by dedicated agents.
But they still provide a roadmap to start your lead generation efforts. Start with cold calling, experiment with direct mailing, build referrals—you get the picture. As we’ve said throughout this article, your hard work will eventually translate into developing quality systems you can rely on.
Being new to insurance can be tough, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. We’re always here to help.
If you’re serious about generating new insurance leads, we recommend checking out our free InsuranceBob course. With that, we wish you good luck and happy lead-gen!
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