Most brokers would agree that finding new leads is a priority.  What is less clear, though, is the right approach to finding the best ones and converting them at the right time, on the right channel with the right message.

In the first part of our blog series, we discussed the importance of brand awareness and the role your website and landing pages play as the front lines for creating that first impression. In today’s blog, we are going to discuss those oh-so-important leads and how marketing automation platforms (MAP) help optimize the process of generating and capturing leads and the role social plays in moving a  prospect to (hopefully) becoming a new customer.

So let’s break down the steps:

 

Generating the right leads for your brokerage

What type of leads are you looking for? While there is no single right answer there is a single WRONG answer which is: anyone.

Are all customers equal? No. Are all customers profitable? No. Are all customers a right fit for your line of insurance products? No.

Your lead generation strategy should focus on identifying the types of customers you do want. The best way to get started is to define a few key personas – such as a specific demographic/geographic/lifestyle segments for your personal line products and/or key industry verticals/size/geographies for your commercial lines. Marketing Automation platforms won’t help you build these out (that’s strategy work) but once defined, MAP allows you to take a segmented approach to engaging, tracking and converting them. The channel, keywords, creative and messaging will be different for each of these personas, and product that you are targeting. The benefit of knowing who these optimal leads are for your business is being able to take a very targeted approach to finding and engaging with them. Successful lead generation begins  by recognizing that ‘one size does not fit all’ and marketing automation can power that multi persona strategy, at scale.

 

Capturing and converting prospects into leads

If you have been successful with your lead generation efforts, your marketing qualified leads (MQL) have landed on your customized landing page(s). Marketing automation platforms follow the breadcrumbs they have left so you see which channel and ad drew them in. Now you need to ensure that your landing pages are optimized to make it easy and straightforward for them to convert, by creating simple but customized forms asking them to submit contact information so that your sales team can then contact and convert them.

Drop off from clicks to conversion is to be expected but there are several tactics that can  help mitigate this, including ensuring your landing pages are mobile optimized and having calls to action which are clear and reinforce your brand message (which will be customized to the persona and product you are targeting). Marketing automation best practices also call for testing – of your content, message, and even forms. It’s a bit of art and science to find the right formula which requires your prospects to submit enough information so you can have a personalized follow up but not too much so that they will find the process too much work. A/B testing, also a core functionality within best of breed MAPs makes this process easy to both implement and then roll out the winning form to help maximize conversions.

 

Nurturing not ready to convert leads

There are many reasons why prospects click but don’t convert (we will address the convert but don’t buy segment in Blog #5). Getting distracted, not finding the right information instantly or not being in the market at that very moment are the most common ones. But that doesn’t mean they are not still potential leads. Remarketing your message to those that have shown some interest – with the right message- provide additional opportunities to engage and convert. Marketing automation tools make it possible to implement and measure retargeting programs and track the success of your efforts.  

 

Leveraging Social to drive engagement

As the saying goes, “fish where the fish are” – and if your prospects are on social media then that is where you should be as well. Using the right social channel, which will vary by persona and product line, provides the opportunity to showcase brand content and place sponsored ads to attract your desired audience. Customized and trackable links can be embedded within both of these formats so social prospects can also be directed to bespoke landing pages with the same level of reporting available within other lead generation and nurturing strategies discussed here. Remarketing through different social channels also provides the opportunity to remind those interested prospects of your brand and products when they revisit their social media accounts.

Leads are critical to the continued growth of your brokerage. Understanding how to generate the right ones, optimize capturing, converting and nurturing them and using social to drive engagement are all parts to making your strategy successful.

Stay tuned for the third blog in our series, where we will dive deeper into how Marketing Automation can impact the Consideration phase of your insurance leads with email campaigns and automation.