Insurance Marketing: Why Free Quotes Kill Sales
When I talk with new insurance marketing clients, I often ask them one important question: “What do you offer your prospects to motivate them to take the next step?”
I bet you can guess the answer I usually receive: “A free quote.”
If an insurance website is not performing like a well-oiled insurance lead generation machine, the “free quote” mentality is usually the main problem. Companies that offer free quotes have essentially turned their lead generation funnels upside-down. And when they do that, they SPILL a lot of potential business.
Ready to capture MORE insurance leads? Right-side your insurance lead generation funnel with three types of offers:
Top of funnel offers: The top of the funnel is broad and where the majority of insurance leads will enter your website. Top of funnel offers include valuable downloads such as free reports, checklists, and sales handouts. They have broad appeal and allow your insurance prospect to maintain some anonymity. Most importantly, top of funnel offers don’t require the prospect to talk to anyone at your company. This is important because prospects who are at the top of the funnel are usually not very sales-ready. These people are in the investigation stage of the process, and just getting acquainted with you. One you have some top of funnel offers strategically place them at the entrance pages of your website, so that new visitors will see them right away. White papers and infographics are great examples of top of funnel offers.
Middle of funnel offers: Prospects who are in the middle of your insurance sales funnel are somewhat comfortable with your company. They’ve already checked out the top of funnel stuff and they’re ready to learn more. You need to take the opportunity to move them further along and make them MORE sales ready. Good middle of the funnel offers include insurance buying guides, case studies and webinars. Middle of funnel prospects might be feeling emotionally ready to do business and their looking for some logical confirmation to justify their decisions. You can bury middle of funnel offers a little deeper in your site on product pages.
Bottom of the funnel offers: At the bottom of the funnel, you need to convert the lead into a customer. Product demos, insurance coverage comparisons, loss run analysis and YES, even price quotes work well at this stage of the game. These offers are best used when you know a prospect is sales ready and you know that you’ve already nurtured them with top and middle funnel offers. Whatever you do, don’t hit a brand new prospect with a bottom of funnel offer. It’s like asking a person to marry you after the first date!
To maximize insurance lead generation, your insurance website should contain as many offers as possible with a heavy focus on the top of the funnel. Every offer should link out to compelling landing page with a lead form. Websites with more landing pages always get more leads. Make it your mission to stop SPILLING new business with an upside-down funnel.