Marketing and Advertising

[PatrickJoseph]

HELLO ! another day, another dollar....its a new year so im looking for new ways to write business..internet leads are still my main source of "new" traffic, but i am looking to advance my knowledge on the internet and have a prosperous year!

I currently do not have a website as I have felt in previous years that spending my money on leads would bring forth a higher ROI....

for those of you that have bought leads in the past and currently use your website to generate your OWN leads... is it worth it?

Is paying for and maintaining a website worth the time and effort over paying $10.00 per lead?

Let me know if anybody has success generating business for themselves rather than purchasing leads...I'm not looking to run a call center over here, I only purchase real-time leads...im not looking to buy aged leads

 

[DSInsurance]

How long have you been in the industry? How has your retention been with internet leads only?

 

[Josh]

Your own website is no substitute for buying leads, but it can be a way to get more qualified leads that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to get. You also will probably have more credibility as an agent if you have a decent website which will probably pay for itself.

 

[PatrickJoseph]

im going on my 14th year in the industry, this is my 5th year with "my own" agency. i purchase on average 700 leads per month from three sources...one source being a cold caller that i pay an hourly rate in my office....the other two are lead vendors that i have worked with since 2004. we write anywhere from 100-175 new policies per month...i purchase 700 leads at an average of $10.00 each. i end up making about 35% of my initial investment back in profits.....on a daily basis we keep track of our bad leads...first of all, if i cannot contact my lead in 3 days im not paying for it..... second of all, even if i dont pay for the lead, i make sure we get each and every person on the phone. whether its two weeks later or two months later, we work our own aged leads rather than buying new lists...but for the sake of the post, im being quoted at 2500 for a 1- page website...reasonable?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Grab a Wordpress Theme as your website. It'll cost between zero to $60 depending on whether or not you want a premium theme. Your only other expenses would be the domain name and hosting.

 

[Josh]

im going on my 14th year in the industry, this is my 5th year with "my own" agency. i purchase on average 700 leads per month from three sources...one source being a cold caller that i pay an hourly rate in my office....the other two are lead vendors that i have worked with since 2004. we write anywhere from 100-175 new policies per month...i purchase 700 leads at an average of $10.00 each. i end up making about 35% of my initial investment back in profits.....on a daily basis we keep track of our bad leads...first of all, if i cannot contact my lead in 3 days im not paying for it..... second of all, even if i dont pay for the lead, i make sure we get each and every person on the phone. whether its two weeks later or two months later, we work our own aged leads rather than buying new lists...but for the sake of the post, im being quoted at 2500 for a 1- page website...reasonable?

That's completely unreasonable. I'm almost done with a multi-page website for a forum member here and am starting on another. Not that my websites are visually stunning by any stretch, but they are effective.

If you want to do a website yourself you can get setup for less than $20 including the hosting and the domain itself. If you don't want to figure out wordpress on your own and want to have someone walk you through it, I'll do it for $99 and there are plenty of other folks that will do the same.

Getting leads from your website happens when you're driving traffic there. If you want to send me a message with your area(s) I can run a keyword analysis of what looks like it may or may not be vulnerable in your area. Odds are if you set something up and do some reasonably priced SEO you'll make your money back and then some without much effort on your part.

 

[HuntAssuranceGroup]

I agree. I plan on having purchased leads and a website in my marketing. I have been very impressed with WordPress. I went to GoDaddy for my domain name and HostGator for the webhost. I think all together I have spent <$100. Also, I found an online class to help me with my WordPress set-up. Check out www.ed2go.com

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I've also taken classes on how to set up WP themes - my classes are at Youtube. Type basically anything you want to learn about WP into Youtube, then sit back and learn.

That said, you're gonna spent a lot of "man hours" with that method. Take Josh up on his $100 offer. It'll be the best $100 you spend.

 

[PatrickJoseph]

im going on vacation at the end of next month....im going to take a look at what it entails to create the site..if its something i can do, i will take the time while on vacation to get it done...if not, i would much rather pay $100 than 2500....let me talk to my staff and ill send you over a message..thanks for the help....what about buying leads? anything working better than usual?

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

HELLO ! another day, another dollar....its a new year so im looking for new ways to write business..internet leads are still my main source of "new" traffic, but i am looking to advance my knowledge on the internet and have a prosperous year!

I currently do not have a website as I have felt in previous years that spending my money on leads would bring forth a higher ROI....

for those of you that have bought leads in the past and currently use your website to generate your OWN leads... is it worth it?

Is paying for and maintaining a website worth the time and effort over paying $10.00 per lead?

Let me know if anybody has success generating business for themselves rather than purchasing leads...I'm not looking to run a call center over here, I only purchase real-time leads...im not looking to buy aged leads

It's all about ROI. I like purchased leads because of the filters. With organic leads, it is what it is.

I would do both.

As for a website. A good aged domain from Godaddy is less than $20.00. Hosting if you pay annually, $5/mo through hostgator. WP is free, SEO plugins are free, Woothemes has a page of FREE premiums themes you can get.

SEO if you take the time to learn the basics of, you can outsource everything, so you can continue to sell insurance.