Unfortunately, many insurance agents are never properly taught how to ask for referrals in an effective and comfortable way. This results in conversations like this:
Agent: “If you value the service I’ve provided you, please tell me 3 people that could also benefit from my excellent service…” Client: [awkward pause] “Oh… Um… Well… I guess you could call my… I don’t really have any phone numbers with me right now…” Agent: “Sorry… can’t let you go until I get my names…” I’d hate for you to deprive clients of the ability to help their friends and I really don’t want you to have an awkward conversation so… Here’s 27 referral marketing ideas to get you started on the right path: 1) Change Your Attitude About Referrals Stop telling yourself you’re “asking for referrals” and imagine this instead: “I’m helping my clients increase their social status by making it easy for them to recommend a local business that’s easy to work with, cares about it’s customers, and can save their friends thousands of dollars” If you have trouble convincing yourself of this, your challenge may be deeper than just needing more referrals. 2) Make a Referral Reward Program A referral reward program is an established system you use to thank clients who refer your agency. It can include a variety of ideas within this article, but the important element is that its an established, repeatable, and easy-to-follow procedure. Establishing an official referral reward program offers many advantages:
It’s easy if you frame it right: explain the benefits of having your phone number on hand in case there is ever an emergency.
I know agents that go so far as to insist the client input it while in the office and they’ll follow up with new customers to make sure the agency gets programmed in the rest of the family phones. It just looks to the client like you really want to be available to them, which is a good thing! 
4) Referral Cards to Hand Out
Make up some outdoor advertising with promo media along with cards with your logo, agency contact information, and a spot that says: “Referred by _________”. Handwrite your client’s name in the blank space and give it to them to pass along. You could mail these out or put them in your new business packet, but I’d recommend actually handing them to your clients at a time when they’ll be forced to put them in their wallet or purse. 5) Check Out Rocket Referrals I looked into this company out after the fifth different agent told me about them and I’m convinced they have an awesome system. It’s called Rocket Referrals and it’s a turnkey system that identifies the clients who are most likely to refer your agency and reaches out to them by mail and email to ask for referrals. It’s pretty cool system and I saw the demo but I don’t really know how it all works so if you’d be interested in making the referral process automated check out their website here.
7) Describe Your Target Customer
One reason clients hesitate to refer your agency is because they don’t want to look bad if they recommend your services and your prices are sky high. Remove the risk in your clients’ eyes by explaining they types of customers you have the most competitive rates for. For example, “We have the cheapest rate in town 95% of the time for homeowners with good credit and a clean driving record”. Or, “If you know someone with a DWI in the past 2 years, we’re the best agency to help them out.” Just be careful not to tell customers your target client is the opposite of them. They’ll question whether they’ve got the right agency! 8) Help Clients Identify Referral Targets Here’s an exercise to illustrate this point: Exercise #1 - Excluding your coworkers and family, think of someone you know that would be happy to win $200 today…. Don’t move on until you’ve thought of someone… Exercise #2 - Now think of a neighbor that would be happy to win $200 today. The first question is harder for most people to answer because it’s hard to think of just one person out of thousands of qualifiers. The second question has fewer options to choose from, but I bet you probably just had a mental image of your neighbor holding a hundred dollar bill with a big smile on his face. Am I right? The point is, when you ask clients to refer your agency, give them a specific group to choose from. Instead of making a general request, say something like, “Is there anyone in your church group that could really benefit from saving a few hundred dollars on insurance?”. 9) Recommend-a-Friend Functionality on Your Website Honestly, I don’t know how effective something like this will be for you, but having a page or a box somewhere on your agency website that allows people to send an email to a friend recommending your agency might work. I think an entire page could work better than a little box somewhere because I expect it would take a bit of convincing to get people to actually give up their friend’s email address and you’d have to remove the perceived risk of getting your friend spammed.
11) Remove the Risk
One reason people hesitate to refer your agency is because they’re afraid of looking bad if you don’t do a good job. By recommending your agency to a friend they’re putting their reputation on the line. If your agency is rude, doesn’t return phone calls, or has horrible rates they’ll look bad for recommending you! Explain to your clients how you handle referred business. Emphasize that you give referred leads very special treatment and that you’re not going to hound referrals with 20 phone calls during dinner time and put them on an email spam list. (Save that for your internet leads) 12) Thank Referrers on Your Facebook Page When you receive a customer referral, go out to your Facebook page and thank the person who provided that referral out in the open for everyone to see. This accomplishes many things. It shows the referrer how much you appreciate their gesture which should get you more referrals from them. It shows everyone else how much you appreciate referrals which should get you more referrals from other Facebook fans. It also reinforces to your existing clients that other people are so happy with your agency that they’re sending their friends. This social-proof should improve your client perception and retention. 13) Give Two Business Cards This one is kind of simple, when you hand out your cards give everyone two and ask them to hand out the second one. Come up with something cool to say like, “Here’s one for you and one for your friend who drives the most expensive car and has the most speeding tickets.
You could make it part of your new business process or check out all the people who already like your agency Facebook page.
Establish a special category of clients that are uber-connected and go out of your way for this group of clients to wow and amaze them. They can probably generate a lot more leads than your agency’s FB page can. Be aware – younger people have a lot more Facebook friends but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re better targets for generating referrals. 15) Use LinkedIn for Targeted Referrals LinkedIn has an interesting feature that may help you get referrals for specific prospects that you’re trying to sell to. When you look at the LinkedIn profile of someone you’re not connected with and you are both connected with a third person, LinkedIn will show you who that third person is. This means you can send a casual message to the person you’re both connected with requesting that they introduce you. Obviously a lot depends on your relationship with that third person but you never know. 16) Get Clients to Like Your Facebook Page The average person on Facebook has 130 friends. Imagine if you could get just a few people a week to post about your agency. One way to drastically increase the odds of this happening is by getting them to like your Facebook page. Once they like your page they’ll see your content more often and if you post something really cool it’s more likely they’ll pass it along. Just make sure your content is share-worthy. I’d stay away from the “Call us today for a cheap insurance quote!!!” post While I’m on the topic… CLICK THIS LINK to like my Facebook page. 17) Get Referrals Immediately After Doing a Favor According to Stanford University psychology research, when someone receives a favor, their perceived value of that favor diminishes over time. Interestingly, the perceived value of the same favor in the eyes of the person who gave the favor does the opposite, it increases as time passes. Here’s an example to illustrate the point. Six months ago your customer hugged you for saving him $500 and he’s now screaming because renewal went up by $50. Sound familiar? Anyway, the point is that the absolute best time to ask for a referral is immediately after you have helped a client with something – found a new discount they qualified for, helped them through a positive claim experience, whatever. One week from now it’ll be water under the bridge, strike while the iron is hot! 18) Referral Commission Bonus for Producers Pay your producers an extra bonus for policies that are sold from an existing customer’s referral. This will help you in several ways:
They tend to work well because people are more likely to be interested in something (like your agency) knowing their friend already likes it.
You don’t need to show your ad to every friend of your fans, you can display your ad to specific groups like baby boomers with teenagers at home for example. 20) Call Your Clients’ Emergency Contacts Okay, that heading sounds bad, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. I wrote another article that explains a pretty creative way to get referrals from the neighbors of your new homeowner’s policy clients. 21) Get Referrals From the Right Clients People usually hang out with other people like them. If you only ask your most troublesome clients for referrals you’re going to wind up with more troublesome clients. However, if you get referrals from the people who never bother you, always pay their bill on time, never file claims and renew year after year you’ll be able to grow your agency in a healthy way. You’ll have to find a way to reach out to these people, because they don’t swing by your office every other week like the other group! 22) Give Referrals I know I’m not the first person to tell you that the more referrals you give the more you’re going to get, but here’s a few tips to help:
23) Postcards The Clients Writes, You Mail Print up a stack of postcards with your agency logo and contact information on them and put the stack on your front desk. Let your clients fill it out themselves and you stamp it and mail it. You could do this as a strictly “refer a friend” postcard or you could be a little more benevolent and just let your clients write whatever they want and send it to their friend on your dime. It might be kind of cool actually… “Sorry for the delay, would you like to mail someone a postcard while you wait for your appointment?” 24) Join a Referral Networking Group Join one of those business networking groups where everybody gets together once a week to practice their elevator pitch, eat eggs and give each other referrals. Sure it’s a lot of work generating new referrals every week, but what else do you have to do at 6:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning?
Make a one page sheet that shows all the different types of insurance you sell and take one minute with every new customer to explain it to them.
26) Teach Clients About Good Referral Opportunities You know someone just bought a house or has a baby is a prime target for life insurance. Do your clients? Help your clients identify referral opportunities by painting a picture. Say something like this, “Next time someone at your work complains about insurance being expensive, tell them to give us a call. We’ve helped a lot of people struggling right now and we’re always looking for more.” 27) Ask Need I say more? Okay, I guess it’s my turn now…
Would you do me a favor and email them a link to this article right now? You’ll be helping two people with one small but appreciated gesture.
And if you don’t have anyone to email but you liked the article, click the “Like” button so I know. Thank you so much, - John
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