Direct Mail: 0, Insurance Leads: 1
After yesterday's rant regarding Dave Anderson's article this month's issue of Health Insurance Underwriter magazine, I was happy to rediscover the magazine's more redeeming qualities when I came across an article about replacing pricey direct mail campaigns with online insurance lead generation. The article was written by the marketing director of an InsureMe competitor, but nonetheless, the author's points underscore how agents on all sides of the business can take advantage of insurance leads.
Why should you think about kicking direct mail to the curb? According to author Jeremiah Desmarais, response rates for lead-generation direct mail campaigns are at an all time low: 1.43 percent, down from 2.09 percent in 2004. Still, the financial services industry continues to throw money into the abyss of junk mail.
Desmarais contends that putting your resources toward insurance leads will save you money and yield better results—all with less effort.
Now, because InsureMe sells insurance leads, I'm inclined to agree with Desmarais, except for the "less effort" part. But I'll get to that in a minute.
Everything that you seek to get from direct mail has been made easier by the Internet. Working with a trusted insurance lead service puts you in touch with consumers who are interested in your product, rather than filling the mailboxes of consumers who could care less about what you have to offer. Lead services also let you nail down certain demographics by filtering out leads your company can't write. Makes those downloadable mailing lists seem a little archaic, eh?
Online lead generation also puts the ease of contacting and following up with prospects into high gear. That's because you can contact the prospect almost as soon as he or she has submitted their quote request (being sensitive to early morning and late night hours should go without saying). Many lead generation services also provide management systems to help you organize your leads—helping you cut down on admin work. Admin work=bad. Selling=good.
By and large, insurance leads are more cost-effective than sending out large mailings and you'll always have a stream of fresh prospects who are interested in what you have to offer them. Desmarais is right, online lead generation can cut down on the "grunt work" of insurance sales, but make no mistake—selling insurance leads is still work! Remember, these shoppers are doing exactly that: shopping. They're comparing you to your competitors and looking for the best in service and price. The good news is, lead services can help you to spend more time selling and less time licking stamps.
If you need some more information about insurance leads and direct mail, we've got some information on both:
- What Great Agents Know about Insurance Leads
- Utilizing Insurance Leads
- How to Use Direct Mail to Your Advantage
Ultimately, you'll have to decide what works best for you. If you're not sure you want to completely wean yourself from direct mail yet, try pitting online insurance lead generation against your direct mail campaign next quarter and see where you have the most success. Fill me in on the results!
Comments
Great post Megan.
As I used to tell agents when I was on the Customer Service side of InsureMe - "InsureMe sells you leads, not sales. It's your job to make the sale."
Back when I was a health insurance agent I used to send out direct mail pieces quite a bit. It was time consuming, frustrating, and made me feel like a spammer. Worst of all it rarely panned out. You really get the sense of "throwing money down the abyss of junk mail."
Just thinking about it bums me out, actually.
Anyway, buy insurance leads people...or at least try them out.
And now, the shameless InsureMe insurance leads link.
Posted by: James Omdahl | April 25, 2006 11:02 PM