Marketing legal services Archives - Page 35 of 129

Questions are the answer

May 22, 2020 by David M. Ward

When we have a problem, we’re told not to focus on that problem but to focus on possible solutions. But we can’t do that without spending time thinking about the problem.

More specifically, asking ourself questions.

Questions like, What happened, Why did it happen, Who caused it, Who can help fix it, and especially, What can I do about it?

If the problem is a drop in business and you ask why it happened, right now your answer would no doubt include the shutdown. Many people aren’t doing anything about their legal problems now because they don’t have the money or the presence of mind to deal with them.

Is that a problem you can do something about? I don’t know, but asking THAT question might lead you to some ideas.

Asking the right questions helps us to focus on what we can do, instead of what we can’t do.

Questions like, What can I do to bring in new clients right now? What can I do to lower my expenses or increase my revenue? What can I do to set the stage for the future once things return to a semblance of normalcy?

More.

What can I do or offer that other lawyers can’t or won’t? How can I position myself as the better solution? What can I do beyond my core services to attract and engage my ideal client? How can I become better known to my target market? How can I get more traffic and build my list? Where can I get more marketing ideas?

What if you don’t like the answers? Ask more questions.

Because questions are the answer. And because asking questions is better than stewing in negative thoughts.

Where do you go to find “next level” marketing strategies? Here

Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan

4 reasons you should read what other lawyers write

May 14, 2020 by David M. Ward

Lawyers are writers and you should make time to read them.

Read their blogs, subscribe to their newsletters, follow them on social.

See what they’re saying and what they’re doing. Here are four good reasons:

Law/legal news. Keep up with the law in your field and allied fields. Cases you need to read, proposed legislation, rules you need to know, emerging trends, etc.
Content ideas. Get ideas for your own articles and posts. Agree or disagree with them, offer your own examples, slant, predictions, etc.
Marketing and practice management ideas. Learn what your colleagues are doing to get clients and manage their practice. What marketing methods do they use? Which productivity methods do they use? Which vendors do they use?
Networking opportunities. Find lawyers with whom you can conduct strategic alliances, e.g., cross-referring, writing for each other’s blogs, interviewing each other, creating an event together, promoting each other’s content.

My challenge: Before the end of the day, find one lawyer in your field and one lawyer in an allied field; spend 30 minutes reading their blog (and taking notes), (b) follow them on social, and (c) sign up for their newsletter.

You’ll thank me later.

Build your practice with an email newsletter

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services

I’d like to interview you

May 12, 2020 by David M. Ward

I’ve been interviewed a fair number of times, by reporters and bloggers and podcasters. A couple of weeks ago, a long-time reader of this newsletter asked to interview me for his podcast/radio program.

We did the interview the other day.

The host read my bio, introduced me, and ask me questions, starting with how I got my start. He asked more questions, I shared some pearls of wisdom, he promoted my website, and in 30 minutes we were done.

I get some exposure and traffic to my site, he gets content, and a good time was had by all.

Yes, a good time. It was fun. Who says you can’t have fun while making money?

Anyway, if you’re not finding ways to get your bad self interviewed, you’re missing out. It’s an easy and professional way to build your practice.

Here are three simple ways to make this happen.

Build a blog or newsletter or social media following. If you put out enough content, you will be discovered and someone in your niche will ask to interview you.
Hang out with bloggers and podcasters and other content marketers who sell to, write for, or advise your target market.

Consume their content, leave comments, offer praise, and promote their stuff on social and to your list. Your list will appreciate hearing about good content and the content providers will appreciate the exposure.

Some will recognize your value and reciprocate by promoting your content to their audience; some will ask to interview you.
Contact bloggers, podcasters, et. al., in your niche and ask to interview them for your blog or podcast, et. al.

Where do you start? Ask a friend or colleague if you can interview them for your blog or newsletter. Or just for fun. And let them interview you.

You’ll get some practice doing interviews and being interviewed and you’ll be ready for prime time.

Who do you know you could interview today?

I interviewed an attorney and turned it into a book

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Web traffic

What are your prospective clients thinking?

May 11, 2020 by David M. Ward

Prospective clients see your ad or your website, read your article, or hear you speak.

What do you suppose is going through their minds?

No, they’re not thinking about how knowledgeable or experienced you are. They’re thinking about themselves and their problems.

They don’t care about you. They don’t care about what you want them to see or know or do.

They only care about themselves.

When you’re trying to sell them your services, opt in to your list, follow your posts, share your content, or do anything else, their default response is “no”.

Because, why?

You have to show them why, and that starts by getting their attention.

Common ways to do that are to ask a question, make a bold statement or prediction, share an interesting fact or statistic, or tell a story.

In other words, use a headline or subject line that makes them curious or offers a benefit that relates to their situation.

Then, once they’re reading your article or email, watching your video, or listening to your voice, get them interested in what you’re selling. You do that by telling them how you can help them, solve their problems, or help them get something they want.

Next, tell them more. More about the relief they will experience when they hire you, how they will be better off, and how easy it is to get started. Give them reasons to trust you; tell about other clients like them you have helped.

You do this to help them transition from merely listening to your message to desiring your help.

But you’re not done.

The final step is to get them to take action. To make the call, fill out the form, sign up for your webinar, or otherwise do something that eventually leads to their becoming a client.

Four steps. Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Otherwise known in marketing circles as AIDA.

All four steps are necessary to take the prospective client from “I don’t care about you” to where you want them to go, and where they need to go to get what they want or need.

The next time you create an email, blog post, article, or anything else that’s designed to attract prospects and convert them to clients, go through this checklist and make sure you have all four elements.

If you need help with that, let me know.

Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing legal services, Writing

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast

May 4, 2020 by David M. Ward

I just learned this is something taught to military snipers. I’ve heard (and used) a similar phrase: “Slow down to speed up”.

The both teach the value of doing the task slowly and deliberately, mastering the fundamentals first.

Indeed, that’s what will allow you to speed up.

In the context of building a law practice, some lawyers go for the gold right out of the gate. They run fast and break things, or try to spend their way to success.

They’d be better off slowing down and mastering the fundamentals.

Learn the basics of marketing, advertising (even if they don’t advertise), copywriting (even if they hire someone), and sales.

Get good at selling themselves before trying to sell their services.

Another way a lawyer can “slow down to speed up” is to focus on their warm market (clients, professional contacts, and others who “know, like, and trust” them), before venturing into the cold market.

Focus on repeat business and referrals first (and always) and get good at it. Use ads, social media, and other cold market methods (if you want to) only after you’ve mastered the basics.

And, when you’re ready to approach the cold market, don’t be in a hurry. Study the market, learn everything you can about it and the people in it.

And when you approach the market, use a high-powered sniper rifle, not a shotgun.

Here’s what to do

Filed Under: Marketing legal services

The market’s the thing

April 29, 2020 by David M. Ward

In marketing, the single most important factor in your success is your market. Who you target is far more important than what you say or what you offer.

Your marketing may be brilliant. You may spend a small fortune delivering your message. But unless it’s a good market (for you), you’ll never earn more than an average income.

Here’s a good formula to remember:

Great market + average marketing = big checks.
Average market + great marketing = average checks.

So, what’s a great market?

It is a market (list, group of people, etc.) that

Needs and WANTS the outcomes and benefits you can deliver,
Has lots of repeat business and/or referrals,
Has the ability and willingness to pay what you ask, and
Is a great fit for you.

What is a great fit? Mostly that you like the people and the work. You enjoy working with these folks.

When you find a great market (for you), everything else falls into place.

Your marketing is easier; almost unnecessary. You get most of your work from referrals and don’t need to do much else.

If that sounds good to you, go find the right market and fall in love with it. Learn everything you can about the market and the people in it, get to know some of the key people, and enjoy the rest of your career.

This will help

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, success

Don’t “fact” people to death

April 29, 2020 by David M. Ward

Lawyers are fact merchants. We dwell in the land of research and evidence. But while a thorough recitation of the law and the facts may be necessary in the courtroom, in marketing it’s the kiss of death.

And I do mean death.

When you give readers and listeners, prospects and clients, nothing but the facts, you murder them. They’ll ready for a dirt nap before they finish the third paragraph.

Your prospects don’t want to know everything you know. They want to know that YOU know the facts and the law, and that you know how to use them to help them get what they want.

Think about novels or screenplays. They need just enough narrative to set the stage but it’s the story that people pay to see.

Facts tell but stories sell.

There are exceptions. But they are rare.

So, give folks a smattering of the facts and intersperse them with your opinions and advice, quotes from others, and most of all, stories.

Tell your readers or audience what happened to your client or your friend or to you, and what might happen to them if they don’t do what you recommend.

Need more referrals? Start here

Filed Under: Communication, Marketing legal services, Writing

Stop marketing

April 24, 2020 by David M. Ward

You’ve created content that isn’t bringing in much business. People aren’t following your links or answering your call to action.

What are you doing wrong?

It could be a lot of things, but I’m going to go with one I see a lot of lawyers (and others) do.

You’re “marketing” instead of communicating.

Your content is too promotional. All about you. Trying too hard to get the reader to act.

And they can see you coming.

Yes, you want them to act. But there’s a better way to do that than pushing out promotional content. Let go of the self-promotion and create content that connects with people on an emotional level.

Offer helpful information or advice or share an emotional client story.

Talk to people about what they’re already thinking. Engage them. Show them you understand them. Build a relationship with them.

You want them to like and trust you. And not lump you together with all the other lawyers who are flogging their services and talking all about themselves.

Yes, they want to know about you, but before they’ll listen, they want to know you’re worth listening to.

So, talk about your reader. His life, his problems, his pain.

Then you can let him know you have solutions and invite him to read more or contact you about his situation.

If you do it right, your reader will listen to you and take the next step.

My email marketing course shows you how to do it right

Filed Under: Content creation, Email, Marketing legal services

If you can get one client, you can get 100

April 21, 2020 by David M. Ward

Are you over-complicating your marketing?

I’m going to go with “yes” because most people do that. Especially lawyers who, by and large, would rather be doing something else.

So, this is me telling you to make things simple (and easy) for yourself by focusing on just one or two things.

One or two strategies. One or two markets. Let go of everything else (at least for now).

If you did that, how much time and money would you free up?

How much additional mental energy would you have if marketing only required you to do one or two things?

What things?

Something that’s already working.

Look at your current and recent client lists and figure out where they came from.

Referrals? From whom? What preceded the referral? What did you do to help it along?

Advertising? Which publications or platforms? What did you offer? What did you spend, what was your ROI?

Did they come through your website? How did they find you? What did they do before they contacted you (e.g, read something, opt in, etc.)

Did they come through organic social media? Which platforms? What did you do to engage them and get them to take the next step?

You don’t need to be a rocket surgeon to figure this out. Find something that’s working for you and do more of it.

If it brought you even one client, it can bring you a lot more.

What if more than a few things are working for you? What if you’re getting new business through several means and there is no clear winner?

Dig deeper.

Which method(s) are bringing you better clients (lots of work for you, willing to pay top dollar, ability to refer, etc.)?

And. . .

Which method(s) do you like best?

Because if you enjoy doing it, you’ll do more of it.

When I was practicing, it was referrals, all day every day. I enjoyed it and focused on it and got good at it.

If that sounds good to you, here’s a good place to start.