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Do it by renting direct mail lists. They come in all “shapes and sizes.” And they are not expensive. Especially when you factor in the time-cost economics of building your own list. More important: You may not get around to building your own list in a timely manner. We’ve consulted with many an agent who said, “I want to grow my customer base using direct mail and X-date calling to qualify leads and produce proposals.” When we ask about the prospect list they plan to use, the answer too often is” “Oh, we don’t have one right now. We need to get one together.”
If you don’t have a good prospect list, consider renting one for your next personal or commercial lines marketing campaign. The cost ranges from $85.00 to $125.00 per thousand. The list cost depends on how refined you want the data to be, whether or not you want “clean” (i.e. okay-to-call) telephone numbers, how you want the data delivered (Excel spreadsheets are handy you can log your sales contact results right on the sheets). Lists can be “scrubbed” to make sure that you have accurate addresses for a direct mail campaign. You can rent lists that are based on demographics. For example: value of a home; homes built within the last ten years; number of employees in a business; sales volume of a business. You can rent lists by geographic area: by Zip code, by State, by Region. Want to target prospects by lifestyle or hobby? You can. Let’s say your agency is in a coastal area. You want to target boating/sailing enthusiasts and owners and use boat insurance as an entrée to a full personal lines account. There’s an available list of 3,865,101 boating/sailing enthusiasts in the U.S. Find out how many live in your market area…and go get ‘em! With a target prospect list in hand, you can tailor your direct mail message and offer to fit the market. This is a major advantage. It will improve your direct response and your follow up qualification contacts dramatically! You can rent lists forunlimited use for 12 months. That means you can mail and re-mail and contact names on your list as many times as you want for one year. Costs a bit more for this type of rental, but it is worth it. How can you use the rental list to build your agency prospect database and enable you to contact the list names forever and ever? Make a personal contact with them. Direct inquiries qualify, of course. So do telephone and e-mail contacts that produce a personal response---an X-date for follow up, “call me in six months”, “put me on your newsletter list”, “put me on your e-mail bulletin list” et al. There are many other ways to build a solid prospect list. The point is: If you don’t have one, you’re not really committed to a GET MORE or CROSS-SELL marketing strategy. |
