Marketing legal services Archives - The Attorney Marketing Center

Sell your legal services in 60 seconds!

October 15, 2024 by David M. Ward

The world is awash in ads that sell products or services in 30 to 60 seconds.

Why can’t you do the same?

Why can’t you explain what you do and why someone should hire you in just one minute? In a TV or radio ad, on a web page, in a presentation, or face-to-face?

You can do that by sharing one to three benefits—the problem(s) you solve, the solutions you offer, and why the reader or listener should choose you as their attorney.

Yes, the person who hears your message will want more information. They’ll have questions, they may want to do so some research about their issue or about you, and you will almost always have to accommodate them.

But first, you need to get their attention and stimulate interest in learning more, and you can do that with a well-crafted 60-second commercial.

Not a paid ad, necessarily. You can do this with a conversation where you tell a prospect client (or someone who can refer them) WHY they should talk to you, go to your website, read your handout, or come to your seminar.

Start by making notes about the problems you solve, the services and benefits you offer and why a prospect should take the next step to learn more.

And pay attention to ads and presentations and web pages you see, to see how others do it and especially how they get your attention.

Then, talk to a marketing or advertising professional, see what they offer, and consider asking them to put together a “test” campaign for you.

If you’ve done your homework, you’ll have a good idea of what you want from them, and what you might be able to do yourself.

Filed Under: Advertising, Copywriting, Marketing legal services

Do you need a brochure to market your legal services?

October 3, 2024 by David M. Ward

A brochure looks nice. Just like having a nice office, nice furniture, and a nice suit.

At a glance, a prospective client or fellow professional can see you are no slouch. You’re successful.

You need a brochure, right?

It can’t hurt. But a brochure isn’t necessary. Your website can accomplish the same thing, but do it better.

Your website can tell people all about what you do, your background and story, your successful cases and big-name clients, share your victories, tell people how you work, and tell people what others say about you.

Your website doesn’t need to be fancy. Or expensive. A simple “off-the-shelf” template will do.

You can add as much information as you want whenever you want. If there’s something you need to change or fix, you can do it in minutes.

You can include information that helps people understand their problem and what to do about it. You can add a blog or articles, forms and checklists, and other goodies to help visitors understand their situation and why they should choose you to help them.

A brochure tells people what you do. A website proves you can do it.

Yes, there may be times when you want to have something you can hand out at a meeting or put in the mail. Something brochure-like, like the big kids have.

You can do that. Full-color brochures are impressive. Get some if you want to.

Or put your website address on your business card and call it a day.

Filed Under: Image, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

Sell me your services

September 23, 2024 by David M. Ward

You’ve probably seen videos demonstrating the value of sales skills by asking a volunteer to “Sell Me This Pen”. The idea is, if they can sell something as unexciting as a pen, they can sell anything. Sometimes with a single 30 or 60 second commercial.

In fact, it’s even possible to do that selling legal services.

Even though buying legal services is more complicated than buying a pen, the principle is the same. Tell prospective clients how you can help them solve their problem or achieve their goal, tell them how they will be better off, invite them to get more information, and you’ll have a powerful, persuasive sales tools that can bring your more business.

It’s easier than you think.

Your “commercial” doesn’t have to present a full-throated presentation complete with closing argument or address all possible objections. Don’t tell them “everything”. Succinctly tell them the key benefits you offer, invite them to ask questions or get more information, and you should get more clients.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Salesmanship

Pre-marketing

September 12, 2024 by David M. Ward

Everything we do that qualifies as marketing—networking, content creation, staying in touch with clients and prospects, running ads—is easier and more effective when we “prepare” before we “do”.

Let’s call it “pre-marketing”.

Before you attend a live event, for example, you don’t just show up. You make a list of people you want to connect with, what you want to ask, offer, or tell them, notes about the speaker and his or her topic, and so on.

If you have a blog or newsletter or regularly post on social media, your pre-marketing activities would include collecting content ideas, creating a backlog of new content, verifying links, and updating your calls-to-action.

Yes, it’s all marketing. But pre-marketing activities can be done ahead of time, when you have an easier schedule.

Do these things so that when it’s go time, you’re ready to go.

Things like

Learning more about your target market and ideal client
Looking for articles to send to your key clients and referral sources
Signing greeting cards and thank-you notes so they are ready to mail
Reviewing your competition’s content
Taking seminars about SEO and AI and tools you can use to improve your marketing
Creating new forms and updating old ones
Finding and working with a “workout partner”
Reading blogs about marketing and productivity

Keep a list of these activities close at hand and schedule time to do them.

Boring? Maybe so. But you can delegate a lot of this.

Do enough pre-marketing and you might be able to hire a full time pre-marketing assistant.

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services

Do the math

August 30, 2024 by David M. Ward

Have you ever considered a marketing task and talked yourself out of it because you “didn’t have the time”?

Actual work, appointments, meetings, appearances, reviewing files, billing, calls, email, supervising employees, taxes, banking, all need to be done and doing them doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

Including (especially) marketing.

But hold on. If an activity turned out to be worth it, could you find the time to do it?

Would it be worth doing (something) once a week for 45 minutes if it brought in a new case or client every month? Would it be worth doing something 30 minutes every day if it brought in two new clients each week?

Do the math. It’s your practice. What would it take for a marketing task or activity to be ‘worth it’ for you?

How much time, money, effort, for how much return?

Once you have an answer, test the idea. And give it enough time before you conclude it is (or isn’t) worth it.

But hold on (again). You might find that something wasn’t worth it, e.g., you invested three hours this month and saw very little (or no) return, but that doesn’t mean you can’t improve. You might be one tweak away from creating a flood of new business.

Try again. Try another approach.

You might find ten things that don’t work. That’s okay. All you need is one that does.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Simple, not easy

August 28, 2024 by David M. Ward

To persuade prospective clients to hire you, you want them to know that what you will do for them is simple, but not easy. There’s a lot of work to do, much of it is complex and difficult, but you have the knowledge and experience to do it.

Because you’ve done it many times before.

In your marketing messages, don’t confuse “simple” with “easy”. What you do isn’t easy. If it was, any attorney could do it, and that’s not the message you want to convey.

It’s simple but takes a lot of skill, experience and hard work. They’ve chosen the right attorney for the job because you’ve helped many others through this process and are ready to do it for them.

Imagine if you suggested otherwise, that what you do is easy to do. That’s not what a client who is being asked to pay big bucks to think.

So, choose your words carefully.

Choosing you is simple. Hiring you is simple. Working with you is simple.

But the work isn’t easy.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Get more clients by making it easier for clients to contact you

August 26, 2024 by David M. Ward

You can get more new clients (and repeat clients) by making it easier for clients (and referral sources) to contact you.

Especially via email since this makes it easier for them (and for you).

The key? The contract form on your website. Encourage visitors to fill this out any time they have something to ask you or tell you. Tell them when you will reply, e.g., within 24 hours or 48 hours if it is a weekend, and what to do in an emergency.

Making it easier for people also means not requiring too much information on your contact form. Ask for the minimum, just enough for them to hold up their hand, which usually means just their email and question or reason for contacting you.

Don’t make them fill out a lengthy questionnaire (as I’ve seen some lawyers do). Don’t pre-qualify them before you speak with them. Don’t tell them what you will or won’t do or what you do or don’t need from them.

For now, you just want to know their name and an email address. You can get the rest later.

Yes, you will get a lot of inquiries that go nowhere. But you will also get a lot of inquires from prospective clients who fill out your form because you made it easy to do that, and your competition didn’t.

If you get inundated with inquires and you can’t handle the volume, well, that’s a nice problem to have. There are things you can do to mitigate this but it is likely to be more profitable not to.

Keep your form as simple as possible. If you need to talk to them, you can invite them to call or ask for their phone number so you can call them. You can also direct them to your FAQ page or an index of your articles.

Show people it is convenient to connect with you and more people will.

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

Add these questions to your client intake form

August 19, 2024 by David M. Ward

By adding a few additional questions to your intake form your clients and prospects can help you improve your marketing.

Start with a few questions about where and how they found you.

Was it a referral? From who? How do they know them? What did they ask them? What did the referring party tell them about you or your firm?

Was it a search? What keywords, questions, or information did they use? Did they research their problem first or immediately search for an attorney? What did they find that prompted them to call?

Was it an ad? Where did they see it? What did they like about it? Did they see it more than once?

Did they find you via one of your articles or blog posts or presentations? What convinced them to take the next step?

You can ask them to fill out a form at their initial meeting but consider talking to them in person as you will get better answers, be able to ask follow-up questions, and assess their body language.

You’re not just looking for their responses, you want to note the words they use (and don’t use), their emotional context, and additional information they might supply about themself and their situation.

You want to know what potential clients think or do when they have a problem or desire, and what they do to find a lawyer who does what you do. You can use this information to improve your content—articles, presentations, emails, etc., improve your keywords and ad copy, and improve your conversations with prospective or new clients.

Pay attention to what they say and how they say it. One client might emphasize their concern about their injuries and damages; another might zero in on the amount of time they’re losing from work, a third might speak primarily about their pain and treatment.

It’s all important, but knowing what’s most important to your prospects and new clients can help you better relate to them and they to you.

Filed Under: Client relations, Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

The cost of marketing your legal services

August 16, 2024 by David M. Ward

Lawyers choose which marketing strategies to use based on a variety of factors, not the least of which is cost (money, time, other resources). But cost is a misleading factor.

It’s not how much we spend. It’s how much we earn in return.

We might think a certain ad campaign (or any marketing strategy) is “expensive” but if the ROI is high enough, it might actually be “cheap”.

If you spend $1,000 per month on an ad, for example, and it brings in $5,000 per month in net revenue, that ad is profitable. If you can continue to get that kind of ROI, you would want to invest as much as you can in as many ads as you can.

The same goes for seminars, mailings, video production, other content, or other marketing endeavors.

It’s also pertinent to hiring additional staff (or better staff), a bigger office, or even a better wardrobe.

Nothing is expensive if it pays for itself and helps you increase your profits.

You might be reluctant (or unable) to spend $50,000 per month on advertising, but if you’re getting a 5-1 return (and you can handle all the new business), you’d be foolish not to beg, borrow, and steal to get more money to invest in that slot machine.

There is a risk that you won’t continue to get a sufficient ROI, however, so you have to watch your numbers.

But many lawyers don’t. They allocate a monthly or quarterly budget for “advertising” or “marketing” and hope it pays off.

But that’s not how a profitable business (or practice) should be run.

Filed Under: Advertising, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services

The simplest way to become the top lawyer in your field

August 14, 2024 by David M. Ward

You don’t have to outspend or outwork other lawyers in your field to get to the top. You don’t have to go to more networking events, create more content, increase your ad spend, or improve your speaking, writing, or interpersonal skills.

There’s an easier way, and it’s more likely to take you where you want to go.

The simplest way to get to the top is to choose a segment of your field or market—a niche—and dedicate yourself to it.

Instead of promoting your services to “everyone” who might need or want your legal services, tailor your message to your chosen niche.

Focus on their industry or market and the people in it. That doesn’t mean ignoring everyone else who might need your services, it means concentrating your marketing message and activities towards your chosen niche market.

Study that niche. Learn all you can about their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Learn their stories and share them in your marketing. Use their buzzwords, reference their events and milestones, and notable legal issues.

And meet the leaders in their market and ask them to introduce you to others.

Why go to this bother? Because your goal is to stand out in that market. When someone in that niche, industry, or market has a legal issue, question, or case, you want them to think about you and reach out to you or think, “I’ve heard of you” when you meet them or they see your name.

If you do estate planning, you compete with thousands of other attorneys who do what you do. Instead of trying to show the world you are better, show up for the people in your niche, show them you “speak their language” by using their buzzwords, referencing their stories, and talking about problems and solutions that are important in that niche.

If you choose “health care professionals,” for example, you won’t talk about what other estate planning layers talk about, you might speak to them about medical/ethical/legal/tax issues for physicians and administrators and the need to protect their assets and plan their estates accordingly.

Dedicate a website or blog to that niche. Create content for that niche. See and be seen by key people in that niche.

When they see you understand their niche better than other lawyers and are actively working with their colleagues, clients, and contacts, as your name becomes well known, eventually, perhaps sooner than you think, you will become the expert in their niche, and the top lawyer in your field.

To choose the best niche for you (and how to approah it), The Formula will help

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan Tagged With: Niche marketing