5 Ways to Get More Clients for Your Insurance Business

Most people when starting a client-based business often struggle with gaining traction. There are plenty of long days and nights where you’ll need to be burning the candle at both ends. In fact, according to an independent agent survey by the NU/PIA, 37% of insurance agents struggle with finding new clients.

Well, what if you had a way to get in front of more potential clients than ever before? It would likely mean a much greater chance for success in this tough economy, especially when it comes to premium renewals.

If you’re the type that prefers to just wait and see what happens and hope new clients will come your way then I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but it won’t work like that.

Not only does increasing your client base bring in more revenue, but it will also help with filling in the gaps left behind by people who leave policies.

So, whether you’re selling life insurance from home or you have a physical health insurance sales business, instead of relying on hope, here are five ways that you can get more clients through your door today.

1. Nurture your insurance leads
2. Define your niche
3. Upsell to your existing customers
4. Network with other insurance agents
5. Put an effort into finding opportunities
6. Bonus tip: Use the right tools to sell insurance remotely

1. Nurture your insurance leads

Building a brand where clients are loyal, engaged, and trusting is key for success. Your customers will come back if you give them great service. Because you’re an entrepreneur who wants their business’ longevity at its peak performance, you must build relationships with your clientele by providing top-notch services throughout the entire customer journey.

Building & maintaining strong connections with consumers takes more than catchy insurance marketing strategies. It requires investing time upfront in developing meaningful rapport between the parties involved.

To prove the point further, “7 out of 10 U.S. consumers say they’ve spent more money to do business with a company that delivers great service”.

When you want to keep your business in the minds of potential clients, you need to be offering value well before they have even spoken with you.

Here are a few ways you can do this (but don’t feel like you need to do all of them):

• Create content through blog posts.
• Set up a YouTube channel to explain differences in policies and how that can benefit certain customers.
• Go one step further and create webinars for insurance policies you want to promote. Then at the end, you can pitch the policy to customers who have just watched you for the last hour explaining all of the benefits.
• Use your existing email list (you’ve got one don’t you?) to send out weekly or monthly tips and news regarding their insurance policy.

By creating highly relevant content for your audience, it will show your expertise within the subject area.

2. Define your Niche

Following on from the point above, if you want to be an expert within your industry you need to know what you are talking about. It’s natural for agents to want to sell all different types of insurance policies to everybody.

The problem with that is you can’t possibly know the ins and out of every single type of policy for every person in every type of insurance industry. Instead, try to work smarter by developing a better marketing strategy. To do that, concentrate on one particular niche until you become an authority in it.

Then will you be able to scale and grow into other different types of insurance sales. Here’s how it can be an advantage for you to put all of your efforts into one niche:

• When you are experienced and know the industry well enough you gain a significant advantage over your competitors because customers will want the agents who are experts and know their products well.
• As your reputation within the industry grows, then around 90% of people are more likely to recommend your services to friends and family to further boost your sales.

3. Upsell To Your Existing Insurance Customers

While it may be great to put a lot of time and attention into getting new leads you don’t want to forget about the current clients you already have. Almost 75% of US customers believe that customer service influences their loyalty.

This means that if they’re willing to stay loyal to you, there’s more chance of upselling, or promoting other new products that come to market and continue to reap the rewards from those clients.

One tactic that often gets missed with agents is that once they have a policy for their client there’s no ongoing review for them. Policies change over time and if you have a motivated client who is always looking for a good deal, you can be sure that they will look to move somewhere else and get better value for money.

So why not sit down with your client and just have a quick chat about their situation and better understand what their goals are. When customers feel engaged, there’s a level of trust there and it will take a lot less effort to retain them which is a lucrative way for you to maximize revenue.

4. Network With Other Insurance Agents

When you start connecting with other people, you are developing a relationship with that person. By building connections with others, you effectively open doors to new opportunities you may not have had otherwise.

Another benefit is that when people are working with you as the business owner, there’s a sense of exclusivity or “VIP” status when people get to work with your agency.

So don’t be afraid to go out to meetup groups and seminars. Even doing charity work within the community can be a great way to get your name out there and feel good about yourself at the same time.

Of course, don’t just limit yourself to other agents within your industry. Try to get creative with other local professionals in a different industry but who could also relate to the products and services you are offering.

For example, if you are selling home insurance, why not partner up with a local real estate agent? If someone is buying a new home, the agent can then recommend that the new homeowner considers buying insurance from you to protect their most valuable asset.

You can then reciprocate by sending clients to the real estate agent who is looking to purchase more homes for their investment portfolio. You could then potentially get a cut of the commission from the agent and also drum up a new home insurance policy for the existing customer.

This is an example of a joint venture (JV), which is an agreement between two or more individuals or companies that work together towards a common goal. At the end of the agreement, the parties then divide the profits amongst themselves.

Advantages of a joint insurance venture include:

• The ability to scale quickly without borrowing money or upfront investment.
• Greater access to resources, staff, and clients.
• Businesses of any size can benefit.

Of course, there are always two sides to a story so here are some further things to consider.

Disadvantages of a joint insurance venture include:

• Difficulty in finding someone you trust enough to enter an agreement.
• Uncertainty because the success of a JV depends on each party doing their bit and working together.
• Risk of disagreements and conflict.

When determining whether a partnership or joint venture is right for your business, be sure to do your due diligence and obtain the proper advice before signing an agreement.

5. Put an effort into finding new opportunities and new clients

Especially if you’re new to the field of insurance sales, it can be a good feeling to start getting a few sales through the door, you’re finally starting to see a decent income, and then, you take your foot off the gas.

It would be fairly unrealistic for someone to expect you to spend most of your day trying to find new clients. However, it is still necessary for your business to grow which will require you to be active in finding new clients.

Here are some tips for finding new business opportunities:

• Hang out where your potential clients hang out. This could be Facebook groups, forums, local fairs, etc. Help out by answering people’s questions. If you’re seen as the expert, there’s a chance you may be able to get a few clients out of it.
• Create a lead magnet. Entice clients on your website by offering a newsletter or e-book which will require customers to sign up with an email address to access it. This will then add them to your own elusive email list.
• Pick up the phone. Cold calling is still very effective to gain new business. It might make you feel a little uneasy, but once you get past the initial nerves, it will become second nature. Here is a resource for the best cold calling tips.
• Add visuals to cold calls. CrankWheel is an effective screen sharing software for insurance agents. You can review all the terms and show them to the client during the first call. Just send a link and they can open it on any device without setup or registration. The best part is that you can monitor if they are zoning out and have stopped paying attention.
• Advertise. If your budget allows, then consider investing in social media advertising through Facebook or Google. Using paid advertising allows you to get a quick insight into your customers and what they’re engaging with. This is great because you can get the data on how to custom tailor your messaging so it is as effective as possible.

6. Bonus tip: The best tools to sell insurance remotely

Although some insurance agents prefer to sell insurance by going door to door to pay qualified leads a visit, you can often get the same level of interaction with your prospects from selling insurance remotely.

The main benefit of selling insurance remotely is efficiency. You don’t have to spend time traveling which means saving time and cutting costs related to commuting, even if you are only selling in your local area.

• Use screen sharing tools for insurance sales, not collaboration tools. Collaboration tools such as Zoom or Teams were not developed for sales in particular. Using them will create friction points for your customers when they can’t find the link to the meeting, the audio doesn’t work and quite frankly, most people feel intimidated by sharing their webcam with strangers. CrankWheel was designed with telesales in mind. The agent shares their content to any device in seconds without requesting setup or registration. And you keep the prospect on the phone the entire time.
• Dialing software to make your life easier. Feed your leads into your CRM software to keep tabs on qualified leads but use a dialer to connect easily to them. The dialer calls your contacts with a single click of the mouse. You don’t risk any fatter finger mistakes when entering the number.
• Have your call-to-action buttons connected to your tools. When you are using your website, your social media or newsletter to capture leads, make sure that you get alerts the second they start entering info into your forms. The Instant Demo function in CrankWheel send an alert to the sales team via the CrankWheel interface as soon as a warm lead has clicked the CTA button and has entered a phone number. You can see where leads are coming from and can give them a call when they are still viewing your online marketing material.

Final Words on acquiring more insurance clients

The best way to succeed in any business is by focusing on your clients. This means getting to know them intimately and meeting their needs better than anyone else. But it also means making sure they keep coming back for more, which can be challenging if you don’t have a steady stream of new customers.

You’ll want to find ways to stay top-of-mind with the people who already buy from you so that when they need something again, there’s no question about where they should go first.

One strategy would be to invest in email marketing for insurance agents. This way, you could be offering up an exclusive deal or discount code only available through your email list signup form, but make sure that it actually benefits them.

Finally, to improve customer satisfaction, create content for your audience that educates them and provides value. Provide excellent service while developing person-to-person relationships with existing customers by ensuring they are satisfied at all times. This is the key to building up a successful business.

See our article on Facebook Marketing for Insurance Agents.

About the author

Chris Bournelis is a blogger and entrepreneur. He has been working in online business since 2015 and is passionate about leveraging the right partnerships, content, and software for maximum growth. Join him for the best SaaS reviews and how to build your online business.