Health Insurance Underwriter

A CRM is more than just a database or address book. It’s a sales-oriented program that helps you stay on top of your leads and prospects.

How do they help you work better and sell more health insurance?

Only a handful of CRM programs are designed specifically for health insurance agents. One such CRM tool— BrokerOffice—keeps all your lead contact information and your sales brochure online for easy access.

You no longer need an admin to set appointments, e-mail a reminder or pull a file to get contact info about your prospects. It’s all online, and you can access it from nearly anywhere in the world.

There’s also no need to manually input any leads, because CRMs like BrokerOffice will automatically in put leads generated by your website-embedded quote engine. They’ll even import leads you purchase from third-party providers.

Automated Drip Marketing

Experienced agents know that not all leads are ready to close right away. Many need time. Sadly, most agents are forced to permanently abandon those long-term leads so they can focus on their most ready prospects.

The key to converting those long-term leads is drip marketing. This strategy requires sending a periodic stream of marketing messages to stay in touch with prospects. Larger companies employ whole marketing teams for this task.

One-person agencies can achieve similar results with little effort using an automated drip marketing program such as an e-mail autoresponder. You set the mailing schedule at the beginning, and your autoresponder does all the work to keep you in touch with thousands of unclosed leads at a time.

With an autoresponder such as LeadMiner, you can even get personalized pricing updates embedded in each e-mail. Each lead can then receive monthly reminders with a note about the current premiums on the plan they previously selected.

And when they’re finally ready to complete an application, your drip-marketing e-mails will help to ensure that your contact information, up-to-date quotes and e-application link will be at their fingertips.

Delaying The Hiring Decision

The biggest cost factor with any agency’s growth plan is normally the expense of hiring additional sales and admin help to handle the extra volume. The traditional way of running an agency required more people and money to build up and maintain their lead pipeline, as well as more of the same to convert them into submitted apps.

Technology and the Web help agents delay that hiring decision. Together, the above tools are a substitute for an expensive team of administrative assistants and sales agents. It’s a virtual staff that can be available 24 hours a day—without complaint or pay.

Jeremiah Desmarais is vice president of marketing at Norvax, a company whose Web-based tools help insurance agents consistently increase productivity. He is the recipient of nine awards for his online marketing and design initiatives.

He is also editor of the Norvax Newsletter, which delivers sales articles, tips and marketing strategies to 15,000+ insurance agents monthly. Jeremiah is also a contributor to the Agent’s Sales Journal and Broker World, and a guest speaker at various carrier events and workshops. He is a member of the Society of Industry Leaders. For more information, visit www.norvax.com or call 866-466-7829.