The best marketing you can do right now

April 1, 2020 by
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Phones quiet? Not a lot of work coming in? Courts closed?

Now would be a good time to do some marketing.

But what?

The same kind of marketing I nag you about all the time, only now you have time to do it on a bigger scale.

It’s one of the simplest and most effective kind of marketing a lawyer can do.

Get on the blower and blow.

Call your clients (and former clients) to say hello, wish them well, and ask if there’s anything you can do for them.

Works well during good times. Should work like gangbusters now when people are concerned about the future and not too busy to take your call.

Don’t expect to get any work when you call, but don’t be surprised if it does.

Right now, you may learn what your clients want to know so you can get the answers for them and share those answers with your other clients and in your newsletter.

If someone need help with something you don’t do, you can refer them to someone who does, earning Brownie points with the client and the professional or business owner to whom you refer them.

Mostly, you’ll strengthen your relationship with the people who once put bread on your table and who will again.

They’ll appreciate you and remember that you thought about them, and while others wrote to them and wished them well, you were the one who made a personal call.

Mark my words, when things get back to normal and they need legal help or know someone who does, they’ll be calling you.

So, how many clients will you call this week?

How to use a newsletter to build your practice

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Marketing legal services

Positioning yourself for the coming upswing

March 31, 2020 by
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If you have some downtime right now, consider using some of that time to invest in the future of your practice or career.

Think about what’s next for you, make plans, research ideas, and do things you might not have time to do when everything gets back to normal.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • Brainstorm additional ways to promote your services
  • Outline your book (or finish writing the thing)
  • Create a new lead magnet (or update an old one)
  • Clean up/organize your computer desktop and documents
  • Give your website a makeover
  • Research some new keywords
  • Learn how to use new software
  • Start your newsletter
  • Update your social media profiles
  • Add a new social media platform to your mix
  • Get ahead on CLE
  • Read books, take courses on personal development
  • Write content for your newsletter or blog
  • Research new target markets
  • Make a list of professionals you can approach to propose marketing alliances
  • Clean out your email inbox
  • Research new marketing or advertising platforms
  • Clean up your smart phone: delete unused apps, delete or download photos and documents
  • Update passwords, add 2-factor authorization
  • Clean up your “to read” list(s)
  • Brainstorm/research ways to build your email list
  • Work on a new presentation, speech, or video
  • Go over your budget and create plans to reduce spending and/or debt, or increase investment and retirement funds
  • Explore ways to give back to your community (run for office, promote a charity, donate, volunteer)
  • Revise/create a new campaign to stay in touch with your former clients

Before you know it, normal life will return and you’ll be glad you took care of some of these, instead of getting to a higher level in your favorite game or binge watching your latest guilty pleasure.

How to start a newsletter to build your practice

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Productivity

Overwhelmed?

March 30, 2020 by
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I’m not talking about the recent news, I’m talking about your practice.

Too much work to do, too much to read, too many projects in your pipeline that never get off the ground.

Every day, you get 50 emails about marketing and managing your practice, on top of emails relating to client work and emails from someone trying to sell you something.

You don’t want to miss something important. But sorting the wheat from the chaff takes mental energy. . . and time.

I get it. It’s daunting.

But you’re running a business with a lot of moving parts, people, and important issues, and details matter. So, in addition to the work, you have to stay on top of everything else.

Sometimes, a lot gets pushed to the side, or to the future. Sometimes, the work doesn’t get done on time. Sometimes, you finish the day exhausted.

And the emails continues to pile up.

Here’s the thing.

The lawyers who earn top dollar have as much work as you do and get just as much email as you do, but they don’t get overwhelmed.

Because they work LESS than most lawyers.

They’re able to do that because they’ve set up their practice so they only focus on the most important tasks.

The tasks that move the needle.

The tasks that bring in more clients and better clients and let them continually grow their income.

If you’d like to find out how to do it

Go here

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

How often should you blog?

March 27, 2020 by
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How often should you publish a new blog post? Often.

According to this infographic, “82% of marketers who blog daily acquired a customer using their blog as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog monthly”.

A few reasons:

  • The more you post, the more opportunities you have to get found by search engines or shared by visitors. 
  • Uncle Google tends to see frequent publishers as authorities. Prospective clients who visit your blog are likely to do the same.
  • More content gives you more chances to keep visitors reading your content. The more time they spend on your blog, the more likely they are to take the next step. 
  • More content and a more frequent publishing schedule helps others bloggers and influential sites see you as an authority, making them more likely to link to you
  • Once published, your content lives forever. Something you wrote two years ago can continue to create leads and produce clients for you. 
  • Inbound marketing is more personalized in the sense that you can tailor your content to the interests and needs of your target market. 

The infographic also shows that leads produced via inbound marketing have higher conversion rates. One reason is that prospective clients are more likely to trust you (because they found you). 

Inbound marketing also has a lower cost-per-lead.

You don’t have to publish daily to realize most of these benefits. Just more often than once a month or once in a while.

Start with once a week. As you find yourself getting more leads and more new clients, you may suddenly find the time to publish more often. 

How to use a blog to make the phone ring

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Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing

Why you shouldn’t sell legal services

March 26, 2020 by
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It may sound like I’m picking a nit but this is important.

When prospective clients search the Internet or ask their friends for a referral, they’re not looking to hire a lawyer or “buy” legal services.

Not really.

They’re looking for someone who can solve a problem for them.

They’re looking for relief from a failed marriage. They’re looking to collect money that is owed to them. They’re looking for protection from creditors, the tax man, or criminal authorities.

Your services are the solutions to these problems.

When you start marketing your services from this point of view, two things happen.

First, you’re now offering something people want to buy. Which means your marketing is much easier and more effective.

And second, because you’re solving painful problems and delivering valued benefits, you can charge more than if you were only selling your services.

Sometimes, a lot more than your competitors.

Because they’re selling a commodity, while you’re selling a way out of a seemingly hopeless situation, relief from pain, security, hope, and financial well-being.

So, the next time you run an ad, do a presentation, write a blog post, or talk to a decision maker, make sure you talk about the problems you solve and the results you deliver.

To learn how to do it right, check out my marketing course

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Are legal services necessary during a pandemic?

March 24, 2020 by
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Your services may be needed right now but many people who need them aren’t buying.

They’re watching their dollars and unless they have an urgent need to hire an attorney, those dollars are likely to be spent on something else–or on nothing at all.

So, right now, your marketing should primarily be focused on “after”.

After things get back to normal, after people are working again, after the kids are back in school, when people realize they need to talk to a lawyer, you want to be the one they choose.

What should you do now? Not much.

This is not the time to be making special offers or promoting anything.

Just be there.

Use email and social media to connect. Provide information, share stories, and let people know you’re around if they want to talk to you.

Don’t change who you always were and always will be–adviser, advocate, neighbor and friend.

If you ordinarily advertise or use direct mail, scale back for now but think twice before stopping completely. You may find there is still enough business available to cover your costs, allowing you to keep your name in front of your market.

Finally, now would be a good time to pick up the phone and call some of your clients and professional contacts.

Ask how they’re doing and wish them well.

Because personal connections are always the best kind of marketing, but especially now when everyone is hungry for human connection.

Start or build your newsletter

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Stalking lawyers for fun and profit

March 17, 2020 by
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When it comes to marketing and practice building, most lawyers get a lot of things wrong. But they get some things right and if you want to compete with them, and beat them, you need to know what they’re doing.

The simplest way to do that is to study them. Make a list of successful lawyers in your practice area (they don’t have to be in your local market) and go to school on them.

Visit their website and blog, read their posts and articles, note what they say and how they say it, see what widgets and other elements they include on their site and which ones they don’t.

Sign up for their newsletter and study that, too. What are they writing about? How often do they publish? How long are their emails?

Study their social media footprint. Which platforms do they use most, how often do they post, who do they follow and who follows them, what do they post about, and what do they do to stimulate engagement or encourage followers to take the next step?

Study their posts and articles that have the most engagement (shares, comments, re-Tweets and Likes). You’ll get a boatload of ideas you can write about and if those subjects resonated with their readers and followers, there’s a good chance they will resonate with yours.

Listen to their podcasts. Look for interviews they’ve given to the press or to bloggers or vloggers. Look for clues about other marketing they do–speaking, networking, advertising, referrals, public relations, and anything else.

One thing you’ll undoubtedly notice is that most attorneys do what others lawyers do, and when it comes to marketing, that means “not much”.

Study what they’re doing, so you can emulate what’s working (not copy it) and see what you can deduce isn’t working so you can avoid it.

You won’t learn everything you need to know by studying other lawyers but you’ll learn more than you know now. And you might find a kindred spirit (who doesn’t compete directly with you) to whom you can reach out to share ideas and referrals.

To learn how to get more clients with your newsletter, go here

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Newsletters

You’re not thinking small enough

March 4, 2020 by
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So, what does Seth Godin say about niche marketing?

He says that it is one of the easiest ways to stand out in your market.

And he says you should choose “the smallest market you can imagine”:

“Stake out the smallest market you can imagine,” he says, “the smallest market that can sustain you, the smallest market you can adequately serve. This goes against everything you learned in capitalism school, but in fact, it’s the simplest way to matter.”

Of course, you know I agree.

Find a niche that’s large enough to sustain you but small enough you can carve out a significant chunk thereof.

And maybe dominate that market.

In other words, be the big fish in a small pond.

Most attorneys don’t target any market. They try to attract “anyone” with a legal problem they’re good at solving.

Hard to stand out that way.

Of the attorneys who do target specific niche markets, most choose markets that are too big and too spread out, and wind up spending a fortune and a lot of energy competing with a multitude of other attorneys.

Example? Targeting the Hispanic market in a city like Los Angeles.

Sorry, too big to be a niche.

Go smaller. “Hispanic restaurant owners in West Los Angeles,” for example.

Choose niche markets where you can identify key centers of influence and a way to communicate with them.

And then, once you’ve choosen a niche, figure out what you can do to make it even smaller.

This can help you choose your niche

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services

Small favors lead to referrals

March 3, 2020 by
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You want referrals but you may not be comfortable asking for them.

Try this instead:

Instead of asking for referrals, ask your list for a small favor.

Something easy to do.

Like forwarding your email or sharing your link. Or replying to your email and telling you which title (for your next article, for example) they like best. Or, asking your list to recommend a good hotel or restaurant in a city you’ll be visiting for the first time.

Why is this a good idea?

When you ask for a small favor, you invoke the psychological principle of ‘consistency’ which says that people tend to act consistently with how they’ve acted before.

If they’ve done a favor for you, they begin to think of themselves as someone who does favors for you.

Which can eventually lead to referrals.

Try it. Send your list a short email and ask for a favor. Then, thank the people who helped out or sent suggestions or voted for their favorite, and tell everyone what happened, e.g., how you enjoyed the restaurant.

An engaged list is a responsive list, and a good source of referrals.

Engaging your list is a valuable part of email marketing

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Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing

Would you like a copy?

February 27, 2020 by
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Would you rather send information to prospective clients or have them ask you to send them information?

The answer is obvious.

When people ask you to send them something, or tell them something, or do something, not only do they give you permission to send the information, they identify themselves as “interested”.

Which means they are a better prospect than someone those who don’t ask.

How do you get people to ask?

By asking them a question.

After you mention your offer or benefits, you could say:

  • Would you like to know more about this?
  • Would you like to see some examples of how people have stopped [this problem]?
  • Do you want me to send you the checklist/report/form I mentioned?

You can ask when you speak to a prospective client, in your newsletter, in a live presentation, and anywhere else you connect with people.

Yes, you could make it a statement–“Give me your email and I’ll send you the report”–and there is value in telling people what to do. But asking a question works a bit better because it calls for an affirmative response.

When they say “yes, send me the information,” they are more likely to review what you send them, because “they asked for it”.

How to use email to build your practice

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services Tagged With:
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