Mailers for Homeowners

[joshb]

I've done them, though I did the letters myself.
For me, I got about a 1% response rate, with a 75% close ratio on the responses. My actual out the door cost, including postage, ink, paper, envelopes, data, etc, was $0.49, give or take a half a cent.

To do a 1000, it would cost me $500. I did send them out standard mail.

Figure I would get about 10 responses (sometimes a bit better, sometimes worse), I'd sell 7. Total commissions would be around $750-$800. It was a lot of work for very little return. (This assumes about $100 commission per policy written, remembering that the way you are selling these are by saving them money, frequently with a high deductible).

Then, all of the foreclosures started to happen. My response rate went down and some of the business I wrote was going south. I quit sending the letters.

The trick to getting any response is controlling the list they are sent to. Some simple rules:
- Homeowners only
- List scrubbed against NCOA (National change of address). No sense sending it if they have moved.
- Ideally, people who have lived in their house 5 years or less. Longer than that, the response rate will diminish greatly.
- Middle class neighborhoods. Affluent will have a low response rate.
- If possible, married homeowners, in between 30-55.
- Houses only (skip townhomes, condos, mobile homes, etc).
- The mail piece has to be actionable, not just 'call me'. Mine were actual quotes based on public record data.

Dan

I like your "tricks". I am in Florida, and send out mailers as well. I mention Florida because we are very different down here. I typically send to retirement communties once the snowbirds have returned for Winter. It seems that the elderly read every piece of mail in full detail and after sending out about 500-700 we will get roughly 100-200 calls and we close a lot of that business, probably 70-80% (I don't have the exact figures, as the data is not in front of me). We always try to cross sell every time and in the retirement communties we are very successful at cross selling them with Auto and personal Umbrellas.

 

[LocalSEO]

1-2% response? No offense guys, but you may want to look into other areas on online advertising in your targeted area. It's the way the world is going. I'm sure you could get targeted clients in your area, who are looking for you, at a cheaper rate through online advertising techniques.

 

[djs]

Really? Cool. Of course, I assume you are stating facts, not personally biased opinions with little proof or experience in homeowners marketing to back it up.

Dan

 

[LocalSEO]

Really? Cool. Of course, I assume you are stating facts, not personally biased opinions with little proof or experience in homeowners marketing to back it up.

Dan

i have not done homeowners marketing, but this is just the trend with marketing in general. It's shifting online due to mobile phones, Wifi, and internet access being almost everywhere now days.

While the total amount of potential leads at 1 time is less, with the work I've done in the past I feel like online could lead to a much higher conversion percent. After all, you would be optimizing to "chicago health insurance" as an example. That means that when people search for chicago health insurance, you could be a top result for a more targeted keyword because not only are they 1) looking for health insurance, but they are also located in your targeted area 2) chicago.

Obviously this is just my opinion, but my clients have been using this along side the cold calling/mailing and have said they are seeing benefits.

 

[joshb]

1-2% response? No offense guys, but you may want to look into other areas on online advertising in your targeted area. It's the way the world is going. I'm sure you could get targeted clients in your area, who are looking for you, at a cheaper rate through online advertising techniques.

We pay about $200 to send out about $500 mailers. if we speak to 100 customers and sign up 75% of those that we talk to, I would say its working pretty good. We are more than likely going to get multiple policies for quite a bit of those customers, so I would say maybe $100 in commission per customer. It paid for itself plus much more. Like I posted in my previous post, we advertise and send mailers to retirement communities; a lot of those people are not up with the rest of the world and on the internet, and as a matter of fact a lot of them don't even have email addresses.

 

[LocalSEO]

We pay about $200 to send out about $500 mailers. if we speak to 100 customers and sign up 75% of those that we talk to, I would say its working pretty good. We are more than likely going to get multiple policies for quite a bit of those customers, so I would say maybe $100 in commission per customer. It paid for itself plus much more. Like I posted in my previous post, we advertise and send mailers to retirement communities; a lot of those people are not up with the rest of the world and on the internet, and as a matter of fact a lot of them don't even have email addresses.

I must have missed the 75% part, sorry about that. Yes, that is definitely good then. Also, good points at then end about the lack of internet and email addresses. I guess it just depends upon your target clientele as to which way is best to approach them.

 

[djs]

Trust me, I get internet marketing. I've done a lot of it in my life. Problem is, as with all marketing methods, your audience is defined by your method.

The problem with trying to market homeowners via the internet is that in general, the internet is passive marketing. It is rare that someone actually shops their homeowners insurance and then when they do, you have to compete against the lead generation companies to get the lead info.

I'm listed in the top of google for the town my office is in. I probably have never gotten a homeowners lead from that ranking. (this is the local business listings).

So now, the question is, if people are not searching for you, how do you attract them? In the internet world, this is usually accomplished by banner ads, which is still hard to do for home owners policies (even health has its challenges).

Well timed direct mail has the potential of hitting the client about the one time a year they might think about their home insurance. I'm always up for a new method, especially since direct mail is fading out quick, but I've tried internet marketing home insurance, it hasn't been that successful.

Auto can be done. A larger audience that usually pays monthly with more things that trigger a buying event. Health can be done somewhat, but people shop health insurance online after an event that they needed to have health insurance for.

Internet marketing is great for a lot of things, but homeowners insurance is one of those items that almost has to be a bit disruptive, definitely not passive. Life insurance pretty much falls into this category as well.

Dan

 

[joshb]

Trust me, I get internet marketing. I've done a lot of it in my life. Problem is, as with all marketing methods, your audience is defined by your method.

The problem with trying to market homeowners via the internet is that in general, the internet is passive marketing. It is rare that someone actually shops their homeowners insurance and then when they do, you have to compete against the lead generation companies to get the lead info.

I'm listed in the top of google for the town my office is in. I probably have never gotten a homeowners lead from that ranking. (this is the local business listings).

So now, the question is, if people are not searching for you, how do you attract them? In the internet world, this is usually accomplished by banner ads, which is still hard to do for home owners policies (even health has its challenges).

Well timed direct mail has the potential of hitting the client about the one time a year they might think about their home insurance. I'm always up for a new method, especially since direct mail is fading out quick, but I've tried internet marketing home insurance, it hasn't been that successful.

Auto can be done. A larger audience that usually pays monthly with more things that trigger a buying event. Health can be done somewhat, but people shop health insurance online after an event that they needed to have health insurance for.

Internet marketing is great for a lot of things, but homeowners insurance is one of those items that almost has to be a bit disruptive, definitely not passive. Life insurance pretty much falls into this category as well.

Dan

Dan, what part of the country are you in? I am in Florida and we have people calling us all day long from our website about home insurance. I guess it really depends on where your located. Not to mention State Farm, Horace Mann, and Nationwide are helping us by canceling so many in our area and if they aren't canceling they are raising rates.

 

[djs]

I'm in California Bay Area. Florida is a unique case, with massive cancellations and weird rating issues, it is causing a great event to sell home policies, if you have a place to put them.

A while back we had a similar (albeit, much smaller) run after Katrina and some wild fires. Allstate quit writing, issuing rate increases and some carriers dropped out of any thing close to a SHIA (special hazard) zone.

I wish State Farm would pull out of the home market in California. Isn't going to happen that I can tell, but it would improve my business.

Dan

 

[LocalSEO]

Trust me, I get internet marketing. I've done a lot of it in my life. Problem is, as with all marketing methods, your audience is defined by your method.

The problem with trying to market homeowners via the internet is that in general, the internet is passive marketing. It is rare that someone actually shops their homeowners insurance and then when they do, you have to compete against the lead generation companies to get the lead info.

I'm listed in the top of google for the town my office is in. I probably have never gotten a homeowners lead from that ranking. (this is the local business listings).

So now, the question is, if people are not searching for you, how do you attract them? In the internet world, this is usually accomplished by banner ads, which is still hard to do for home owners policies (even health has its challenges).

Well timed direct mail has the potential of hitting the client about the one time a year they might think about their home insurance. I'm always up for a new method, especially since direct mail is fading out quick, but I've tried internet marketing home insurance, it hasn't been that successful.

Auto can be done. A larger audience that usually pays monthly with more things that trigger a buying event. Health can be done somewhat, but people shop health insurance online after an event that they needed to have health insurance for.

Internet marketing is great for a lot of things, but homeowners insurance is one of those items that almost has to be a bit disruptive, definitely not passive. Life insurance pretty much falls into this category as well.

Dan

First off, thanks for the great post. I really appreciate post like this because it educates me. Obviously I don't sell insurance, so this give me an inside look as to what is also working for you guys so I can better my current clients.

I'm curious though, what all methods of internet marketing have you tried? Have you done a good amount of keyword research on the best keywords for your business in your area? I'm not trying to force anything, just asking this out pure curiosity so I can further educate myself.

If you wouldn't mind PMing me I'd be interested to talk more so I can get a better understanding of how to approach my current and future insurance clients. BTW, good to see you are touching all areas of marketing, quite a few businesses miss out on potential clients. I do cold calling and mailing for my business as well, except I tend to get a much better conversion on Face to face sales (obviously you guys cannot do as easily since you don't know your direct client location).