You want your practice to stand out in the crowd. You like the idea of free publicity. The idea of “going viral” appeals to you. You’d love to bring in a lot of new business.
Here’s an idea for a promotion that could help you accomplish all of the above.
Step one: find a “safe” charity or charitable cause
Choose a safe charity or cause to align with. Something that would appeal to your target market.
“Safe” means the organization is the real deal. Most of their revenue goes to causes, not overhead. There are no scandals. No political overtones to what they do.
It’s probably best to go with something small and local. You’ll be able meet with the people who run things, which can lead to additional marketing opportunities for you (e.g., networking, referrals, speaking).
Step two: choose one of your services you can give away free
(Yeah, that’s the part you may not like; but it could lead to results you’ll love).
This free service should be a “leader” or entry-level service, for new clients. For example, a simple Will package, incorporation, or an employee handbook review. If you bill by the hour, it could be a six-hour bundle.
Obviously, you’ll want to offer a service that is likely to appeal to the kinds of clients you target.
Make it as valuable and attractive as possible. Remember, the end game is to get publicity and traffic and new clients. The bigger you go, the more likely it is that your offer will accomplish this.
If you go really big, however, you may want to limit the number of “packages” that are available.
Step three: “Pay what you want—it’s for charity”
Promote your offer with a theme that new clients can pay what they want for the services and that 100% of the proceeds go to [name] charity.
Tell them the value of the package, or a suggested minimum donation.
For added punch, tie the promotion to a specific project the charity is running, e.g., the homeless shelter fund. And put a time limit on it.
Some clients may “cheat” and pay only a few dollars. But most people are honest and will do the right thing, if for no other reason than to help the charity.
Advertise and promote your offer as broadly as possible. Send out a press release. Email all of your lists and contacts and all of the bloggers and writers in your niche. Ask the charity to promote it in their newsletters, website, and bulletins. Ask them to ask their major donors and supporters to do the same.
You should get some favorable publicity from this. Traffic to your website and sign-ups for your newsletter. Meet some new referral sources connected with the charity. And get some new clients.
If all goes well, the next time you do this, you can partner up with other lawyers, other professionals, and other businesses, each of whom will promote this to their contacts, generating more goodness for all of you.
Leverage is the key to earning more without working more. Here’s the formula
