Turning Digital Leads Into Real Relationships For Insurance Agents

Most agents want “easy” leads, but real growth comes from trust you can measure and timing you can manage. We dive into the practical differences between networking and digital lead sources and share a simple system to turn cold clicks into warm conversations that close. You’ll hear how to respond to online inquiries fast without sounding robotic, why a warm introduction from your chamber or BNI group can compress your sales cycle, and how to use your CRM to build email, phone, social, and community touchpoints that stack up to the seven touches buyers need.

We walk through the moments that make or break conversion: first-call framing, quote speed, and the follow-up cadence that adds value instead of pressure. Then we look at ROI with clear checkpoints—what to expect from a $1,500 membership, when to double down on a group, and when to pivot. Along the way, we talk co-marketing with lenders and realtors, sponsoring local events to earn mindshare, and tagging every contact by source so your reporting finally tells you which channels deserve your budget.

By the end, you’ll have a blended playbook: use networking to borrow trust, use digital to learn and scale, and connect both with consistent, human touchpoints. Track every introduction, thank every referrer, and let your CRM keep you present until the timing is right. If this sparked ideas for your agency, subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a quick review telling us which lead source is winning for you right now.

Chapters

• 0:52 Welcome And Topic Setup
• 1:29 The Reality Of Lead Nurture
• 1:56 How Digital Leads Typically Work
• 3:05 Why Networking Creates Warm Intros
• 4:36 Making Cold Leads Warmer With A CRM
• 6:24 Speed, Consistency, And ROI
• 7:06 Groups, Budgets, And Payback Windows

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

Hey y'all, what's up? It's Shelby here with the Insurance Marketing Playbook Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in again. I love to talk to you guys about all things marketing for your insurance agency. Whether you're an agent, maybe you're thinking about marketing for agents, or you work for an agent, you do their marketing. Today's episode is all about networking versus digital leads. I'm gonna start with a little bit of a personal um, I guess, comment. A lot of people want easy leads, and that's in any business, but especially I see that in insurance. They want to be able to call somebody, those people say yes, they make it easy, all the things. But that's not really how things work in sales, right? If you've been in sales a long time, you know that it takes time to nurture. In fact, marketing, we say it takes seven points to touch somebody. So seven touch points before they actually hit yes on marketing, I mean, on our product or service and that kind of thing. So if we're thinking about networking versus digital leads, I want to dive into both of those and then how they can complement each other. So when we have digital leads, let's say you purchase leads from somewhere and your salespeople are um calling those leads every day as soon as possible, right? Within the first hopefully hour that you get it, or at least within the first 12 hours if it's an overnight type of lead. Um, I want to make sure that those people are being very conversational, they're being very personal on the phone. But ultimately, that's the first time that they've ever had any contact with you, right? They fill out a form, they said, Oh, I like these people, or oh, I want a free quote, or something like that, and then you guys call them. They may even forget that they filled out the form the night before and be like, dang it, and they've gotten all these sales calls. Sometimes you may get ghosted on them, sometimes people may be open to talking to you. You just never really know whenever you buy those leads. And that's just from what I hear from some of my other insurance uh clients is that leads may be good or they may be bad. They're not really warm leads, they're gonna be cold leads. So let's dive into networking and how those leads are different. With networking, those people know us. If you're in a networking group, let's say you're in a leads group, then those people know you as a person and they give you that warm introduction. They are saying, Hey, this insurance guy has always helped me with my stuff. He treats me really great as a customer, and I really think you should get him to quote your stuff. So that is a warm lead. Those people trust the person that you've been networking, and it's not cold, as in, like, they don't know they already know that person, so they trust that person, and instead on the digital leads that you buy, they don't really know you. Let's also dive into how the networking is a little bit more, I think it's better. Um, it's a little bit more personal because you are in your community, you're sponsoring things, you're donating things, you're um marketing to your community, you're going out and spending money in your community. So that's ultimately networking and getting leads. I'm all about co-marketing with people and then uh being able to tap into their their market or their clients and customers to be able to pull them over to our side and be more aware of us and how involved we are in that kind of stuff. So I personally think that networking is gonna be your best bet, but digital leads, we can also turn those into warmer leads too, and I'm gonna tell you how. So if you have a CRM, whether it's through a corporate like that you're working with, or maybe you personally have a CRM, you want to make sure that you plug those people into your CRM. We want to make sure we are touching them through emails, we're calling them, um, we're inviting them to things that we're doing, maybe in the community. Um, then we're also sending them over to our social media pages so that way we're consistently touching them through all the things before they say yes. So the that cold lead is now in your CRM and they are getting emails from you, they're on your social media, um, maybe you follow them if it's like a commercial client or future commercial client, um, you're involved in their stuff, and then maybe they see you out in public, like, oh, you know what? You guys gave me a quote about a month ago, and I totally forgot to respond to you. Yes, I'm interested. You don't know how long it's gonna take for that digital lead to come back to you, but I guarantee you that if you can stay on top of it and you're consistently touching them through marketing efforts, then it will come back to you in a positive light. So, networking is gonna give you more of those warm leads. It's people that they already trust. It's like, hey, my mom needs this. I sent her your information. Of course, the mom's gonna trust the daughter or the son, and they're gonna call you and they kind of already give you that warm introduction. And then those digital leads are great because people are filling out forms all the time, they're sending them to you, but you need to be consistent with reaching out to them, giving them their quote in a great um, like in a really good amount of time before anybody else, and making sure to plug them into your email system as well as social media. I don't have any like anything against digital leads, I just know that the ROI on that is gonna be a little bit less than what your networking ROI is. So if you join a BI group, if you join a chamber leads group, think about it's more. I mean, if you join BI, it's gonna be about$1,500 for the year. But how much do you have to sell to make that back? I know in my personal business that if I join a group, I'm gonna make sure that I get that ROI within the first three months. If I don't, then I either leave the group or I put in a little bit more time, give it three more months. So the first six months, I'm gonna know, okay, this group's gonna work for me or it's not gonna work for me. So just make sure that you keep in mind what that ROI is, and if you don't know what that is, I use that term a lot. Return of investment is on your marketing dollars when it comes to networking versus what your marketing dollars are when you buy leads. Because ultimately that can be written off as a marketing source. Um, but we want to make sure, like, are those leads coming in from a good place? Um, or can we make them social media leads? Can we put an ad or a form out on social media and do it that way? So just make sure every time that you are on the phone with someone, ask them where they heard from you, ask them how they heard from you, who they heard from you. Then you can thank people, the referrals, all the things, and know that wherever you are buying your leads or getting your leads from or getting your sales from is actually coming back to you because that's ultimately that's going to be the best way of knowing is asking every single person. But networking leads and digital leads can both work together, I believe, for your insurance business. You just have to be very strategic about it and make sure that you know exactly how much time's going into it and how much you are getting back from it. All right, y'all. I'll see you on the next episode.