When it comes to making any sort of sale, managing prospects is tricky. You don’t want to drown them in inquiries and requests, which might cause them to find you annoying and look elsewhere. At the same time, you don’t want to be silent, which might cause them to start thinking you aren’t interested in doing business with them.
This conundrum is perhaps even more pronounced in the world of health insurance. Many people, after all, aren’t thrilled to talk about their insurance needs. It might be more fun talking to a salesperson about the next car you’re going to buy, for example.
Still, in order to grow your insurance business and keep your prospects properly engaged, you need to reach out to them. Otherwise, they may decide to take their business elsewhere.
That said, you can’t reach out to prospects constantly. What’s the point in calling someone day after day if they’re never picking up or returning your calls? That’s not exactly the most effective way to use time.
So How Many Times Should You Call Insurance Prospects?
Michael Pedone, CEO and founder of SalesBuzz.com, recommends that you contact a prospect three days in a row following a formula like this:
- Day 1: Call, leave a voicemail, follow up with an email.
- Day 2: Call, follow up with an email.
- Day 3: Email.
If the prospect doesn’t respond to these six touches, then it’s time to move on to the next one and put the prospect into your email marketing drip funnel. Now, you might want to circle back with certain prospects as time goes by.
For example, as you approach the open enrollment period, you might want to start calling prospects a month or two in advance. That’s when they’re most likely to be in the market for insurance, anyway.
But the last thing you want to do is devote a chunk of each day to calling people who have made it clear that they are not interested in picking up the phone.
Just because someone might not want to pick up the phone, however, doesn’t mean they are definitely uninterested in buying insurance from you. After all, consumers today—and younger folks, in particular—are often more comfortable communicating through other mediums, such as email. Read on to discover some additional insurance prospecting tips.
How to Ensure Phone Calls with Prospects Go Well
If you get a prospect on the line, it is critical that you make sure they enjoy the phone call experience. If you approach them like just another salesperson trying to sell a product or service, chances are that they won’t be too enthusiastic about moving forward with you.
For the best results, make your calls as personable as possible. An easy way to do so is by using a customer relationship management solution that enables you to centralize all prospect-specific information in one location. That way, when you’re chatting with a prospect, you can customize your call to address their unique circumstances.
Check out our webinar on how to build rapport with prospects.
For example, you might know where a person lives, how old they are, and when they need to renew their policies. If the prospect lives in New York City and you just saw a play there a few weeks ago, you can bring up that information to connect with your prospect on a personal level. Also, if they are aging into Medicare over the next few years, you can kindly relay that information to prove yourself as a trusted adviser.
Best practices suggest that you follow up every phone call with an email. Up next, we’ll explore some tips that should help you write more persuasive and effective emails.
How to Write Great Emails to Your Prospects
It’s one thing to follow up every prospecting phone call with an email. It’s quite another to follow up every call with a great email.
The most effective sales emails start with engaging and interesting subject lines that encourage recipients to click through. Once they do, they’re greeted by a personalized message that’s short and sweet. They don’t have to guess as to what you hope the message conveys; the call to action clarifies what the next steps are.
Check out our Insurance Email Subject Line Checklist for Brokers
Of course, these emails should also be timely. If you call a prospect today and don’t send a follow-up email for several weeks, chances are that you’ve missed your opportunity.
Engage Your Prospects Effectively—and Grow Your Insurance Business
If you constantly call prospects, at least some of them will get annoyed. In the worst-case scenario, they might start telling people in their network about your persistence—which might even scare away other prospects.
A measured and consistent approach to prospect outreach, on the other hand, can go a long way toward helping you increase conversions. Develop a plan that works well for you and stick to it. You’ll get the results you’re hoping for.
Check out our white paper, Referral Marketing Tips & Techniques, to learn more about how you can build a referral marketing engine through which your clients and prospects do sales work for you.
Better Prospecting to Spark More Sales
Technology can help remove work from your plate and promote greater prospecting efforts. Quotit software is built specifically to help insurance agents stay organized, be more efficient, and land more sales.
Want to see how Quotit software can help you hit your goals? Schedule a demo now for an inside look at how Quotit insurance software works.
