The Famous "Free WAL-MART Gift Card" Lead Card...

[Newby]

Actually Walmart and several other national retailers will send you a cease and desist if you use their name without their written approval. At this time they are not allowing any additional agencies and/or mail houses to use their name.

My understanding is that the reasoning for not wanting it done is twofold. First they are heavily involved in several aspects of the insurance business and have no incentive to allow others to use their desirable name to entice a purchase without them getting paid on the sale of the insurance. Secondly when people mail back the card and then a gift card does not show up in the mail a week or so later who do you think their first call is to? You guessed it, they call their local Walmart and say all they had to do was return the card to get a gift card and are assuming Walmart sent the offer.

Those using the card currently either had prior approval or they are rolling the dice.

Maybe Macy's or Sears would be more approachable these days?

I agree that what you are saying could possibly cause a problem for the agent. I've not been aware of it happening though. Any time you are using someone else's trademark brand without their permission it's not legal. And some companies are going to aggressively go after you.

Through the years I have done mailings using the Wal-Mart cards, Shell gas cards, Thorntons gas cards, Fanny-Mae gourmet chocolate truffles, Golden Corral gift certificates and probably a few more. I never had any issue with any of them. But I did always give the promised gift at the very beginning of the appointment. And I would always state Here is your free gift for allowing me to come and meet with you today. It always set the tone of the appointment off nicely.

The Wal-Mart card was the only one I ever used that seemed to weaken the appointments. I only did a 2,000 piece drop with them so a small sample but it was not a good one.

The chocolates were the best. I actually took the the candy on the appointments with me (yes I had diabetic versions too). Fanny Mae ships them to you all gift wrapped and looking good. They were around $8 each.

So the thing to take away from all this is, if an agent can get on a guaranteed lead price without a gift...do it. There is nothing better than someone responding just to a life insurance offer.

But, if you can't do that and your mailers are not getting good response rates you can always find a give-away that will work with you. That makes sense what Brad is saying that Wal-Mart is putting the ka-bosh on it. But they weren't a very good one anyway. Hook up with a local buffet or something and you are good to go.

One last thing. Only do the chocolates in the winter months for obvious reasons. But those definitely went over better than anything else I used.

 

[BibH]

I'm not sure the Life ins lead carries the same wait anymore as tons of people are using. I'm finding now versus 24 months ago the "life insurance" lead isn't meaning people know why they sent the card it. I'm hearing many more "I thought it was free" than 2 yrs ago. That could be because of mass saturation in some areas People are just overwhelmed as they send many cards in. With the "free gift card " i'm seeing mail houses mailing " check one Fast food or Big box retailer." That gets around any retailer jumping on you.

 

[goillini52]

I'm not sure the Life ins lead carries the same wait anymore as tons of people are using. I'm finding now versus 24 months ago the "life insurance" lead isn't meaning people know why they sent the card it. I'm hearing many more "I thought it was free" than 2 yrs ago. That could be because of mass saturation in some areas People are just overwhelmed as they send many cards in. With the "free gift card " i'm seeing mail houses mailing " check one Fast food or Big box retailer." That gets around any retailer jumping on you.

More people looking for "free stuff".....sounds like the O'bama Factor.

 

[Newby]

I'm not sure the Life ins lead carries the same wait anymore as tons of people are using. I'm finding now versus 24 months ago the "life insurance" lead isn't meaning people know why they sent the card it. I'm hearing many more "I thought it was free" than 2 yrs ago. That could be because of mass saturation in some areas People are just overwhelmed as they send many cards in. With the "free gift card " i'm seeing mail houses mailing " check one Fast food or Big box retailer." That gets around any retailer jumping on you.

I have 60 people (30 agents plus guests) leaving for a convention in Dominican Republic next week that would disagree with you. It still works very well if the agents are trained properly to sell FE off of direct mail leads.

 

[BibH]

I never said it didn't work well. What i'm saying is a leads a lead period. I see no difference in any of the lead types. I know this for a fact for me as i've door knocked a ton of all of these and the responses i get at the door confirm this as they can visually see the lead.These people have sent back 10-20 of these leads over a period of time and dang well know its to sell something. Once i get in the door by appt or door knock its irrelevant which lead it was.Reading some of your old notes you or your agents never used"life ins" leads till the last 1 1/2 yrs when you hooked with Rgi correct?

 

[360]

But, if you can't do that and your mailers are not getting good response rates you can always find a give-away that will work with you. That makes sense what Brad is saying that Wal-Mart is putting the ka-bosh on it. But they weren't a very good one anyway. Hook up with a local buffet or something and you are good to go.

I think the key thing you hit there is the local part. A local or independent retailer would see it as a win-win and may even offer a discount on the card. On national brands about the only way to do it is to get a local manager to sign off on the offer. The national brand sees it as we're leveraging their credibility vs. us giving away money to be spent at their store.

 

[jdeasy]

I never said it didn't work well. What i'm saying is a leads a lead period. I see no difference in any of the lead types. I know this for a fact for me as i've door knocked a ton of all of these and the responses i get at the door confirm this as they can visually see the lead.These people have sent back 10-20 of these leads over a period of time and dang well know its to sell something. Once i get in the door by appt or door knock its irrelevant which lead it was.Reading some of your old notes you or your agents never used"life ins" leads till the last 1 1/2 yrs when you hooked with Rgi correct?

I agree with you on the wording. My first 4 or 5 years in this business I used a lead that said life insurance on it. I thought that was the way to go. Over time I changed to where I preferred it not say life insurance on it as I want to meet with people that already have life insurance and many of those people throw away the card that says life insurance.

Now I have changed again to the point that I don't care what it says. It's rare to find a person that has only sent in the one card that you have in your hand. They have mailed in cards and been contacted by agents that said life insurance, burial ins, final expenses, had face amounts listed, been told they would be contacted, walmart card, gas card, been told they would not be contacted, etc. You name it, they have seen a reply card with it on there.

It's kinda the same argument/discussion we had on here a little while back about rotating your areas to mail. That sounds good in theory. But the reality is that it doesn't matter if you rotate the area if everyone else continues to mail there.

 

[myinsurebiz]

I believe this is why the D2D leads we created and then worked produced decent results . . . Went right to the source, created the "hook" that everyone else in the neighborhood may have received the "special" offer and they thought they didn't . . .

I agree with you on the wording. My first 4 or 5 years in this business I used a lead that said life insurance on it. I thought that was the way to go. Over time I changed to where I preferred it not say life insurance on it as I want to meet with people that already have life insurance and many of those people throw away the card that says life insurance.

Now I have changed again to the point that I don't care what it says. It's rare to find a person that has only sent in the one card that you have in your hand. They have mailed in cards and been contacted by agents that said life insurance, burial ins, final expenses, had face amounts listed, been told they would be contacted, walmart card, gas card, been told they would not be contacted, etc. You name it, they have seen a reply card with it on there.

It's kinda the same argument/discussion we had on here a little while back about rotating your areas to mail. That sounds good in theory. But the reality is that it doesn't matter if you rotate the area if everyone else continues to mail there.

 

[John Galt]

I believe this is why the D2D leads we created and then worked produced decent results . . . Went right to the source, created the "hook" that everyone else in the neighborhood may have received the "special" offer and they thought they didn't . . .

Is the whole "Squad" using this method of generating D2D survey leads? LMAO

 

[myinsurebiz]

Is the whole "Squad" using this method of generating D2D survey leads? LMAO

Ha - no just me. There isn't a "squad" for insurance sales . . .

I have to go qualify for all the cool Settlers incentives . . .