InsureMe Agent Blog: Excerpts from an Insurance Marketing Seminar

I attended an "individual marketing" seminar for health agents yesterday and learned so much. I was one of the speakers, and my topic was Search Engines and what you need to know about them. I think that topic is worthy of an entire blog on another day, so today I'll review what I heard the other speakers say.

In 3 years, 90% of all insurance transactions will use the internet in some way before the application is completed. Most of those will involve research on the topic, and then a real live person to actually book the business.

I heard several people talk about the need to follow up on your leads, not just 2 days after they contact you, but a week or 2 later which is when many clients are actually ready to buy. This was noted especially for internet
leads that are purchased from a 3rd party (ie InsureMe).

For outbound calls, you can expect to make about 100 calls to close 1-2 sales. And if you have reps that spend all their time on outbound calls, only the very best performers can make 50 sales in a month.

Insurance companies are discovering the best applicants are those who complete an application with 'assistance' -- rather than completely online without any help (or supportive selling). I guess there should be no surprises there.

Finally, at least in the health insurance industry, the retention for young people (19-29) is quite poor (40%). And that you should expect a 20-30% attrition to your business just for normal life events.

Next week, I'll talk about Search Engines, and how it applies to an insurance professional.