Stalking lawyers for fun and profit

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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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Something good about COVID-19

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One good thing about what’s happening right now is that it gives you plenty to write about in your newsletter or on social media. Your clients and subscribers will appreciate hearing from you, especially if they’re staying home from work.

For starters, you could write about what you’re doing to protect yourself, your staff, your clients, and visitors to your office.

One firm sent me an email describing a few things they’re doing, including following social distancing practices in the office, disinfecting after each visit, and conducting appointments via Zoom.

You could summarize and opine about the latest news coming out of DC, your state, and your local community. What’s going on that they might have missed and what do you think about it?

You could offer advice about how to get your money back due to event cancellations.

You could provide advice about estate planning, a topic many people seem to be especially interested in (or need to know about) right now.

(If you don’t do estate planning, ask a fellow lawyer to provide you with information you can pass along to your clients and subscribers.)

More than information, your clients and subscribers want to see that you’re calm, cool, and collected. That you’re prepared but not panicked and that you’re there for them if they need you.

Most of all, they want to hear you say that everything will be okay.

If you don’t have a newsletter, now would be an excellent time to start one.

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How to get a better response to your next email

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One thing I see a lot in email newsletters from lawyers (and others) is a cornucopia of requests and options.

“Click here, call now, share this link, sign up here, reply and let me know. . .” and the list goes on.

You know what usually happens when you do that?

Nothing.

Because when you give readers too many choices or too much to do, they usually shut down.

Nobody has time to do everything you ask them to do. They barely have time to read your entire email.

So, if you want a better response to your newsletter or a private email, ask for just one thing.

Every email should have an objective. If you want the reader to do something, ask specifically for that single action and nothing else.

Focus the reader on doing what you want them to do with a single call to action. You can ask for something else in your next email.

Which means your emails shouldn’t be “about” a multitude of your practice areas or offers. They should be about one problem and one solution.

If for some reason you must have multiple topics or calls to action within a single email, put them into separate paragraphs and use numbers or bullet points to demarcate them.

Just don’t expect as much response to any of your offers or calls to action.

It’s okay to include additional links in the footer of the email or in your signature, for social media sharing or to link to specific pages on your site, but don’t make your email topic or the call to action about that.

For best response to your next email, write about one subject and tell your readers the one thing you want them to do.

To learn more about writing effective emails, go here now.

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A simple way to grow your email list

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You want more subscribers for your newsletter, right? More people hearing your words of wisdom, your success stories, and your offers.

You also want these subscribers to be people who are likely to need your services at some point, or to know people who might.

You want to grow your email list because more subscribers eventually translates into more clients.

One of the simplest ways to grow your list is to partner up with other professionals, business owners, bloggers, and other centers of influence in your niche.

If you are an estate planning, consumer bankruptcy, or divorce attorney, you might pair up with an accountant, financial planner, or a financial blogger.

Who might be a good source of referrals for you? If they have a list and write to it regularly, talk to them about a strategic alliance.

What might that look like?

You write an article for them, they write an article for you. Or, you mention their newsletter and they mention yours. Or you promote their offer and they promote yours.

You might interview each other. Or co-author a piece that gets published in both of your newsletters.

You could do the same thing on social media.

The key is to find someone with the right attitude, someone who wants to grow their list and is willing to work with you to do that. You don’t need everyone to say yes, you just need a few.

Once you find someone and execute your first “swap,” you can (a) do it again in a few months, and/or (b) go find someone else.

To learn more strategies for building your list, including the ones that get my highest recommendation, check out my course on email marketing for attorneys.

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Use this checklist for better headlines, titles, and email subject lines

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A friend of mine uses a checklist to double-check his titles and headlines. It can be used for emails, blog posts, articles, book titles, presentations, ads, and more.

He calls it the “ABCD” Formula:

A – Attention
B – Believable
C – Care
D – Different

[A] The first job of your headline is to get attention. It needs to make people curious or promise a benefit, to flag them down and get them to read the headline. The headline should then compel them to read your email, blog post, or sales copy.

[B] If the headline isn’t believable, if it promises too much (and isn’t obviously tongue-in-check), the reader is likely to turn the page (or tune out of your presentation).

[C] Your headline or title has to be relevant to the reader or prospective client and their problem or desire They have to care about what you’re saying.

[D] Finally, in the age of massive competition for eyeballs and dollars, your headline or title needs to be different from the competition’s. Why should they read your article or ad when it appears to say the the same thing as a dozen others?

When a prospective client sees your ad or post, they’re asking themselves, “What’s in it for me?” You need to tell them that, and the telling begins with your headline, tile, or email subject line.

Because if it doesn’t start there, it doesn’t matter how good your sales page or email or presentation is, nobody is going to see it.

To learn more about writing effective headlines, titles, and subject lines, especially for your newsletter, check out my Email Marketing For Attorneys course.

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Small favors lead to referrals

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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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A newsletter is a sales letter

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The objective of every newsletter your write is to get your subscribers to do something.

To call for an appointment or to ask questions, to reply and give you their opinion, or to share something you wrote with people they know, just to name a few.

And, you have to convince readers to do that.

That’s why you write a newsletter, after all.

This doesn’t mean being pushy or sales-y or anything less than professional. On the contrary. Your professional demeanor is an important element in persuading readers to listen.

But you can’t be boring.

Too many lawyers see the function of their newsletter as a mechanism to deliver information. Information is valuable but it’s not everything.

And too much information is often. . . boring.

You need to talk to your readers.

You have to write copy that addresses their emotional needs in a relatable way.

You want to come across as authoritative, trustworthy and likable. Someone who understands what your readers want and how they think.

And, once you’ve done that, you want to tell them what to do next.

Before you send your next issue, read it out loud and ask yourself how it sounds. If a lawyer sent this to you, what would you think about them?

If you want to see how to do it right, head over to this page

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A newsletter isn’t a newspaper

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Some lawyers’ email newsletters are too long. They cram too much information into each “issue”.

This is especially true of newsletters that are published infrequently.

You can see the logic. If you publish once a month, you’ve got a lot more to say than if you publish daily. But only the stalwart reads these tomes.

Most people don’t.

They may skim them, to see if anything catches their eye, but when there’s nothing but lengthy discussions about the law and documents and procedure, eyes glaze over and your reader is not long for this world.

Do this consistently and they won’t even open your email.

The solution is simple. In addition to being shorter–something that can be read in a minute or two–your newsletter needs to have some “human interest”.

You’ve got to talk about people.

Your clients. Litigants in cases you’ve read about. People in your community or in your client’s niche market.

Your office staff, your family, your neighbors, and yourself.

It’s not difficult to do. Just uncommon. But if you want people to read what you write, which is kind of the point, you’ve got to give them what they want, and they want to read about people.

Something else. When you write about the law or the news, don’t “brief” them, tell them what you think about it.

Because people want to know what you think.

Because that’s how they get to know you, which is the first step towards building a relationship with you and hiring you or sending you traffic and referrals.

If you want to know how to write a newsletter people want to read, without breaking a sweat, check out my email marketing course.

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You should read this

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Some people think we shouldn’t tell people what to do. We should give them the options and let them decide.

Tell them what they “could” do, not what they “should” do.

I understand the sentiment but when someone looks to you for advice, they want you to tell them what to do.

When a client hires you to advise him, you can (and should) present different ways to do it, but then, tell him which option is best. They’re paying for your experience and judgment. They want to know what you recommend.

When you tell them, you’re telling them what they “should” do.

Tell your clients what they should do.

(Yes, I’m telling you what you should do. Not what you might do. You can choose to follow my advice or reject it. But at least you know what I recommend.)

You should also tell your newsletter and blog readers and presentation attendees what to do. With less specificity, of course, because you don’t know the specifics of their situation. But if you have recommendations about what someone should do in a given situation, tell them what to do.

I saw an article this morning about this subject in the context of employers and employees. The article said we should tell our staff what they “could” do, not what they “should” do.

Yes, you want to empower your staff to think for themselves and not come to you with every little issue, but if you want your secretary to call someone or email someone or bring you something, telling them what they could do or might do is just silly.

You’re not going to say, “I’m running late for my 2 O’clock with Mr. Jones. You could call him to re-schedule.”

You’re going to tell your secretary to call.

Be nice about it. Say please and thank you. But tell her.

That’s what you should do.

Questions about what to write in a newsletter? Here are the answers

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Stealing ideas for fun and profit

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Ideas are a dime a dozen, it is said; execution is the key to success.

So, if you need ideas–for your newsletter, blog, or presentation–look at what others are writing and copy them.

Not literally. Write what they’re writing about, but make it better. Or different.

Take the idea and add your own spin. Infuse it with your own examples or stories. Add more arguments, more points and authorities, or take an opposing view.

Steal the idea and make it your own.

If you produce any kind of content, you should follow other lawyers in your field, to see what they’re writing about. Follow their posts, read their blog, sign up for their newsletter.

Do the same with lawyers in allied fields, as well as business owners, bloggers, and others who sell to, advise, or write for the niches or industries you target.

The world is awash with ideas. More ideas than you could ever use, right there for the taking.

Ideas really aren’t a dime a dozen. You can get all you need for free.

If you’ve got original ideas, great. The world wants to hear them. But if not, don’t feel guilty about using someone else’s idea.

They probably got it from someone else.

Taking other people’s ideas and making them your own is at the heart of invention and art. As Salvador Dali reminds us, “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”

For more ways to find ideas, and more ways to make them your own, check out my email marketing course.

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