The Annuity Lead

What if you could isolate the people most likely to buy an annuity?

You can.  Research by Gallup done for the Committee of Annuity Insurers isolates the best annuity leads by detailing which prospects are most likely to buy annuities.

Here are three findings of the research which can help you focus on the right annuity prospects:

Retention of First Annuity.
Almost all non-qualified annuity owners (88%) still own the first annuity they purchased.  This means that many people have old annuities with old features and possibly under market interest rates.  There is a huge pool of existing annuity owners for whom you may be able to do much better. These annuity leads already know how annuities work and are locked in to their current annuity or doing an exchange because they won’t want to pay the tax. The way you find existing annuity owners is by running an ad that attracts them.  We run an ad for an annuity booklet called “Annuity Owner Mistakes.”  Obviously, the person who would order such a booklet is an annuity owner!  Marketing in this way produces annuity leads that are the perfect target market.  (Before recommending an exchange, please be sure that the annuity owner will be better off and that you make all disclosures for an annuity exchange).
The average age of non-qualified annuity owners is 66.
Non-qualified annuity owners are more likely to be female than male (56% vs. 44%). So if you were buying a list, your best list that would encompass the best annuity leads would be a list of females between age 60 and 70. Gallup has already done the research so it’s easy to target the market that is most likely to own annuities based on their work.

Non-qualified annuity owners have moderate incomes.
Two-thirds (66%) have annual household incomes below $75,000. Only 18% have annual household incomes of $100,000 or more.  This tells us that the best annuity leads are not rich people and that you don’t want to build your business based on selling $1 million dollar annuities.  You will do better with an annuity marketing strategy to sell a lot of annuities ranging in value from $50,000 to $200,000 as your buyers are middle income people.

While too many annuity agents don’t focus their marketing efforts, you know now how to target the annuity prospects that make the best annuity leads.

Bookmark It

Annuity selling is not an easy job, but with a sound marketing plan in place you can earn much more than you ever thought possible. Like all other jobs, selling annuities requires not just hard work, but being innovative, talent and an effort at out of the box thinking. Having a sound marketing plan in place is the first thing that you need to do if you want to distinguish yourself from the run of the mill annuity salesperson.

One very important thing to remember here is that no marketing plan should feature only a single marketing strategy. There are a number of annuity selling agents who either resort to cold calling or direct mailing to follow up with their leads. But having a single strategy greatly increases your risks of failure whereas a multi pronged strategy not only manages to reach out to your prospects at different levels, but also increases your chances of getting higher sales. So what are the marketing methods that are most effective for selling annuity? Some of the best methods for approaching your annuity leads that will yield good results are:

1. Advertising: I know you will be shocked that I said advertising! After all, that is what you do all the time and you already know what the results are. However, we are not talking about advertising what your company is providing, or the run of the mill annuity ad. Like in all things, you will have to distinguish your ads from others advertising similar products. For this, you will not only need to rework and redesign your ads, you will also have to post them at the right time. The main focus of your ad should not be just what the company is offering, but rather the benefits that buyers of that particular annuity will get. On the other hand, most people shift their investments or plan them around the beginning or end of the financial year, so advertising around this time would be more fruitful as compared to advertising during the holidays when people focus more on vacations and shopping.

2. Seminars: Seminars are one of the best ways of cashing upon and creating high quality annuity leads. Offering a free seminar in localities where your target customer resides can get you an extremely high rate of sales compared to other marketing methods.  This is because only people who have a serious interest in financial planning will attend a seminar that is focused on personal financial management, retirement planning and buying financial instruments. Covering a number of topics at your seminars, instead of just focusing on equities, will help you get a larger audience. You can tie up with other agents dealing with other products to host a full fledged informational seminar for seniors. Just make sure that you provide valuable information instead of delivering your sales presentations during your seminar. This would establish you as an expert and you will notice people coming to you to buy annuities instead of the other way round.

3. Direct Mailing: Direct mailing can be an extremely powerful marketing tool provided you know how to make your mail stand out and grab your prospects’ attention. To know more about how to do this, check out our post on creating powerful direct mailing messages.

Get annuity sales leads  your local area – prospects seeking assistance now!

Bookmark It