Insurance Agent Web Power

PPC, through Google AdWords or Bing, seems like an easy way to gain visibility and acquire insurance leads on the web.  Those of us who have managed pay-per-click campaigns have long known just how expensive insurance related keywords can be.  Google lives and dies (and least right now) on the health of their paid search services (AdWords, AdSense).  And apparently, a significant amount of Google’s second quarter revenues resulted from insurance agencies and companies bidding for insurance related terms.

Most Expensive PPC Keywords

Of course, cost-per-click is only part of the cost-per-lead story.  Well crafted (i.e., tested) ad copy coupled with effective ad landing pages might generate one lead for every 4 or 5 click-throughs.  But just because someone clicks on your PPC ad doesn’t necessarily mean they fill out your form.  Those that do become leads.  At the top end CPC of $54.91 for insurance terms, the best case scenario for cost-per-lead would be in the $200 to $250 range.  If your insurance agency’s quote to conversion rate is 25% then actual customer acquisition costs for PPC would be up around $1,000.  If your ad and landing page are not well crafted and lead quality or inconsistent sales management result in lower ultimate conversion costs, then customer acquisition costs could easily be $2,000 or more.

So, does PPC make sense for your insurance agency?  It certainly makes sense for Google.  It might make sense for your insurance agency as well, considering that most agency customers stay on board over several renewals.  If annual average commission is high enough, the lifetime customer value might justify the lead cost through PPC.  But cash flow would take years to balance out – not every agency can take a hit to cash flow that won’t be recovered for several years.

Infographic:  WordStream

There is a relatively new twist on squeeze pages courtesy of the evolution of Facebook as a business marketing tool.  Squeeze pages, for those of us who may not be familiar with the term, are those web pages that require you to give up your email address, and sometimes other contact information, in exchange for something of value.

Where insurance is concerned, that something of value is generally content – a ‘free’ download’ or access to something on otherwise protected web pages – white papers, top ten tips, and so forth.  I’m not a big fan of squeeze pages, though they do have their place.  But before I go into that, let me address the variation on squeeze pages, as seen on Facebook – so called, Reveal Pages.

Reveal Pages

Instead of ‘squeezing’ an email address out of you, the reveal page spin usually requires you to ‘like’ a business Facebook page before ‘revealing’ the content on the other side.  Revealed content is typically the same as found on squeeze landing pages – free PDF downloads or access to other web content.  Often, on Facebook reveal pages, the new ‘liker’ is entered into a contest of some type.  The visitor is also in more control when it comes to reveal pages, since their Facebook ‘like’ can be revoked with a one click ‘unlike’.

The Key to Making Squeeze Pages Work

The point of both squeeze and reveal pages is to capture contact information – leads, basically, with the traditional squeeze page, a new member of your social media community with reveal pages.  These approaches are used to gather names, phone numbers, and email addresses for further follow up.  Step one in the reveal page scenario is simply the requirement of a ‘like’.  But the reveal page can still require the visitor give up their contact info, just like on a traditional squeeze page, and reveal pages often do just that.  But often the quality of these leads gained through squeeze and reveal pages are poor – bogus phone numbers and special email addresses used just for squeeze pages, abound.

And in some cases, the perceived value of the ‘valuable information’ just isn’t there.  Insurance agency squeeze pages usually come in the form of the ‘seven secrets for saving money on your auto policy’ or some such.  The problem with these ploys is that the information used extract contact information is readily available other places on the web.  The majority of consumers, if  the ‘seven secrets’ are really of interest, will just ask Google to take them to some other website.

But my biggest issue with squeeze and reveal pages aren’t in the pages themselves, my biggest objection has to do with sometimes misplaced priorities.  Most agents don’t get enough visitors to their websites or fans for their Facebook pages.  Quality content is fundamental to solving both challenges, but that content has to be free if traffic is to be active.  So often, unless your insurance agency is in a position to produce a lot of quality content for the web, or have some really exclusive information, content is probably better off published on the web with free and with open access.

I have noted with interest how consistently consumer-marketing savvy insurance companies use numbers to substantiate their sales propositions.  Independent insurance agents will sometimes do so as well, sometimes citing combined years of insurance experience, for example.  It turns out that those numeric citations are all important to maximizing on-page web conversions.

No One Pays More When They Switch Their Insurance?  Insurance Agencies Need to Quantify Value Propositions

Well, almost nobody pays more.  We’ve all seen the ads touting how much money some insurance company has saved their customers.  For instance:

Progressive:  You could save over $500 on car insurance.
Nationwide:  Save up to $43 every month.
State Farm:  …save $489 on your car insurance.

Independent insurance agents can make the same kind of claims as the large companies with the large advertising budgets for the same reason the large insurance companies make claims of savings – few people switch insurance unless savings are involved.  And agents do make claims of savings -  just not in the same way.  Agents more often make claims in qualitative terms.  Consider these excerpts from some otherwise attractive insurance agency websites:

Independent Agency #1:  Our agents work hard to provide you with the best protection at the best price.

Independent Agency #2:  Our goal is to make sure your family has the best protection at the lowest price.

Independent Agency #3:  We’ve got you covered — at a price you can afford!

Quantitative assertions are far more compelling.  As Marketing Experiments pointed out during their recent home page optimization clinic, people tend to be more skeptical about qualitative assertions.  In a sense, using quantitative statements to back up your value claim ‘proves’ that proposition – at least to a skeptical, page-skimming website visitor.  And that credibility increases web conversions.

Value Statements Aren’t Just About Lower Insurance Premiums

Quantitative support for value propositions, can and should extend to every facet of your agency’s value proposition – especially on the web.  Again, here’s a few more examples from the insurance companies with consumer-marketing chops.

So…you say you are ‘experienced’…how experienced?

GMAC:  …our experience.  More than 60 years of it…

Allstate:  …the support of 75+ years of experience.

You want me to believe that the insurance purchase process is easy?  Tell me *exactly* how easy.

Progressive:  Get rate and coverage options in about 6 minutes.

Here are a few opportunities missed, gleaned from independent insurance agency websites:

Independent Agency #1:  …finding insurance has never been easier.

If you are like me, you probably find yourself asking ‘easier than what?’  Here’s an alternative:  ‘In less time than it takes to make a grilled cheese sandwich, you could save $439 on your car insurance.’  Even though this statement doesn’t provide an explicit quantification of *easier*, we all have an idea that making a grilled cheese sandwich doesn’t take very long.  And given the option of whipping up a gooey cheese delight or saving $439…well, I know what I would pick.

Independent Agency #2:  …we can search more insurance carriers than your typical Agency.

How many companies can your *typical* insurance agency search?  How many companies can your agency search?  The numbers that answer these questions substantiate the claim that Agency #2 can actually save a consumer money.  Without some values illustrating the difference, any claims the agency might make based on superior carrier choice seem thin.

Independent Agency #3:  We value the business of all of our clients; you are not just a number.

Of course you value all your clients, but how do I know your clients feel valued?  It wouldn’t take much effort to implement a survey and quantify how valued your clients feel.  It would be a lot more compelling to be able to say that ’95% of our clients rate their service experience as excellent.’  Confluency Solutions includes a survey tool (and a default insurance service survey form) as part of insurance agency website admin so agents can quantify client happiness.  But there are plenty of free or inexpensive survey tools available, like Survey Monkey, so that any agency can quantify the satisfaction of clients.

Here are some other ideas to help quantify agency value propositions:

• Expertise – the percentage of agency staff with advanced designations like CPCU or CIC.
• Community Involvement – Number of times staff volunteered for community or charitable events.
• Superior Protection  – percent of occasions when the agency was able to increase liability limits while reducing or keeping premiums level.

Arriving at numbers like these for your agency may involve some extra work, but not much.  And the improvement in website conversions and sales will be well worth the effort.