SEO Is The #1 Source for Lead Generation

For the last few years, marketing gurus have been telling companies to increase their use of social media. Most major insurance companies now have a strong presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. A recent study, however, calls this advice into question.

When polled about where their business actually comes from, marketers admit that more than 57 percent of their business to business leads and 41 percent of their business to consumer leads come from search engine optimization, or SEO.

If you are selling insurance, this study has significant implications for finding insurance leads. It suggests that rather than spending your time and energy on social media, you should beef up your insurance website to increase lead generation.

Keyword Phrases and Lead Generation

A major part of search engine optimization involves the use of keywords, or phrases that people might type into a search engine when they are looking for whatever your company has to offer. Someone looking for medical insurance, for instance, might use terms like “health insurance,” “major medical,” “small business health insurance,” or “Medigap insurance.” Take a look at the copy on your website to make sure that it contains multiple keyword phrases.

Many insurance companies find it useful to hire a copywriter to make sure that their web copy contains enough keywords to attract both search engines and insurance leads.

When revamping your insurance website, avoid the temptation to throw in too many keywords. Search engines are programmed to ignore websites with a high keyword density, and reading the same phrases over and over can annoy your human visitors as well.

Links to Your Insurance Website

Another factor that plays a large part in SEO is the number of links to your site from other reputable sites. One way to obtain backlinks is to contact websites with a high Google ranking and request a link exchange. You might also approach sites that provide insurance information and offer to write a free article or blog post for them in exchange for a link back to your site.

Is It Time to Give Up on Social Media?

No one is suggesting that social media is dead. In the study mentioned above, business to customer marketers estimated that social media accounted for about 25 percent of their leads. Don’t abandon your social media marketing efforts, but at the same time take a good look at your business website to make sure it is SEO friendly. This will help ensure that you don’t miss out on any valuable insurance leads.

LinkedIn for Business to Business Leads

LinkedIn offers professionals and colleagues a way to connect with each other and update each other on current projects, campaigns, and even trouble spots. Any time you meet with someone in face-to-face marketing, it’s a good idea to see if they have a profile on LinkedIn and, if so, ask if you can connect with them. Check your account once every few days, and you may see one of your associates express a need, for instance, having to change their company health insurance plan, that is right up your alley.

Twitter for Lead Generation

Twitter allows you to choose people to follow based on the topic of conversation and on their profiles. People can also follow you based on the same criteria. To find leads, type a few key words into the search box such as “long term care insurance,” or “need life insurance.” The search tool will retrieve any recent comments with these keywords. You can then reach out to the people who made the comments and responding with an appropriate link. “Free life insurance quotes” or “5 Things to Know About Long Term Care.” Note that Twitter communications, or Tweets, are limited to less than 140 characters, so be concise.

Facebook for Lead Nurturing

Facebook should be a vital part of any social media marketing plan. Facebook allows you to create a business page. Customers and potential customers then become “fans” of the page so they can see any links or updates you add about your business. This is a great site to offer information “bites,” to introduce new sales agents, and to publicize special offers. You can also use your business page on FB to steer people to your business website.

What About Blogging?

Most insurance agencies these days have a weblog. At least once a week, ideally several times per week, they add brief, informative articles, called posts, about trends in insurance, new laws that affect insurance, special deals they may be offering, and information about different agents and the agency itself. Leads can and do stumble on blogs, but blogs are actually more useful for lead nurturing. People are more likely to buy insurance from a company they know and trust, and blogging provides a way for people to learn about your agency and the expertise of your agents.

Whatever other marketing plans you may have, don’t overlook the power of social media marketing. It’s an inexpensive and effective way to capture new leads and nurture old ones.

Many businesses turn to lead providers to get a list of high quality leads. High quality leads are leads who have had contact with the lead provider and have expressed an interest about being contacted by your company to discuss the goods or services you offer. Your sales staff saves time, because everybody they contact is already willing to talk to them about what they have to offer.

One drawback to lead buying is that it can be expensive. Also, not all companies who advertise themselves as lead providers are reputable. When you are deciding whether or not to work with a company that generates leads, take a few moments to think about the following factors.

1. Read the Fine Print

Find out what, exactly, you are being offered and how much it will cost. Beware of hidden service feed. It’s also best to avoid companies that make extravagant claims, like a 100% conversion rate.

2. Ask Where the Company Gets Its Leads

The answer you want to hear is that they generate fresh leads from their own website or through telemarketing. Less encouraging answers are that they buy their leads in bulk from another company, or that they recycle leads, selling the same lead to dozens of clients. Both of the latter practices lower lead quality. Before you put any money down or sign a contract, make sure you will be getting exclusive leads, or leads that are specifically generated for your business and have not been sold to your competitors.

3. Ask How the Leads Are Delivered

Many companies deliver leads in bulk once or twice a day. It’s better to find a company that relays each lead to you in real time as soon as the lead requests additional information about your goods or services. Pursuing leads is a matter of “striking while the iron is hot.” Lead quality decreases for every hour that goes by without making initial contact.

4. Evaluate Their Customer Service

When you are lead buying, take a few minutes to evaluate the customer service of the company you are thinking about hiring. If the company is hard to reach or unable to give you clear information over the phone, or if the associates are rude, you’re probably wiser looking for another lead provider. How the company treats you gives you a pretty good indication of how it treats the leads with whom it has contact. If the leads have a bad experience with the lead providers, they’re likely to generalize that experience to your organization as well, which can hurt sales.

5. Check Them Out

Before making any final agreements, check the lead provider company out with your local Better Business Bureau. It’s also a good idea to ask the company for a list of references who are willing to vouch for their services.

Lead buying can be an effective marketing tool, but it’s important to be sure that you’re working with a reputable company that focuses on lead quality rather than quantity.

Next Wave Marketing Strategies Cold-Calling

When it comes right down to it, cold calling probably isn’t any salesperson’s favorite way to spend time. Speaking to a new person for the first time is awkward enough anyway, and many individuals and companies make it clear that they don’t appreciate receiving cold calls. If done right, however, cold calling can generate some valuable leads. The following tips will help you spark your cold calling program.

1. Do Customer Research

Before picking up the phone, find out as much as you can about the business or individual whom you are calling. Items of interest include people in a head position (in a company), people who have been newly promoted, the needs of the company or individual, and how you might be able to meet those needs.

When you cold call a company, for instance, don’t simply ask to speak to “the person who makes decisions about health insurance.” Instead, know who that individual is and ask for him or her by name. When you get on the phone with your lead, offer a compliment or make a comment showing that you know something about the business. For instance, “Congratulations on being voted the Chamber of Commerce Person of the Month,” or “Congratulations on your promotion to Human Resources Manager.”

Finally, acknowledge who is presently meeting the customer’s need and ask if there are any gaps that you might be able to fill. For instance, “I know you currently buy health insurance through ABC Company. Their rates climbed pretty steeply at the end of last year. Can we set up a time for me to tell you about our rate structure?”

2. Use Lead Nurturing Techniques

It’s not realistic to expect to score a huge sale on your first phone call. Instead, go for a smaller “yes.” That could mean getting the person to agree to a face-to-face meeting, to look at materials you send via email or regular mail, to talk again on the phone at a later date, or even to follow you and your company through social media.

Lead nurturing means being interested in more than just a sale. It means coming to understand your lead’s needs and showing him or her that your company is the right one to meet those needs.

3. Use Online Lead Generation

If your company has a web page, and you should, develop a brief online form that customers who want more information about your products or services can fill out. When a potential customer completes the form and clicks send, your company will immediately receive an email with the lead’s name and contact information. When using online lead generation, it is important to follow up with leads as quickly as possible so they don’t lose interest or, worse, select a competitor to provide the goods or services they are looking for.

Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and also be a valuable way to generate leads online. On Facebook, you can set up a business page and even run ads based on your average customer’s demographics. Again, if a lead contacts you through social media, it is important to provide a personal response as soon as possible.

Cold calls can make even the best salesperson sweat a little bit, but if done right, they can be quite profitable.

Mortgage lead generation is time and your time is valuable. So the first and foremost reason to consider buying your mortgage leads is simply that it is a time saver. Would you rather spend your time finding leads or actually calling on those leads and selling to them? The answer is obvious: you are a salesperson so selling is what you do best. Buy those mortgage leads and you can get right to work.

Another reason to consider mortgage lead generation though buying leads online is that is where the clients are. In today’s electronic information world, consumers are turning to the internet to find any service they need, including mortgages. By buying mortgage leads online, you will be getting leads from the place they most often, themselves, look. It is also a lot more productive than sitting back and waiting for them to stumble onto your website.

Finally, mortgage lead generation is just flat easier when you purchase the leads. Your time is valuable as was mentioned before. However, finding mortgage leads is not only time consuming, but it is also difficult. You have to know where to look, you have to be able to identify real leads, and you need to figure out where to find a lot of them. It just takes a lot of effort. Why not put those efforts into the selling of mortgages rather than into the mortgage lead generation by buying leads?

Finding good mortgage leads is imperative to your success. However, by buying your mortgage leads online, you can save yourself time, save yourself effort and you can find leads from that come straight from the source. You will have the time, energy, and confidence to do what you do best: sell those mortgages.

With as many as ninety-one percent of all U.S. households regularly using email, marketing within the growing medium is quickly gaining popularity due to the high number of people that can be reached. In fact, email marketing popularity is growing because it is a tool that has worked and continues to work for countless businesses across the country. In 2009, on average, U.S. companies generated almost $44 for every dollar they spent on email marketing campaigns, highlighting the effectiveness of such campaigns despite the bad rap given to spam.

One of the most successful ways of using email marketing to generate leads is by developing an internal email list of past customers who may be interested in purchasing additional products or services from a company they trust. An email list comprised of previous customers is much more cost effective than seeking new customers. Companies will spend as much as ten times more resources gaining a new customer than they will if marketing to current clients.

Another method of using lead generation to develop cliental is to purchase email lists for use as a tool to acquire leads. Companies can use email marketing to provide potential customers with information about the business and build the brand in order to create a sense of familiarity. Additionally, email lead generation is a great way to bring increased traffic to company websites, which also increases the chance that a buyer will call or contact the company.

Though email marketing is an obvious money saver and has been shown to be an effective way to generate leads for a variety of companies offering diverse goods and services, it is also a positive marketing tool due to the ease of tracking. Results from an email marketing campaign is easily measured, showing whether they are successful or whether a company must make changes and tweaks in the operations. Email advertising efforts are measured by how many people open the emails sent by the company. The success rate of an email campaigns success can also be tracked by how many receivers click through to a website.

Newsletters, coupons, special offers and information regarding business changes and new offerings can all be sent immediately to hundreds and even thousands of potential customers with the click of a mouse. Because email marketing campaigns can be completed with such quickness, companies will often see immediate responses unlike results from traditional advertising mediums like television.

Offering quick, easy and effective campaigns, email marketing is continuing to gain popularity and use for a reason: it works. With measurability and ease of tracking, companies and business owners can be sure that their efforts are effective and quickly notice when changes need to be made. In the midst of technologically centered consumers, email is a vital way to expand advertising and marketing aspirations and gain successful sales leads to grow any business.

When a company offers services and/or products they need people, or leads, to be interested in their company in the hope of making them customers. Generating these leads is a continuous occupation to keep a constant flow of new customers.

Different kinds of businesses use different tactics for lead generation. They can advertise in print media such as newspapers and magazines, make direct contact with the public through conferences and events and give out cards or flyers or become known in a community through charity work or community service.

Services for lead generation provide advertising and outreach for a fee. They often use pamphlets or websites about local businesses. Promotional items are another way they use to get interest in a company. People always like something for free, and if it is a useful item, they will see the businesses name often.

Lead brokers sell lists of phone numbers, email addresses and street addresses to businesses. The business must then use the list to market their product or services. A good lead broker will have specialized lists for different types of business, so the business is buying a list of people who are most likely already interested in their product.

A good lead broker must also update his lists every month to continue to be valuable to their customers. No one wants a list that is several years old. A business will want to know the level of responsiveness a particular lead broker has. Lead brokers also want feedback from their customers to know the success rate of their leads. If they need to, they can change their lead source in the hope of better responsiveness.

Lead brokers will provide investor lists, consumer lists, surveys, oil and gas leads, financial leads and business lists. They will have a website where a business can order the type of list as well as choose the country of origin.

Some lead brokers offer much more than targeted lists. They will design a website, create search engine optimization for the content, add social media marketing, manage a blog, create press releases and much more. Today, it is more important than ever to have a vibrant presence online where most customers spend time everyday searching for products and services.

If a business uses the services of a good lead broker, they can enjoy a high rate of conversion of leads to customers. Lead brokers and lead generation is a profitable business and they only succeed if their customers succeed.

Getting qualified leads is perhaps one of the most difficult parts of making a sale. Any salesperson knows that a qualified sales lead is worth its weight in gold. It naturally follows that if you can somehow get more and better qualified leads without spending the time getting them yourself, you can spend more time actually closing sales and as a result, make more money.

That’s why lead marketing has become such a big business. A good lead marketing firm can generate quality leads for you to pursue, and eventually make into closed sales.

On the surface, lead marketing services sounds like one of those new-fangled business buzzwords that’s worth more as a concept for a term paper and it appears in real life, but the truth is, one company specializing in lead marketing was recently named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States. It didn’t earn that recognition by accident.

Instead, lead marketing companies provide qualified leads that are arrived at only after careful marketing and analysis of data-driven information, and as a result, the sales process is streamlined with better qualified leads for your sales force. This saves both time and money.

Most of these leads are generated from websites that are established to promote your business. Once a potential client arrives at the site, he enters data via an online request form which is, in turn, sent to the marketing firm. At the firm, the potential client’s general business information as well as data concerning his interest is verified, then sent to the most appropriate potential product or service providers.

Lead marketing companies work across the gamut of industries, including such diverse fields as consumer retail, services such as insurance, public and private educational institutions, and many others.

Lead generation marketing firms have proven the effectiveness of their services for both the buyer and the seller. Buyers are channeled through to firms that are the most appropriate for the goods and services they need, and vendors receive leads for qualified buyers without having to spend the time and money to make contact with potential clients with no interest.

Much like many business activities, lead marketing firms won’t replace the nuts and bolts operation of an effective sales force, but whether a business is enjoying high times or not, the additional business that could be provided by a good lead marketing firm is worth the investment.