How Insurance Agents Can Get New Leads Through Contests

Figuring out how insurance agents can get new leads can be challenging, especially since the right marketing idea can come in a number of different forms, including contests. A contest is a great idea to gain interaction with a website or product, and if the prize is right, the attention generated by the contest is worth the cost. However, once the insurance agent has decided to run a contest, how is the contest supposed to be run? The idea is the easiest part; the execution is where expertise is necessary.

People will enter contests through email when the reward is something that truly interests them. When the prize is something such as a comprehensive insurance quote, a free piece of promotional material or a gift card, people will want to enter. Retrieving an email through a contest is easy, especially if it helps contestants feel that they do not have to be present to win. Contestants hate waiting in one spot, they would much rather receive an email or phone call to find out if they’ve won.

1. Caption This!

Customers love caption contests, especially on social network sites or in newsletters. Offer a prize for the person who picks the funniest caption for an image you provide. The image can be a stock image of a funny insurance agency situation, but it’s better to take a picture yourself and post it or send it through email.

Self-generated images are better for intellectual rights reasons and for generating more attention to the agency. While the image needs to be professional, it can still be comical. Perhaps a candid of someone making a strange face or a part of the office that needs to be redecorated would work. Encourage existing customers to share the image, and include the general public in the contest to grab attention from non-customers.

Customers can be encouraged to send their submissions by email when the insurance agent communicates that winners will only be contacted by email. Additionally, contest submissions can be sent by email to collect email addresses from non-customers.

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 2. Make Fun of Yourself

Encourage customers to send in the best insurance joke they can find or make up themselves. Encourage customers to keep it clean, get help from their non-customer friends or family, and send the jokes to your marketing department for editing. Never post anything to social media or email something to customers without first reading what it says. While you trust your customers to keep jokes clean, one person’s idea of tasteful could be your company’s idea of an image buster.

Encourage your customers to have fun with you through contests, but monitor their activity. It is, after all, your reputation at stake, so protect it. This type of contest can be prefaced by stating that only the best five jokes will be shared in a future email, but only if participants provide their email.

3. Give It Away

Announce on social media or through an email that you will give away X amount of dollars if a certain amount of people call in for quotes in a pre-determined amount of time. This contest makes your company look benevolent and grabs attention for your insurance brand. When the participants call in for the quote, collect emails as part of the standard demographic collecting portion of the call. Tell the participants that their quote will be emailed to them for their convenience and record keeping.

The contest will need to be announced, then re-announced, throughout the allotted time period. For example, if you devote $10,000 to a local charity for 100 quotes over 5 days, you’ll have to update existing customers with the progress of the contest. Additionally, you’ll need someone available to handle an extra call load, because hopefully, the promotion will attract a high number of new customers. This contest is advantageous for your overall image, but it is time consuming and demands a higher amount of attention.

4. Trivia Contests

People love trivia; it challenges their minds and makes them feel smart. Post trivia questions to social media and offer a prize for the first correct response. Make the trivia insurance related, challenging and interesting to your followers. This will keep customers engaged and encourage them to share the questions with others. After the first person gets the correct question, ask for his or her email to send him or her more information about the prize. This is the slowest method of email collection, but it is worth it both for social media attention and for daily email collection.

The challenge for the insurance agent in this contest is finding the questions and monitoring the responses. The advantage of this contest is to further educate customers. After the first correct answer is posted, congratulate the winner and explain why that answer is correct. Customers will appreciate the information and will share the efforts with their non-customer friends.

Remember, that no matter what sort of contest you run, just remember to have an end goal or result in mind. Running the contest through Facebook and email is a great way to help cross-pollinate your social media fans to your email list and vice versa. Also, by having all your submissions routed through email, you’ll accomplish two things: you’ll add new contacts to your email list and you’ll be able to clean up your current list by updating customer records. And as a bonus, these contests can have a very positive impact on the image of your brand. It’ll help make you more social and approachable, and ultimately help you build a stronger relationship with your policyholders.