Participate in Our Lead Vendor Report

[Crabcake Johnny]

A few years back when I was running the IHIAA we did an internal lead study with over 50 agents participating. This was back in late 2008. Unfortunately, none of that information is current.

Beginning the first week of January we are going to embark on publishing the first national lead vendor report. Our study will run throughout the month of January with hundreds of agents participating. If you would like to participate, read further:

To participate you must be currently ordering leads. We will be measuring:

*Contact rate by phone (how many leads answered)
*Contact rate by email (how many leads replied by email)
*Bogus phone numbers
*Bogus emails
*Bogus numbers & emails
*Return credits applied for and credited according to the vendor's TOS (If the phone & email were bad did you get a credit?)
*Average number of singles
*Average number with more than 1 applicant
*Average age of prospect
*Price of lead

We'll take into account filters such as age and family size. We will not be reporting closing ratios since that really cannot be measured.

However, if vendor A sells 100 leads, average age of 24 with a 50% bad phone number rate and 5% answer rate, that absolutely can be measured against Vendor B that has an average age of 35 with 20% bad numbers and a 25% answer rate.

We will also be purchasing leads and surveying prospects about their experience including number of agents who called, whether they were "robo-called" etc...

If you're interested in participating please email me at [email protected]

 

[djs]

John -

What will you be doing with the results?
It also seems that any one month test can be very skewed. Are you going to have ongoing samplings to keep the data current?

The other thing I would suggest you measure is the number of 'recycled' leads, leads sold as new that are old leads that are being resubmitted as new. This is hard to get, since some bogus leads are bogus because they are recycled and you really don't know the difference, but you'll see a trend in the number of people who said they submitted the request 6 months ago....

Dan

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

We won't have ongoing samplings. This will be a snapshot. If John Smith buys 50 leads the second week of January, that's a snapshot.

The only relevance for John Smith is the quality of those 50 leads - not the leads given in the zip code by that vendor before he bought or potential changes after he bought. It would be up to the vendors to constantly sample leads to make sure quality is consistent.

And yes, we will be measuring "freshness" and some patterns might emerge.

 

[AverageJoe]

Crabcake Johnny,

I am a new member and with not even enough post to write you a private message, lol. So I am copying and pasting my question here. Hope you don't mind.

I was searching on the forum and came across, what has to be, in my opinion, the most elaborate and informative post on the site. This is the url to the post that I am talking about.

Becoming an Independent Insurance Agent - Page 3

My reason to write to you, and you are not obligated to answer, is because I recently received my P&C license in Florida and with no experience, I will be opening up my own agency. My parents own an accounting firm and payroll company and instead of handing off all their clients insurance needs (WC, gl, health, com auto/property, etc.) They advised me to get my license so that we can team up. I have an E&O quote and without even having my E&O or book of business a big A+ company has an agency code for me to be appointed by them (pending) only because of the fact that all my parents clients have gone through them for WC and GL. My question to you is, what is it that you would suggest that I need to get or what should I do? for instance, from this message, if you were in my shoes, what would be your next step? and what are the steps you would take to make sure your independent agency is successful? What carriers would you suggest that I look for appointments through, that are easy on new agencies.

Any information/advise is greatly appreciated.

Thanks and Happy New Years.

AverageJoe

p.s. I can receive private messages. Also, if you were kind enough to leave your email for me, I would write you back to the address you provide.