Law Firm Marketing in Six Easy Steps
Law firm marketing does not have to be difficult. There are six easy steps to making your law firm marketing productive. If you follow these law firm marketing steps, you will build a significant client base within six months. It may take time, but it will be time well spent.
Below are the six easy steps to effective law firm marketing:
Law Firm Marketing Plan Step 1: Pick a niche market. Everybody is not your ideal client. Good law firm marketing requires focus. This means you must pick a specific target market and dedicate significant dollars to getting your message to it.
Law Firm Marketing Plan Step 2: Clearly differentiate your law firm from every other firm in the market. This part of your law firm marketing plan is about making sure your ideal client understands why you are different from everyone else who does what you do. It is critical that you spell out why people should hire you based upon these differences.
Law Firm Marketing Plan Step 3: Set up a blog and post 3 articles each week. This is the part of the law firm marketing plan that intimidates most attorneys. They fear that they do not have enough time to dedicate to law firm marketing in general, let alone a blog in particular. Keep in mind that each blog post can be as short as 300 words. The blog articles only need to be as long as is necessary to get your point across. Creating this content is essential for your website as well as for the rest of your law firm marketing campaign, so take the time to do it.
Law Firm Marketing Plan Step 4: Send out a weekly educational email to your clients. This email is your communication vehicle with the clients in your database. It will help you keep your name in front of them and it will remind them to call you when they have a need for your services. The email can be direct, to the point and brief but it needs to provide valuable information.
Law Firm Marketing Plan Step 5: Send out a monthly newsletter. The monthly newsletter can be a compilation of articles from your blog and your weekly email. It doesn’t have to be 100% original content. The reason a print newsletter is so effective is because regular mail is an underutilized media. These days people receive a great deal of email and little regular mail. Sending a print newsletter is a must for an effective law firm marketing campaign.
Law Firm Marketing Plan Step 6: Host quarterly client appreciation events. These events should have an educational component to them. Teach your clients (and a few select prospective clients) something new. Give them some “insider tips”. Provide them with valuable information they can’t get anywhere else. It may be a good idea to serve some food and drinks and show your appreciation to the people who have been loyal to your law firm.
A law firm marketing plan does not have to be labor intensive, complex or overly sophisticated. It just needs to be executed consistently. If you plan your time well and complete the law firm marketing steps listed above, you will be thrilled with the results.
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EmailWhy Is It So Easy To Hire You?
Every so often I will point out things I think are worth reading for people interested in law firm marketing. This week I came across a post by Seth Godin on open buying and open selling. Seth is talking about the ease of getting something and its true value to the end user. This is a concept that is near and dear to me. If something is easy to get, how much could it be worth?
Let’s say you need to see a heart surgeon. It’s not an emergency but your doctor has detected an irregular heartbeat. The doctor doesn’t give you a referral (he doesn’t believe in them). So you are forced to find a heart surgeon on your own.
You go to the Internet and you call the heart surgeon who comes up on top in a Google search. You call the office at 9AM and get an appointment for 11AM. After a FREE consultation, you shake the doctor’s hand and he agrees to operate on you at 1PM.
What do you think? Is that guy most likely a good doctor or a bad doctor?
I know that sounds ludicrous but that’s what happens with many lawyers.
You can pick up the phone at 9AM, make an appointment for today at 11, go to the office for a FREE consultation and have an attorney retained by 1PM.
And the attorneys who operate this way wonder why they have so many clients who shop around.
It is not easy to hire a good lawyer. Good lawyers are selective in the clients they accept. Good lawyers are always busy…too busy to handle same day appointments or walk-ins…too busy to offer FREE consultations.
If you want quality clients you need to have a process in place to select them. If you want clients to listen to your advice they must perceive it as valuable. Law firm marketing helps influence that perception but commonsense must also have a role.
Clients get what they pay for…and they know it.
A Law Firms Marketing Madness: Cutting the Budget is a Bad Move
Many large law firms have been cutting their marketing budgets during the past couple of years. This is being done as a reaction to the broad economy and the perceived weakness in the demand for legal services. These law firms marketing madness will only make things worse.
Cutting the law firms marketing budget during difficult economic times is the wrong approach. A down economy is exactly the right time to spend MORE on marketing. Here are three reasons why:
Clients still need you to solve problems.
Do you really think there is a shortage of legal issues during a down economy? Come on now. Clients have either chosen to ignore their issues or they have put off fixing them until the economy improves. Your job (as a law firm business owner) is to help potential clients realize that their problems must be addressed now. It shows that you still involved in the community/industry.
Since we practice educational marketing, we are always providing value to our clients.
If you continue to provide this value, even during an economic downturn, you will build your credibility and goodwill within your community/industry. Law firms marketing in a recession are perceived as strong. Law firms marketing using educational marketing provide their clients and prospective clients with value. The combination of these two factors makes them unstoppable.
The return on investment is still there.
Think like a business owner. If you invest a dollar and you receive three dollars in return you have made a good investment. That’s what marketing is all about. Good marketers find out what works and they invest in it and leverage their investment to receive a great return.
Law firms marketing in a recession are rare but that’s all the more reason for you to INCREASE your marketing during tough times. Make the investment.
You’ll be glad you did.
Lawyer Marketing Starts With Target Market Selection
Most lawyers don’t give marketing too much thought. Networking at an event, printing up some brochures, handing out business cards and a setting up a website are what passes for lawyer marketing these days. Of course these ARE marketing tactics but there is more to business development than dropping a pile of brochures in the waiting room of the office and waiting for the phone to ring.
The first point of marketing strategy a lawyer must tackle is selection of the ideal person he would like to engage as his client. Initially this will sound odd to most attorneys. After all, isn’t EVERYONE in your target market?
The personal injury attorney thinks anyone can be in an accident. The criminal defense attorney thinks anyone can get into trouble (or be misunderstood) the divorce attorney thinks anyone can get divorced. The list continues on and on.
In truth, those people are all correct. Many legal matters can apply to the general public. But marketing to the public at large is costly and wasteful. The REAL market for these attorneys is someone who not only has realized he needs a lawyer, but it is someone who is looking for a lawyer.
So the personal injury attorney needs to meet someone who has been injured due to the negligence of others and wants justice. The criminal attorney wants to meet the person who has made a mistake and wants the best defense possible, regardless of cost. The divorce attorney wants to meet the individual who just can’t take another day with his/her spouse. The potential clients are looking for a lawyer to help them, NOW.
This is where lawyer marketing begins. The strategic component of targeting clients who are looking for an attorney who focuses specifically on the type of problem they can solve. This is a great deal of work. This means that the attorney must look for commonality in the clients that he has worked with over the years. Age, occupation, geographic location can all be factors. Past behavior, membership in specific groups and spending patterns can also offer clues. Understanding how your potential clients think will help you understand where to find them.
Good lawyer marketing begins with understanding as much as possible about your prospective client. Knowing your target market will not only prevent unnecessary spending it will help you find good clients who understand the value you provide. Get inside your clients’ mind to learn where to find them.
Attorneys Marketing Question: How do I get new clients?
One of the questions I am asked most frequently by attorneys marketing their services is: “How do I get new clients?” My consulting practice is dedicated to helping attorneys answer this question but unfortunately there is no one right answer. Each attorney is different and each practice area has different nuances. Applying a one-size-fits-all answer to this question would be to do a disservice to anyone genuinely interested in the answer.
There is a way to answer this question and have the answer broadly apply to just about any attorney in any practice area. That is answer can be summed up in two words: DO SOMETHING.
It’s not complicated.
Each and every day you should do something that helps you build your law firm client base. Today you write an article for a trade journal. Tomorrow you ask a colleague to make an introduction for you to an influential individual in a target company. The next day you reach out to the chamber of commerce to see if there is an opportunity to give a speech.
Start each day by doing one thing that will help you get closer to your client acquisition goals for your law firm.
Now I have a question for attorneys marketing their services: What have you done today to get new clients?
Marketing for Attorneys and The Magic Beans
Marketing for attorneys is just like Jack and the Beanstalk. Every attorney I meet wants to plant the magic beans, go to sleep and wake up with a beanstalk that will lead him to a beautiful place in the sky that contains untold riches. Of course there is a giant who guards this place and he enjoys eating attorneys who climb the beanstalk. Occasionally, one or two attorneys will make it down from the beanstalk with the hen that lays the golden eggs. But most of them spend a lot of time and money and in the end; they get devoured by the giant.
In marketing for attorneys, the magic beans are their website. The attorneys believe you plant the seeds, go to sleep and wake up with a vehicle that will lead the clients to your doorstep. In a few cases, this actually happens. But in most cases, fees, costs, and unforeseen expenses (the giant) beat you up pretty well before you even sniff any gold.
Don’t get me wrong, a website is a critically important tool in marketing for attorneys. You must include it in your arsenal but success doesn’t happen overnight. Here are four things you must do if you want your website to deliver qualified clients to your doorstep:
Post New Articles at Least Three Times per Week
Static web pages are as useless as brochures. (In case you didn’t know, I hate brochures. They provide no value and they only enrich the printers who sell them to you.) You must have dynamic content on your website and it must be updated a few times each week to drive your webpage to the top of search engine rankings. The articles you post do not need to be long but fresh content is critical.
Focus the Content on the Client
Don’t write about you and your firm. Someone who just arrived at your website is searching for help in solving a problem. Write about solutions to problems. You must enter the conversation that is going on in your client’s mind. Provide the information the client needs and he will check out your background once he sees what you can do for him. This doesn’t just apply to the Internet; it is a fundamental principle of marketing for attorneys.
Offer Information for Free in Return for Contact Info
The thing that separates your website from a brochure is the response device. This is a little section on the website where you offer information in return for the client’s contact information. It can be in the form of a little box at the top of the page that says: “Enter your first name and email address for my free report titled: ‘Five Things You Need to Know About Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer’” or whatever your practice area may be.
Follow-up, Follow-up, Follow-up
Marketing for attorneys is all about follow-up. The web is no different than any other media. Once you get a lead you need to call and email that person within 24 hours. After your initial contact, if they don’t ask to come into your office for a consultation, you should keep them on your mailing list forever. That’s right. I said forever. Your goal is to be the FIRST and ONLY attorney they think of when they have an issue in your area of expertise.
In marketing for attorneys there are no magic beans but your website can eventually help you live happily ever after.
How Smart Attorneys Double Their Revenue in a Year
As you may have heard from me (several times) it is better to have 100 ways to get one client than it is to have 1 way to get 100 clients.
But there is one thing you should do first, actually NOW, if you really want to grow your client base in the next twelve months. In fact, this activity is possibly THE BEST way to ensure you will DOUBLE your revenue.
It is not sexy.
But it works.
What is this mysterious client acquisition tactic? Is it something on the Internet? Is it social media? Is it some new form of technology?
No.
It is called follow-up.
Good, old fashioned, follow-up.
Here’s how it works:
Let’s say you are introduced to someone by a client, friend or referral source. You have a brief conversation and you believe this person has the potential to become a client in the future or refer you to potential clients. What happens next? Usually nothing.
Replace “nothing” with these steps and you will double your revenue in a year:
1). Go to lunch: Take your new friend to lunch and learn everything you can about his business. Don’t sell yourself. Learn about him and his business.
2). Send a hand written note: Let him know you enjoyed meeting him. Enclose a business card.
3). Send your contact information in electronic form. People like to have your information in their PDA or Smartphone. Make it easy for them. Send your contact info in an email.
4). Introduce this person to someone who can help his business. This point is critical. You need to go the extra mile and actually HELP your new prospective client. You must give something before you can expect to receive something.
5). Provide them with something of value a least every month. This means you should send them something they will enjoy every month. It can be a newsletter. It can be a greeting card. It can be a phone call where you touch base and help them solve a problem. The key is to help them remember you by providing them with something valuable.
People do business with people they know, like and trust. If you implement a simple follow-up and monthly contact system you will reap the rewards.
It takes about six months for people to get used to interacting with you on a consistent basis. But once they realize you are interested in helping them, they will warm up to the idea of trusting you with their most important matters.
How many ways do you have to get new clients?
One of the first things I review with attorneys is the variety of ways they attract new clients. At first, I am usually greeted with a blank stare when I pose the question: “How many different ways do you have to attract new clients?”
The puzzled look is followed by a statement like:
“I can’t afford too many marketing initiatives. I rely on referrals and word of mouth.”
The folks who offer up this response have three specific problems:
They have made a decision to cap their income. The fewer ways you have of attracting new clients the less opportunity you have to grow your firm’s revenue. Keep in mind, I love referrals. I think you should have a system for nurturing referral relationships. But referrals will generally come from people who know you, like you and trust you. Most of us – even the super-networkers – will have a limited sphere of influence from which we can attract referrals.
They do not know that there are more personal forms of marketing. Networking is a great way for attorneys to make contact with potential clients but the follow-up from networking (which is marketing by the way) is how the relationship grows. Educational events are fantastic ways to introduce the value you provide to potential clients. Writing articles, giving speeches and serving on the board of directors of a charitable organization are all ways to develop new relationships and new potential clients.
They are looking for the magic bullet. They want one way to attract 100new clients. They want the easy money that comes with running ads or mass mailing. The trouble with these forms of marketing is that they are expensive and their effectiveness is often fleeting.
The key to developing new client relationships lies in the diversity of your marketing efforts. I have been developing business strategy for my entire career (22 years) and I say with confidence that I have seen very few individual marketing methodologies that consistently attract hundreds of clients – yet I have seen hundreds of ways to attract one client. The key to growing your law practice lies in improving the diversity of your client attraction tactics.
The Lawyers Who Don’t Need Marketing and Business Strategy
If you work in a law firm – particularly a big law firm – you may not need to know how to originate new business. Someone may feed you business. And they may do so for years and years.
You will probably make a respectable salary and you will get to do meaningful work, some of which you’ll enjoy.
If you work for yourself, own your own law firm, you may not need to do much in the way of marketing. You may be able to go directly from a public position (Prosecutor’s Office or Public Defender’s Office) into a practice where your reputation delivers clients to your doorstep on a steady, regular basis.
Both of these options are true career paths that thousands of lawyers have worn over the years. Many of the lawyers that follow these paths make a good living.
There is one challenge with these two paths: They leave an awful lot to chance.
With the big firm path, you never have the opportunity to control your own destiny. You constantly wait for someone to deliver work to your office, you say thank you, and you kill yourself for no glory.
On the second path, you have every opportunity in the world at your feet. You can take whatever cases you’d like. You can charge whatever you’d like and you can work whenever you’d like …
…if you know how to attract and retain clients.
Note: Being a good lawyer is not a strategy. Being a good lawyer is a prerequisite for any attorney who owns his/her own firm. If you stink as a lawyer, your lousy reputation will overwhelm any marketing efforts you can possibly employ.
Being a good lawyer and promoting yourself minimally (putting up a website and attending a few local events) will help you expand your reputation and get you to a comfortable place financially.
If you want to make more money, mid six figures to seven figures and beyond, you will need to do some marketing and set a sound business strategy.
That means creating a message and targeting a specific market with that message. It’s not necessarily advertising…it is marketing and business strategy.
The bottom line: If you want to top out at $150,000 - $300,000 per year, that’s great. Continue to work for someone else or start your solo shop and rely solely on good fortune and your reputation.
Risky but possible.
If you want to make $500,000 and beyond (I have several clients who make multiple millions of dollars per year in law firms they own, with less than 10 employees) you need a sound strategy and you need marketing.
Need help with this? Think I’m wrong? Give me a call.
Dave Lorenzo 888.692.5531
Five Things Every Law Firm Should Guarantee
Most businesses are afraid of guarantees. The believe that people will take advantage of them way too often and drive firm into the ground.
Law firms are no different.
In most states law firms cannot even allude to the potential positive outcome of a matter without facing severe penalties. So you can forget about guaranteeing anything…right?
Wrong!
The state bar rules, in most cases, do not forbid SERVICE LEVEL GUARANTEES. They forbid outcome guarantees. Your law firm can guarantee that you will treat your clients with respect and common courtesy.
Many of my clients (I only work with lawyers) have strong guarantees and they ask their clients to hold them accountable.
Here are the five things that every law firm should guarantee:
A Return Phone Call
I hate the fact that most attorneys do not return phone calls in a timely fashion. I do not care how busy you are, I do not care if you spend your entire day in court, I don’t care if you commute 3 hours one way to work; all client phone calls should be returned within two hours. Period.
You don’t have to personally call your client back (it would be great if you would). But your assistant should call people back within two hours and schedule a return call to your clients at the next possible opportunity.
By they way there is no excuse for ever letting a client go beyond 24 hours without a phone call. If you don’t get out of work until 10PM, call then. The client will be glad you did. They will not be upset when you interrupt their TV shows.
Proper Preparation
I have seen many attorneys walk into the lobby of the courthouse and get introduced to their client for the first time.
Sorry but that is crap.
Proper preparation means having at least one conversation with your client before they put their legal future in your hands.
It also means that you have read the file before walking into the meeting with opposing council for the first time (yep I’ve seen and heard about that a few times too). It also means proof reading the settlement letter before sending it – you know – to make sure that the client’s name is spelled correctly…
An Answer to Every Question
You must give your client an answer to every question he/she asks. Helping your client understand what is happening to him/her is an essential part of your job.
If you don’t know the answer to the question at that moment, simply say: “I have to do some research before I answer you.” And then get back to them as soon as possible.
That’s not only a nice thing to do, it’s your job. You work for the client.
Attorney Timeliness
No one client is more important than any other.
If they are you should choose not to represent the lesser of the two clients because they deserve someone who will give them their full attention.
Be on time.
Just like the phone call situation – there are few acceptable excuses for being late to a meeting.
The Right to Speak with the Boss
All clients should have the right to speak with the ultimate decision-making authority in the firm.
If you are a solo or small firm attorney then you might want to consider a “speak your mind guarantee”. This is a guarantee that states that if the client is ever not happy with something, they have the right to speak their mind and not worry about any repercussions. Of course this is not the same as introducing an objective third party into the situation, but it demonstrates your concern for the feelings of the client.
So just what happens if you let the client down?
What happens if you fail in one of these areas?
In most cases, the attorney agrees to forgive some portion of the fee.
That’s right; they put their money where their mouth is.
These five items are foundational elements of client service. If you are not guaranteeing them, there is only one reason: You are scared that you cannot control yourself enough to treat people properly.
Why don’t you implement this five point guarantee today?
Need help? Call me. Dave Lorenzo 888.692.5531
