Annuity Leads

Annuity Direct mail

Direct mail works no matter what someone else told you or your own experience.  Just because it did not work for you, does not mean it does not work.  If you read 25 books on the science of direct mail like we have, you can make it work also.  It’s a science and if you don’t know the science, you are wasting your money.  Most direct mail pieces are lousy and fail.

We used direct mail and consistently got responses between 1% And 2% (sometimes higher).   The economics of using direct mail to generate annuity leads are as follows:

Send 1000 postcards x 50 cents (printing and postage)  =$500
Get 1% response = 10 responses
Of the 10, get 2 immediate appointments
Make 1 sale for $100,000 x 6% = $6,000
Return on investment 12 times (1200%)

We never made a sale less than $100,000 but your area may have less affluent people.  You may also earn a higher commission than 6%.

Your clients would be very lucky to earn 1200% on the investments you recommend to them.

Internet Annuity Leads from Ads

Instead of mailing a postcard, you can place ads on the Internet.  The ads can range from very inexpensive to very expensive.  For example, you can place ads on many local senior web sites for less than $50 per month.  Try finding some local senior web sites in your area.  In Google, type in the name of your town (let’s use Columbus Ohio for this example) and a group of people that tend to buy annuities:

Columbus Ohio retirees
Columbus Ohio seniors
Columbus Ohio retired
Columbus Ohio grandmothers
Columbus Ohio grandparents

You get the idea.

While Internet ads to generate annuity leads on these sites tend to be inexpensive, these web sites don’t get a lot of traffic. If you want traffic, you need to advertise where a LOT of people see your ads.  For example, you could advertise on Investopedia.  However, it will likely cost you $7 or more per CLICK.  If only 10% of the people click on your ad complete your form, that’s $70 per annuity lead. So the problem with sites that get a lot of traffic is that the cost per annuity lead is very high.  The other problem is that many sites may not be able to cater to a small geographic area.  You may want annuity leads only within 25 miles of zip code 44046 but some of these web sites may only sell you leads by the state.

Internet ads do work but you will need to test many different sites to find those that work for you at a realistic cost per annuity lead.

Print ads

We used print ads for several years with good results.  The daily newspaper is too expensive but many neighborhood newspapers and senior papers have costs that will produce annuity leads for  reasonable price. Here’s an example

Cost of ad = $250
Responses = 10
Yo get 2 immediate appointments and make 1 sale for $6,000

Not bad .  That’s a 23 times return on your investment (2300%).

Note that not every publication will work.  We have tested some publications where the ad cost $400 and we did not get one call.  Another publication costs only $200 and we got 20 calls.  So you need to test many publications to find those that will work.  Of course, you better have a killer ad which means you either get a successful and talented copywriter to compose your ad OR you read 20 books on copy writing and compose your own ads.

Annuity Seminars

Seminars work and it does not matter what others have told you or your own experience.  Like direct mail or advertisements, there is a science for success.  If you have not uncovered that science, then its likely you wont have success with seminars.

We have had over 200 seminars and typical results were as follows:

3000 invitations mailed = $2200
room rental and refreshments  $450
Buying units attending 20
Appointments secured 10
New clients
Total revenue 5 x $100,000 x 6% = $30,000

Note—we never sold JUST annuities and if you do, cut the above results in half.  We offered everything so no matter the propect’s interest, we could supply it.  But even if you sold JUST annuities and generated $15,000 in commission for a $2700 investment, that’s a 500%+ return on your investment.  Not too shabby.

Referrals

You likely wont generate too many annuity leads from professional referrals. I don’t know many attorneys or CPAs who will refer clients to you so that you can sell them a product.  If you are an advisor and annuities or just one of your tools, then yes, professional referrals can fill your appointment calendar.

We will address email leads in a future post.

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