A simple tool for attracting new clients

June 12, 2025 by
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Your phone rings. A prospective client has a few questions or wants to make an appointment. He wasn’t a referral, didn’t see your ad or article, didn’t hear you interviewed, doesn’t follow you on social media, and hasn’t met you.

How does he know what you do and how you can help him? 

He knows because he’s on your email list and, for weeks or months, or even years, has been hearing all about what you do and how you can help him. 

He’s heard you discuss law and procedure and tell stories about cases you’ve handled. He’s heard what you do for your clients and believes you’re good at your job.

Whether you write a weekly or monthly newsletter or email your list from time to time, your list keeps you in touch with prospective clients, former clients, and business contacts. When they’re ready, they call. 

You can’t do that effectively on social media. It’s out of your control. Algorithms change, policies change, and you never know who sees your information. 

If you have an email list, however, you can contact your target market any time you want and know you’re addressing people who have actually chosen to hear from you.  

They may not open every email, but they’re much more connected with you than they might be on social.

So, you need a list. 

But you can’t (shouldn’t) just add names to a list and hit send. You want them to “opt in”.

You get them to do that by offering an incentive. Not just the information they get in your newsletter or blog or channel.

Something else. 

It could be a report about a legal problem and solution you offer. It could be a guide to accomplishing something your target market wants to accomplish. It could be a form, a list of resources, or anything else a prospective client might want and be willing to sign up to get. 

Offer them something they can download in exchange for their email address (also known as a lead magnet).

It has to be good. Don’t just throw something together. It should be valuable enough that people think, “Wow, I can’t believe they give this away for free.” That’s how you get more opt-ins and build trust with your audience.

On the other hand, it doesn’t have to be amazing. Solid information and a benefit-rich title can do the trick. 

If you target small business owners, for example, a report or guide entitled, “22 Smart Strategies Business Owners Need To Stay Out Of Court” could be plenty.

Start with one lead magnet and use it to build your list. Over time, you can add more lead magnets, for different practice areas, different target markets, and different types of cases, to help you grow your list. 

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Filed Under: List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters Tagged With:

Falling in love with marketing 

June 3, 2025 by
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Just about every lawyer in private practice wants the benefits of marketing—more clients, better cases, enough cash flow to hire competent talent (or outsource) so they don’t have to do everything themself. They all want the benefits of marketing, but don’t always like “doing” marketing. 

They have to force themself to do the activities, or they don’t do them at all. 

But some lawyers love doing those activities and don’t have to force themselves to do anything. They’re good at them and do them easily. Some lawyers enjoy marketing more than doing the actual legal work. 

If you’re not in that group, I have some good news. You don’t have to love marketing to build a successful practice. 

You can hire people to do (most) of it for you. You can partner with a rainmaker. You can hire an ad agency and write checks. 

Or, you can do what many lawyers do (and I recommend)–you can find one or two marketing strategies you enjoy, or at least don’t hate, and just do those. And yes, you can build a successful practice that way.

Notice I didn’t say you need to love those strategies. You don’t. Any more than you need to love all of your clients. 

You may love referrals but hate social media marketing. Stick with referral marketing.

You may enjoy writing articles and blog posts, but hate networking. Guess what? Don’t do networking. 

You may be a talented speaker but can’t find enough events in your niche or target market. Perhaps speaking will be something you do when the opportunity arises, but you’ll choose something else as your primary strategy. 

But don’t decide too quickly. You may say no to one strategy, not because you hate it, but because you’re not good at it. 

You can get better. 

Take a course. Even a no-credit CLE class might teach you a thing or two. 

Read business and marketing books written for businesses, not lawyers, and adapt. 

Hang out with rainmakers. Lawyers, yes, but do you know any successful accountants, investment advisors, insurance reps, or service business owners? Buy them lunch and pick their brain. Go with them to their events. Do what they do, watch and learn. 

You also might get better at marketing by doing what you’ve already done (badly, even) but doing it in a different niche—better suited to your abilities and personality. Marketing is easier and, therefore, more successful, when your clients like you and you like them. 

Keep trying. Have another go at something you didn’t like before, but this time, look for the rainbow: learn something new this time that might work better if you do it again. Meet new contacts. Or learn some ideas you “never thought about before”. 

Try a lot of things, give them a fair run, track your numbers and your time, and you’ll know what works and what doesn’t.  

And, let’s be honest, if you’re hungry and determined to make something work, you will. 

Because it has to. 

That’s how I got started marketing. I was terrible at everything I tried. But I was going broke and had to make something work. So I kept at it. 

Mission accomplished. 

I’m not promising you’ll fall in love with marketing, or even one or two strategies. You might not. 

But you might fall in love with what marketing can do and that, my friend, could be all you need.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan

Faster than a speeding bullet

May 29, 2025 by
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Yes, I know, you are more powerful than a locomotive—at least that’s what you want your clients to believe. You’re invincible—in the courtroom, boardroom and everywhere else. 

As images go, that’s hard to beat. 

But are you faster than a speeding bullet? 

Your clients would like this, too. 

They would like you to complete your work, settle their case, or deliver your work product quickly, because the faster you do that, the sooner they get the benefits they desire. And (they hope) save a bundle on legal fees.

So you might make “speed” a part of your marketing message. 

It can’t be your “unique selling proposition” because, of course, lawyers can’t promise results, quick or otherwise, but it’s a good way to show prospective clients an advantage to working with you. 

Show prospective clients, and the people who can refer them, that you are someone who gets the job without delay.

How do you suggest “speed” without promising it, or sounding like a fast-talking car salesman?

Carefully.

  • When you schedule appointments, offer to see the client today or tomorrow, instead of two weeks out, and schedule those appointments at ten-minute intervals, suggesting that you are busy and work fast.
  • Under promise so you can over-deliver. Tell clients “two weeks” and complete the work in one. Surprise and delight them and create a story they can share.
  • If you use testimonials or quotes from positive reviews on your website or in ads, highlight comments that praise how quickly you got to work and completed it.
  • Talk about how you created many forms and checklists in your practice that allow you to expedite your work process.
  • Update your website with a “modern” look, quicker navigation, and ease of use.
  • Compare and contrast—describe how “most firms” (your competition) do things and show how you are different (better, faster).

Talk fast, walk fast, and show clients you have high energy. Because lawyers who move quickly usually work quickly. 

Most lawyers emphasize quality and trustworthiness and you must, too. But most lawyers don’t even hint at speed, so if you do, you’ll stand out. 

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Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services

Don’t do any marketing until you do this

May 27, 2025 by
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No matter what services you offer or marketing methods you use (or may want to), your first step is to identify your ideal client.  

Not anyone who may need to hire you, your ideal. They are a perfect match for you, and you are for them. 

You want a match because it will make your marketing easier and more effective. You won’t attempt to attract “anyone”–that’s too difficult and expensive, and you might wind up with clients who aren’t a good match. 

Create a profile of your ideal.

Start by describing their legal problem. What’s wrong? What is causing them pain? What do they want to achieve? Why do they need an attorney? 

Next, define the company or individual you want to attract. What stage of life or business are they in? What industry or market? How big are they? What are their demographics? What do they believe, fear, or want? How much work do they have for you? What kinds of cases?

Be specific. The more focused you are in creating this profile, the more likely it is that they will be attracted to you, and the more likely it is that they will hire you and be a good client.

The simplest way to create this profile is to create an amalgam of the attributes of current or former clients you enjoyed working with. 

Go ahead, think about your best clients over the last year or two. The ones that make you say, “If I could only get a few more like (them)…” 

Who are they? What are they like? Why are they ideal?

And why are you ideal for them? What is it about your practice, your style, the mix of services you offer, and other factors that make you the ideal lawyer for them? 

Do this for each of your practice areas or services. 

Once you have identified your ideal client, the next step is to articulate what you would say to them if they asked how you could help them and why they should hire you instead of anyone else. This will help you create your marketing message, which is your next step. 

This message is key to all of your marketing. It will be imbued in all of your presentations, emails, web pages, ads, conversations, and so on, and is fundamental to attracting the right clients. 

Yes, it takes a lot of time and thought, but it’s worth it, because when you have the right message, you get the right clients. 

This shows you how to identify your ideal client and what to say to them:

The Attorney Marketing Formula  

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Can you ever stop marketing?

May 22, 2025 by
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I’ve talked to lawyers who no longer do any marketing. They say they don’t need to—they get all their work from existing clients, through referrals, and based on their reputation in their community or niche. They’ve “put in their dues” and are now enjoying the fruits of the hard work they did at the beginning of their career.

Or they are so busy with work, they need to focus on that and no longer have time for marketing. 

How about you?

Since you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you (still) do (some) marketing. You may have changed what you do, or how much you do, but your marketing is still an important part of your business. The question is, can you see yourself ever slowing down or stopping?

Here are my thoughts:

  • You might want to (or need to) continue marketing, or do more of it, to get to “the next level”. No matter how successful you are, there’s always the next level.
  • You might want to expand your marketing to get big enough to justify hiring a team to do most of it. Or, if you already have a team, to hire someone to supervise them. 
  • If you get a large percentage of business through advertising, it’s profitable and doesn’t take a lot of your time or energy, you should do more of it. Look for ways to expand into other markets, and ways to increase your ad “buys”.
  • If you advertise, but it’s not as profitable as you think it could be, talk to some experts. A few simple changes might make an enormous difference.
  • Consider new marketing strategies. You might find some are easier, less time consuming, or more profitable. Writing a newsletter, for example, takes less time than networking.
  • Do more of the marketing you enjoy, less of the marketing you don’t. If you like what you’re doing, you won’t have to force yourself to do it and you’ll get better and faster.
  • Consider that what’s working today may not work tomorrow. Keep your options open and continually experiment.
  • Never make the mistake of thinking you need to do everything yourself. If you want to grow, you can’t do everything yourself. 

Repeat business and referrals may be the ultimate marketing strategy for attorneys, but it’s not the only game in town.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Marketing legal services

Client surveys

May 20, 2025 by
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Lawyers ask questions to diagnose clients’ problems and prescribe effective solutions. We question witnesses and other parties to learn what they know and how they can help or hurt our case. We hire experts and ask for information and advice to help us better manage our cases. 

Questions are the cornerstone of legal work. But they can be much more. 

Asking questions—through surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and even just conversations—can dramatically improve a lawyer’s marketing and practice management.

What can you ask? Here are a few ideas:

  • Ask prospective clients how they found you and what they heard or read. Did they see an ad? Where? What caught their attention? Were they referred by another client or another professional? What were they told that inspired them to make an appointment? 
  • Ask new clients how they were treated at their first appointment. What stood out about what they saw and were told? Was everything explained to their satisfaction? Did they understand fees, costs, and other terms? What did they like best? What could you improve?
  • Ask existing clients what groups they belong to, to help you identify where you might advertise, network, write articles, or speak. 
  • Ask your subscribers (newsletter, blog, social media) which topics they’d like you to write about.
  • Ask clients if they know about your other services. “Did you know we also do X?”
  • Ask everyone if they might anyone (at work, in their neighborhood) who might like a free copy of your new report or a link to your video. 
  • Ask all clients about their industry or market, business or practice, to “get to know them better” (to create more effective marketing collateral and offers). 
  • Ask all clients if they would recommend you to others and what they would tell them. This could lead to reviews, testimonials, referrals, and ideas for improving your services or your marketing message.
  • In conversation, when you learn a client or contact knows someone you’d like to meet, ask if they would introduce you. 

You can pass out questionnaires at presentations. You can conduct “exit surveys” at the end of cases. You can add “getting to know you” questionnaires in your “new client kits”.

And you can ask clients for feedback or information about themselves or their business any time you meet. 

Questions like these can not only help you create more effective content and marketing messages, they can help you strengthen relationships with your clients and contacts because they really will help you get to know them better.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Content creation, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services

How to get more (and better) testimonials and reviews

May 13, 2025 by
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Other than a referral, there’s nothing more persuasive to a prospective client than testimonials and positive reviews. The words of other clients speaking about the great results you got for them, how you treated them, and why they recommend you are incredibly persuasive. 

If you are allowed to use them in your marketing, you should. 

Liberally. 

Use them on your website, in emails and newsletters, in brochures and handouts, on social media, ads, presentations, and everywhere else a potential client (or referrer) might see them. 

They speak to your capabilities and trustworthiness and what it’s like to work with you. They are the quintessential “social proof” clients look for and are persuaded by and you should do whatever you can to get them and use them. 

How do you get them? You ask for them. And make it easy for clients to comply by giving them a form to fill out or a link to a page. 

The best times to ask are when a client is happy with the settlement, when you deliver the work product they need and want, or when your bill turns out to be less than they expected. 

Happy clients are more likely to give you a good review. 

You can make reviews more likely by providing clients with other reviews or testimonials you have received and mentioning how important they are to you and how you appreciate them. 

You can improve testimonials by providing clients with questions that prompt them to supply details—about the services they received, how they were treated by you and your staff, the results you got for them, and how they feel about their experience with your firm. 

You might ask them to share there their biggest concerns before hiring a lawyer, or how working with your firm compares to working with other firms. You might ask if they would recommend you to friends or business contacts and, if so, what they would say. 

Another thing you can do to get more testimonials is to talk to new clients about the subject even before you start working. Ask them, “If you’re happy with our work, will you be willing to give us a positive review?” When they say they will, you’ll be able to remind them about that later when the work is done. 

One of the easiest ways to get a testimonial is when a client praises you or thanks you in an email or phone call or in person. Thank them for their kind words and ask if you can quote them in your marketing. 

I’ve done that many times. 

Write up what they said, send it to them for their approval, and encourage them to edit or change anything. You’ll often find them adding additional details or comments, making the testimonial much more powerful. 

I encourage you to focus on getting more testimonials and using them. They’ll make your marketing more effective and your practice more profitable.  

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Reviews, Testimonials

Good enough is good enough 

May 6, 2025 by
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To do a good job for your clients, you don’t need to get amazing verdicts, write award-winning briefs, or win accolades for your oratory skills. You don’t need to be the best lawyer in town. You need to deliver excellent results and keep your clients happy. 

And good enough is (usually) good enough. 

The same is true for your marketing. 

Let’s use “content marketing” as an example. 

As you know, content (articles, newsletters, videos, seminars, etc.) can attract prospects, build authority, and show prospects and referral sources what you’ve done for other clients. It is very effective at showing the world what you know and how you help your clients. 

You can build a thriving practice with content marketing. 

But if you’re like many attorneys, you don’t create a lot of content because it takes time to do it well and time isn’t something you have in abundance. 

The truth is, you can create good content in less time than you might imagine. 

The simplest way to do that (other than outsourcing) is to lower your standards a bit. Just like your services, good enough is good enough. 

That means you don’t need to research and write scholarly journals or publish pages and pages of information. You can make a statement or observation, ask a question, tell an interesting story, and call it a day. A few paragraphs are enough. 

It also means that you can repeat yourself.

Take something you said a few months ago and say it again. Because there are always new people joining your list or reading your article or post that weren’t around a few months ago, and because many of the people who were around before didn’t read what you wrote, or won’t remember it. 

You can also repeat your message with different stories or take-aways, because many readers and followers previously didn’t have the problem you’re writing about and didn’t pay much attention. Now they do have that problem and will hang on your every word.  

You also don’t have to be original. You can write what other lawyers write about because few people follow or subscribe to more than one or two lawyers. 

Finally, the quality and quantity of your content isn’t nearly as important as the consistency with which you deliver it. 

To successfully market your practice with content marketing, you don’t need to write brilliant prose or a lot of it. You just need to show up regularly in the mailboxes of your target market, and thus remind them that you are still available to help them.

Doing that once a week is (more than) good enough.

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Filed Under: Content creation, Marketing legal services

Focus on the unhappy

April 22, 2025 by
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In marketing, there are two types of clients a lawyer can target: 

  1. Those who are satisfied with their current lawyer or firm, or don’t have a lawyer and don’t think they need one, and  
  2. Those who are unhappy with their current lawyer, or don’t have one and know they should.

The second type has a problem you can solve. They want to hear what you can do to help them.

Ignore the first type. They aren’t interested. They have a lawyer they like and trust and are unlikely to switch to you, no matter how much “better” you are. Or they are okay with not having an attorney and aren’t interested in finding out what could happen without one. 

The first type is comfortable. The second is in pain. 

Always go for the pain. 

Target clients who know they have a problem and want to do something about it.

Pain doesn’t mean injury or damages, necessarily. It could also be a felt need. The estate planning client knows they are risking problems or expenses for their family if they don’t take steps to prepare for the future.

Target prospective clients who are unhappy with their current situation. They are motivated. Open to change.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t educate your market about what you do and how you can help them, or why you are the better option. Some of them will want to know more.

Be there when they want to know more, but don’t focus on them. 

Spend most of your time (and dollars) getting in front of people who are unhappy.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan

15 minutes a day to build your practice

April 15, 2025 by
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It’s difficult to carve out hours at a time for marketing. The good news is that you can accomplish a lot with just 15 minutes a day.

Between appointments, during lunch, at the end of the day, while you’re driving—snatch’s of time that even the busiest of practitioners can muster. 

The trick is to make a list of these activities, in advance, so you can do them whenever you find yourself with a few minutes. Or better yet, schedule regular 15-minute marketing “appointments” with yourself on your calendar.

What could you do in 15 minutes? You could: 

  • Call a client or two “off the clock” and say hello. (Yes, that’s marketing). 
  • Email five referral sources/business contacts to (a) say hello, ask how they’re doing, or, (b) share some information about their industry or market, or (c) follow up with them after an event or meeting. 
  • Edit/update a page on your website or your social media profiles.
  • Add or invite five or ten people to connect with you on social media.  
  • Review three of your social media contact’s updates and praise them, ask a question, or share some information with them.
  • Brainstorm ideas for your next blog post or newsletter. Or outline or write your next blog post or newsletter.
  • Read my blog or other legal or business marketing blogs to find marketing ideas. 
  • Read your clients’ industry or local market publications to find articles, news, or ideas to share with them. 
  • Work on your WIP: article, book chapter, seminar outline, follow-up emails to your lists.
  • Explore potential new business contacts, add them to your list (and contact them later).
  • Invite (someone) to coffee or lunch.
  • Write and mail a thank you note.
  • Look at postings by writers, artists, consultants, or others to whom you might outsource some (marketing) tasks.
  • Update/improve the forms and checklists you use for marketing and management.
  • Ask ai to suggest keywords for your website or headlines for your articles or posts.
  • Read a few pages of a book about networking, blogging, writing, speaking, or practice management.
  • Practice your speech or what to say when people ask, “What do you do?”

You could also break up that big marketing project you’ve been putting off into 15-minute segments. 

The key? Do something every day.

Not only will the time add up over the days and weeks, you will train your brain to think about marketing while you’re doing other things, and your subconscious mind will provide you with more ideas than you ever thought possible. 

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan
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