Quality or Quantity when It Comes to Direct Mail Leads

[winchester49]

Is it better to purchase a generic FE mailer and spend $600 to get a guarantee 20 leads which doesn't mention insurance in the mailer or a more specific mailer that mentions insurance once or twice plus the 255 social security amount given but the return is in the low single digits.
Need some advice because it appears that marketing will be very expensive.

 

[deadhead]

Quantity because the quality depends on the agent

 

[Newby]

Is it better to purchase a generic FE mailer and spend $600 to get a guarantee 20 leads which doesn't mention insurance in the mailer or a more specific mailer that mentions insurance once or twice plus the 255 social security amount given but the return is in the low single digits. Need some advice because it appears that marketing will be very expensive.

The main thing is to mail to the right people. Ages 60+. Low income but not completely impoverished (unless you are great at getting money from people who have no money.)

What the lead says makes very little difference unless it clearly spells out that an insurance agent will be meeting with you and that verbiage kills responses.

Anything that mentions the $255 Social Security benefit is meant to mislead and sound like a free government benefit regardless of how many times it says life insurance on it. But it raises response rates.

Go with whatever lead gets you the most responses as long as they are retirement age and not impoverished but not too wealthy either.

Most agents are getting at least 1.25% returns when mailing to the right people. You can increase that % by mailing to the wrong people but that won't usually increase sales.

 

[winchester49]

Thanks for your input Newby. I'm new at this and I'm trying to get best bang for the buck.

 

[smokin goose]

Thanks for your input Newby. I'm new at this and I'm trying to get best bang for the buck.

Travis Tubbs spelled out what type of lead card to use and why on Friday's conference call. But you have to be part of FEX Contracting to learn the secrets.

 

[pbbaseball]

There are right reasons to use full disclosure, and right reasons to use the 255 mailer. I ve had some agents with little experience that need the full disclosure mailer, because the only ones they are gonna sell are the ones that know its for life, and are basically begging for it.

Others need the 255, because they need to get over the learning curve by seeing as many people as possible. Experiment with both to see what you need, but make sure you are always saving some of your commissions to put back into marketing, because with this business, the more you spend the more you make. If you do that, you ll look at 600 shortly, and feel like that's a drop in the bucket when you know what your rate of return will be.

 

[Newby]

There are right reasons to use full disclosure, and right reasons to use the 255 mailer. I ve had some agents with little experience that need the full disclosure mailer, because the only ones they are gonna sell are the ones that know its for life, and are basically begging for it. Others need the 255, because they need to get over the learning curve by seeing as many people as possible. Experiment with both to see what you need, but make sure you are always saving some of your commissions to put back into marketing, because with this business, the more you spend the more you make. If you do that, you ll look at 600 shortly, and feel like that's a drop in the bucket when you know what your rate of return will be.

What does the full disclosure mailer look like?

I'm testing some leads this month that clearly say life insurance in bold print in the first sentence. I still have just as many think it's free life insurance from the government as any other lead.

The only full disclosure I can think of is some I dropped when I was young and green with my picture as the insurance agent that was going to meet with you. That one came up snake eyes. And I was young and purty back then.

 

[pbbaseball]

If u look on my site under the leads tab, Mutual of omaha has some, which don t pull a great return rate, but when people fill it out, they know what they are filling out. Oxfords mailers get decent returns, and clearly say life insurance all over the mailer. Usually the carrier specific are the full disclosure that I use. Of course I don t always sell that carrier, but it weeds out the people that just filled the card out for no reason. Sometimes I like them because you are getting right to the point when I drop in on them.

The med supp full disclosure usually work well too.

 

[winchester49]

to those experienced agents, thank you for your help. My first 1000 drop yielded 4 leads and my second 1000 drop yielded 1 lead. Now this card mentioned life insurance and the 255 soc. sec. benefit. I almost quit this business before I made my first call, but I tried 2000 more of the generic leads which mentions final expense and get literature to see if you qualify.
This has yielded 28 leads so far, so I,m more encouraged. I actually start running leads this week and I'll see what the results are. It looks like this business will require a 25% marketing cost if I can close 20% to 25% of the leads I receive. Do you guys feel these percentages are accurate. Also, how many live appointments do you guys run per week and what is your closing ratio if you care to disclose it. Thanks for your input.