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11 Tips for Landing the High-Quality Auto Insurance Leads

Lead Generation
May 17, 2022
7
minute read
Nectar Team
11 Tips for Landing the High-Quality Auto Insurance Leads

There are around 276 million vehicles in the United States — all of which either have, need, or are eligible for insurance. With this size of a market, there’s no shortage of leads. The question is, how do you identify high-value leads that can result in more business for your insurance company? Here’s how to generate the kinds of valuable auto insurance leads that you can parlay into paying clients.

Partner With Car Dealers

Getting insurance is a natural element of the vehicle-buying experience, so a great way to generate high-value leads is to partner with those who sell cars/auto dealers. One of the benefits of teaming up with a dealership is you get to ride the wave of an already successful selling process. By the time the customer is considering insurance options, they’ve already gone through an extensive shopping, test-driving, option-choosing process with that dealership. At some point, the dealership earned the customer’s trust — to the point that they spent thousands of dollars.

Even though you’re not in the room, you benefit from the trust their staff has already engendered in the customer. If your company tops the list of options, you can reap the rewards of the dealership’s hard work as the customer chooses your insurance to secure their investment.

Use an Online Insurance Marketplace

By connecting with an online insurance marketplace, you expose your company to what, for many people, is the first step in the auto-shopping experience: the internet. You also benefit from all the work that website has already put into its search engine optimization (SEO).

Say you create and market your own website (and you should). Still, even with great content and a ton of backlinks, it may take a long time for it to appear on the first page of a search engine’s results. On the other hand, existing insurance marketplaces are more likely to have the history, domain authority, high-quality content, videos, and backlinks that a page needs to appear high in search results. In addition, they also often invest in paid advertising, so they literally pay to help get you more leads.

Partner With Popular Websites

When you partner with a popular website that your target market is likely to visit, you can take advantage of their traffic and leverage it to generate more leads. Some good places to start would include:

  • Automotive sites
  • Dealership review sites
  • Regular review sites, such as CNET
  • Sites that sell vehicle accessories

If you’re trying to target a specific demographic, you can also aim to partner with sites they may tend to visit more than others. For example, AARP.com may be more likely to attract older visitors. And there may be sites of businesses or organizations in your target geographic area that get a lot of local traffic. Partnering with them can help ensure your auto insurance company is top of mind for local customers.

A partnership with an existing website can also get your company mentioned in blogs or among a list of other insurers in an insurance quote widget that appears on their pages.

Join a Local Auto Club

If you are genuinely passionate about a certain type of vehicle, you can join an auto club and use that as a way to meet potential leads. The key is to choose one that represents a vehicle you have a strong connection with, as opposed to just joining up because you want to get more leads.

For example, if you have a Mazda and found a Mazda auto club, you could apply for membership and attend a few events. At that point, you have your foot in the door, and you can leverage that position to score some high-quality leads. For instance, you can:

  • Ask if you can set up a booth at a local event, perhaps by paying a small fee.
  • Advertise on the club’s website.
  • Start a chat on the club’s discussion board about the best insurance options.

It’s important to be 100% transparent about your role if the topic of discussion — online or otherwise — shifts toward insurance. This way, you can earn the trust of your leads, who will likely respect the fact that you were forthcoming even when you could’ve kept your interest under wraps.

Advertise in Local or Chain Gas Stations

The more exposure your advertising gets, the more leads it ultimately generates. Placing ads at gas stations puts your offering and branding front and center for many drivers every day.

To get the most out of gas station placement for your ads, you may want to:

  • Position your ads at pumps your target market is likely to use (if the station allows). For instance, if you’re aiming for truck drivers, you could place your ads at diesel pumps.
  • If you want your ad to be the first one they see when they arrive, ask the station manager if you can place it where the flow of traffic makes it easy to see as they enter the station.
  • People often go to stations to grab a quick snack or other supplies for the road, so consider multiple placements — at pumps and in areas where people will see them as they make other purchases.

Sponsor or Participate in Local Auto Shows

Auto show participants and fans are a prime target market especially because they’ve often put a lot into their vehicles — monetarily and emotionally — and want to protect their investment with insurance. If you participate in a local auto show, you can ask if you’d be able to put a small display next to any cars you bring. If that’s not a possibility, you can simply pass out business cards or other advertising collateral to folks you meet.

When you sponsor an auto show, you have already paid for the right to advertise your insurance company. You may get a booth or a specific area to make use of however you see fit. The organizers may also offer you the chance to put up signs or pass out swag or other material you can use to create awareness.

The key is to use this as an opportunity to differentiate your insurance company or services by presenting what truly makes them unique. This way, attendees will be more likely to appreciate your advertising instead of merely dismissing it.

Use Social Media

Even though random direct messages on social media platforms may not generate a lot of leads, you can find people complaining about their auto insurance experience and offer to help. These may be motivated buyers looking to switch to a better company.

The key is to be specific as you contact potential leads. For example, if someone is going through a difficult or slow claims process, you can tweet to them about how efficient your claims process is, perhaps using a specific stat. For instance, you can say, “On average, our claims process takes about a week and a half. How does that sound?” In this way, you can use platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and even Reddit and LinkedIn to present a solution to drivers when they need it most.

Connect With Driving Schools

People attending driving schools may have a car purchase in mind. Or they may already have a vehicle but be considering a change in their insurance. Like partnering with a car dealership, a connection with a driving school puts you in front of people who have insurance at the forefront of their minds.

If you offer insurance for people with less-than-perfect driving records, a partnership with a driver re-education school may be a wise strategic choice. Some of these drivers may be worried about whether they can even get insurance, as well as how much it would cost. Addressing these pain points while your target market is mulling them over puts you in a great position to grab some highly motivated leads.

Put an Insurance Quote Widget on Your Website

A quote widget is an easy way to grab potential leads while simultaneously making the quote process simple for them. A web designer can easily put pre-existing widgets on your site. That way, when a lead visits that page, they can enter basic info, such as their ZIP code, and start the quote process. The widget can be set up to only forward leads that have answered certain questions, such as, “When would you like to purchase insurance?” In this way, your leads get vetted for you.

If you want a more involved quoting process with custom questions, you can ask your web developer to customize the customer interaction according to your desired business flow. For instance, if you want users' contact information to be harvested as soon as they’ve entered it, you can specify that in the inner workings of the widget. On the other hand, if you only want leads who have entered information about the kind of vehicle they have, you can set that. This makes it easier for whoever reaches out to them to engage in a well-informed conversation about their insurance needs.

Advertise on Takeout Food Packaging and Menus

Ads on takeout food packaging can be an easy, inexpensive way of getting leads. You can pay to have your ad included in their packaging or on their menu, or you may be able to save a little by offering to pay their printing costs. If you opt for the latter, you may want to ask for significantly more space, especially because you don’t want your ad to be outshined by a competitor's.

To get the most out of this strategy, it's a good idea to target restaurants that are close to your place of business. This way, when they see your storefront, they’ll be more likely to connect it with the ad they read while tackling a terrific taco.

With this kind of advertising, you may be able to grab the eyes of thousands of people with a relatively low investment.

This article reflects the features of Nectar as of the date of publication. Features are subject to change at any time. This article is meant for informational purposes only, it is not a guarantee that using Nectar will help you achieve specific business or financial results and is not intended to serve as the sole recommendation for any business financial decisions.

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