Insurance leads are what make the insurance industry go ‘round.  There are plenty of companies that will gladly take your money and give you leads, but there are very few that offer you the right customer service, quality of leads, training and technical support of a world class insurance lead company.   But if you interact and use the resources of the insurance lead company correctly, you can be quite successful.

Insurance lead companies make a business out of selling insurance leads, which consist of personal information from people who are looking for more information – or perhaps even a price quote – on a certain type of insurance.  They range from the completely unqualified leads that will never become sales, to the perfect leads that have their wallets out and ready to pay for insurance from you.  Of course, most leads fall somewhere in between those two extremes and it’s up to the lead purchasing agent to keep the insurance lead companies performing to their expected standards.

Even working with the best insurance lead company, remember it’s a numbers game.  For every 10 leads, maybe 4 of them are not qualified and not that interested.  But from the other 6 leads, you make 2 sales.  You should be very satisfied with these results and consider your experience over large numbers, not just by the last 2 leads you called.

The key to working with an insurance lead company over a long period of time is to make sure that both parties are happy at all times.  The only way to achieve this is by opening a line of communication with your lead generation company.

Before you even start, you should sit down with the insurance lead company and go over certain details, such as how many leads they’re able to send your way, how many times they sell their leads to other agents and what their technology is to ensure you’re getting a functional and accurate email address, phone number and first and last names.  They should have some sort of scrubbing technology in place to ensure that their quality is top notch.  Also, get the guarantee or credit policy in writing.

When first approaching a company about this matter, it helps to at least know the basics behind marketing and lead generation from the insurance lead company’s perspective.  When you’re up to 50 or 60 leads per week, you’ll find that it’s nearly impossible to track the quality very well, so you need to lay the right foundation on which to build a great relationship with your lead generation company.

Once you decide which lead company is right for you, you should spend some time learning a little about marketing in general.  It pays to be familiar with what the insurance lead company has to go through in order to generate the leads you’re going to use.  For example, are they soliciting through paid advertising or freebie giveaways?  If so, the lead may not be as well qualified as one generated through direct mail.  Use this information sparingly, because what happens at one company may not happen at others.

When it comes time to talk about price with the insurance lead company, remember that usually, the more leads you buy, the lower the cost.  While you immediately think of price per lead, think about all other things that are part of the contract you’re about to sign.  Do you like their bad lead replacement policy?  How about their marketing material?  Does it fit with the way you’d like to portray your company?

Just like anything else, what you get out of the relationship with your insurance lead company is what you put into it.  If you’d like to maintain a good relationship with their company, initiate a discussion that addresses all of your concerns and tries to work them out – otherwise, you’re in for a long and unsatisfying contract period.  So if the leads are not working for you, call and ask for their assistance before you just give up.