19 Aug The Ultimate Sales Recovery Guide for Health Insurance Leads
For most people, health insurance provides peace of mind. They know that should something untoward happen, they’ll be covered. Still, most people need to be assured that the product they sign up for is best suited to their needs.
Getting a customer to fully invest in health insurance can prove complex despite an influx of interested consumers. The U.S. insurance market has continued to steadily grow since 2009, with the value of insurance premiums estimated at $1.32 trillion in 2019.
Figures such as these prove there’s money to be made in insurance, yet many companies experience periods of stagnation due to lost health insurance leads. It’s often expensive to generate new leads, and when they don’t convert into profitable sales, it can prove problematic to health insurance companies. However, an effective sales recovery strategy can quash the negative impact placed on your company’s bottom line.
Recovering leads can seem like a daunting task. This guide will alert you to the many ways you can regain leads that have stalled through the sales funnel. It will also demonstrate how to go about positive lead generation and the other aspects of health insurance sales recovery that are crucial to note.
What a Typical Health Insurance Sales Funnel Looks Like
Typically, a health insurance sales funnel is a marketing term for a strategy that insurance companies use. They use a funnel to portray, evaluate, and execute the journey that potential consumers go through toward a potential purchase. Usually, this sales funnel will include three primary levels known as the top, middle, and bottom tiers, each representing its own function.
In recent years, many insurance companies have struggled with nurturing leads to ensure a sale is achieved. Businesses are experiencing firsthand the pain associated with losing a deal after weeks of dedicating time and effort to the various stages of a sales funnel.
Although this is somewhat common, it’s less likely to occur if you have the proper sales management help. By using the incredible advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and insurance software, you can generate sales automation health insurance leads easily and efficiently. A service like Aktify can significantly bridge the inconsistencies found in your sales funnel and guide you to better health insurance lead generation.
Top Tier: Attract Attention
The top tier describes the area where buyers become aware of a health insurance company, what it offers, what its values are, and what it stands for. At this tier, email advertising, social media channels, and strategic customer relationship management (CRM) tools play an incredibly vital role.
All content presented at this level will need to be customer-focused and shouldn’t solely highlight company data. Leads at the top tier aren’t ready to buy health insurance but are seriously considering your service. Potential consumer pain points, expectations, and needs must be evaluated while your company pitches its content.
Middle Tier: Capture and Nurture Leads
At the middle tier of the sales funnel, your company will nurture health insurance leads. All marketing tactics at this stage will focus on getting potential customers to engage with your content and consider signing up for your insurance.
Based on the content you’ve put forth, a prospect will evaluate what your company has to offer and assess whether it suits their needs. Consumers will look into your different pricing plans and packaging options. It’s crucial to continually follow up and avoid losing a connection with a prospective buyer during this stage.
Bottom Tier: Make the Sale
All your dedicated sales work will come to completion during the bottom tier stage. The efforts you presented in the top and middle tiers will have a significant impact on determining if your leads become sales. Should the leads stagnate and become lost, there are fortunately ways to recover them.
The bottom tier is the decision-making point and the stage where you will make a sale. Remember that you’ll need to continue to engage your potential customers even at this stage. Offer incentives and various value-added services to keep their attention, as these will help guarantee a sale.
Why the Health Insurance Sales Funnel Is Important
A sales funnel is crucial, as it helps your company understand consumers’ journeys from initial awareness through sales conversion. If you know what potential consumers are thinking and doing, you can invest in employing the proper marketing techniques and strategies. These suitable methods will ensure beneficial lead generation and prevent you from needing sales recovery procedures for your health insurance leads.
5 Ways Health Insurance Leads Are Typically Generated
People have many readily available options when it comes to choosing a health insurance company — it can be easy for a business to get lost among its competitors. That’s why it’s imperative to have a marketing plan that’s carefully planned and budgeted.
Lead generation should be one of the key aspects of your plan. Below are six ways health insurance leads are typically generated. Should you use these tactics, you’ll likely develop leads that become customers.
1. Responsive Websites
Google now primarily uses the mobile version of websites for indexing and ranking, including those in the health care and insurance industries. The more responsive, or mobile-friendly your website, the greater your chance of generating leads. Because Google cares about user experience, it will prioritize your site and rank it higher if it’s optimized for mobile users.
When your website has mobile-friendly content and imagery, you’ll generate more sales leads. Do people like the look of your site, and can they easily navigate it to learn what they need to know? If so, there’s a better chance of them reaching out to one of your sales consultants.
2. Optimization of Search Engine Results
Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t the only important strategy. You also need to have optimized content. Search engine optimization (SEO) in the health insurance industry is one of the best ways to generate leads. The better your content is optimized, the better you will rank, and the more people will see your service over your competitors.
However, it’s crucial to avoid the wrong SEO strategies. For example, keyword stuffing can negatively affect your rankings and prompt Google to place your competitors above you. On the other hand, the right SEO strategies, such as managing your site index and using reputable backlinks, will generate more leads.
3. Social Media Marketing
Social media advertising — organic and paid — is one of the best tools you can use to gain health insurance leads. Millions of people use sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter daily. Advertising on these social media platforms allows you to reach a broader audience.
If you use social media advertising correctly, you can alert consumers to what’s new with your business, initiate sign-up campaigns, and let people know when you run promotions or incentives. Professional social media marketing is one of the best ways for your company to introduce your service offerings and link to your website.
4. Face-to-Face Networking Events
Sometimes there’s no better strategy to generate new leads than to engage in face-to-face networking. Networking events are essential for bringing in new clients, and luckily you can do face-to-face networking virtually now. Many health insurance companies generate leads from networking events at trade shows, local fairs, charity events, and even school board meetings.
Networking at community events helps to make your business the go-to option when someone mentions health insurance. And you don’t have to stop there. Consider encouraging employees to network within their families and social groups. Motivate them to get in touch with their LinkedIn contacts and produce business cards that they can easily hand out whenever the occasion arises.
5. Cold Calling
One of the oldest ways that health insurance companies generate new leads is to participate in cold calling. Many businesses have dedicated call centers because cold calling is a proven technique in lead generation. Recently, cold calling has been used in combination with AI insurance software and has led to spikes in new leads that have become sales.
Some companies underestimate the power of cold calling, especially when considering small businesses. Statistically, smaller companies are often in need of competitive health insurance premiums for their employees. With the proper research and planning, you could execute a successful cold call.
When, Why, and How Health Insurance Leads Stall
Primarily, health insurance leads will stall because the content isn’t engaging enough or follow-up procedures fail. When consumers lose interest in your products, they won’t consider responding to your company’s emails, texts, or phone calls. Customers will also stall on closing a lead because:
- They can’t afford the health insurance premium you’re trying to sell.
- They don’t trust salespeople, or they feel uncomfortable communicating with them.
- They don’t think your product is worth the cost.
- They dislike you or don’t trust you as a person.
- They’re scared to take a chance on an insurance plan that might not benefit them.
Health insurance leads will often stall during the top or middle tier of your sales funnel — that’s why it’s imperative to pay special attention to these areas and the procedures that should be conducted.
However, you shouldn’t give up on stalled leads — there’s always a chance that you can revive some of them and still make a sale. There are specific, proven ways you can turn a stalled lead into a viable one.
7 Proven Sales Recovery Methods That Can Revive Stalled Leads
When a lead stalls, you likely ask yourself, “How do I recover it?” Luckily for companies and agents, there are a few sales recovery methods you can turn to for help.
Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t too arduous, nor does it require exhaustive efforts to recover and acquire health insurance leads from previous marketing efforts.
1. Nurture the Leads You Have
Despite a health insurance company’s best efforts, not every pitch to a lead yields a sale. Often, prospective consumers will listen to your pitch but ultimately tell you they aren’t ready to buy. This is why it’s crucial to nurture your leads. You would benefit immensely from starting a system that keeps your business at the forefront of people’s minds.
One of the best ways to do this is to produce blogs on your website that demonstrate your company’s expertise in the industry. Additionally, consider creating short educational videos that explain the different health insurance premiums and policies. Offering free webinars and sending out regular emails will also allow you to nurture sales until prospective clients are ready to close a deal.
2. Find a Different Access Point
Sometimes your lead could have stalled because you engaged with the wrong person within the company you targeted. If you suspect this happened to your lead, you can recover it even if the lead has turned cold.
Your next plan of action should be to reach out to someone you deem more suitable within the organization you’re targeting. Try to consult with a person who has greater decision-making power, as they’re your best chance of recovering the lead.
3. Implement Conversational AI
AI such as that engineered by Aktify can help generate conversations and recover leads. AI can help your business revive leads accurately and in a more cost-effective manner.
By implementing conversational AI, your company will understand customers better and learn why they’ve stalled on closing a deal. Additionally, AI software will analyze relevant data that your company has on potential consumers. With this analysis, customer behavior is better predicted, and you can better optimize price and product offerings based on a consumer’s preferences.
4. Tweak Your Sales Presentations
Sales are often stalled because leads have been approached incorrectly. Should your sales consultants have approaches that aren’t working, there are ways to address the issue.
For example, each consultant should analyze and track the objections they hear and determine when in the sales pitch they are meeting resistance. By understanding where they’re going wrong, they can prepare pitches that are better received.
Additionally, consultants should prepare lists of common objections they hear so they can understand and practice how to answer them. If a stalled lead was previously hesitant because they couldn’t get an answer they sought, you might now win them over.
5. Participate in Consistent Follow-Up
A common way health insurance leads are lost is through neglecting proper follow-up practices. Often, you’ll need to make multiple attempts at phoning or emailing a prospective customer before you manage to have a conversation with them. However, sometimes these leads aren’t followed up because of a prospect ignoring attempts to get in touch.
It’s crucial not to forget about initial follow-ups. It can be easy to forget about prospective clients who have only engaged with your content online or via email. However, even if a potential customer hasn’t shown a clear interest in purchasing your service, you should still follow through with getting in contact. They are still a lead.
6. Create a Sense of Buyer Urgency
In many instances, health insurance leads will stall because a customer doesn’t have any sense of urgency surrounding the product you’re selling. Realistically, most consumers have time to focus on only a few things in their life at any given time.
If you want to recover a stalled lead, make the health insurance product a priority. Try to make the potential client see the product as a necessity they need to focus on. Point out that every week or month that passes where they continue without your service will cost them money and add risk to their lives. If they sense this urgency, they may re-evaluate signing up.
7. Re-Evaluate Incentives
It’s not only the consumers’ reluctance that causes health insurance leads to stall. Often, specific incentives that place too much focus on generating leads could inhibit your customer acquisition statistics.
When all the effort of generating leads is focused on the top tier of a health insurance funnel, other tiers are neglected. Unfortunately, this means leads are never converted into opportunities, and your business loses out on paying customers.
To fix this issue, you can modify your goals, incentives, and bonuses. These revised tactics can reward you with deals that close.
Get In Contact With Aktify Today
With the right tools and marketing strategies in place, your company can recover lost leads and generate new ones effectively and efficiently. If you want your business to compete in the ever-changing health insurance market, consider utilizing the AI services supplied by Aktify. These tools, in combination with more traditional sales recovery techniques, will help your organization prosper.
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