Life Insurance Lead Generation Explained!

A life insurance lead generation system can deliver highly qualified life insurance leads, if it is set up correctly and targets or 'flags the right prospects (or suspects). Please read this entire article for helpful tips and life insurance marketing secrets...

There are a number of ways to generate life insurance leads. For example, you can place lead generation advertisements in newspapers, magazines, newsletters, billboards, websites, pay per click search engines, coupons, inserts, and the list goes on.

A life insurance lead generation advertisement can be either a one step or a 2-step ad (aka multi step).

Usually when we are talking about lead generation we are talking about multi steps. But I am throwing in one step life insurance lead generation because you can use a one step marketing program as a loss leader, and up sell additional products and services. Direct response marketing 'purists' may disagree, but a lead is a lead.

One step life insurance lead generation ads can be tough to create because the job of the ad is more difficult. Life insurance is a tough sale as it is, and it's much tougher when you are selling it in a one step advertisement. The reason is because your ad is asking for a commitment to buy the life insurance policy in one single ad. I have seen only a few direct mail pieces and coupons that have accomplished this.

Robert Collier was madly successful (but that was eon's ago). You should study his direct mail piece. Gerber Life has been running the same advertising for years now. Maybe you've seen them in Val Pak. It must be working for them, but I am sure they are working off of tiny margins.

Multi step life insurance lead generation is recommended because you are given permission by the prospect to contact them again, which provides you with an endless opportunity to sell them something (until they ask to be taken off your list).

Some life insurance lead generation companies make their profit selling their lists or leads, and either breaking even or losing on the front end (loss leader).

As an insurance agent who wants to generate life insurance leads it's important to focus on the fundamentals of direct response marketing. In other words, create a lead generation advertisement, measure result, and test another version of your ad to beat your previous results (your control piece).

In addition, it's highly recommended that you niche your offer. In other words, instead of targeting everyone, target an industry, or group of people that have something in common. For example, you can target Veterans. Or, you can target pilots, truck drivers, dry cleaners, etc. When you target niches your response rates generally rise.

Also, now that we have technology on our side, you can create more educational material (sales material) and get it in the hands of your prospect via video, teleseminars, webinars, and auto responders.

In my opinion, local internet marketing is a huge opportunity. You can access your local market instantly online. You can use Google Local to make sure you business is listed properly, along with a website. But you have to make sure you have a quality life insurance lead generation website. Not any old site. It must convert. Get webmaster to test it for you, if you don't have time, and then start generating life insurance leads locally.

Google Local is one thing, but you should also test pay per click (Google Adwords for starters). You can literally start generating leads tonight!

Three Lead Geneartion Alternatives To Consider: The Back End

An alternative is to market yourself as a financial planner or estate planner, and not as a life insurance agent (assuming you are a financial planner or have the ability to be one). The trust factor along with the 'expert' status puts you in a position to recommend multiple products and services, and not just one. There are also many more marketing weapons for generating financial planning leads than insurance leads.

Another alternative is to become a multi lines insurance agent. It's easier to generate insurance leads and sell an auto insurance and home insurance policy. And if you have a client base consisting of these kinds of policy owners, you can easitly upsell term insurance. When I was a wholesaler, some of the biggest life insurance producers were mulit lines property casualty agents. Some of these guys were retired and cherry picking their client base when they weren't playng golf.

And, you can also market yourslef as a college aid expert.

Supposedly, you can help families of college bound children by putting their money in annuities and cash value life insurance. Apparently these products are not counted in the financial aid formula, and as a result their children get more free college financial aid, and more government backed loans (good ones). I'm sure you've heard of this. There are serveral companies that can help you market yourself to parents of college bound children.

Life insurance lead generation is a tough nut to crack. But once you create a system that delivers quality prospects, it can pay significant dividends. Or, if you use the back end strategies listed above, you might have more fun and make a lot more money