Effective marketing of legal services, or anything else, does 3 things:  

1. It gets the prospect’s attention and stimulates DESIRE for something they want, a benefit, and sets the stage for taking the next step.  
2. It tells them what to do—the ACTION you want them to take. You want your prospects to call, fill out a form, email, subscribe, watch a video, read something, or take some other action.
3. It tells them WHEN to do it. Ideally, you want them to do it NOW. “Immediately, if not sooner,” as my grandfather used to say. Tell your reader or listener to take immediate action, or as soon as possible, because people are busy and think they’ll do it later, but of course, “later” never comes. 

The title of this post told you to read it now and gave you a good reason, i.e. to get more clients. Since you’re reading these words, it did its job. 

It got attention, stimulated desire, and prompted you to take action. Three keys to effective marketing. 

Write these down (now, so you don’t forget) and use them in all aspects of your marketing. 

Unless you’re not interested in getting more clients. 

A prospective client watches your presentation, reads your ad or email, or talks to you about their case or matter. They see the need and value of your services, they can afford them, they’re interested, but, alas, they don’t sign up. 

Maybe they have a good reason, or maybe they just want to think about it. 

What can you do? 

1. The simplest answer is to give them more information. Tell them more about their problem or situation, how bad it is and how it could worsen, more about their options, more about your skills, more about the benefits you offer, and more about how they will feel once you help them solve their problem or achieve their aim. You can also give them more proof—testimonials, success stories and your bona fides.
2.  You can use “scarcity”. You only have a few appointments available this week, or only five more special packages (bonuses, bundles) for new (or returning) clients.
3. You can use a deadline—they must respond by a certain date to get the special offer or get an appointment. 

All three options play on the prospect’s desire to improve their situation or their “fear of loss.” Both are powerful mechanisms for motivating clients to take immediate action instead of thinking about it. 

In marketing legal services, we typically show people something they didn’t know or confirm something they thought they knew. We educate them about the law, the risks, the penalties, the options, and the benefits of taking action, i.e., hiring us. 

Besides “telling,” we also persuade them by dramatizing what they know (or what we’ve just told them) by making the risks and penalties more formidable and urgent, and/or the benefits and relief more enticing. 

We do the latter by providing more information, arguments, or examples, or agitating what we’ve told them by adding more fuel to the fire. Some copywriters call this “twisting the knife”. 

We want them to feel more emotions, enough to tip the balance in favor of taking the next step. If they’re scared, that means scaring them more, but not so much that they shut down.

A little can go a long way. 

The key is to talk about things they care about and make the threat or promise more likeable and believable. 

The most important place to do that is in your headline or title. Show them you understand them and have something important for them, and they will be more likely to notice, click, and read your message. 

In the body of your message, you continue to twist the knife. 

Enough to make them cry ‘Uncle,’ but not enough to kill them.