In marketing legal services, you need to know your numbers. You need to know where prospects and new clients and website traffic are coming from so you can do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.
Knowing your numbers allows you to cut expenses (time, money) and increase profits.
For starters, ask your new clients how they heard about you. If they found you through a search engine, ask which one, and which keywords they used. If they saw one of your articles or blog posts or videos, on your site or elsewhere, ask them to identify it. If someone shared one of your blog posts or social media posts, which one?
Do the same for prospects who call to ask questions or schedule a consultation.
If the client or prospect was referred to you, you need to know the source of the referral. Was it a client? Another lawyer or other professional?
Who was it? What did they say about you?
You need to know so you can thank the referral source, even if the referral doesn’t become a client. When you show people that you appreciate what they have done, they are more likely to do it again.
What you recognize, grows.
Of course you also want to know which of your referral sources deserves more of your thanks and your attention. You may know 100 lawyers, but if four or five are sending you more referrals (or better referrals) than the rest, you’ll want to send your referrals to them.
When someone calls your office, they should routinely be asked where they heard about you. Your intake form should ask this question.
Because you need to know.
You can track referrals and other metrics with a simple text document, a spread sheet, or on a legal pad.
Once a month, examine your global numbers, i.e., how much new business (traffic, opt-ins, etc.) you got for the month, and from what sources. If one of your articles is drawing lots of traffic to your site, you need to know this so you can write more articles like it. If you’re getting more business from referrals and less business from social media, knowing this will help you know where to invest your time.
In addition, once a month, look at your numbers for each individual source of business–each ad, your blog, speaking, individual referral sources, etc.
Know your numbers, because you can expect what you inspect.
