In my last posting, I talked about engaging visitors with your insurance website by using your profile page to tell them about your agency and the people on your team. I also talked about using testimonials to show visitors how others like themselves have benefited from doing business with you.
Now here’s the most important engagement device on your insurance website: the calls to action. These little buttons that beg to be clicked not only build relationships, they sell products. Here is a list of some typical calls to action you might find on a well-built insurance website:
- FREE Quote. This call to action can reference any insurance product, such as a FREE auto quote, FREE life insurance quote or FREE Medicare supplement quote. You could link the button that displays your FREE quote offer to a third-party quote engine that supplies your visitor a quote as it lets you know you’ve got a lead. Or you might link it to a form on your own website that collects basic information so you can call the visitor before you provide the quote, allowing you a chance to build a relationship.
- Request a consultation or policy review. These calls to action are great door-openers that give you a chance to view your visitor’s insurance program. Don’t waste your opportunity by just offering apples-to-apples quotes though. Differentiate yourself by suggesting ways to improve the program and selling your expertise.
- Sign up for our newsletter (or blog). These tools build relationships with a consistent, reliable stream of articles that demonstrate your knowledge and underscore your credibility.
- Download our special report on _____. If there is a special area of expertise you have (maybe it’s business interruption insurance, as it was for a former boss of mine) or a niche market (such as shopping centers, a specialty of mine at one time), write a special report and follow up with folks who request it. Maybe they’ve got a situation you can help them with.
- Register for our webinar. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is surely something many of your employee benefit buyers would like more information about.
- Refer a friend. Many agencies are offering customers a small gift, such as a coupon at a Starbucks or Chick-fil-A as a token of appreciation.
I would also include “Follow us on Facebook and Twitter” buttons and blog sign-up forms as examples of calls to action. They all help build relationships.
Here are four tips for creating and using calls to action.
- Use images or icons in your buttons (for instance, an image of an auto for an auto quote request button) and make them stand out with a contrasting color and a little white space around the text.
- Place at least one or two call to action buttons on every page of your website. But don’t overdo it. Too many can be confusing and make you seem overly aggressive.
- Link to simple forms that don’t ask a lot of questions. Just get the basic information you need to fulfill the request so people won’t get frustrated and change their minds.
- Finally, when you get a response, react quickly. Send a confirmation email, call them about their quote request, email a thank-you note — whatever is appropriate to the context. To underscore the importance of immediate feedback, consider that some studies show that a request for quote has a 20 times greater chance of being converted to a sale if responded to within five minutes!
By the way, the buttons illustrated here are from one of the website themes we’ve designed especially for insurance agents. We will soon be accepting orders to build custom websites for agents. If you’d like us to contact you with more information when it’s available, please click here.