Attorney Marketing: What Works and What Doesn’t
I often meet with attorneys who tell me that a particular marketing strategy does not work. This is one of the most IGNORANT statements anyone can ever utter.
Why?
Because everything works. Some things work better than others but everything works.
Just because YOU can’t get something to work, does not mean that EVERYONE will fail at it.
Great example #1: Direct Mail
I get a significant amount of business from direct mail. My clients get a significant amount of business from direct mail. Most people who fail at direct mail fail for one of three reasons: 1). Bad List, 2). Bad message, 3). No follow-up.
If you hit a good list with a meaningful and powerful message and you mail to them at least three times, you will get a positive return on your investment.
Great Example #2: Newsletter
I am constantly told that a newsletter does not work to develop new client business.
If you put a call to action in every newsletter, and you mail them out once a month (consistently without fail), by the end of your eighth month someone will call to work with you. If you stick with it for 18 months, you will receive a positive return on your investment.
Great Example #3: Networking Groups
People tell me that networking groups are a waste of time.
If you join a networking group, and you actively participate, and you subscribe all the members to your newsletter, you will get referrals. If you take care of those referrals, you will get even more business.
Get this through your head: EVERYTHING works. You just need to know how to use everything to your advantage.
Print
EmailLaw Firm Marketing Plan: Do it For Your Family
I have been writing business strategy articles for a long time. I have been helping lawyers build lifestyle law firms, law firms that enable you to live life on your terms, for a few years. But the other day I realized that I may never have told you WHY this is so IMPORTANT to YOU.
Not too long ago I was a different person.
As a leader in a large consulting company I was constantly on the go. I attended meeting after meeting and focused on significant marketing problems. My team and I handled issues like: Positioning a pharmaceutical product that was coming off patent protection, winning a politically charged labor campaign, beating an iconic consumer products company in a category they dominated for a decade, and selling luxury products in a time of economic uncertainty.
This was a prestigious job (I met with the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies regularly). It was a job that paid well.
But I was miserable.
My personal life was in shambles. I was divorced, lonely and growing older and fatter by the day. I knew I had to change things or my life was going to spiral downward at a rapid pace. So I volunteered to help small business owners on the weekends. It turns out, I was pretty good at helping them build successful businesses. And that is when my whole life changed.
One afternoon I received a call from a friend who was a lawyer. He asked me if I would meet with him and some of his colleagues. It seems they were having trouble attracting clients and they thought I could help.
I agreed to meet with them and help them not only attract clients, but help them attract the right clients. This means I helped them attract clients who would respect their expertise and pay a fee premium to work with them.
Within six months my law firm group (we started with five lawyers meeting in my living room) had doubled. The lawyers who participated from the beginning had grown their law firms an average of 37%...in just six months.
But the real news came from their ability to source clients who valued them at a very high level. These clients respected their time and their ability and they paid the lawyers a fee premium. This meant more money from less work. This meant more time with their families and more time for themselves.
Now that I have been doing this for a while I have been able to refine the business development process into an effective and efficient system. This is the Legal Marketing Fast Start System I released a few weeks ago. This system enables me to help more people than I ever could in a one-on-one setting. It enables me to help great lawyers help themselves by developing a law firm that delivers great clients to your doorstep.
This Legal Marketing Fast Start System covers the exact topics they did not teach you in law school. It helps you build a stable of great clients who will gladly pay you the fees you deserve.
Take a look at the Legal Marketing Fast Start System today.
Don’t do it because I am asking you to.
Don’t do it because today is the last day to get a substantial discount.
Do it because you deserve to be happy.
Do it because you deserve to have a law firm full of great clients who pay you what you are worth.
Do it because you deserve more free time with your friends and family.
There is an ancient Roman proverb that says “Fortune Favors the Bold”. Be bold.
Take control of your future and visit: http://LegalMarketingFastStart.com now.
Target the Center of Influence with Law Firm Marketing
There is one law firm marketing strategy that is so simple and so powerful yet almost no attorney is using it.
It is a strategy that is requires a little creativity, a little commonsense and a lot of persistence.
I call it the center of influence strategy and it can make the difference between having a good law firm and having a great law firm.
This is how it works:
For Lawyers who Target Consumers (Criminal Law, Family Law, Trust and Estates Law, etc.):
Every community has people who are well respected and influence the decisions of a great many people. Individuals in roles such as members of the clergy, individuals who run community centers, people who occupy positions of authority, media personalities, etc. These are the people we are targeting with this strategy.
For Lawyers Who Target Businesses:
We are targeting decision-makers. Most often I recommend we target the top person in the company (the CEO or owner).
There are three elements to this strategy:
Element One: The Introduction
Every two weeks you write this person a letter. In that letter you highlight the issues that the community/industry is facing and you discuss how you can help prevent bad things from happening to good people. Your call to action in the letter is to ask the reader to contact you for an educational briefing on the particular problem you are good at solving. It is important to note that you are not soliciting business. You are asking for an opportunity to present information that will help them understand and prevent the problem themselves.
A good example comes from criminal law. Criminal defense attorneys conduct this presentation with members of the clergy. The topic is: ‘How to Keep the Children in Our Community Safe’. The presentation is about preventing kids from joining gangs and committing crime by enrolling them in after school activities.
Element Two: The Presentation
This portion of the strategy can be an in-person talk or a webinar that is delivered to the influential individual. It contains statistics and data that highlight the problem. It also appeals to the individual to help solve the problem.
Element Three: The Offer
This is the call to action. You now ask the influencer to invite you in to speak to his/her group. You can offer to speak frequently (monthly, quarterly, annually). You give a talk on how to prevent the bad things you see in your law practice.
After these talks you continue to stay in touch with the influencer and you remain available to speak as often as he would like you to do so.
You will be amazed at how many referrals you can source with this strategy. If you do it right, this strategy will position you as a person who cares about the community/industry and is willing to do something to give back.
In reality, it is always in giving that we receive the most.
Get Into Motion
Many people think about law firm marketing as television advertising, billboards or fancy brochures. While many lawyers use those marketing methods, there is a better way to jump start your client attraction process.
Here is a four step process I use with my private clients:
Invite Your Current Clients and Former Clients to an Event
It is a good idea to hold a client appreciation event at least once a year. At this event you have some live entertainment and some food and beverages. The event should be an informal gathering designed to thank people who have done business with you (or referred clients to you) in the past year).
You must use a multistep marketing sequence to get your clients and former clients to attend the event. People do not agree to come to something just because it is free. They must be sold on the idea.
There are three specific purposes to holding this event:
1).To rekindle your relationship with past clients
2). To educate them on who you are and what you do
3). To initiate an on-going dialogue with them
Make Them Feel Like They Are Part of an Exclusive Club
By hiring you at some point in the past, your clients should feel like they are part of an exclusive club. They should feel as though they have a lawyer in the family. They should be encouraged to call you for any legal need. If you do not handle the issue of the day, you will refer them to someone who can help them.
Educate to Demonstrate Your Expertise
At this event you should give a brief talk covering something in your field of expertise. This is not a sales pitch nor is it an academic lecture. Most often, I advise my clients to discuss a case that has been in the news or something that is of particular interest to the local community. This not only showcases your expertise, it demonstrates leadership and people gravitate toward leaders.
Follow Up with Regular Communication
After the client appreciation event, each person should receive regular, frequent communication from you. This communication (newsletter, email, card in the mail) does exactly what the event did. It reminds the client or former client that you are still open for business. It lets them know that they have an attorney in the family. And it encourages them to call you if the have a need.
Note: In some practice areas, this event will be more geared to referral sources or people who are influential in the community (criminal defense, divorce and immigration for example). While it may be appropriate to invite clients to these events, you will also want to include your best referral sources as well.
An Additional Law Firm Marketing Resource
There is an additional law firm marketing resource you may not be familiar with. Each weekday I post a new law firm marketing video on my legal marketing video blog.
Be sure to bookmark Legal Marketing for Lawyers. This is a great website that includes different and relevant information on law firm marketing. It is updated Monday through Friday.
Attorney Marketing Consistency Equals Clients
When I was in college one of my friends (let’s call him Philip because that is his name) was very popular with the ladies. It was not because of his striking good looks and it was not because he was wealthy and it definitely was not because of any other physical characteristic. But there was one secret to his success.
The secret to my friend’s success was in his consistency.
You see Philip would be at the same locations every week. Monday at this particular college hangout, Tuesday at this one, Wednesday at this one, etc. And he would chat up the same girls in each location, each week. He paid careful attention to the things that were important to them and to the things they liked. He never pressed really hard to get them to go out with him. He just showed up each week and showed an interest in them. Then, when he sensed the timing was right, Philip would ask each of them to go out with him. He was hardly ever turned down – even by the most beautiful girls. Even girls who had boyfriends said “yes”.
In attorney marketing you may not always know who you next client will be but you can apply two of the principles listed above.
First: You can continuously show up somewhere (on line, in a newsletter, in an educational environment).
Second: You can talk about what the client wants to talk about. This is particularly important. Enter the conversation the client is already conducting with him/herself.
This may not be as exciting as asking someone to go home with you and getting a drink thrown in your face, but it is far more effective.
Finding What’s Missing From Your Marketing
When it comes to attorney marketing I find there is of the one thing missing, even from the law firm marketing plan of the most dedicated attorney. That one thing is tying as many of your daily actions to a goal as possible.
This is one of the keys to success I share with my clients. Here is how it works:
Take a look at your list of daily action items. (If you do not have a list of daily action items, make one). Each of those daily action items should bring you one step closer to one of your goals.
For example, one of your action items could be: Write an article for my law firm newsletter. That action item gets you one step closer to obtaining a new client, which helps you fulfill your goal of making a certain amount of money.
Another example could be to follow up with an event planner on a specific speaking opportunity. This will also get you closer to your revenue goal because you could secure some new clients as a result of speaking at this event.
Ultimately you want to fill your list of daily action items with tasks that help you get closer to your goals and you want to eliminate or delegate all the things on your list that do not help you achieve this objective.
Implementing this slight change in the way you organize your daily work will have a dramatic effect on your success in attorney marketing.
