Insurance leads are one way agencies can provide their sales people with a list of prospects immediately. How does it compare to longer term SEO campaign?
When my husband opened his State Farm agency in 2015 we were strapped for cash. He needed to grow the agency quickly amidst brand awareness, streamlining internal operations, and making hiring decisions. Heeding advice from others, he decided to invest almost all of his marketing dollars into internet leads. On paper, it seemed promising given the low cost and large number of prospects he was promised with a quick turnaround time.
What he quickly found out was two things.
1) The quantity of leads does NOT equal quality. His team was relentless: calling each of the prospects several times only to be led to dead end after dead end. Think about the resources wasted: paying his team to call prospects who likely had no intention of buying high quality insurance in the first place. 1,000 leads doesn't mean much if 0 people convert.
2) Patience is a virtue. Lead generation promises fast results, whereas SEO services are slower. Why? It takes time to establish a relationship with search engines. But unlike lead generation which is limited to third party sites, a professionally crafted SEO campaign puts your agency directly in front of customers at the moment they are searching for your services. Given that 93% of online experiences start on a search engine, SEO campaigns will pay off in the long run.
In summary, you likely will want a mixture of both long and short term tactics for your agency. Buying internet leads is a short term tactic. While they deliver value almost immediately, they are expensive and hard to sustain long term. A SEO campaign is a cost-effective way to catch prospects that are still in their research phase and naturally guide them to your services. It will be longer before you see results but it will always be working for you.
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