Marketing legal services Archives - Page 17 of 130

Marketing without social media

July 26, 2022 by David M. Ward

Let’s say you’re like me and you don’t like social media, or you don’t like it enough to make it a mainstay of your marketing.

If you do like it, or don’t want to ignore it completely, there are a lot of benefits, but it’s not the only game in town.

You can get traffic to your website or blog without selling your soul to the master of the universe, through:

(1) Search.

People looking for information (about legal issues and/or lawyers who can help them) will find your content if the search engines deem it worthy of the same. So, make it worthy.

No clickbait. Good information. Published more often than “once in a while.”

(2) Sharing.

If your content is good, visitors to your blog or website will share it. Make it easy for them to do that by providing share buttons that allow them to link to or post your content on their social media platforms.

(3) Posting.

Sign up for accounts on the major social media platforms and, when you write new content, post a link to it on those platforms. You can also post in groups that cater to your niche market, besides posting in your timeline.

(4) Advertising.

You can do pay-per-click advertising, ironically through social media companies, or display advertising, or even offline advertising. Advertise your content, your services, or both.

(5) Everything else.

When you speak or write articles or give interviews, promote your blog or other content properties. When you meet people, via networking, or socially, and you think they might benefit from your recent article or video, tell them about it.

And don’t forget to share your content via your newsletter and invite (ask) your readers to share it.

Tell folks what they’ll find and how to get there, and they will come.

Social media is free marketing, but it can take up a lot of time. Optimizing posts for SEO, guest blogging, commenting, and especially, consuming other people’s and content and engaging with them. You could easily spend an hour or more per day.

For some, that is time well spent. For others, like me and perhaps you, the time factor is a big reason for not making social media a big part of your marketing.

If you want to do something, choose one social media platform used by the people in your target market, and spend your time there instead of everywhere. And limit yourself to ten minutes a day.

But you don’t have to do that, either.

If social media just isn’t your thing, you can still benefit from its power and reach without a formal social media marketing plan or hiring people to run it for you.

Make it “something else” you do, in support of your primary marketing activities, and spend your time on those.

My primary marketing activity is email

Marketing shouldn’t hurt

July 25, 2022 by David M. Ward

Let me guess, marketing isn’t your favorite thing and if you were being honest, you would admit you’d prefer not to do it.

Ask me how I know.

It’s marketing’s fault, not yours. You can’t be blamed for wanting to “just do your work” and not be smothered by mountains of information and endless lists of things you have to do.

Marketing is vitally important, and it can be challenging, but it shouldn’t hurt.

You should be able to be easy about it, do what you want to do, and do it at a comfortable pace.

Marketing should be an extension of who you are and what you do. It should feel natural, easy almost, and never be something you dread.

And it can be if you focus on the basics.

The basics?

Internally, that means serving your clients well, making sure they know what else you do, and staying in touch with them. It means building relationships and getting to know the people they know.

Repeat business and referrals. Just like Dad used to do it.

What about externally? With people who don’t yet know, like, and trust you?

Also the basics.

Get your name in front of people. It doesn’t matter whether you do that via ads, blogs, networking, public relations, producing content, social media, or anything else—it’s all good.

But whatever you do to get your name in front of people, build a list so you can keep your name in front of them.

You don’t have to do everything. One or two “reaching out” strategies can be enough. Find something you’re good at and enjoy and do that.

And do yourself a favor. Don’t worry about everything the experts tell you is a “must do”. In a perfect world, they might be right, but in the real world, a lot of what they say will simply distract you from the basics.

Unless you want to do more, stick to the basics and keep it simple.

And do something every day.

Make a call, write an article, send an email, learn something, meet someone.

Do what feels right for you. Don’t force yourself to do anything that doesn’t.

And don’t worry about getting everything perfect.

You can be “sloppy” and build a big practice. As long as you get the basics right.

The basics

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan

Some people are weird

July 20, 2022 by David M. Ward

Some prospective clients just don’t get it. They hear the reasons, want the benefits, understand the urgency, have the resources, and still say no.

What’s up with that?

Why don’t they see the value of saying yes?

Don’t get your panties in a festival trying to figure it out.

Yes, examine all of your marketing collateral and look for ways you can make things clearer or more compelling. See if you can find stronger testimonials or more relevant success stories. Do what you can to improve your services and offers.

And stay in touch with them.

Stay in touch with them until they buy or die. And when they die, stay in touch with their heirs until they buy or die. And when they buy, stay in touch with them until they buy again or buy something else you offer, or send you referrals.

Never stop marketing to anyone. Unless someone’s a jerk and you don’t want them, or their referrals..

But if you want them and you’ve done everything you can do to get them to say yes, and the answer is still no, move on.

Again, don’t stop emailing. Keep them on the list. When I say “move on” I mean focus your time and emotional energy on other people.

Because some people will never “get it” no matter how compelling their need, or how clearly or how often you communicate.

Some people are weird.

Just the way it is.

You’re a problem solver, not a miracle worker. Go find some other people who want you to solve their problems in this lifetime.

Email marketing for attorneys

Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services Tagged With: Follow-up

Getting to “yes”

July 19, 2022 by David M. Ward

Do you have any clients or prospective clients who need one or more of your services but can’t seem to pull the trigger?

Of course you do.

They might have legitimate reasons for waiting and one day surprise you with the go ahead.

They didn’t have the funds, and now they do. They didn’t trust you (enough) and now they know you better. They needed approval from someone and finally got their blessing.

On the other hand, they might want to do it, plan to do it, but never get around to doing it.

Because they don’t feel the urgency to do it.

They might never feel that urgency. Unless you tell them something that tips the scale in favor of “now”.

Which is why you drip on them, via your newsletter or other mechanisms, providing them with reasons and social proof, and reminding them of the need to do it by continuing to show up in their mailbox.

Drip, drip, drip, and one day, they’re ready.

That’s a great plan. But there’s something else you can do to help them reach the tipping point.

And it’s pretty darn simple.

If they don’t yet feel the urgency, you can create that urgency through the use of scarcity.

Find a way to trigger their innate FOMO, their fear of missing out, by limiting the quantity of your offer or the dates when it is available.

Even something as simple as “There’s only one appointment left this week” can work.

Now before you say, “that’s manipulate and I won’t do it,” remember, these folks need what you’re offering, want to say yes, and plan to say yes, but have been dragging their feet.

You’re doing them a favor by giving them a reason to do what they want (and need) to do sooner rather than (possibly) never.

You and your little friend, FOMO.

Email is the best way to drip

Filed Under: Closing the sale, Increase your income, Marketing legal services

Your best market

July 15, 2022 by David M. Ward

Of all the possible markets you could target, one is better than the rest. It’s easier and less expensive to reach this market, and likely to produce the most new business and profits.

People in this market require little or no persuading about the need for your solutions or your ability to deliver them. They are easier to work with, more likely to hire you for other legal matters, and more likely to send you referrals.

What’s more, the names and contact information of everyone in this market are readily available to you.

In fact, you already have them.

Yes, we’re talking about your warm market. People who know you and trust you. They’ve hired you before or know you professionally or personally. If you email, call, or knock on their door, they’ll answer and greet you by name, because they know you.

We should also include the people on your newsletter list, subscribers to your blog, and your social media connections, because while you might not know their name, many of them know yours.

It’s called your warm market, in contrast to your cold market, which includes everyone who doesn’t know you.

It’s much more difficult and expensive to market to the cold market. Yes, the cold market is bigger than your warm market, but that is its only advantage.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean you should stop marketing to the cold market and only market to your warm market. Some attorneys can and should do that. Some shouldn’t.

Some should market to both.

The question is, if you do market to both the warm and cold markets, how much of your time and resources should you dedicate to each?

Talk to your partners, accountant, and marketing people. Take a good look at your numbers, market trends, and your goals.

And don’t be afraid of change. Don’t stick with something because you’ve always done it that way or because most of your competition does it that way.

And ask yourself some questions:

If I could get most of my business through repeat business and referrals, would I want to? Or would I always want to keep a hand in the cold market?

Is this the time for me to go all out and build this thing as big as I can as fast as I can? Or am I happy where I am and satisfied with my current rate of growth?

What’s my plan for the next two years? Ten years? What does my gut tell me is right for me now?

I don’t know your numbers or goals or anything else about you but I can offer one piece of advice that worked well for me and countless others.

Focus on your warm market first.

Give your practice a solid foundation of repeat business and referrals before you venture into or expand efforts in the cold market.

Then, no matter what happens in the cold market, you will always have that foundation.

Unless you’re brand new, in which case, all bets are off.

Here’s The Formula

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan

The attorney marketing paradox

July 11, 2022 by David M. Ward

You want to stand out from other attorneys. Get noticed so you can show people an advantage to choosing you.

But you don’t want to be so different that you scare off prospective clients.

So, you need to fit in. Look like a lawyer who does lawyer things. But if you only do that, if there’s nothing to differentiate you, you become a commodity. Just another option among many.

You give people no reason to notice you or choose you.

You want to stand out, but you also want to fit in. Look like an attorney, not an anomaly.

How do you achieve that balance? How do you stand out and at the same time fit in?

That’s what you need to figure out.

If you do anything different in your practice, make sure people know about it. Tell the world what you do that other lawyers don’t do.

And if you do nothing different, you can make it appear that you do.

How’s that?

If you do what everyone else in your field does, but the other citizens of lawyer-town don’t talk about that subject, when you talk about it, you own it.

For example, if you handle plaintiff’s personal injury claims and your competition doesn’t talk about all the things they do to investigate a case, and you do, the world will see that you are different and better.

Even if you’re not.

When you are the (only) lawyer who uses a 12-point checklist to ensure all the facts and evidence are collected and documented, you appear to offer your clients an advantage.

Yes or yes?

But there’s another way to stand out and also fit in.

When you look at your competition, you probably notice that not only do most of them appear to do the same things, they also tend to look and sound the same.

Like identical cousins, Patty and Cathy Lane. You can lose your mind.

But they’re not identical. One likes the ballet, the other rock and roll.

All of us were humans before we went to law school, and most of us still are. We can use our humanness to stand out and also fit in.

And it’s easy to do.

Don’t hide your personality or personal interests from the market. Let the market see that you like the ballet or rock and roll, and that while you do the same work other lawyers do, you are different individuals.

Market yourself first, your services second, and your firm a distant third.

Because people buy you before they buy your services.

How to stand out and fit in

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Help! I don’t know anyone!

July 7, 2022 by David M. Ward

You may be a new lawyer or moving to a new city or state. Or you might be at a point in your career where you realize you need to meet some new people.

There are a lot of things you can do; here are 3 of the best:

(1) Ask for introductions. Contact people you know and ask them to introduce you to a professional or business contact in your target market. Be specific about the type of people you’d like to meet, but not so specific they can’t think of anyone who fits that description.

Even better, ask them to introduce you to someone you know they (probably) know, someone influential you’d like to meet. If they hesitate to do that, ask them if you can use their name, and contact them yourself.

(2) Join something. Networking can be a drag, but it’s a good way to quickly meet some new people. Find organizations and groups in your target market, attend their meetings, introduce yourself to the leadership, and volunteer on a committee or two. You might meet someone who knows someone who needs your services or knows people who do.

You’ll also learn more about your target market and the people in it, and be able to use that in your marketing.

(3) Write something. A report, guide, or checklist that people in your target market might find helpful, and offer it to everyone you know and everyone you meet. It’s a great way to give people a “sample” of your expertise, and interest them in learning more.

One of the best things you can write is a book. Being an author, by definition, makes you an authority, and people want to hire and refer authorities. They also want to talk to them when they meet them, and interview them for their blog or podcast.

If you have a collection of articles or blog posts, cobble them together and self-publish your first book. If not, start typing. Or dictating.

Clients, and the people who can refer them, are everywhere. These strategies can help you meet them.

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking

Online marketing for attorneys made stupidly simple

July 6, 2022 by David M. Ward

You can complicate it, and many do, but marketing legal services online comes down to just 3 things:

Creating a list
Growing the list
Marketing to the list

“Creating a list” means setting up an autoresponder to capture email addresses of prospective clients who need a lawyer or are seeking information about a legal situation.

Why email? Because it’s the simplest and most cost effective way to build a list and it is incredibly profitable.

Michael Hyatt, bestseller author, and speaker said,

“I have literally built a million dollar business on the strength of my email list. 90% of my income comes from it. Even today, my email list is still my number one business priority-and asset.”

I’ll tell you the same thing about my business.

“Growing the list” is anything and everything you do to get people to visit your sign-up page and opt into your list.

And all of your marketing efforts should be focused on doing that.

People hear you speak, read your blog or article, hear about you from a friend, see your ad, or find you through social media or a search engine, and visit your page to learn more about you or what you offer.

At this point, many attorneys try to persuade prospects to call to schedule an appointment or ask questions. But most prospects aren’t ready to do that and want more information. You can direct them to your website to get that information, and that can work, but it is often better to do that after they join your list.

You want them on your list so you can stay in touch with them and continue to market to them.

Which is step three.

If you don’t have a list, all of your marketing is “one shot”. Prospects either contact you or they don’t. You can’t send them more information because you don’t know who they are.

When they are on your list, you can send more information about their legal situation, their risks and options, and what you can do to help them, and you can continue to do that until they’re ready to take the next step.

That might be months or even years down the road, but when they’re ready, they know who you, what you do, and have your contact information.

Staying in touch with your list can triple response to your marketing. It can also stimulate a lot of referrals.

Which is why you need to make email a cornerstone of your marketing.

Email Marketing for Attorneys

Filed Under: Email, List building, Marketing legal services

10 questions for you

June 29, 2022 by David M. Ward

In this post are 10 questions you might be asked in an interview. Review them and note how you might respond.

The questions can also prompt you to write things people want to know about you for your website’s “About” page, in your bio, or your introduction.

You can also use these questions to write 10 blog posts, telling readers about yourself and what you do.

The questions:

What does a (type) lawyer do?
What types of clients do you represent?
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Why should a client hire you instead of any other lawyer?
What’s your favorite marketing strategy?
What’s the hardest part of your job?
Have you had any unusual cases or clients?
What’s the most important thing you want new clients to know or do?
How is your work/the law different today than when you started practicing?
What book(s) are you reading right now?

These questions are necessarily generic. Edit, re-write, and add additional questions to your list to suit your practice and personality.

What do you want people to know about you and what you do? What would they find interesting? What do people ask you at parties?

Finally, you can use these questions when you interview another lawyer for your blog or newsletter. And you should do that because you’ll get some easy content and the lawyer you interview might reciprocate and interview you for their blog or newsletter.

I wrote a book based entirely on an interview I did with a very successful appellate attorney friend who does a great job marketing his services. Here’s the book; here’s what I did to write it.

Filed Under: Content creation, Marketing legal services Tagged With: interviews

Walk, don’t run

June 24, 2022 by David M. Ward

You want to get better at marketing (or anything) but you don’t want it to take over your life. You don’t want to spend days or weeks studying and doing what needs to be done.

You don’t have to.

In fact, you’ll learn more and be able to accomplish more if you don’t try to do everything in a short period of time but, instead, do a little every day.

10 or 15 minutes a day, but every day.

Put a daily appointment (with yourself) on your calendar, or a recurring task in your task app. Not once a week for an hour, because you might not do that, but you can do 10 minutes a day no matter how busy you are.

In 15 minutes, you can do a lot. You can read a chapter in that book you’ve been meaning to read. You can watch a video or two and take notes about what you learned and what you might do with it.

Not difficult, is it? But if you do it every day, you can make a lot of progress.

What else could you do during your 15-minute ‘appointment’? You could:

Write or re-write an email for your autoresponder
Outline your new presentation or book
Practice your presentation
Write a page for your new book
Brainstorm ideas for a new lead magnet
Edit your work-in-progress
Call a few former clients and ask how they’re doing
Visit some blogs to get ideas you can use in yours
Invite your best referral source to lunch
Invite someone you don’t know to coffee
Meditate and let your subconscious mind help you with something you’re working on
Take a tutorial on a new contact management app
Outline an article for your newsletter
Jump on social media and see what people are asking
Add more keywords to your PPC ad campaigns
Call a professional in your niche and introduce yourself
Email an author and ask to interview them
Draft a survey to send to prospective clients
Update a page on your website
Email your list and invite them to read your latest article
Email your list and invite them to submit questions for your upcoming article
Email your list and explain a recent ruling
Email your list and tell them a success story about one of your recent cases or clients

Yes?

You can also repeat these. Call a few today, call a few more tomorrow—and so on.

15 minutes. 10 if you’re in a hurry. But do something every day.

What do you think will happen if you do?

Why don’t you find out?

For more ideas for your newsletter. . .