Insurance Professionals Leverage LinkedIn for New Business, Sales
Social media platforms are powerful and effective tools to build and nurture relationships for insurance professionals, including insurance agents and other industry leaders. Social media is a way to reach and connect with a broader network of individuals – including other executives and centers of influence. LinkedIn is the ideal platform to establish B2B relationships and position your insurance agency as an expert in specific niche markets for leads and new business.
Optimize Your Profile
Transform your LinkedIn profile into a sales asset by turning your tagline/headline into a value proposition. For example, “I help protect the future of manufacturers by managing their risk,” is a way of telling people what you offer. In addition, make your job description a friendly sales pitch or value proposition for your insurance agency.
Add Every Customer to Your Network
Your customers are your best advocates. If your customers are in your network, it’s much easier to ask the right person for a referral to a prospect. Simply go to the prospect’s LinkedIn profile and see if any of your current customers have a shared connection. You can then ask your customer for a referral or to write a recommendation about you and your agency to post on your profile.
In addition, when a customer moves to a new company or is promoted to a higher position, you’ll be notified by LinkedIn and have an opportunity to ask whether the new company is looking to change its insurance program.
Use LinkedIn to Establish Your Agency As a Thought Leader
Assign someone in your agency to post relevant content to your community that reflects your insurance knowledge and specialty. Post links to blog articles on your website to generate more traffic to the site as well as interest in the insurance products and services you offer. Be sure to keep your blog fresh and updated.
LinkedIn also enables you to publish original content on its Pulse platform and instantly share your articles with your community. Discuss a trend or a news item that will resonate with your audience. For example, if you specialize in providing cyber insurance, provide insight on mitigating losses. If you specialize in the construction industry, talk about the impact of inflation and rising building costs on insurance. Establish yourself as a thought leader in the areas where you have built a wealth of knowledge and expertise.
Join the Same Groups As Your Prospects
Match each prospect in your database to their LinkedIn profile and look at the groups to which they belong. Groups include specific industry associations and sales and marketing organizations. Join a few of these groups and continue to engage and participate in them. You can comment on another member’s post; help the group by answering questions; make inquiries; post content that promotes your products, webinar, white papers, e-books, etc.; and share other individuals’ content you like. You’ll start building a following and broaden your community.
Follow LinkedIn InMail Best Practices
When using LinkedIn’s direct message feature, InMail, exercise caution. You may be tempted to InMail your prospects directly, but if they aren’t responding to your emails and phone calls, they are unlikely to respond now. With that in mind, it is possible to use InMail for successful prospecting if you are careful. LinkedIn recommends the following when using its InMail feature:
- Be brief and to the point
- Share your goal and any common associations
- Mention the profile content that prompted you to write
- Share any mutual experiences, interests, or connections
- Adopt a conversational, enthusiastic tone
- Give them a reason to reply by asking for input, opinions, or referrals
Remember, it’s about the prospect, not you.
Export LinkedIn Contacts to Continue Nurturing Relationships
Once you’ve spent time and effort building relationships with your connections, consider moving the conversation off the platform. LinkedIn allows you to export any contact, whether or not you are connected to them.