Thursday, December 10, 2009
Lead Tracking and Management for Real Estate professionals - Cash cow or Mad cow
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Insurance Leads Distribution and Conversion
If you are an Insurance Agent or a National Marketing Organization, insurance lead capture, distribution and tracking in order to increase the conversion will be the most time taking activities.
Internet Leads
With the increasing use of internet leads and the practice of purchasing insurance leads from third party vendors, marketing automation and lead management functions have become all the more important. Even small, incremental improvements in these areas help the agents achieve significant increase in lead conversion.
You may generate internet leads through your own websites and blogs. Online advertising using Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising on Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines will be a critical component of your internet lead generation strategy.
Social media networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn helps in lead generation via online sources. However, your own online resources may be enough to feed your lead requirements. You need to use multiple sources to acquire prospects for your business, whether you are a single agent or an organization with multiple agents and locations.
Internet leads can be used for all insurance services including Home Insurance, Health / Medical Insurance, Life Insurance, Longterm Care (LTC) Insurance, Auto Insurance, Boat/ RV / MotorCycle Insurance, Renters Insurance, Commercial / Business Insurance, Mortgage Protection Insurance and Burial Insurance.
Insurance Lead Sources
There are several sources providing internet based insurance leads. These third party vendors generate leads and sell them to one or more insurance agents. Some of the well known lead providers are:
Lead Capture and Tracking
Once the lead sources are identified, capturing them in a central place and managing them proactively are the most critical steps in the lead conversion process. In the internet leads domain, SPEED is the determining factor to close the deal and win the customer.
The prospect should be contacted immediately (ideally within minutes). Note that the internet leads are provided to more than one agent by the vendor. Hence your competitors will be competing for the same prospect's deal.
Here are some important points to keep in mind:
Internet Leads
With the increasing use of internet leads and the practice of purchasing insurance leads from third party vendors, marketing automation and lead management functions have become all the more important. Even small, incremental improvements in these areas help the agents achieve significant increase in lead conversion.
You may generate internet leads through your own websites and blogs. Online advertising using Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising on Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines will be a critical component of your internet lead generation strategy.
Social media networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn helps in lead generation via online sources. However, your own online resources may be enough to feed your lead requirements. You need to use multiple sources to acquire prospects for your business, whether you are a single agent or an organization with multiple agents and locations.
Internet leads can be used for all insurance services including Home Insurance, Health / Medical Insurance, Life Insurance, Longterm Care (LTC) Insurance, Auto Insurance, Boat/ RV / MotorCycle Insurance, Renters Insurance, Commercial / Business Insurance, Mortgage Protection Insurance and Burial Insurance.
Insurance Lead Sources
There are several sources providing internet based insurance leads. These third party vendors generate leads and sell them to one or more insurance agents. Some of the well known lead providers are:
- NetQuote.Com
- AgentInsider.Com
- InsureMe.Com
- InsuranceLeads.Com
- AllWebLeads.Com
- ZipSearch.Com
- InsuranceLeadz.Com
Lead Capture and Tracking
Once the lead sources are identified, capturing them in a central place and managing them proactively are the most critical steps in the lead conversion process. In the internet leads domain, SPEED is the determining factor to close the deal and win the customer.
The prospect should be contacted immediately (ideally within minutes). Note that the internet leads are provided to more than one agent by the vendor. Hence your competitors will be competing for the same prospect's deal.
Here are some important points to keep in mind:
- Use the services of a good insurance lead capture and tracking software tool such as LeadPro.
- Capture the leads from various sources / channels into the lead management database system automatically without any manual intervention.
- Setup instant email alerts in the system, so that you can recieve the lead information on your smart phone and followup immediately, even if you are outside of your office.
- Make sure that the Drip Email Marketing Features of the lead management tool is leveraged to keep the prospective client engaged.
- Include your contact information in a drip email sent automatically as soon as the lead infomation arrives in the system.
- Track and log all the follow-up activities in the lead tracking system. This will help you to engage the prospect even after they become your client.
- You can use the tracking information and followup later using drip emails, even when the lead is not converted immediately. This process is known as Lead Nurturing.
- Leverage the Lead Analytics and Pipeline reports in the lead tracking system to analyze the lead conversion performance and make prompt follow-ups.
Friday, February 29, 2008
New version of LeadPro released
What a big relief! After multiple delays and several scope creeps, the new version of our LeadPro Email marketing suite has been released. While delays in any IT project is very common (remember the Standish Group's study showing that 70% of IT projects are not on time and budget), adding features and enhancements to a software product is much more unpredictable. With wish lists coming from every corner and marketing technology trend growing faster than the product maturity rate and customer absorption rate, at times the development project looked like a never ending one.
Now that the product is in customers' hands for real time use, the reliability tests results will be in any time! Like any other software, I am sure that there will be some who find shortage of features that would satisfy their business needs and some who will insist that unwanted features have been packed into the service, so that the menu will look rich! Finding a balance is the most difficult task in designing a software; whether it is a product or software as a service, it does not matter; the rules of the game remain the same.
Since LeadPro service is used by businesses of all sizes (right from home based businesses and mom and pop shops to mega corporations and nonprofit organizations), the problem of deciding the feature set is all the more difficult. We tried to follow some of the guidelines specified in the Getting Real : The smarter, faster, easier way to build a Web Application from the folks of 37signals.com. But it is easier said than done.
In the future columns, I intend to chronicle the customer feedback and how it shapes the next cycle of enhancements and technology updates. I would be happy to see your feedback on your experience with these sort of projects.
Now that the product is in customers' hands for real time use, the reliability tests results will be in any time! Like any other software, I am sure that there will be some who find shortage of features that would satisfy their business needs and some who will insist that unwanted features have been packed into the service, so that the menu will look rich! Finding a balance is the most difficult task in designing a software; whether it is a product or software as a service, it does not matter; the rules of the game remain the same.
Since LeadPro service is used by businesses of all sizes (right from home based businesses and mom and pop shops to mega corporations and nonprofit organizations), the problem of deciding the feature set is all the more difficult. We tried to follow some of the guidelines specified in the Getting Real : The smarter, faster, easier way to build a Web Application from the folks of 37signals.com. But it is easier said than done.
In the future columns, I intend to chronicle the customer feedback and how it shapes the next cycle of enhancements and technology updates. I would be happy to see your feedback on your experience with these sort of projects.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Web Analytics with Avinash Kaushik
I have become a great fan of Web Analytics and its importance for business community in this web centric world, after reading the blog postings of Avinash Kaushik (also known as Occam's Razor). For example, his recent posting regarding top management buy-in hits the nail right on. I am yet to read his book Web Analytics - An hour a Day, which has received rave reviews.
Many passionate web consultants and lower level managers know about the importance of Web Analytics and how it can drive the ROI, but struggle to convince the top managers. Kaushik's 'embarrass them by proving the analytics' advise will help them to reach their goal of getting an ear from their executives.
I have recently started playing with Google Analytics and using Compete.com for comparing competing web sites. It provides tons of data to go to the top management. It also helps the independent consultants to go to their customers with authoritative data in hand.
At my office, we encourage customers of our LeadPro email marketing and lead management service to use these wen analytics tools to analyze the landing pages. There is no meaning in bringing the visitors to your website and allowing them to turn back on the same page. We are also exploring other web analytics tools such as Core Metrics for integration with our email marketing suite.
Any thoughts on this subject are welcome!
Many passionate web consultants and lower level managers know about the importance of Web Analytics and how it can drive the ROI, but struggle to convince the top managers. Kaushik's 'embarrass them by proving the analytics' advise will help them to reach their goal of getting an ear from their executives.
I have recently started playing with Google Analytics and using Compete.com for comparing competing web sites. It provides tons of data to go to the top management. It also helps the independent consultants to go to their customers with authoritative data in hand.
At my office, we encourage customers of our LeadPro email marketing and lead management service to use these wen analytics tools to analyze the landing pages. There is no meaning in bringing the visitors to your website and allowing them to turn back on the same page. We are also exploring other web analytics tools such as Core Metrics for integration with our email marketing suite.
Any thoughts on this subject are welcome!
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