According to Gartner, a qualified lead is “A prospect who has been generated by the marketing team, evaluated by the sales team, and fits the profile of an ideal customer with the intent to buy.”
No wonder getting qualified insurance leads is so critical to growing your business!
Lead generation starts with giving prospects something irresistible to engage with. That’s where these marketing tactics come in. These 14 moves can help you catch the attention of a potential customer and convert them from a new face to a qualified insurance lead.
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14 ways to get qualified insurance leads
The best way to keep new business flowing is to use several different lead generation strategies. That way, if one source of leads drops off, you have several others to rely on. Try several options on this list to learn which suits your strengths and goals best.
1. Host a webinar
Insurance can be a fraught, complicated topic. Sharing your expertise can establish you as a calming, knowledgeable voice for leads.
What you choose to focus on in your webinar is up to you; consider using common questions or pain points you hear from leads to guide your topic creation. For example, if many first-time home buyers have questions about homeowners insurance, you might create a webinar specifically for this audience.
If you don’t want to host your own webinar, consider appearing as a guest expert on someone else’s!
Webinars are an excellent lead-generation tactic because they allow you to capture contact information for attendees. Then, you can add them to your email list and stay in touch as part of your lead nurturing process.
2. Give away high-quality content
Sharing your knowledge in written form can be just as effective as a webinar. There are many tactics to provide your audience with educational content. You might:
- Start a blog: Regularly posting articles rife with insider information on insurance will make your website a go-to for guidance.
- Create gated content: Often called a lead magnet, this is usually longer-form content you use to capture a lead’s contact information. Gated content might include:
- White papers
- Tip sheets
- Ultimate checklists
- Ebooks
- Launch a newsletter: Regular missives sent directly to your email subscribers help keep your brand top-of-mind and nurture your relationship with leads (Here are 75 newsletter ideas and examples to get you started).
3. Run search ads
Search ads allow you to target a specific audience with your advertising. That’s why it can be an effective tactic in generating qualified insurance leads. It helps you show up in results where the searcher’s demographics, location, and query align with your offering.
Search ads can also help you appear ahead of your biggest competition. In the example above, Lemonade, an insurance company less than a decade old, appears above Progressive, one of the most prominent names in the industry.
🛑 Compare your search ads performance against other insurance businesses using this Search Ads Benchmark Report.
4. Create landing pages for lead capture
A custom-built landing page is an essential component of any successful lead generation campaign. Whether you’re hosting a webinar, seeking email subscribers, or gating a whitepaper, you want to create a landing page for that offer.
A custom landing page with a specific call to action (CTA) helps ensure the visitor completes your desired action. In this case, the action is sharing their contact information, allowing you to capture that lead.
5. Create a case study
For leads already familiar with your insurance company, a case study can help them move from the awareness stage toward being fully qualified leads.
Case studies tell how a current customer came to you in need, and your team and products solved their problem. Creating a set of case studies, each with its own focus, allows you to send tailored examples to leads.
When a lead can read a story about how you helped a customer who’s just like them, it can sometimes be the last nudge they need to start talking to your team about their insurance options.
6. Build a free calculator or quote generator
Insurance products can confuse consumers, particularly if it’s their first time buying.
Empowering them to gather information up front will make them more comfortable with the process and build trust with your brand before they speak to one of your representatives.
Offering a free calculator that allows them to test out different parameters and see how that might impact their monthly costs is one tactic that can help you get qualified insurance leads.
You might also build an online quote generator, which lets you gather relevant information on your lead along with their contact information so you can follow up with policies and quotes.
7. Pitch existing customers
Sometimes, your best lead is an existing customer! It’s anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain a current one, so expanding on existing relationships can be an effective growth tactic.
If you offer a variety of insurance products, why not try to upsell a current customer on an additional product?
This approach has obvious benefits for you, but it can also be a win for your customers. They get to work with a business they already know, like, and trust. Plus, if you offer any incentive to bundle insurance, your customers might enjoy savings by purchasing multiple products.
8. Attend relevant events
Meeting people face-to-face can be an incredible way to build up a roster of qualified leads quickly.
If you sell home and rental insurance, you might get a booth at a city or town event where you can connect with people in your area. If you offer B2B insurance products, like commercial real estate insurance, consider attending a real estate industry trade show to meet leads.
Remember to gather contact information at these events so you can keep in touch with anyone you meet. Leads don’t become customers overnight. You must continue to nurture new connections until they’re ready to buy.
9. Establish partnerships with other businesses
How can you build relationships to strengthen your pipeline of qualified insurance leads?
There are countless ways brands establish creative partnerships with other businesses. If you sell pet insurance, for example, you might partner with a veterinary clinic to cross-promote your services.
Or, think completely outside the box. That’s what Plymouth Rock Assurance did in its partnership with several New England sports teams, including the Patriots. Plymouth Rock customers enjoy special perks related to their favorite sports teams, like priority tickets and discounts on merchandise.
10. Experiment with display ads
Display ads run within the pages of other websites (think: banner ads). When you run display ads, you can enjoy similar benefits of targeting that you see from search ads.
With display ads, you can also engage in contextual advertising. Rather than using data to target a specific audience (a tactic that’s become more complex with Google phasing out third-party cookies), you can run your ads on websites with content relevant to your audience. For example, you might run an ad for car insurance on a website that reviews cars and discusses vehicle trends.
11. Try retargeting
Retargeting is a tactic that allows you to show ads to leads who have already interacted with your brand. Again, the phaseout of third-party cookies is complicating some retargeting, but advertising platforms like Meta offer specific workarounds.
Meta’s Conversions API links your first-party marketing data (like actions visitors take on your website) and your Meta account. This lets you use your audience data to undertake marketing tactics like retargeting.
By continuing to advertise to leads who already know your brand, you reinforce your name recognition and stay top-of-mind. When these leads click on your display ads, it means more points in your lead scoring system and moves them closer to being qualified leads.
12. Create video ads
Video is an incredibly effective marketing tactic. 93% of sales, marketing, and customer experience pros believe video converts the same or better than other forms of content. That’s why video ads can be a practical addition to your library of lead-generation tactics.
YouTube ads allow you to include a CTA within your ad, which can help drive traffic to your site and provide analytics to track your progress.
13. Add a chat function to your website
The more features you can add to reduce friction on your site, the more likely you are to capture the attention of qualified leads. Incorporating a chatbot into your site can go a long way toward answering questions and reducing objections.
The more accessible you can make information for your leads, the better. Today, 96% of salespeople report that the leads they speak to have already researched their business independently.
This means you can count on leads familiarizing themselves with your products long before they talk to anyone on your team. Making it easy for them to find what they need encourages them to continue researching until they’re ready to speak one-on-one.
14. Create a referral program
Often, the most qualified leads meet you through those you already know. Customers that come from referrals have been shown to be more loyal and profitable.
Establishing a referral program can encourage existing customers to share your name with friends and family. Referral programs typically offer an incentive to customers when their referred connection becomes a customer, too. This may be a discount or another offer of your choosing.
No matter how you structure your referral program, ensure you promote it. Customers can only take advantage of it when they know it exists!
Ensuring a steady flow of qualified insurance leads
If you work in insurance, you know there are no guarantees in life. No one marketing tactic can ensure that you’ll increase your number of qualified leads. But take a systematic approach to targeting, engaging with, and qualifying the prospects you encounter, and you’ll send your sales team more leads that are easier to close.
As a recap, here are 14 tactics to generate more insurance leads:
- Host a webinar
- Give away high-quality content
- Run search ads
- Create landing pages for lead capture
- Create a case study
- Build a free calculator or quote generator
- Pitch existing customers
- Attend relevant events
- Establish partnerships with other businesses
- Experiment with display ads
- Try retargeting
- Create video ads
- Add a chat function to your website
- Create a referral program
