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.
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EmailGet 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.
Marketing for Lawyers: Time, Money, and Effort
The challenge of resource allocation and marketing for lawyers is something that surfaces regularity among my clients. It is more relevant when we talk about how much time should be spent with each form of media and specifically with each marketing vehicle.
These days lots of people are pouring resources into the Internet. They’re spending their time and money on search engine optimization, social media and pay per click advertising. All of these things are excellent vehicles in marketing for lawyers. The trouble comes when this is the only form of media the lawyer is using for marketing. (Remember the Internet is still a form of media, just like speaking or magazine advertising, writing articles or a billboard.)
Diversity of media is not only important, it is critical to the success of any law firm marketing plan. Here is a formula I share with my clients for marketing diversity:
Ideally, no marketing vehicle would be responsible for more than 10% of your lead generation and no media would receive more than 10% of your time, money and effort. This forces you to have at least 10 different ways to attract clients and spread your effort and your dollars across all ten of them.
How does this work?
Let’s say you have 10 hours each month to spend on marketing. This simply means you spend one hour on each of the tactics in your marketing plan. If you have $1,000 to spend on marketing, then you spend no more than $100 on each tactic.
When it comes to marketing, if you diversify your time, money and effort, you will source your clients effectively and keep the pipeline flowing.
Nobody Respects a Cheap Lawyer
I bet you are a good lawyer. You might even be one of the best in town. Yet at the end of the day you have a conversation with your partner or spouse and it goes something like this:
“I do not understand why I keep getting these crappy clients. They demand EVERYTHING and they want it YESTERDAY. They call my cell phone at all hours of the day (and night). They have unreasonable, no not unreasonable; they have CRAZY expectations for their case. And then, when I deliver the best result possible…a true miracle…when I pull a real rabbit out of my hat…they complain about my fee.”
This conversation plays itself out over and over again in one form or another. It seems like a good portion of the clients who come to you have Champaign expectations on a Schlitz budget. No matter how hard you try you cannot seem to shake this syndrome.
So you wake up in the morning, you get out of bed and splash some cold water on your face. You brush your teeth, comb your hair and head off to the office. You do this with the hope that today will be different. You do this with the hope that the Good Client Fairy will sprinkle some pixy dust on your desk chair and a rational client with a reasonable budget will walk through that door and beg you to work with him.
Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy. Hope makes you feel good but it does not change anything. Hope will not feed your kids and it sure as hell will not pay your mortgage.
What is the answer? How can you solve this problem?
The answer starts with the value you place on your services. Most attorneys set their fees based upon the rates they think will attract clients. They view their fee as bait they put into the water to attract fish. The problem is that the smelliest fish go for the smelliest bait. Bad clients are attracted by low fees.
There is a three step process I take my clients through when we first begin working together. This process is designed to help them reposition themselves in the market. It is designed to help them attract better clients who pay higher fees. Once my clients accept the fact that they deserve more money; once they accept the fact that they can charge WHATEVER THEY WANT; once they realize that people pay a premium for things they find valuable; their entire client base changes.
It is transformed from a parade of lunatics making outrageous demands, to an environment where the client views his lawyer as a trusted advisor.
But you have to take the first step.
You have to want to change this endless cycle of torture.
You can do it but you have to make a decision to take action.
Will you?
Marketing for Lawyers: Three Ways to Get More Referrals
When it comes to marketing for lawyers it is not as sexy or as sophisticated as sourcing clients via the Internet, but a good old fashioned referral strategy is one of the best ways to attract new clients. Here are three ways to remain relevant to your colleagues, clients and friends.
Introduce Him to Someone. If you introduce a colleague, friend or client to someone who is good for their business, they will be more likely to return the favor. By making the introduction you are doing two specific (and valuable) things: First, you are giving them something. That creates a psychological bond between you. It makes it more likely that they will want to return the favor. Second you are demonstrating the behavior you want them to exhibit. This is called behavioral modeling and it is highly effective.
Keep in Touch: I talk about this constantly. Follow-up is one of the key components to success in life and success in marketing for lawyers. If you send your potential referral source something every month (a newsletter, a card, a note, an email) he will be more likely to refer business to you because you will stay top of mind.
Send Him a Client: Although this seems simplistic it is the truth. If you send someone a client they are far more likely to refer business to you then if you don’t. May lawyers who pay referral fees think that just because they pay a referral fee they never have to reciprocate with a referral. That’s just not true. Sending a referral is about more than money. It is also about trust. If you send someone a referral you are saying you trust that person. That is important in any relationship.
Although these three referral building tips may seem like basic marketing for lawyers, you would probably be amazed at how many people do not practice them regularly.
If you want more referrals, look for a way to incorporate one of these three tips into your daily marketing routine.
Quality Law Firm Marketing Means Quality of Life
Law firm marketing is usually not something that is given priority. This is precisely the reason lawyers fail at marketing. If you want to be certain that your time is well spent on any activity, you should always give your best effort. Marketing is no different.
How many times have you attended a networking even only to briefly shake the hands of people you know, have a drink and leave early?
How many times have you thought about posting something to your blog only to put it off because you were too tired and though you could get to it tomorrow?
When seeing something another lawyer implemented, have you ever thought to yourself: “That’s a great way to attract clients, I could do that.” Yet you failed to give it another thought…
All of these responses are perfectly normal. But that is the problem. Normal actions get normal results. And normal means average. And the average attorney is terrible at law firm marketing.
If you want to take control of your destiny you must become adept at attracting the right kind of client. This means you must become adept a law firm marketing.
When I say “adept” I mean you must approach it with urgency and purpose. In other words, you must have marketing intensity. Even if you only have twenty minutes per day to work on marketing, those must be twenty focused, powerful minutes.
Here are three examples of marketing intensity in action:
Blog Articles: Each blog article should be meaningful to the reader. Do not post an article just to say that you posted an article. Do not write something just to add more keywords to your website. You should provide so much valuable content in your blog articles that readers will be impressed with your depth of knowledge and advice.
Speaking Engagements: You should speak on topics that the audience will find interesting and informative. You should offer follow-up information to the audience. You should include a call to action to allow the audience to become a part of your email and newsletter lists.
Direct Mail: Do not just mail one letter, one time. All mailing should be conducted in three letter sequences (at minimum). Most people need to hear a message at least seven times before they are receptive to it. If you want to get through to your target audience, repetition is key.
This article should serve as motivation. If you are going to do some law firm marketing, you owe it to yourself to do it correctly. Put together an action plan that includes law firm marketing and then TAKE ACTION. Give it 100% and you will be surprised and amazed by the results.
Attorney Marketing Takes Away the Sting of Losing
The sting of losing a client never goes away completely. But attorney marketing does help keep the pipeline full of good qualified prospective clients.
This means that if one client leaves (or a prospective client elects not to work with you) you have an opening for another qualified client to step into.
If you are anything like me and you hate losing, then having many new clients waiting to come to work with you is helpful at getting you past the disappointment of not closing the last deal that walked through the door.
Attorney marketing also makes you less needy. This is always a good thing.
You never want to sign up a client because you NEED them to work with you. You should only sign up a client because they are the right client for the way you practice law.
Attorney marketing helps you get to that point. But it requires time, energy and focus.
