Article by Dr Billy R Williams
CEO and Founder of Inspire a Nation Business Mentoring
If you want to really understand why the internet leads you were purchasing (or are currently purchasing) are so crappy, join me as I interview insurance lead industry insider Tom Shriver former VP of National Sales for NetQuote and BankRate.
You will be shocked when you finally understand why you are really losing market share and customers to the direct writers and call center driven carriers, and why you are paying more for internet leads even though the quality seems to get worse on a daily basis.
If you are like me, most of my agency partners, and many of the Inspire a Nation Business Mentoring members, you walked away from real time internet leads a few years back.
The lead quality was horrendous and the ROI was just not worth the time and effort.
By now you probably know some of the story of why internet leads went to hell in a hand basket, but just in case you don’t, let me give you a quick checklist of what happened.
Once marketers realized how much money there was in the real time internet lead space, everybody and their family starting creating online forms to generate leads. They used every trick in the book from IPod giveaways to free vacation signups just to get a name, email address, and some basic information that could be sold to an internet lead provider and then sold to insurance agents.
BankRate started purchasing internet lead providers like InsuranceQuotes.com, InsureMe, NetQuote.com, Insweb and InsuranceAgents.com to name a few.
As more and more internet lead providers were purchased, the lead quality seemed to get worse instead of better and lead prices went up (in my opinion)
BankRate rebranded their insurance division as insurancequotes.com
Insurancequotes.com was purchased by AllWeb Leads which had already purchased insuranceleads.com
All of these mergers caused confusion, reduced service, poor lead quality and higher lead prices. Some agents were buying leads from 3 different lead providers that were all part of the same company and pipeline without ever knowing it.
Even though companies like LeadID could provide a lead certification technology platform that could give a very close estimate of a prospect’s credit score, likelihood to answer a contact attempt, and other information, only call center driven carriers and direct writers like Geico and Progressive seemed to take advantage of the technology. Their market share has increased by almost $9 Billion since 2009 and lead certification technology is a major factor in that growth.
But what about the individual agents that could only purchase $200/month in leads instead of $100,000/month? They received the leftover, noncertified, crappy leads . . . until now!
Join me as I introduce you to Tom Shriver former VP of National Sales for NetQuote and Bankrate and his new lead broker company “Thecompletelead.com.
Remember that lead certification technology I mentioned earlier that the call center driven carriers and direct writers are utilizing to kick our butts? Tom has brought that level of lead certification to everyday agents struggling to compete in the insurance industry.
Join our Insurance Agents United Webinar to learn how to avoid this scenario and begin building a stream of qualified exclusive leads for a fraction of the cost of buying ineffective leads