Using Negative Advertising to Acquire Annuity Prospects

How do you buy toothpaste? Is it because Colgate protects you with fewer cavities or because Crest has been shown to be effective in preventing tooth decay? What about cars? GM has just the one for you however; Ford claims their car is rated higher than the others.

Have you ever noticed that advertising is either negative or positive?

Negative advertising focuses on elevating an existing concern. Positive advertising focuses on the positive attributes of a company or product.

How are politicians elected? Do they emphasize their positive attributes? Do they play above the board and respect their opponents? Do they let the election stand on the record?

No.

They attack, attack, and attack. They harp only the negative qualities of their opponent, both factual and perceived. The results pay off: Negative campaigning wins elections.

Negativity not only wins elections, it also sells products. By instilling distrust and fear into prospects, you can offer solutions to their worries. It can make you an enormous amount of money.

How do you use negative advertising to make money? It's easy. It requires a different approach than is traditionally used by insurance companies and agents. The Insurance industry focuses on establishing an image that comes across as professional and experienced. Agents emphasize how much training they have, how many degrees they've received, and how active they are in their communities. Typically, such advertising is a waste of time and money.

Look at your own experience. When was the last time you ran a company approved advertisement? How many calls did you have from it? We both know the answer to that question. If you had any at all, it's unlikely the results even began to pay for the cost of the ad.

Negative advertising is the key to your success. By talking about how good your company is with the usual claims in insurance advertising, you offer your target audience exactly what everyone else does: a boring sales pitch. Your target market doesn't want a sales pitch. They want solutions to their concerns. Emphasize what they're worried about, and you?ll grab their attention. By offering solutions to their problems, you offer them security and peace of mind.

Security and peace of mind is what is most important to seniors. How do you go about it? Recognize the enemy.

Who is the enemy? Old thinking! Here is an example, LTC salespeople.

Have you ever attended a LTC insurance seminar or a LTC sales meeting? Have you ever listened to a LTC ad on the radio? Do you ever wonder why sales for LTC insurance are so low, when it's so heavily touted as the next great market?

LTC is in fact a great market. It?s a market where an enormous amount of income can be made. However, it?s not easy to sell the insurance.

Selling annuities to seniors who are concerned about LTC, to protect their assets makes the money.

Nothing else is worth the effort.

Let's go back to advertising. When an LTC salesperson advertises, what is the message conveyed?

1. The many benefits their policies have to offer 2. The necessity for seniors to protect their assets 3. Fear: Seniors who don't own LTC will likely be confined to a nursing home where they won't be taken care of properly.

You've heard it all, no doubt. You may have even used some of these points yourself.

The goal is to attack the fear the LTC companies and salespeople instill. Structure ads which plant questions in the minds of our target audience about the competition, and attack LTC as a solution to their fear. This gets your prospect thinking about other possible solutions, other than LTC.

The goal is to create fear, uncertainty and doubt about the enemy.

The following are examples of negative ad headlines used to accomplish this:

? Find out why very few seniors need LTC insurance!
? Find out what LTC insurance companies don't want you to know!
? Find out what your LTC salesperson isn't telling you!
? How to cut your LTC insurance premiums in half!
? Save 50% on your LTC insurance premiums!
? Don't be a sucker! Find out if LTC really works!
? Get informed. LTC insurance isn't for everyone!

The ad provides information on how to contact your office.

Remember you don't want to jump into a sales presentation with these people. They need to be educated. When they schedule time with you, they'll be receptive to a solution that addresses their concerns: you in turn will have used your time productively.

Bill Broich is a 30 year annuity salesman who helps agents generate annuity leads. Visit his website to learn more -- Annuity.com.

Annuity Lead Solving Means Happy Wife Happy Life

Have you ever been in the situation where you hate to go home after a hard day of selling insurance? I have.

I know what will be waiting for me, an unhappy wife. It is not that she is naturally that way; it is that she is worried about money, bills and the kids eating regularly.

If you sell anything on commissions then you fully understand. It can be feast or famine. I decided a long time ago to solve this issue. I wanted to come home to a happy wife and to leave the insurance business at the door.

I decided if I had more prospects to talk to than I could see then I would always have someone to sell to. I purposely over flooded my prospecting list with excessive prospects.

I used direct mail, referrals and seminars to provide them all for me. I always had more than enough prospects to see and often I would not get to all of them. Seems like a waste you say?

Not really. If you have an enormous amount of people who you could see then the fear of the Monday morning appointment scheduling was a thing of the past.

It was actually very easy to do and it has resulted in a lifetime of comfort when it comes to prospecting. Here is how I did it.

I borrowed enough money from the bank to fund a large direct mail program setup for 12 months in advance. I would mail 5,000 to 10,000 pieces a month with an average rate of response of 3.5%. The amount would vary based on time of the year such as the holidays. Here is the catch: If I had leads left over I could not get to because of the volume of the response, I would throw them all away. I could do so because I had flesh leads arriving in the mail almost daily. If someone did not want to see me or was hard to see I just chucked it.

It was almost like a breath of fresh air and an enormous amount of freedom. At the end of the year I added up my results and readjusted for the following year. At the end of the first year I calculated I had over 600 annuity leads that I could never get or about 50 a month.

What did I do, reduce my mailings? No I increased them by 50%.

The freedom of unlimited annuity leads for me was a breathy of fresh air. I also learned that if I had enough leads I could come home each night and I was happier which of course made my wife happier. The following year and each year afterward I have estimated that I have left 1,000 annuity leads uncalled and while it may seem a compete waste of time I look at it as the very best money I have ever spent. I have eliminated my need for someone to talk to about my insurance products and at the same time kept my home life happy.

A good lesson is this, ?Happy Wife, Happy Life.?

Bill Broich is a 30 year annuity salesman who helps agents generate annuity leads. Visit his website to learn more - Annuity.com.

 

10 Little Known Insurance leads - Annuity Leads Marketing Secrets to Double Your Income in 2007

1. Failing to Market Your Business Effectively

This one is self-evident?or so we thought. The reality is 90-95% of all Insurance agents with whom we speak aren?t marketing at the level they can or should be, or just plain aren?t marketing at all! Many agents are in a comfort mode where they are living or dying off the referrals they may accidentally stumble onto. Most agents think they are marketing their services yet, when we ask for a specific, step-by-step marketing plan, the telephone usually goes dead for a minute.

Remember this statement, ?Marketing is the ONLY function of your business that makes you money! Every other function is an expense!?

Thus, if you are sitting back and waiting for a minor marketing miracle to happen and not optimizing your time, money or talents to become a top marketer in your field, you are causing yourself to lose thousands of dollars monthly. This could be one of the reasons why many agents drive cars that have over 150,000 hard traveled miles on them. I still believe insurance agents have a right to make a six-figure income and be able to enjoy life to the fullest. You need to be marketing every day to generate a steady flow of leads.

2. Not Fully Utilizing Your Invisible Insurance leads Asset

If you have been in the Insurance business for any amount of time, you have built up a substantial amount of goodwill among your clients. You have brought value and piece of mind to their lives. This asset, however, hasn?t been performing for you the way it should. We will show you how to convert your customers? goodwill into ready cash?and actually strengthen your customers? loyalty to you at the same time. And if you are new in the business and don?t have a client base we will show you how to use ?parasite marketing? to tap other professional sources within your community.

3. Using the Same Old Insurance leads and Annuity lead Ads that Get a Terrible Return

Ads, postcards, and direct-mail pieces cost you the same regardless of whether they bring in 1 new customer or 100. Knowing the secret techniques of creating award winning ads and direct-mail pieces can easily be the difference between driving an old car with 150,000 miles on it versus driving a brand new Mercedes, BMW or some other luxurious car. By testing and using dynamic headlines in all your marketing pieces (like postcards, ads, newsletters, flyers and direct mail pieces) your response can skyrocket by 1,800% and more. We will show you an easy 7-step method that anyone can use to create ads and direct-mail promotions that will bring in floods of new clients.

4. Failing to Customize your insurance lead Letters

I have had some outrageous responses from prospects and clients when I mail them a hand addressed envelope with a message pad sized ?While You Were Out? message saying, ?Evidently you didn?t get my message.? We have also experimented with several other sayings on the message sized pad ?While You Were Out? mailings that are great for annuity sales. Another agent we know uses this concept to recruit agents and has had a 75% response to his letters using the ?While You Were Out? message pad technique.

5. Relying on One Shaky Pillar for Insurance Marketing

What you want to strive for in your marketing strategy is to build strength through marketing diversity. Think of your business as a Greek Temple supported by numerous, sturdy pillars. Each of these pillars represents one aspect of your marketing campaign. For example, you could have pillars for direct sales, telemarketing, direct mail, postcards, flyers, endorsements, referrals, parasite marketing, and joint ventures. The reason that there are so many is if you have failure in one or more pillars you will always have a few pillars holding up your marketing program. We have had dozens of agents who tell us that if this home office flyer fails, they will be out of the business. This concept will almost guarantee you failure in this business. However, could you imagine the commissions you would generate if you combine a wide array of marketing approaches, stabilizing your business with several pillars?

6. Stunting the ?Growth? of Your Insurance Business

We have read countless books and attended dozens of seminars on how to increase your business. However, we have discovered just three ways to grow any business. Now you may think these techniques are too simple or don?t apply to your situation, but could you imagine if you actually implemented these as a foundation for your business?

1. INCREASE your average sale of an Insurance policy. Instead of quoting $82.00 per month round it off to $90.00 and give them more coverage.

2. INCREASE the number of clients. By doing consistent, target marketing to a niche market, you will increase your sales and client base dramatically.

3. INCREASE the frequency of repurchase. Always have other products you can sell your clients. Always contact your client at least every six months. A monthly, client newsletter will help you build your business. If you need a client newsletter check out our "Annuity Pro Lead Capture Web Page."

7. Investing Thousands of $$$ in the Wrong Insurance leads Ads

Before you invest thousands of hard earned dollars in direct mail, postcards or newspaper ads, wouldn?t it be great if you could know exactly which offer would pull in the most leads and qualified prospects?

What you need to do is conduct your own marketing test. Try mailing two or more versions of your sales letter or flyer to a small portion of your mailing lists you intend to use. One version of a letter might have a powerful headline along with a special free report titled ? 8 Secrets on How You Can Get the most Out of Your Retirement Years.? Also, hand-address the envelopes. Another version of the letter may have a different headline and different benefits. Then, after testing, you can mail the most effective letter to the entire mailing list with confidence.

By the way, if you can have your envelope hand-addressed or the prospect?s name typed on the envelope instead of using a label, you can sometimes increase your response by 15%. People today who receive an envelope with a label on it consider it junk mail.

8. Having a Poor Attitude

Having the right mental attitude will make your business work, no matter how many obstacles get pushed in your way. In any business, there will always be problems that come about and you need to address them. Deal with them immediately, and don?t wonder ?Why in the world do bad things always happen to me?? Bad things happen to everyone. Successful people just know how to work through them. For them, when they have a problem, they put on their work clothes and go to work. They don?t assume the end of the world is coming. Tony Robbins says that the definition of insanity is doing the same things you have always done and expecting to get different results.

Example: If you have been afraid to invest any money in marketing for yourself and continue to do that, your income will remain the same. If you never try to improve your sales presentation, letters or advertisements your results will remain the same.

However, if you are willing to test new marketing approaches and new products, your income will go up. If you will implement the following formula in every sales presentation, letter to your client, and advertisements you will greatly improve your income.

1. Get Attention!
2. Arouse interest and emotion.
3. Tell interesting stories that are believable.
4. Offer a reason to act?NOW!
5. Make it easy for people to take the action you want.

Remember, the most important thing you learn is to: GET PEOPLE?S ATTENTION!

9. Blaming Insurance Marketing ?Conditions? for your Lack of Success

Many Insurance agents who have failed in the Insurance business always blame someone or something for their failure or for a low income. If you want to be successful, not only in your business career but also in your life, you must own up to your shortcomings and realize that your success, or lack of it, is totally, 100% your responsibility!

Have you ever heard anyone, including yourself, say the following: ?It?s a slow time of the year. I think I?ll put more effort in my business after the first of the year. I?m really busy right now. I don?t have time for any new products or marketing techniques. I can?t afford to hire a secretary to do the $8.00 an hour office work that I?m currently doing myself. I tried an ad or flyer once and it didn?t work!?

All of these lame excuses are justification for not being more successful in the Insurance business. From this day forward, stop making excuses and start making things happen for yourself.

10. Not Offering Additional Insurance Products and Services to Your Customers.

It is a known fact that existing clients are far more likely to purchase from you than cold prospects. They will, at least give you a few minutes to offer additional services. Unlike prospects, your clients should trust you and enjoy doing business with you again. However, you must treat your clients with respect and they must be satisfied with your service. If you can provide your clients with the proper service, they can reward you for a lifetime with additional business and qualified referrals. Now let?s talk about specifics.

Many of you have clients or their friends who may be interested in alternative financial products that are safe and pay an excellent rate of return on their money! If that is true for you, our office can help you with several products you can use as an alternative to CD?s and Annuities.

Do you think if you mailed out a postcard offering a special report titled, ?10 Deadly Mistakes Most People Make when Planning for Retirement and How to Avoid them,? some of your clients might respond to this postcard and request a copy of the FREE report? Do you think some of the people who receive your FREE report, (which are essentially sales letters) might want to come into your office for an appointment to discuss these issues? Of course they will and when they do, guess whom they will ask to help them.

It should be obvious by now that if you had additional products or services to offer your clients, a percentage of them will want to hear about several of your new products.

Hope you have a great selling year in 2007.

Russ Jones
Creator of the "3-Step Postcard System"
http://www.ultimateinsurancesystem.com
Developer of the "Annuity Pro Lead Capture Web Page System"
http://www.pmrsystem.com

Use The Adwords Miracle To Get More Annuity Leads

Working with insurance agents over the years I have found one commonality? they fear technology. Of course, not all do, most of you reading this online article probably don?t? but in my experience I find fear of technology generally to be true. Some agents I work with still refuse to use email.

What they?re missing out on is an abundance of fresh, precision targeted leads that can only be found on the web.

I?m not talking about banner ads or pop-ups ads or email spam, which are so broad that they are rarely effective. I?m talking about keyword advertising. While there are many places to purchase keyword advertising Google?s Adwords system is by far the best. So what is keyword advertising? When you type in a search phrase, annuity leads for example, on Google you will be presented with one page displaying two types of similar results.

Organic:

In the center you?ll find organic results, organic being that the sites did not have to pay to be listed. They?re simply relevant to the search phrase.

Paid:

On the right hand column and directly above the middle results you will see other relevant results in boxes. Those are paid results. Companies pay by the click and bid against one another to be listed there.

The magic of keyword advertising is that you can target your ads directly to what people are searching for. If somebody types in annuities they are looking for annuity information. If they type in annuity agent Spokane, Washington for example, it?s obvious they are looking for a representative in the Spokane area to discuss annuities with. If somebody types in targeted phrases such as these the chances of converting the search to a lead are far, far greater than if somebody is perusing a general website and happens to see a banner ad for annuities. Make sense? In other words, people are looking for you.

Google charges by the click. Depending on your website, landing page and offer you can acquire reasonably priced leads. One offer I ran on Google averaged out to about $7.50 per lead. I converted roughly one in twenty-five to a sale. I made huge returns on my investment and the people wanted to see me. I did not have to sell anything? they were already in the market to purchase an annuity and I simply walked into their line of vision. Easy.

Now here is where the fear part comes in. How do you use Google Adwords? I?m not going to lie; it can be complex, especially if you?re inexperienced with internet advertising. I do not have enough space here to explain all the ins and outs. There can be a lot to it and the last thing I recommend is learning the hard way. You can lose a lot of money fast. To make it easier for you I read several e-books on the subject of setting up, running and maximizing adwords campaigns and the very best, most comprehensive book is Adwords Miracle. This book is not targeted to the insurance industry? it?s actually targeted toward affiliate marketers, but it is entirely useful and the same tips and tactics apply to our industry. In your mind simply substitute affiliate marketing with annuity marketing and presto, it?s 100% relevant.

The book is on the spendier side but with this you truly get what you pay more. You will save the money you spend on Adwords Miracle in the first week of running adwords. The book even covers landing pages and how to build in triggers to get higher conversion rates, which makes it truly invaluable. I heartily recommend Google?s Adword?s system for laser-targeted lead generation and Adwords Miracle as a map to get you there.

Bill Broich is a 30 year annuity salesman who helps agents generate annuity leads. Visit his website to learn more - Annuity.com.

Generating Insurance And Annuity Leads Using Squidoo Marketing

Heard of Squidoo? I?ve only been using it a few weeks, but the website has major buzz and justifiably so. The site is an incredible marketing tool. Basically it?s a web page builder? You can build what they call lenses which are simply web pages. Your lense can be about any topic you choose. It could be a professional bio, an article about insurance, maybe you want to review an annuity product or you simply want to show off pictures of your grandkids or pets.

You?re probably saying, great. I can build webpages. Big deal. What you really want to know is how Squidoo can help you get more leads and make you more money. When you setup a Squidoo lens pick search engine key words and phrases people are searching for. You can get a general estimate of keywords people are plugging in on the search engines and how many searches a word or phrase gets every month by using this keyword tool.

Type in annuity here and you?ll see the number of monthly phrases and other related keywords.

These constitute the number of searches performed on Yahoo. Google tends to run 50-100% higher. Plus you have engines like MSN, AskJeeves and the others which provide even more searches.

If ?Annuity? is the key phrase you?d like you would want to attempt to secure www.squidoo.com/annuity. Granted that?s a highly desirable word and (I?ve checked) it?s already taken. But why not secure phrases close to your area? why not grab.

(Note: For some reason unclear to me the Yahoo keyword tool only returns singular words. That doesn?t mean there aren?t plural searches as well? don?t discount plural words and phrases because there doesn?t appear to be searches.)

Google and the other major search engines love Squidoo and tend to rank Squidoo pages very high on their search results. If you get a good ranking and take the time to write useful, original copy with your contact information you will likely pick up leads.

Squidoo is fairly straight-forward and easy to use, but it can take a while to learn. I ended up reading a short very well-written manual to help me navigate the Squidoo system. Check it out: Squidoo Marketing

Squidoo is just another tactic in the neverending quest to obtain leads. It should be a part of a comprehensive annuity lead generating and selling system, not used as the sole method for attracting new business. The best part about Squidoo is that it costs you nothing. It's 100% free to use.

Bill Broich is veteran annuity salesman who helps agents generate annuity leads and close more sales. Visit his website for more information: Annuity

What Really is a Death Benefit in a Variable Annuity?

Let?s talk about the basics first. Variable annuities allow the owner to invest in a wide range of options. These options can include stocks, bonds, real estate and a guaranteed fund. The investments are not mutual funds but a close family member called sub-accounts. The money is managed by the manager of each sub-account in accordance with the goal of that account.

Fees and More Fees

Variable annuities are noted for the fees they charge. The average annual expense on variable annuity subaccounts currently stands at 2.08% of assets, according to Morningstar. Many variable annuities also have loads on their subaccounts, surrender charges for selling within, say, seven years and an annual contract charge of about $35.

What Death Benefit?

The death benefit guarantees that your account will hold a certain value should you die. With basic accounts, this typically means that your beneficiary will at least receive the total amount invested, even if the account has lost money. Options are available at an additional cost that will allow your death benefit to increase over a period of time (life insurance). The fees charges for this ?additional benefit? are very high compared to just buying a separate life insurance policy. If additional life insurance is needed in your financial planning it would make much more economic sense to buy a separate policy.

According to LIMRA, an insurance industry research group, only 3 out of every 1,000 variable annuities are surrendered due to death. And this report doesn't even measure whether those four accounts were made whole by the death benefit. If the variable annuities were paid with invested funds then there was no death benefit paid by the insurance company which means all the fees paid to the insurance company would never be needed. The death benefit was paid with the owners own invested assets! Morningstar has calculated the annual fee for this death benefit to average 1.03% on the WHOLE value of the invested dollars in the variable annuity.

The death benefit fees charged to a variable annuity provide a huge benefit to the insurance company because the risk they are insuring is low and over time may vanish to no risk at all. Be informed about how this death benefit on variable annuities really works.

Bill Broich helps seniors manage their retirement money. Visit his website for additional information: Variable Annuities

The Other Problem with the Equity Indexed Annuity

Okay, so here is the other problem with the index annuity. Many agents try to sell it as the 'answer to all problems.' The fact of the matter is, it is not that at all. An indexed annuity is designed to have the potential to capture a little more upside than a traditional fixed annuity can.

Again, many agents claim it is a way to beat the markets...they will severely underperform in a good bull market. Furthermore, they are not designed to capture all the upside. They are designed to give a lower floor and a higher ceiling than traditional fixed annuities. They are by no means a stock market alternative.

So the bottom line is that the equity indexed annuity can be something desinged particularly to fit in someone's portfolio. It has advantages that other annuities cannot offer. It gives the protection of a fixed annuity. And it gives a little more upside than traditional safety vehicles.

All in all, it can be a good thing but it depends on an investor's situation. For someone looking for all the upside and who doesn't care about taking risk and losing money, the index annuity is far from the right choice. For someone who has a small risk tolerance but cares to have a little more upside potential, it can be a good choice.

The most important thing is to understand, any investment is part of a bigger equation. That is the bottom line. And furthermore, research is key. It is important to know what you are getting into. The further side of the spectrum is agents saying that EIA's are a scam. Those guys just don't understand how the EIA works.

Ignorance is Not Bliss.Tony Bahu is a licensed annuity agent who has helped many men and women own the annuity that is right for them and their family.