Marketing legal services Archives - Page 11 of 128

Soft call-to-action

April 11, 2023 by David M. Ward

When you tell your readers, audience, subscribers, or website visitors to do something you want them to do, e.g., Call to schedule an appointment, you’re using a call-to-action. And you should because the more you tell people what to do, the more likely it is that they’ll do it.

Clearly, not everyone is ready to do what you ask when you ask it, which is why you should ask again. Put calls-to-action in most or all of your marketing communications. Remind them (often) to call, sign-up, or download something. And tell them why—the benefits they get or the problems this can help them solve.

When (if) they’re ready, they will respond. Your job is to stay in touch with them and continually make the case for taking action by repeating your call-to-action, providing additional arguments and examples, reminding them about the benefits, and otherwise “selling” them on doing what you ask.

Telling them to call for an appointment is a ‘hard’ call to action. If they call, there is an expectation that this will lead to them signing up for something and paying something, and this may not be easy for them because it requires a commitment they might not be willing (yet) to make.

Which is why you should also use the ‘soft call-to-action’. Asking (telling) them to do something that doesn’t require a big commitment. Something relatively easy for them to do:

Like, share, comment
Download this report
Fill out our survey
Hit reply and ask your question
Sign up for our free seminar
Watch this video, listen to this podcast, read this article
And others.

Why use these? First, because they help you build a list, which gives you permission to follow-up and send additional information.

And second, because the more often you ask them to do something, and they do it, the more likely it is that they will do something else you ask.

Get a visitor to your website to give you their email address and download your report today. Tomorrow, it will be easier to get them to sign up for your seminar or listen to your replay. Eventually, it will be easier to get them to schedule that appointment.

What’s interesting is that even if they don’t do the things you ask, the more you ask, the more they become conditioned to hearing you ask and the less resistant they become to (eventually) doing something you ask.

The lesson? Ask visitors and readers and prospects to do things and never stop asking.

Each time they hear you ask, they take a step closer to becoming your next client.

Marketing legal services is easier when you know The Formula

Filed Under: Closing the sale, Communication, Copywriting, List building, Marketing legal services

Revenue generating activity

April 5, 2023 by David M. Ward

Business advisors of all stripes talk about the primacy of revenue generating activity for sustaining and growing a business. They tell you to should spend most of your time doing this because it is the only thing that brings in income.

“Everything else is an expense.”

Literally, that’s true. If you spend most of your time and resources on creating value for your clients, your business will be profitable and grow.

So, how do we define revenue generating activities?

For lawyers in private practice, anything you do that allows you to bill a client clearly qualifies. Admin tasks might be necessary for managing the people and processes for creating and collecting that revenue, but don’t qualify as revenue generating by themselves.

Okay, so you want to spend most of your time doing billable work. But how much?

If you spend 80% of your time doing billable work, is that enough? Is spending 20% of your gross income (and time) on admin too much?

Ultimately, this is the debate we have with ourselves, our partners and advisors.

But it doesn’t only come down to doing the work vs. the cost of getting it done. There are other activities that come into play.

Continuing education, personal development, and business development, for example.

These aren’t revenue generating in the classical sense, but they can create significant revenue, arguably with significantly less effort than it takes to do the billable work.

It’s true.

When you improve your marketing skills, you can get more leads and prospective clients, attract bigger cases and better clients, expand into additional markets, and increase profits by being able to hire more help and/or open more offices.

When you improve your personal skills, e.g., sales, networking, speaking, writing, productivity, etc., you can attract even more prospects and close a higher percentage of them, get more repeat business, streamline your workflows, and build deeper relationships with other professionals who can lead you to additional opportunities to develop your practice and career.

And when you improve your core legal skills and knowledge, you can increase your value to your clients, allowing you to bill higher rates.

Revenue generating activities, to be sure.

I can’t tell you how much time to spend on these activities, only that if you want to grow, you should consider spending more.

When you’re ready to take a quantum leap in your practice, here’s what to do

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

Tell me about your law practice

March 24, 2023 by David M. Ward

When someone asks you to tell them about your work—what you do, the problems you solve, how someone can tell when they need your help—the words come easily to you. When they have questions, you have answers.

We’re talking about interviews. A simple and effective way to market your services.

Someone with an audience invites you to talk about your work, you get to tell their audience all about what you do, give out your website and other ways people can learn more, and how to get in touch with you.

Blogs, magazines, newsletters, podcasts, and other publishers and contact marketers are not only are willing to interview you, they need you, because their audience needs you.

These publishers know you are an expert and can cogently apeak about subjects about which their audience is interested. They know you will provide valuable information, which is why lawyers are in high demand for interviews.

Many interviewers welcome you to provide them with your introduction and with questions they can ask you. It makes their job easier and makes for a better interview.

Once you do a few interviews (and add them to your bio), getting additional interviews becomes even easier.

If the interviews (or transcripts) are published online, they can be a continuing source of traffic and leads leads for you.

How do you get interviews? You can start with a simple letter of introduction you send to publishers and podcasters. Look for those who do interviews about legal and related topics. Tell them about your experience as an attorney, about other interviews and presentations you’ve done, and a roundup of the types of subjects you can speak about. Invite them to contact you if they are interested in exploring further.

Yeah, as simple as that.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With: interviews

Have fun with this

March 17, 2023 by David M. Ward

If marketing was fun, would you do it more? Get better at it? Get better results?

No doubt.

So, how can you make it fun?

First, by believing that it can be fun. Not drudgery, something you enjoy and are good at. Because if you don’t believe that this is possible, you’re always going to have a rough time.

And then, you draw a line in the sand and do only those things you like doing and delegate or outsource or ignore everything else.

You don’t have to do paid advertising or social media. Not one bit. You don’t have to go to formal networking events and talk to strangers. You don’t have to get on stage or in front of a camera and do presentations.

Unless you want to.

Do what you enjoy or find a way to make what you do enjoyable.

Yeah, but what if I don’t like any of it? Not. One. Stickin. Bit?

Really? You don’t enjoy doing good work for your clients and treating them with kindness?

That’s marketing. The best kind there is.

You don’t like staying in touch with the people who put food on your table? That’s marketing, too.

You don’t like providing information about your practice area and your services with people who tell you they want to know?

C’mon now.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and make having fun a priority. “If it’s not fun, I won’t do it” would be a good mantra.

If you don’t want to write a 500-word newsletter every week, write 150 words whenever you feel like it.

No rules. Do what you have time to do and want to do, and don’t worry about anything else.

If it’s not fun, don’t do it.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan

The simplest way to get more (of anything)

February 20, 2023 by David M. Ward

You want new clients. Repeat business. Referrals.

You want more people making an appointment, booking you as the speaker at their event, posting a review, signing up for your list, or liking and sharing your post.

Bottom line, you want more people to do something.

The simplest way to accomplish that? Ask them again.

Because they forget. Or aren’t yet convinced. Or need to give themselves permission to spend the money.

If you don’t ask again, if your messages (email, calls, conversations) are “one and done“ you are missing out on as much as 50% of the sales or “yesses” to whatever it is you’re asking.

Maybe more.

I know you know this makes sense. I also know you might not want to do it, or do it as much as you could, because (a) you don’t want to appear needy or greedy, or, (b) annoy anyone.

But think about this:

If you have something valuable to offer, something people need and want and will benefit greatly from getting, you need to do everything you can to help them get it.

If you don’t, how will you feel if something happens to them that might have been prevented or mitigated if you had followed up?

This doesn’t mean you should pound on people to sign-up. Just remind them, respectfully, but repeatedly, and keep doing that until they get it.

And guess what? They want you to do this.

They want you to tell them again. Remind them of the benefits and/or what they’ll lose if they don’t take action.

They appreciate being reminded of an approaching deadline. They appreciate that you respect them enough to stick with them while they figure out how and when they can sign up.

Sometimes, they need to hear from you again before they’re convinced of the seriousness or urgency of your request or offer.

Assume they didn’t get your previous message or got busy with other things. Assume they need to hear more reasons, more examples, or what more people say about your services.

Because they do. If they didn’t, they (might have) signed up the first time they heard from you.

Follow-up is essential to building your practice. And you need to do it.

The only thing you have to figure out is how often.

But you don’t have to figure that out in advance. All you need to do is figure out the next follow-up, and put that on your calendar.

The easiest way to follow-up is with email

Filed Under: Communication, Increase your income, Marketing legal services

Simply the best

February 17, 2023 by David M. Ward

You are the best in your field. The most talented, the most successful, the most dedicated to your clients.

That’s why your clients hire you; that’s why prospective clients should do the same.

Unfortunately, you can’t go around saying you’re the best. Even if it’s true.

You want others to say this about you. Which is why you should do everything you can to obtain testimonials, positive reviews, and praiseworthy survey responses from your clients, and endorsements from prominent people (especially other lawyers).

It’s also why you should get yourself invited to be interviewed by centers of influence in your niche and be seen in their company.

If you say you’re the best, people will doubt you. Maybe laugh at you. If your clients and others say you’re the best, it must be true.

Not only does third party praise help you bring in more business, these kinds of comments give your clients a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that they made a wise decision to hire you.

It also means you’ll attract higher-paying clients and a lot more referrals, because you’re not just competent, you’re the best.

Don’t be shy about asking your clients for reviews and testimonials. If they’re happy campers, they should be happy to provide them. But you have to ask because they may not know how important this is to you.

And, while you’re collecting these, you can create the same effect by liberally adding client success stories to your articles, posts, presentations, and other content. That’s where you describe a client’s case or situation before they came to you and how you rescued them and made everything better.

Set up a file to collect emails and quotes from people who say something nice about you. Thank them, tell them how much it means to you, and ask, “May I quote you?”

Happy clients are the foundation of a successful practice

Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Referrals

Activating client referrals

January 31, 2023 by David M. Ward

If you treat them right, many of your clients will tell others about their great experiences with you. They’ll also give you referrals, post positive reviews, send traffic to your website, promote your events, and otherwise help your practice grow.

But not everyone will do that.

Some clients don’t know you want this kind of help. (True). Some don’t want to “share” you with others. (Also true). Some are willing to help, but don’t know what to say or do.

And some won’t do anything, even if they love you to pieces. Just the way it is.

So that’s it? You take what you get? Do good work and hope for the best?

Negatory.

While organic word-of-mouth is best, there are things you can do to get more clients to talk about you and (directly or indirectly), send you more business.

First on that list is to educate clients, prospects, and professional contacts about you.

They know some things; make sure they know more.

Inform them about all of your practice areas, services, and offers. Your clients might not need something, but talk to someone who does.

Tell them why your clients get better or quicker outcomes from you, or other features and benefits not available from other lawyers.

Share your success stories, testimonials, and reviews, showing how you’ve helped others, why they chose you, why they would hire you again, and why they recommend you to others.

Tell them about endorsements you’ve received from other lawyers and judges, business leaders and respected individuals in your niche or local market. Tell them about your awards, the books you’ve written, and your speaking and writing credits.

Second, when someone does something nice for you, e.g., referral, review, etc., go out of your way to acknowledge them (publicly, if appropriate), and genuinely express your gratitude.

That doesn’t mean a form letter.

Send a hand-written thank you note. Say something nice about the friend or client they referred. Take them out to lunch or send them a small gift—a book is a good choice.

Show how much you appreciate what they’ve done and they’ll be more likely to do it again.

Third, make it easier for them to spread the word. Equip them with language they can use to describe what you do and for whom you do it. Give them handouts, links to your best blog posts or articles, forms and checklists they can share.

Fourth, do all the above more than once. Because people forget and because over time, they make new contacts who haven’t yet heard about you.

Finally, do what you can to make it more likely that prospective clients and referral sources hear your name from others, so that when your client mentions your name to them, they’ll recognize that name.

The simplest way to do this? Niche marketing. Go deep into business or industry groups, for example (even if you don’t handle business matters), because word-of-mouth is strong in niche markets.

For more about how to stimulate word-of-mouth, get this

Filed Under: Client loyalty, Marketing legal services, Referrals

3 ways clients can help you

January 26, 2023 by David M. Ward

Would you like an expert to help you build a bigger and better practice? Someone who knows, likes, and trusts you, wants to help you, and is willing to do that without being paid?

Yep, we’re talking about your clients who are experts at being your client. Here are three ways they can help you.

Find out what’s working

You can talk to your clients, in a post-case interview, for example, and that might be a good idea, but sending surveys is easier and can be responded to anonymously, which will probably generate more candid feedback.

Either way, you can ask

What they liked about the work you did for them (outcomes, how they were treated, fees, keeping them informed, seeing them “on time”)
What needs improving?
Would they recommend you to others? What would they say?
Where did they hear about you (friend, another professional, saw your article or ad?)
Did they read any reviews? Where? What did they like best?
What keywords did they use in their online search?
Before hiring you, did they read any of your blog articles? Sign up for your newsletter? Attend your seminar?
Why did they choose you instead of other attorneys?
Do they know about your other services?
And a lot more

Improve your marketing

Clients can also help you improve your marketing and advertising. Show them two ads or headlines or images, for example, and ask which one they prefer. Give them a variety of topics (for your blog or newsletter or presentation) and have them choose the ones that interest them.

Ask which format(s) they prefer for consuming your content, if they like long articles or short, and how often they would like to receive it.

Ask them to tell you about their industry or market, about their work, the publications they read, leaders they follow, and organizations they belong to.

Lead gen

Ask your clients to share your content, tell others about your upcoming events, hand out your handouts, or invite friends to schedule a free consultation.

Ask them to provide a testimonial and a review.

Ask for referrals and introductions.

Will your clients help you? Not only are most (satisfied) clients willing to do that, they are flattered that you asked.

So, ask.

Marketing is simple when you know The Formula

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services