With internet marketing, even B2B insurance companies can benefit from increased online exposure. Corporate packages are a strictly required staple for any company, big or small. A demand for the service is already a given. Putting up a webpage can come both to your convenience and to the convenience of your prospects who use the internet as a fast means to locate solutions. You can also invest in a bit of email marketing and seemingly replace old direct-response methods like telemarketing.
However, if you think that things will be completely smooth sailing from here on, think again. You’d be surprised at how many obstacles have risen along with the birth of the online frontier. This may sound pessimistic but no matter how new an approach seems to be, it’s not without its own flaws and its own obstacles. On the other hand, that’s doesn’t mean you should discard new methods either. You just have to make sure they don’t make you idle and closed off from different ideas.
Still, what are these supposed obstacles faced by those marketing online? Ironically, these obstacles have strong parallels with that of the previous ones (email marketing in particular). Whereas professional telemarketers used to deal with gatekeepers and voice mail, email marketers find similar situations risking the blockage of spam filters. There’s also the threat of unfeeling programs tracking their activities and labeling them as such. And even if you do manage to engage a prospect, what’s stopping their messages from getting swamped out of the dozen other inquiries you’ll be getting? It’s not surprising to find that people find SMS still slower than a live conversation (be it over the phone or face-to-face).
Exposure on the internet also exposes you to hackers just as much prospects. If they hit your website, your lead generation might suffer from the lack of activity (however brief). You should be prepared to have a back up plan that doesn’t rely on the internet too much.
There’s never room for idleness when it comes to getting B2B leads. Do take note that your prospects aren’t just regular people who need insurance for themselves. It’s for every person of their entire department. Planning for even a small business organization takes time. They need to be contacted, qualified, and then set with an appointment. If your appointment setter is exclusively internet-based, you’ll run into the problems cited above because there’s no other way to inform your prospect (or yourself for that matter).
Cost shouldn’t even be an issue. The issue is not allowing new methods be an excuse to lose vigilance. You don’t even have to invest in two separate methods for it. There are telemarketing companies out there who also know how to use email marketing to their advantage (and vice-versa). If you want to get the whole package without breaking the company piggy bank or just want to focus on you main tasks, then just outsource them. Goodness knows you might not regret that you did (especially if you don’t have a lot of experience knowing how to combine the two methods effectively). Again, don’t let new methods be a cause of idleness!
