Mobile strategy no longer encompasses just a mobile-optimized website. Consumers in all industries, including legal, are using their devices more often and in different ways than before. In fact, we check our phones 150 times per day with each session lasting a little over one minute, according to Flurry Analytics as well as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. This type of behavior shows that people want quick and digestible content that they can consume on the go, anytime and anywhere, from short how-to blog posts to detailed user reviews about your law firm.
Google calls these real-time mobile interactions “micro-moments.” For your law firm, micro-moments present a fantastic opportunity to constantly engage with your audience. The path to attorney marketing success involves anticipating their needs correctly and having the information, content, and copy they are looking for, before they need it.
The following strategies can help you switch the focus of your attorney marketing to creating micro-moment touchpoints that can build a loyal client following.
The Four Types of Micro-Moments
According to Google, mobile users utilize their devices for four types of needs along the client journey:
Fulfilling mobile users’ needs in these moments is the key to converting them into paying clients. For example, posting useful blog articles on your legal blog for those I-want-to-know moments or how-to videos for those I-want-to-do moments. Overall, you must anticipate what users will be looking for during these micro-moments and create the right kind of legal marketing material to meet their needs.
This could be the difference between a prospective client choosing your law firm over a competitor; more than 50% of American smartphone users ended up buying from a different brand than intended because they found their chosen brand’s information valuable, says a report by Google, TNS, and Ogilvy.
I-Want-To-Know Moments
These types of attorney marketing opportunities are all about researching options. At this stage, your potential clients aren’t ready to pull the trigger; they are just looking for information about your firm, feeling out your brand, and maybe searching through the content and layout of your website to decide whether you can provide the information they are looking for.
Perhaps they heard about your law firm from a friend and want to see what all the fuss is about, or maybe they saw a Facebook advertisement posted by your practice and simply want to learn more about your services. No matter the path they took to land on your website, social media pages, or online reviews, their purpose remains the same: to explore their options.
Take advantage of their curiosity by providing useful information that addresses their real questions. Someone considering bankruptcy for instance, is probably asking…
With those questions in mind, create helpful resources for your legal website. A short two- to three-minute video outlining the average process and timeline for filing bankruptcy can resonate with potential clients and give them the information they are looking for while also showcasing your firm’s expertise.
Download our free guide and learn about the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs)
I-Want-To-Go Moments
Not everything happens online; sometimes potential clients want to physically come into your law firm to get a feel for your practice or meet face-to-face with their attorney. I-want-to-go moments are all about providing information so potential clients can connect with you in the real world.
This is where location-based advertisements can be so powerful, as well as simple things to feature on your mobile site like customized driving directions.
I-Want-To-Do Moments
Google and Ipsos found that more than 50% of smartphone users feel favorable toward organizations whose apps or mobile sites include informational video content, and that 48% of users are more likely to purchase from businesses that provide instructional video content. The conclusion is obvious: step-by-step instructions, particularly in video format, attract potential clients when they are looking for instant help with a problem.
Of course, you may not be able to create a video titled “How to Resolve Your Debt in 30 Minutes”—that kind of resolution timeline is impossible in the legal industry—but you can still take advantage of I-want-to-do moments by producing simpler how-to videos like “What You Need to Know About Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in 3 Minutes.”
I Want-To-Buy Moments
These moments are at the end of the sales funnel—prospective clients are ready to buy! Your job is to remove any obstacles in their way and provide several quick paths toward signing with your law firm so they can choose the avenue that suits their needs and preferences.
If you realize that your prospective clients typically want to talk to a real person, consider launching a campaign of click-to-call advertisements to enable them to easily call your firm. Similarly, if your attorney marketing data suggests that your potential clients typically like to do things online, be sure to route them to your online consultation form. Then, follow up quickly on all inquiries for a greater conversion rate and higher attorney marketing ROI.
Good news: you have done the hard work of convincing a prospect to fill out your online opt-in form, transforming them into a lead. Bad news: unless you nurture that fledgling relationship, you are no closer to landing a new client.
The following lead nurturing tactics—attorney marketing strategies to transform leads into clients—are promising approaches to do just that, so you can land new cases faster and more easily.
Targeted Content and Copy
Think about this situation: two bankruptcy law firms are trying to win over the same prospective client.
Law Firm A has no information about the prospect, so it sends general emails pitching its bankruptcy services. Law Firm B diligently collects data about the prospect—a 35-year-old unmarried female homeowner with $120,000 in debt, who prefers to receive communications by email—and then sends her an email campaign tailored to people with more than $100,000 of debt.
Which law practice do you think will be more successful at winning the prospect? Law Firm B, of course, because recipients are more likely to respond positively to communications that are highly relevant to their situation. No one wants to feel like they are just another email on a list.
Lead intelligence is incredibly important at every stage of the sales cycle, so your law firm can speak directly to contacts, build trust, cultivate valuable relationships, and convert leads into loyal clients. Tailoring your legal marketing to speak directly to audiences starts with gathering essential data. (One way to do this is to utilize progressive profiling, discussed in further detail below.)
After gathering as much data as possible, tailor communications to specific audience segments. Don’t be afraid to experiment to see what works.
For instance, consider A/B split testing your website homepage to determine the kind of copy that resonates with different audiences. Keep in mind that you only want to alter one element at a time when conducting an A/B split test, so you can determine exactly how that single change affects the number of views, clicks, and form submissions.
Try split testing two calls to action, such as “download the guide” versus “get the free guide.” After several weeks, analyze key legal marketing metrics—views, clicks, and submissions—to find out which performed better. If you’re not seeing the results you would like, try once again altering the call to action or change the headline on the page.
These kinds of tweaks can help you target your website copy to better speak directly to leads.
Progressive Profiling
Progressive profiling ensures that you get to know prospects without scaring them off by asking for too much information from the get-go. Implement this practice with the forms on your law firm’s website, for instance.
Rather than requiring first-time website visitors to fill out ten form fields, which seems time-consuming and inquisitive, ask for just two pieces of information: name and email address. Then, the next time they visit your bankruptcy website, ask for two more such as the specific services they are interested in and approximately how much debt they are dealing with (you’ll need marketing software that recognizes the lead’s return to your website).
Or, you can gather this second-round information by sending a welcome email to contacts who have just opted in. Included in the email is an offer for two popular lead magnets—an e-book about Chapter 7 bankruptcy and an FAQ guide about Chapter 13 bankruptcy. They must fill out another quick form to gain access to either resource, which means that your law firm will glean a little more insight into leads while also demonstrating the value of your law firm’s knowledge and services.
When used hand in hand with targeted content and copy, progressive profiling can become a strong lead nurturing strategy.
Quick Follow-Up
You are 9 times more likely to convert internet leads if you follow up within 5 minutes, according to InsideSales.com. Think about that: you can potentially gain 9 times as many clients simply by prioritizing follow-up.
Even if you can’t reach out to leads within a few minutes, aim for connecting within one hour after their opt-in. Harvard Business Review found that organizations that contact leads within 60 minutes are almost 7 times as likely to spark productive conversations with key decision makers than those that delay.
Just remember to do some cursory preparation before contacting leads in order to promote an informed conversation. Look at the information the lead provided on their opt-in form, the resource they downloaded, or the email inquiry they sent to the firm. Arming yourself with this marketing data can customize your “pitch” to the lead’s specific issues or interests, thereby making it more effective.
Download our free guide and learn about the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs)
Multiple Touchpoints
One conversation may not convert a lead into a client. The reality is many leads are not sales ready right off the bat. In these cases, transition into a multiple-touchpoint attorney marketing strategy in order to continually nurture the lead until they reach the decision-making stage. A few ideas:
Of course, all of this takes time to set up and manage. With a powerful client relationship management (CRM) system like the James Legal CRM, however, you don’t have to micromanage essential processes.
Your law firm can automate its attorney marketing procedures to send out quality content, monitor marketing ROI, generate more referrals, and potentially cut your attorney marketing bill by hundreds of dollars.
Say nothing else; just finish with your name and contact information. This technique works. Try it.
We can explain any of these techniques in more detail, or implement techniques that will improve your lead flow and conversion.
We’ve yet to meet a lawyer who didn’t want to convert more callers to clients, but most are not taking advantage of call-tracking technology. For example, our easy-to- use cloud-based call software shows:
Spot opportunities to improve
Our call software helps you dig deeper when potential issues are indicated. For example, with one click you can listen to calls of short duration, or with a new staff member. Periodic monitoring will help you coach when room for improvement exists.
Or maybe, like more than one of our clients has, you will find that a staff member is simply obtaining a callback number instead of learning whether prospects have your kind of cases and helping the right ones set appointments.
Make high-impact changes
1. Do you know which marketing efforts generate the best leads?
2. Do you know how many calls are not being answered?
Download our free guide and learn about the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs)
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Whether you engage us to improve web traffic, obtain more reviews, streamline administrative processes, update your technology, or improve your law business every way we know how, we understand that every law firm wants more clients.
That is why we include our call-tracking technology at no extra charge in every assignment we take on. Call-tracking technology can make a big difference in your caller-conversion rate, and we would love to explain how.
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If you want us to review your marketing, technology, and business process to uncover easy ways you can increase revenue, reduce costs, and improve your bottom line, 30 minutes is usually enough for us to give you several high-impact recommendations.
Click below to learn more and make an appointment to speak with our president Michael Knutz. There will be no heavy sales pitch — just questions and then recommendations based on what is already working at other law firms.
Know upfront that none of our services cost less than $1,500/month, and that most (but not all) of our clients spend a minimum of $1,000/month on marketing.
Many attorneys fail to properly analyze and handle the leads generated by their marketing efforts and expenditures:
Too many attorneys evaluate their marketing efforts on the percentage of cases retained. For example, you may retain 50% of the contacts from print ads, and only 30% of the leads produced by several websites. But if the print leads cost $200 each and the website leads cost you $65 each, then your retained cases from the print leads cost $400 ($200/.5) while the website cases cost $183 less ($65/.3 = $217). Cost per retained case is the critical number, not retention rate.
Big marketers have procedures and standards in place to ensure prompt and persistent outreach to leads. You need to match their efforts by dialing leads within minutes of receipt. If your office does not reach the prospect on the first call, it should try again 4-5 times per day for at least 2 weeks.
Connecting with the lead can be the most difficult aspect of disability marketing. It is important when you do reach the prospect that you ascertain whether the prospect has a good case:
Prospect: Hello.
Your office: This is the Law Office of John Smith calling about the case evaluation form you submitted online. Is now a good time to discuss your case?
Prospect: No, it isn’t.
Your office: I understand. But before I hang up, I have a couple quick questions for you….
The prospect may be considering options other than retaining you for representation. It is thus important that initial outreach include a few sentences that address at least some of the following questions.
Until you have a signature, you don’t have a client. Don’t let the follow-up telephone calls cease until all the necessary paperwork has been signed.
If you feel you have the procedures and personnel in place to handle more leads than you currently receive, we can deliver them.
Our leads are supplied exclusively to you and to no other attorneys, and you can specify geographic region by zip or county.
With all of the attention focused on cultivating online leads, some law firms tend to ignore improving their inbound call strategy. However, there is no doubt that phone calls can still result in a significant amount of business for many legal practices, and that failing to focus on this attorney marketing element can lead to both lost cases and reputation damage.
Use these 5 inbound call marketing strategies to convert more telephone prospects into leads and clients.
If you realize that your most promising leads tend to come from your law firm’s blog page or via a successful Google AdWords campaign, for example, you can use technology like Optimized Attorney’s cloud-based call software (included free with the James Legal CRM) to route those leads to the most experienced staff members with the highest rates of conversion.
Sending calls to the right sources can ensure a more successful conversation from the get-go, and a higher caller conversion rate.
More than 50% of the sales process is already complete by the time that prospects actually call your law firm, according to a study conducted by CEB. The exact figure may vary by situation, but it is safe to say that most prospects turn to the internet to equip themselves with loads of information before they even reach out to your practice.
Use this to your advantage by training staff about the kinds of information they should collect once they get prospects on the phone. This could include:
A basic rule of thumb is the more helpful pieces of data the initial staff member can gather, the more they can qualify the lead and determine whether the prospective client is a good fit for the law firm.
Once staff members have collected necessary information, they can assign the lead a rank, such as high priority, medium priority, or low priority. This is called lead scoring—an attorney marketing system that helps law firms determine which leads are most worth their time and bear the greatest odds of converting into clients.
How do you know which kinds of leads are the most promising? They are the ones that fit your ideal client profile. For example, a law firm specializing in employment law could be looking for leads that:
No matter your law firm’s specific criteria, everyone should be trained on it so they can spot the highest-quality leads and flag them for immediate attention. The early bird gets the worm, and the law firm that reaches out to the lead first usually snatches the case from their competition.
Download our free guide and learn about the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs)
When you have identified a promising lead on the phone, schedule an appointment right then and there. You have already gone through getting to know the potential client to see if the relationship is a good fit, so if they are still on the phone, there is a good chance that they are open to a consultation.
Peruse your team calendar and suggest an open time slot. Note that this is not the same as asking whether the prospect wants to schedule an appointment, which often sets the stage for a “no.”
If the potential client demurs on the meeting suggestion, address their concerns. If they still don’t want to commit, switch tactics and say that you will pass along the lead’s information to an experienced team member, who will give them a call back within 24 hours (responding within 1 day ensures the highest possible conversion rate). Then, tag the lead as a high priority in your attorney marketing call software and/or CRM.
Optimized Attorney’s call software can send text messages to team members when good leads come in to ensure priority follow-up.
Even if prospects do schedule an appointment, that doesn’t mean they will show. Following up ahead of time can ensure a higher meetup rate and conversion rate from lead to client.
Send a reminder email or text message to the potential client the day before their meeting reminding them about the consultation. Another option is to send them a confirmation email right after scheduling the consultation, which contains the option to add the meeting to their calendar. Just be sure to get their permission to contact them beforehand.
The potential client will appreciate the reminder and your law firm will experience fewer meeting cancellations, which can mean a significantly higher conversion rate over the long run.
There are endless advantages to having a strong intake process. Too many firms focus on driving phone calls, and not enough on having the right people in place to turn those inquiries into cases. When you neglect your intake process, you negatively impact your firm’s ability to capitalize on quality cases.
In case you missed it, here’s a recording of our recent Attorney Webinar: How to Convert Leads into Clients.
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