Leads are the lifeblood of the insurance industry. Without having a steady flow of leads, it can be very difficult to book appointments and generate sales. This is especially true for agents that are brand new to the insurance business.

Today, we’re going to discuss four popular methods for generating leads and making sure that you have enough prospects to get in front of:

Existing Clients

By reaching out to your existing client base, whether it be medicare clients or financial planning clients, you can really increase your final expense sales. Most final expense carriers have letter templates that agents can use to send out to their existing clients informing them that they now offer final expense. This is an excellent way to generate a lot of new final expense business.

Referrals

Referrals can dramatically increase your leads which means more sales! For example, if you have 25 leads and 10 of those leads give you 5 referrals each, that’s an extra 50 FREE leads. That’s a 200% increase in your leads for absolutely no cost. Don’t leave your appointments without asking for referrals!

Direct Mailers

This is the preferred marketing method for top final expense agents. Typically, agents will order anywhere from 1,000 pieces (minimum) to 5,000 pieces in order to generate a decent return. Most lead companies will provide you with an estimated return rate which will vary depending on your geographic location.

Direct mailers allow you to select demographics (age, income, gender, etc.) and usually have a few different mailer piece options. These are considered to be very qualified leads, since the prospects are taking the time to fill out the information card and mailing it back to the agent. A direct mailer campaign will cost you anywhere from $450-$500 per 1,000 pieces, but you can easily make your money back with just 1 final expense sale!

Typically, mailing campaigns take about 3-5 weeks before lead cards start coming in.

Aged Leads/ Internet Leads

Aged leads and internet leads are very cost effective, and usually have a quick turn around time, (most lead vendors will email the leads to you immediately after purchase.)

The only downside to aged leads ,and/or internet leads, is that they aren’t very well qualified. Most of the data used to collect lead information is based off of recent website browsing and search history, so there’s a very good chance that other agents have already contacted the prospects, or the prospect has little to no recollection of even filling out their quote request. Of course there are exceptions to this, and some agents do have great success with these types of leads.

There are many options and price points with lead generation.  The experts at Pinnacle Financial can guide you to the best results for your buck.