When you build your attorney website, your focus should be conversions. Not high Google rank. Not traffic. But converting visitors into leads.

Many lawyers focus on traffic. They may run pay-per-click ads, engage with social media, send out press releases, regularly send an email newsletter, or run banner advertising on local websites.

Regardless of the means, the traffic is there. You are getting a few hundred visitors per day (at least). But no one calls. What’s the problem?

What’s Your Conversion Rate?

Traffic by itself is only half the equation. The second part involves getting these visitors to raise their hands and let you know who they are.

A conversion is anyone who takes the specific action you want them to take. That could be to sign up for your newsletter, to download your free report, to watch a video, to fill out a form, or to call your office.

Your conversion rate is the number of people who take a desired action divided by the number of visitors you get to your website. For instance, if you get 2 inquiries from your contact form a day from 150 visitors; your conversion rate is 2/150 or about 1.33%.

That’s OK if those are qualified leads, but you may be able to boost your conversion rates with different types of offers and incentives. Not everyone who visits your website will be ready to talk with you – but they might in a few days, weeks or months. Why not capture these people as well, and keep in touch with them until they are ready? Here are seven steps for increasing your conversion rates.

Step 1: Know Your Audience

Not all traffic is qualified traffic. The first step to getting higher website conversion rates is to attract the right visitors.

• Who are the people you want to attract?
• What characteristics do they have in common?
• What are their top 2-3 biggest problems, concerns or frustrations that they are seeking information about?

Think like your prospect.

• What information are they looking for?
• What information do they need to make an informed purchasing decision?
• What would motivate them to volunteer their name, email address and other contact information in exchange for the information you have?

Each person who visits your website will be in a different stage of their buying process.

• Some may be trying to figure out the magnitude of their problem.
• Some may be exploring different types of solutions to see if they can fix the problem themselves or if they need to hire representation.
• Some may have been referred to you and want to check you out before they contact you.

On the other hand, you won’t get 100% targeted traffic.

• Some may be curious – perhaps just browsing for information – because they had a conversation with a friend about the issue.
• Some may be law students researching a case.
• Some may have found you randomly by typing in a keyword they guessed would lead to the right answer.

Your attorney website should take into account different scenarios to help weed out the good leads from those who are just browsing. What offers can you make, such as free reports, case studies, audio/video presentations, webinar invites, and other educational materials? The more offers you make, the more leads you can capture.

Step 2: Design A Simple User Experience

Next, take a hard look at your website. For each page, do you clearly state what action your visitor should take?

• Is your offer clear, simple and easy to understand?
• Does it explain the benefits they will receive in a brief sentence or two?
• Does your offer convey urgency – or why your visitor should take action now?

What is your desired action?

• Does the action you want people to take stand out?
• Can they quickly scan the page and see they should fill out the form or enter their email address or buy your book or sign up for your event within just a few seconds?
• Does your form work?
• Does your website load quickly without major problems?
• Is your content skimmable, with bullets, bold text, and headlines rather than large paragraphs?

You may understand exactly how to use your website, but that doesn’t mean your prospect does – nor has the time to learn. Don’t assume visitors know what you want them to do. Tell them directly.

Step 3: Create Relevant Content

Attracting the right prospects means helping your visitors find the information they seek quickly and easily. Rather than focus on you, your qualifications, and your law firm’s achievements, most of your content should address your prospect’s key problem. What’s in it for him?

When someone searches information on the web, they are in “selfish” mode. They don’t care who you are, what you do, or why you are great. They want to know how they can fix their current issue.

They want information that can help them make a decision:

• What’s the best solution based on their circumstance?
• What criteria should they consider before they do anything?
• What mistakes might they make?
• What’s the next step?

When dealing with any legal situation, your prospects are most likely suffering from considerable anxiety.

• They may be embarrassed to find themselves in this situation.
• They may beat themselves up for making a mistake.
• They may want to make the problem go away as fast and painlessly as possible.
• They may not want anyone to know they have this problem.
• They may not understand how bad the problem is and what happens if they don’t take immediate action.

They may also have considerable anxiety about hiring a lawyer to help them:

• Can they afford it?
• Is this the best possible solution?
• Are you the best lawyer to help them?
• What if they make a mistake in choosing the right lawyer?

There’s a lot riding on their decision – but you can help calm their fears by addressing these key issues on your website.

Step 4: Build Multiple Landing Pages

If you are running advertising, especially pay-per-click ads, you will want to direct visitors to a specific “landing” page designed to capture their contact information through a lead capture form. An effective landing page contains a few key traits:

• A benefits-focused headline: The first thing prospects should see is a clear statement of what they will receive if they fill out your form.
• An enticing offer: What would convince prospects to give you their contact information?
• A call to action: How do they take advantage of your offer? This usually involves giving you their name and email address.

Landing pages are designed around offering a solution to one particular problem. If you have multiple problems you can solve, build one landing page for each.

Keep it simple with crystal clear intent. What should prospects do when they arrive at this page? Minimize any distractions, use action-oriented verbs, and only ask for information you need.

Step 5: Have a Follow Up System In Place

Your landing page is designed to get your prospect’s permission to follow up. It’s tough to make a complete case for your legal services with just one page, so focus on getting prospects to take that one first step – giving you their contact information.

By giving you their contact information, your visitors go from anonymous web surfers to people who are identifying themselves to you with this problem. This makes them more qualified leads that have a higher than average chance of becoming your clients.

You know they are at least considering how to solve this problem. You know that it’s important enough to them to give you their contact information. So it’s possible they could eventually hire you.

But the burden is on you to build a case for why they should hire you. That’s where follow up comes in.

Email marketing has made much of the follow up process automatic. You can easily create a series of emails that are sent at regular intervals:

• Introduce yourself and describe the types of cases you’ve handled just like them
• Offer tips and advice on taking the next step
• Clearly outline everything that will happen if they do take that next step
• Answer frequently asked questions
• Build rapport and credibility by demonstrating your experience and thought leadership

Creating landing pages without having a follow up system in place is a waste of time and money. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy and cost effective to create this step with email service providers like Aweber.

Step 6: Install Web Analytics

While lead capture forms are the cornerstone of your website conversion strategy, having a solid web analytics program to track and analyze visitor behavior is also extremely important.

Google makes this step simple with their powerful and free Google analytics software. Simply sign up and they’ll give you a snippet of code to insert into your website. Web analytics help you track key metrics like:

• Which keywords are prospects searching for?
• What websites send you the most traffic?
• Where are your visitors located?
• What are the most popular pages on your website?
• How long do people stay on your website?
• How many pages do they typically visit on average?
• Which page is the most popular entrance page?

By knowing this information, you can tailor your site content to those particular visitors. For instance, you can create specific content around those keywords that are most popular or you can add information to your most popular pages to guide visitors to the information they might be seeking.

Step 7: Test Everything

Finally, test everything. Test your headlines, your offers, and your calls to action. Which work the best? Once you know, you can try to beat that with a better headline, offer or call to action.

When it comes to web conversions, making decisions from real world data trumps your preferences. You may love the page design, the graphic, the headline or another element of your website. But do your visitors? Is that element helping or hurting your conversion rate?

A/B split testing is a method of testing webpages that uses a control page (the “A” page) and a variation (the “B” page) to see which page converts more traffic. Usually, the pages are identical except for one element – like the headline, offer, price point or graphic. Often, you will be surprised to learn that what you think works best and what actually works best are completely different.

The post How To Boost Your Attorney Website Conversion Rates appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

The purpose of good lawyer advertising is not to create something cute, creative or clever or showcase your witty slogan or high-end photography. It’s not about producing a work of art, impressing your peers, or expressing yourself. Rather, effective advertising presents a benefit-oriented offer to specific prospects that want or need your services enough to pay for them – and gets them to take action towards hiring you.

This advertising technique – called direct response advertising – is a bit different from what most lawyers are used to. Essentially, there are two primary types of advertising:

1. Direct response advertising – Your ad is designed to persuade your prospect to take action such as call you, make a purchase, or visit your website. It makes a case with facts and specific reasons why prospects should hire you over other lawyers.
   
   
2. Institutional advertising – Also known as “image” or “brand” advertising, these ads are designed to explain how great the company is, how clever/funny/cute/memorable/award-winning their ad is, and to “get their name out there.”

Most lawyers use “institutional” rather than “direct response” advertising which is why their ad campaigns are ineffective. Direct response adheres to the philosophy that advertising is salesmanship (in print, via broadcast, or on the web). It’s about making a successful sales pitch to the right people by presenting them with the right message at the right time – which makes it far more cost-effective than institutional advertising.

The difference between the two approaches lies in purpose. Direct response advertising starts with your prospect – who is he, what does he need, what is he thinking, how can we give him what he wants?

Institutional advertising starts with the company – and often its executives/partners’ egos. It’s about interrupting prospects with wasteful, expensive ads repeatedly so they might one day achieve some illusive “brand recognition” in the community.

Why Use Direct Response Advertising?

Direct response is an advertising technique that can be used for mailings, newspaper ads, websites and even TV/radio advertising. What can it do for you?

1. Pre-qualifies prospects – Prospects must take a specific action in order to take advantage of your ad’s offer. This gets them to raise their hands and identify that they may be interested and want to learn more.
   
   
2. Offers measurable results – You can measure how many people actually do take the specific action you explain in your ad.
   
   
3. Cost-effective way to reach prospects – You can use the principles of direct response in one-to-one communication (e.g. phone calls/ personal letters) or in broader communications such as print or broadcast advertising, your website or your newsletter, which means you can craft specific offers for targeted groups of people.

What Are The Components of Direct Response Advertising?

Lawyer advertising that uses direct response techniques has four key components:

1. Use an Attention-Grabbing Headline – Your headline is the ad for your ad. Most people skim publications, so they will glance over the bolded, large letters of your headline. If it contains a benefit that appeals to them, they will read your ad copy. If it is simply the name of your company, which they’ve never heard of, they will ignore your ad.
   
   
2. Explain Benefits and Address Your Prospects’ Problems – Rather than telling prospects who you are and what your company does, put yourself in their shoes. What is your prospect thinking about when he needs the kind of legal service or solution you provide? What are his concerns, wants and needs? What does he think he needs? What would make him call you over another lawyer?
   
   
3. Present a Compelling Offer – Your ad is competing with thousands of others for your prospect’s attention. What’s in it for them if they spend a few moments reading your ad and responding? How can you present what you offer as a solution to their problem? What kinds of introductory offers, freebies or low cost incentives can you offer to encourage them to take action now?
   
   
4. Provide a Clear Call-To-Action – Give your readers a reason to respond to your ad now. Most people are lazy, so if your ad doesn’t persuade them to take action now, they will forget. Invite them to call or visit to take advantage of your special offer or request your free report to build your in-house prospecting list.

Because there are only four key components to your ad, you can cost-effectively test each element to improve your ad’s effectiveness.

How Does Direct Response Advertising Differ From Institutional Advertising?

Direct response advertising differs from institutional advertising in a number of ways. Pick up any trade publication, and most institutional ads have a large picture taking up 2/3 of the ad space, a short block of text and some witty or clever headline. The two primary ways these types of advertising differ include:

#1 – Compelling Benefits, Facts and Reasons Why

• Most institutional advertising does not make a case for why a prospect should buy the product or service offered. It offers no useful information – and often, nothing of value – and ends up being a waste of your time and attention.
  
  
• With direct response advertising, the idea is appeal to the reader by giving him useful information he can use to make an informed purchasing decision about a key problem, concern, want or need he has. In other words, it offers prospects information that is important to them (not you or your firm).

The harsh truth is your prospect doesn’t care about you, your motivations or your bottom line. He cares about himself and what benefits he will receive from the service you provide.

#2 – Measurable Results

• With institutional advertising, the goal of the ad is to get the company’s name in front of the general public to “build brand awareness.” It is not trackable.
  
  
• Direct response ads ask the reader to respond in some manner so you can track how many people actually take that specific response.

If Institutional Advertising Is So Ineffective, Why Do People Use It?

Fortune 500 companies can afford to use institutional advertising because they have multimillion dollar marketing budgets and offer products/services to virtually everyone (e.g. Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Budweiser or Apple). If your product is widely available in any market and a large portion of the population have the means to buy it, institutional advertising can be effective.

If, however, you have limited marketing resources and can only serve a specific type of client needing a specific type of service, direct response is far more targeted and cost-effective. If your peers (solo lawyers and smaller law practices) aren’t using these principles, it’s most likely because they see the largest law firms running institutional ads and think they must be getting great results – so they copy them. Other similar-sized law practices see their peers running these ads and think they must be effective, so they copy them. And the cycle continues.

The post The Most Effective Type of Lawyer Advertising Is… appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

Most legal advertising is reactive, not proactive. It starts with a telemarketing call from a salesman wanting to sell you advertising space in their newspaper, on their website, in the local Yellow Pages, or another publication. The pitch stresses the tens of thousands of people who receive their publication or visit their website – and paints a rosy picture for how many eyeballs your ad will reach.

Surely, you will receive new business. It’s almost impossible for you not to with all those prospects reading, right? At least one must have a legal problem you can solve. And if you only get one new client, that ad will have paid for itself.

Fast-forward a few weeks. Your ad ran – but your website visitors didn’t increase and you didn’t get a single phone call. What happened? Why was this promising ad campaign dead in the water?

Should you leave the ad in a few weeks longer because the salesman keeps telling you “advertising requires frequency and repetition” to work? Buy a bigger advertisement? Go full color with pictures? Try a different publication? Or give up altogether?

For most lawyers, the answer is to stop, take a step back, and evaluate. Reactive advertising is a waste of your money. It doesn’t matter what the salesman pitches you, without taking some time to plan out your advertising strategy, your campaign will fail 99% of the time (the other 1%, you’ll get lucky.)

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Advertising can be predictable and measurable – if you do it right. Here are 9 ways to increase your legal advertising response.

Tip #1 – Use Direct Response Advertising

Like the name suggests, direct response advertising is designed to persuade your reader to take a specific action such as:

• Calling you for a free consultation
• Visiting your website for a free report
• Joining your mailing list
• Requesting free information
• Attending your seminar or event
• Connecting with you via social media

With direct response advertising, you put yourself in your prospect’s mind and make a case with facts and benefits for why your prospect should hire you over all other lawyers out there. In other words, it is salesmanship in print rather than an opportunity to be cute, funny, artistic or clever.

Tip #2 – Pick Publications Your Target Audience Reads

This may sound obvious, but just because a publication reaches tens of thousands of eyeballs doesn’t mean it is reaching the kinds of people who want and can pay for the legal services you offer. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “I only need one new client to break even” but chances are, if you choose publications to advertise in based on which salesmen call you, you won’t be picking the best publications for your business. Instead, start with your target prospects:

• What publications (magazines, newspapers, newsletters, websites) do they read?
• Do they still use the Yellow Pages?
• Do they read your local newspaper, Church bulletin, or community paper?
• Which industry/trade publications do they read?

If you don’t think a high percentage of your target audience will read the publication you are advertising in, don’t bother. Often, salesmen use number of readers to get you to buy. They may say something like our publication is read by 100,000 people – so what?

• Ask how many papers they circulate (print and distribute).
• Ask what their subscribers demographics are.
• Ask clients if they’ve ever heard of the publication and if they read it.

You should be advertising in publications your clients actually read (& that includes specific sections of the newspaper – very few people read every section word for word). Also, ask how much people pay to receive the publication. People tend to read publications they pay for more often than publications they don’t.

Tip #3 – Have a Clear Objective

A standard, ineffective ad includes company basics like your name and logo, a laundry list of services offered, your location and hours of operation, your slogan, and a phone number to call to set up a consultation. These ads look like everyone else’s and do nothing to set you apart from other lawyers or grab prospects’ attention. Instead, they become background noise that prospects filter out as they read.

What does stand out? Ads that address a specific purpose and convey one message for one solution, problem, want or need. If you are planning a trip to Hawaii, information about Hawaii’s beaches, resorts, and attractions capture your attention whereas you overlook information about skiing in Colorado – because it’s not relevant to you right now.

Your prospects feel the same way. They don’t care that you offer services for divorce, personal injury, real estate, and business transactions. They only care about their one specific problem – and if your ad doesn’t address that one specific problem, they will ignore it.

Before you run an ad, ask:

• Who is your target audience?
• What problem, obstacle or need are they facing?
• What service can you offer that addresses that one specific problem?
• What is the biggest benefit you can offer in your ad?
• What do you need to include in the ad to capture their attention and interest?
• What unique advantages can you explain for why they should choose you?

Tip #4 – Stress A Benefit in Your Headline

Your headline is the most important part of any advertisement because its sole purpose is to grab your prospect’s attention. Your headline is the “ad” for your ad because your prospect will decide whether to read your ad based on whether he is interested in what your headline says. Good headlines convey:

• who your target audience is
• a brief description of the benefit you offer in the ad
• an appeal to your reader’s self-interest

As famous adman David Ogilvy once said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

You have two seconds. If your headline doesn’t capture your prospect’s attention, your ad has failed.

Tip #5 – Make a Compelling Offer

While your ad’s headline may be the most important part of your ad, your offer is the second most important component. An offer is comprised of two parts:

• what your prospect gets
• what your prospect has to do to take advantage of the offer

The greater the perceived value of your offer – and the more risk-free and easy to obtain it is – the better your response will be.

Offers can include special reports, free brochures, tip sheets, information kits, white papers, case studies, free subscriptions, seminar invites, free consultations, introductory offers, discounts, and anything else you can think of that your prospects will find valuable.

Tip #6 – Tell Prospects How To Take Action

The second part of your offer involves what your prospect has to do to get your offer. In other words, you have to tell them exactly what they must do to take action.

Tell them. In marketing terms, this is a “call-to-action” where you clearly tell your reader what, exactly, they should do, how they should do it, and why they should do it right now.

This isn’t a matter of talking down to your reader. You aren’t including this because you think your prospect is dumb. Rather, your reader most likely isn’t giving your ad his/her full attention.

As your prospect is reading your ad, he or she is thinking of other things, multi-tasking, wondering what to make for dinner, when to pick up the kids, how her first date will go with the new guy, listening to her coworker’s phone conversation in the background, petting the cat, and so on.

Your prospect won’t study your ad carefully, re-reading it several times to make sure he/she understood every word. So it’s up to you to make your ads simple and unmistakably clear – so your readers do understand what action to take next.

Tip #7 – Use An Attractive Layout

The purpose of your ad’s design is to draw attention to your headline, offer and call-to-action. Graphics are usually the first thing people notice about an ad, so if your graphic doesn’t reinforce your message, or it’s just a bit too ‘cute’ or ‘comical’, your ad won’t be as effective. Here are a few ways to improve your ad’s layout:

• Make your ad visually appealing
• Use bullet points and break up large blocks of text
• Make your contact information and call-to-action stand out
• Keep it clean and easy to read
• Create a distinctive look that stands out from other ads
• Make one single element the dominant visual feature – either the headline or a striking graphic

A good ad layout uses graphics and verbal placement to move your readers into the ad rather than away from it.

Tip #8 – Test Your Ad

Test and track the effectiveness of each ad you run so you collect real-world data to base future ad purchases on. Tracking ad response can be as simple as:

• Having prospects call a unique phone number
• Sending prospects to a unique web page
• Providing a coupon prospects must bring with them to redeem
• Enclosing a self-addressed stamped response envelope

Assume your ad should get responses after its first run. Continue running – and potentially tweaking – the ads that get the best response to see if you can improve upon results. Ads that get little to no response should be scrapped.

Tip #9 – Why Didn’t My Legal Advertising Work?

For ads to work they must get the reader’s attention, entice him to read the ad, and motivate him to take action now. If your ad didn’t work, it could be because of the following reasons:

• Your prospects don’t read the publication you advertise in
• Your headline didn’t grab your prospect’s attention
• Your ad’s body copy wasn’t convincing enough
• Your offer wasn’t valuable enough or was perceived as too risky or too hard to take advantage of
• Your call-to-action wasn’t clear and your reader didn’t know what to do next

If any of these are the case, going with a bigger ad, continuing the ad for a longer time frame, or adding color probably will be a waste of money. It’s better to scrap the ad and try something new. Start small and keep testing your responses until you get the formula right. Then, you can experiment with size, color and frequency.

The post 9 Tips to Generate More Leads from Legal Advertising appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

If you run a solo or small law firm, one of your primarily differentiating factors is the quality of the client service you provide and your attention to detail. Since most of your clients didn’t go to law school, they may find it difficult to judge how skilled or knowledgeable you are in your specialty practice area or perhaps won’t have the time or attention span to read through your legal articles or briefs to evaluate your experience.

Rather, what your prospects and clients will do is evaluate you based on their perceptions. They can determine from talking to you whether they like you and feel they can trust you. They can judge your interpersonal communications to determine if your working relationship is genuine interest or if they are just another file on your desk. They can determine your level of commitment by how much time you spend with them, whether you thoroughly answer their questions, or if you promptly return their phone calls or emails.

These more “softer” skills become extremely important because clients don’t hire law firms – they hire attorneys they feel they know, like and trust. These little things make your clients feel important and help build strong client relationships that result in repeat business, referrals, and long-term friendships.

Relationships can’t be delegated to your secretary or paralegal. You can’t outsource your interactions with prospects and clients and hope to build a sustainable, profitable law practice for the long term. Rather, your clients need to see and talk with you to value your relationship. The more you understand their problems, challenges and obstacles – and offer timely solutions – the greater they will appreciate your services.

Where do attorneys go wrong? Here are 6 client service mistakes lawyers make.

Mistake #1: Don’t Keep Commitments – When you run your own legal practice, you can feel like you are juggling many balls in the air. Occasionally, you may break a promise, show up late for an appointment, or forget to return an email or phone call promptly. Clients tend to be forgiving, but if the behavior happens repeatedly, they will deem you unreliable and take their business elsewhere.

Mistake #2: Putting Off Marketing and Prospecting – Fielding phone inquiries or responding to requests for information can be time-consuming if you don’t have a system in place. When a prospect asks for information, they expect an instantaneous response: perhaps to download the content from your website, receive an email reply, talk to someone who can answer their question, or receive a packet via FedEx. If you don’t respond in a timely fashion, they will conclude their business isn’t important to you and go elsewhere.

Mistake #3: Unexpected Expenses – While it would be nice if we all had clients who weren’t concerned about our fees and could happy pay our bills on time, the reality is that money is a hot-button issue for most people. If you send a bill that has unexpected fees or exceeds your estimate without first discussing the charges with your client, problems may arise. Instead, discuss your fee structure clearly in advance – and if changes occur, sort them out sooner, rather than later.

Mistake #4: Difficult to Understand Agreements – As a lawyer, you have to balance your desire to cover all bases with your prospect’s desire to clearly understand what you will do for them and what your service agreement covers. Avoid complex agreement letters for simple cases. Better yet, try to say everything you need in a short 1-2 page letter.

Mistake #5: Cover Up Mistakes – Everyone makes mistakes, but if you botch something up, do your best to correct your mistake in your client’s favor. Clients tend to judge you on your ability to solve the matter quickly and efficiently.

Mistake #6: Negativity and Complaining – Present a positive, gracious appearance during client interactions rather than talking about your problems, complaining, or being critical. Yes, it’s easier to find fault or react sarcastically to something, but ongoing negativity leads to a poor reputation. Instead, look for ways to do something nice for people – a thank-you note or a nice gesture can go a long way towards building client loyalty.

By taking the time to nurture your prospect and client interactions, you will develop longer-term relationships that result in more clients, referrals, and more meaningful and satisfying work that changes your clients’ lives for the better.

The post 6 Client Service Mistakes Solo Lawyers and Small Firms Make – And How to Avoid Them appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

Blogs allow you to publish content quickly and easily, without learning HTML or other web programming languages. They are easy to set up, usually display new content in reverse chronological order, and give visitors ways to interact with your content, such as leaving content or subscribing to your RSS feed.

6 Ways a Blog Can Help Build Your Legal Practice

No marketing tactic is *THE* magic bullet that will flood your practice with more business than you can handle, but blogs offer a number of benefits over other types of marketing. Here are a few reasons to consider blogging.

1. Demonstrate thought leadership – As a lawyer, you sell yourself and your ability to solve your clients’ problems. Because legal solutions tend to be complex and jargon-filled, most non-lawyers have no idea what you do, how you do it, what it involves, or how exactly you can help them. Sure, they might try to save face by nodding when you speak and telling you “Yes, of course, I understand,” but chances are, they don’t. By blogging, you can use case studies, independent research, industry insights, and other non-technical ways to explain your services in layman’s terms. The more clearly you can explain your prospects’ problems and potential solutions (including your own legal services), the more opportunities will come your way in terms of client work, referrals, speaking engagements and networking.
   
   
2. Promote your services – Your blog is a fantastic resource to prove you can do what you say, offer personal insights, promote upcoming events, and build rapport with readers before they talk with you one-on-one.
   
   
3. SEO – Most practice areas are extremely competitive so obtaining top Google ranks for high-traffic keywords is difficult. If you want to rank, you need quality content and plenty of inbound links. By posting good content regularly, you increase the likelihood that people will link to your site or share your content through social media channels.
   
   
4. Client research – Blogging can help you gain critical insights into what your audience is most concerned about, wants more of, and is easily bored with. Knowing this information can help you craft better marketing materials and win new business more easily.
   
   
5. Cheap marketing – Anyone can start a blog now, for free, on one of the many blogging platforms like TypePad, WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr. A domain name will set you back $10/year. That’s all you need to get started. Then, it’s a matter of how much time you are willing to devote to publishing content and promoting your blog. Few marketing tactics require as little upfront investment.
   
   
6. Create a legacy – You might not have time to write a book, but by publishing a weekly article consistently over time, you will create an extensive body of work that prospects, clients, colleagues and students can research and cite. Perhaps this isn’t your main focus for writing, but it can be incredibly satisfying to look back over a year or two’s worth of blog posts and see how far you’ve come.

5 Questions To Consider Before You Start Your Law Firm Blog

1. Who Should Consider Blogging?

Blogging can help most lawyers build a unique selling proposition to stand out from the competition. That said, like any marketing tactic, how successful your blog is will depend on your target audience.

• Does your target audience read blogs? – If so, what types of content do they want to read? If your target market isn’t likely to read blogs (e.g. Fortune 100 CEOS, busy investment bankers, or high-level government officials) or they aren’t interested in what you write about (e.g. lengthy legalese, cut-and-paste state laws, or heavily-footnoted commentary on legal opinions), your blog probably won’t be as successful as you would like it to be.
  
  
• Think like a content publisher – Not all lawyers make great bloggers. Starting a blog means changing your perspective from a “lawyer who blogs” to a “content publisher.” Blogging means essentially that you are a publisher and must create a content strategy for your publication to see results. If you publish sporadically or infrequently, you will not reap many benefits.
  
  
• SEO benefits – If you hope to rank organically in search engines, blogging is essential to your website marketing strategy. Virtually all law practices are competitive on the web, and for every lawyer that isn’t blogging, a good number within that specialty are blogging and offering Google fresh, updated content regularly. You simply won’t be able to compete with these websites if you don’t blog. Google is always looking for the best, most informative websites, and they will rank those sites above websites that don’t update their content regularly.

Blogging is a time commitment so consider if you have a few hours each week to research topics, write an article, publish it, then promote it via social media.

2. What Are Your Law Firm’s Blogging Goals?

Before you start blogging, pick one main objective for your legal blog.What is its primary focus? That might be:

• to generate traffic to your website
• to build trust and credibility with prospects
• to create a content marketing strategy
• to get links back to your website
• to generate leads for your law practice

Some of these goals go hand in hand, but knowing which is your #1 focus will help you determine what you should write about, which keywords you should focus on, and how to create compelling content your target audience wants to read.

Blogging isn’t an instantaneous process and it often takes a considerable number of posts before you start to see any real benefit of blogging. Focus on milestones – your first 50 posts. Your first 100 posts. Then 200. Then 500. And so forth.

If you choose blogging as your primary internet marketing tactic, you have to be willing to commit to 90 days or 180 days of putting in the work and measuring results. Just like you can’t go to the gym once and expect to achieve your fitness goals, you can’t blog for a week or two and expect significant marketing results. But, by creating blogging goals and doing the work, you can measure your blog’s success over time.

3. How Should You Define Your Lawyer Blog’s Focus?

For your blog to successfully bring in leads, you have to set realistic goals.

• What keywords do you want to be found for?
• What topics or industry focus do you want to be known for?
• Who do you want to reach?

One of the biggest mistakes lawyers make when blogging is writing content for other lawyers rather than their ideal clients. Lawyers write in legalese, expounding upon court verdicts and complicated litigation, often with plenty of footnotes, so only other attorneys or law students can follow their logic. Your target audience doesn’t want to read pages upon pages of legal jargon. They want to know what the key problem or issue is and how it applies to them in clear, jargon-free terminology.

For your blog to succeed, ask yourself:

• What does my target audience really want to know?
• How can I structure my writing so they understand the key issues, obstacles and problems?
• What do I need to say so they see my writing not just as informative but as a way to solve the everyday problems they face?

4. Should Your Blog Be On A Separate Domain From Your Website?

The answer depends on how tech-savvy your firm is, but generally speaking, it’s best to have your blog as part of your website rather than on a separate domain. There are, of course, exceptions – such as if you are a partner in a firm that doesn’t understand the benefits of blogging and you see yourself eventually starting your own practice, you may want to set your blog apart from your firm’s branding strategy so you can take it with you if you choose to leave.

For most law firms, if you are considering a blog, it’s best to make it part of your current website. Why?

• Branding Hub – By making your blog part of your website, all of your content found in one place.
  
  
• Cost-effective and customizable – Open source software like WordPress allow you to set up a blog for free on your own server in a matter of a few minutes, and you can easily integrate the blog into your site’s navigation structure or add custom features without much hassle.
  
  
• SEO – Integrating the blog within your site has search engine optimization benefits because any articles you write will appear on your law firm’s domain. As you publish updated, unique content, Google will begin to see your site as an authority in the specialty practice areas you write about and will reward you with higher organic rankings.

That said, if you want a quick and easy blog without the hassle of dealing with technology, there are a number of free, easy to set up blog options you can choose. Sites like Blogger.com or WordPress.com allow you to launch a free blog within a few minutes. These sites provide the bare necessities to start publishing articles, videos, podcasts and photos almost instantly with no technical know-how necessary. They even allow you to register your own domain name for about $10, so if you ever decide to move your blog, you won’t loose the SEO benefits you’ve built.

The drawbacks to using free blogging software include:

• a less attractive URL – Though you can purchase a domain name, which I STRONGLY recommend you do if you go this route because it will allow you to move your content much easier if you need to in the future.
  
  
• Fewer options – Free blogging platforms offer you less options for design and functionality that you may need as your blog grows.
  
  
• Less SEO benefit – Because all your content is on a third-party website, your main law firm website will not gain as much SEO benefit than you would if you were publishing the content on your own website.
  
  
• Lack of control – It’s possible that a free blogging site may shut down the service at any point – or they may shut down your specific blog or account because they believe it violates their terms of service. In such cases, you may lose the content you’ve published.

5. Should We Allow Comments?

Every blogger will eventually have to decide whether to allow comments. Comments are great for client engagement and adding additional user-generated content to your blog – but they can be a time drain. Consider:

• Do your readers want to comment? – The vast majority of your blog’s readers will not leave comments. In fact, most comments you receive will be spam. Most blogging software like WordPress has fairly good anti-spam filters to prevent much of this from getting through, but it can still be a hassle to sift through false positives, depending on how much traffic your blog receives.
  
  That said, consider your target audience. If you blog about a particular embarrassing topic (like DUI, bankruptcy, being sued, etc), chances are, your readers won’t want to comment about their problems or leave any public trace they are interested in those issues so even if you allow comments, you may not get many.
  
  
• Do you have time to moderate comments? – Of those people who do leave comments, only a fraction will add something useful or valuable to the initial discussion, so moderating the “me too” or “I agree” filler comments from the meatier ones can take time.
  
  Moderation can be a tricky issue to navigate because you don’t want to necessarily squash dissenting comments but you do want to reserve the right to eliminate trolling or off-topic or useless comments from your discussion.

As an alternative to comments, you can use social media to engage with your audience. For instance, anyone who wants to comment can leave one via your Twitter, Facebook or Google+ accounts, which can be better a better alternative for filtering out lengthy diatribes or preventing spam.

How to Create A Blogging Strategy for Your Law Firm

If you decide blogging is right for your law firm, the next step is to take a few minutes to plan out your blogging strategy. This doesn’t have to be elaborate, but starting with a game plan will help keep you focused after the initial thrill of publishing your first few articles wears off. Here’s a five-step strategy to get you started.

Step #1: Decide Who Will Blog – If you have several lawyers in your firm, decide who will blog. Which attorneys can best “speak the language” of your ideal prospects? Who is good at clearly explaining complex issues and is passionate about voicing their opinions and concerns?

Step #2: Research the Market – Who else is publishing blogs in your niche area? (Use sites like Technorati and Google Blogsearch to search for related blogs.) What do they write about? How many subscribers do they have (many display RSS statistics, Facebook fans, or Twitter followers)? How many comments do posts receive? Subscribe to their feeds and read their content for the next few weeks.

Step #3: Choose your Blogging Platform – Setting up a blog is easy with sites like WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, and Tumblr, even if you aren’t technically-savvy. You can set up most accounts in less than 3 minutes, and they will give you the option to register a domain name for about $10. I recommend you do it, so if down the road you decide to switch platforms, transferring your content is much easier.

Step #4: Brainstorm Initial Blog Content – Blogging is less intimidating when you know what to write about, so brainstorm your first 20 blog posts. Set a timer for 20 minutes and write down everything you could write about. If you’re stuck for content, check out book topics n Amazon.com, Google forums about your practice area, do some keyword research, or read through questions people ask on Yahoo Answers.

Step #5: Create a Publication Schedule – You’ve set up your blogging platform and brainstormed your initial content. Now it’s time to commit. Decide how often you will publish (ideally at least once a week) and write your first blog post.

This doesn’t have to be time-consuming – maybe 2-3 hours to set up a blog, do some initial research and brainstorming, and writing your first article. You can accomplish that in an afternoon. Start small and concentrate on taking one step forward (e.g. publishing your first article) rather than overwhelming yourself with technical specs, writing perfection or blog design options.

4 Tips for Getting More Traffic to Your Legal Blog

Ideally, you will want to have at least 5-10 good posts before you start heavily promoting your blog. The more great content you have, the more visitors will be likely to stick around to see what else you have to say. Here are a few ways to build your traffic quickly.

1. Comment on high-traffic blogs, forums and Q&A sites in your niche. Where do your prospects already hang out? Once you know, join the conversation.
   
   
2. Use social media – Search Twitter and Facebook for people talking about your legal practice. Join groups on Facebook or join in the Twitter conversation. Friend and follow people who might be good referral sources, authority figures or influencers and network with them.
   
   
3. SEO – Search engine optimization is a long-term strategy that will not net you #1 rankings overnight. Sorry – it doesn’t work like that. However, that doesn’t mean you should neglect Google. For each of your blog posts, do a few minutes of research with the Google Keyword Research tool to find good keywords and use them in your post’s title (make sure your blog posts still sound interesting to readers – high rankings are meaningless if no one clicks on your link.)
   
   
4. Respond and engage – Whenever someone leaves a comment, links to your site, or mentions you through social media, take a few minutes to respond. It only takes a few minutes per day to keep up, and it builds a wealth of social capital along with a “personal” touch.

It takes time to write great posts, build relationships with authority bloggers, and create an active readership, but if you are persistent, your results will pay off in spades.

The post Blogging for Lawyers: How to Start Your Law Firm or Legal Blog appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

Sometimes, you and your client just aren’t a good fit. It may not be easy to say “no” or fire your client, but it can be the best thing you do in terms of productivity, profitability and peace of mind. Life’s too short to work with difficult clients. Here are a few signs it’s time to fire your client.

1. You dread contact – Whether it’s dodging their phone calls or delaying email, you find yourself trying to avoid any interaction. Maybe conversations escalate in anger. Maybe your client nitpicks, micromanages, or nickel-and-dimes you. Maybe you just don’t like them or believe in the work you are doing. Whatever your reason, consider ending the relationship for your own sanity.
2. Nitpicking and micromanaging – Some clients question every line-item you bill, insist they know the legal process better than you do, or have unrealistic expectations of your time, fees, or outcome. Most of these concerns stem from your client’s fear and/or lack of trust rather than anything you may have done – and it may not be worth the effort to smooth over the relationship.
3. Everything is an emergency – Maybe you know the type of client: everything should have been done last week, but they just got around to giving you the assignment today. Can you have it done tomorrow by noon? Just say no. Occasionally, it may really be an emergency, but more likely, they are testing you to see if you cave to their whims. Look for clients who can adequately plan and prepare their projects.
4. No follow-through – You assign your client specific tasks, such as to fill out documents or bring in paperwork, but nothing seems to progress. Your client drags their feet – maybe with signing your retainer agreement or with the work required to file the lawsuit – until you wonder if this project will ever get off-the-ground.
5. Money issues – Everyone wants the most bang-for-their-buck, but some clients can’t afford your fee. In an ideal world, everyone would pay on time, but as many small-business owners quickly realize – payments are late, excuses are made, the check is in the mail. If possible, get a portion of your fee upfront and schedule regular payment options so you can manage your cash flow.
6. No loyalty – Your client has a string of lawyers they previously worked with, but none worked out long-term and their problem has never been solved. Take that as a red flag.
7. No expertise – If your client needs legal services outside your normal practice areas, consider referring out the business rather than taking on case work you have little or no expertise in.

It may sound counter-intuitive or just a “pipe dream” but to grow your ideal practice, weed out the less-than-ideal clients and focus your time and attention on those who are a better fit.

Increase Your Firm’s Profitability By Firing Poor Clients

One way to evaluate your current client base is to assign letter grades (As, Bs, Cs and Ds). There is an element of subjectivity to grading clients, but you can also develop objective criteria. For instance:

• “A” Clients – These clients have reasonable expectations, value your services, follow-through on assignments, and treat you and your staff with professionalism. They understand your fees, pay their bills on time, and offer ongoing legal work you find interesting and/or meaningful.
• “B” Clients – These clients are average/ above average, but they don’t meet all the criteria for “A” clients.
• “C” Clients – These clients are average/ below average, but they aren’t absolutely terrible.
• “D” Clients – Your worst clients, they are the opposite of “A” clients in most ways.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the 80-20 rule? 80% of your time and efforts are spent on 20% of your client base (usually the least profitable and most difficult to work with, your “C” and “D” clients). On the other hand, 20% of your client base makes up 80% of your profits, meaning your “A” clients are usually the most profitable. These percentages are generalizations – sometimes it’s 90-10, other times 70-30 but the ratio is useful to demonstrate that if you fire your “D” clients, you will free up resources to focus on your better, more profitable clients. The more time you spend with “A” and “B” clients, the greater the likelihood they will be more satisfied with your services and refer business to you.

To successfully build a law practice of only “A” and “B” clients requires specializing for 1-2 niche practice areas (maybe one more if the firm has several partners) that are, ideally, related so you can cross-sell services. Start with your most lucrative practice area, build that up, then add others as you grow.

The post Law Firm Client Service: Is It Time To Fire Your Client? appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

Solo law firm marketing begins with mindset. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the unique challenges to attracting and retaining new clients for your brand new law firm. There’s so much to do. So many things you could do to market yourself. Where should you start?

First, let’s re-frame marketing a bit. As a solo attorney, you aren’t in the business of selling your legal services. You are in the business of running a successful legal practice – which just so happens to sell specific legal services for a profit.

As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to not only deliver high-quality legal services, but you must also deal with project management, marketing, business strategy, hiring and managing staff, payroll and book keeping, and all the other tasks that go hand-in-hand with running a legal practice (or any small business). If you ignore these tasks, if you decide you don’t want to pay your bills or your staff or spend time attracting paying clients, your law practice will fail.

For any law firm to succeed, it must be able to attract and retain a consistent stream of profitable clients. This is your primary source of income. Without clients, you don’t get paid, you bleed cash, and you quickly find yourself without the resources to continue.

So it is in your best interest to develop this #1 most important business skill of learning how to effectively attract and keep profitable clients.

How do you do this? You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a complex advertising and web marketing plan. But you do need to plan out specific activities you will commit to doing weekly – for as long as you are in business – that are designed to attract and retain clients. This isn’t a one-time shot. It’s a consistent effort to bring in new business.

Step 1: Plan Your Solo Law Firm Marketing Strategy

The first part of your marketing plan involves your general business strategy to address the principles of supply and demand. What services will you provide that your prospects want and are willing to pay for?

1. What services will you provide? In other words, what practice areas will you specialize in? For solo lawyers, it’s best to pick no more than 2-3. Yes, it’s tempting to start a general practice where you offer a laundry list of services, but most people prefer to hire legal problem solving specialists, not lawyers who only take 1-2 cases per year in their particular problem area. Identify your niche – when prospects hear your name, what type of service should they associate with you?
   
   
2. Who is your target audience? Once you know which 1-3 services you will provide, it’s much easier to narrow down who buys these types of services. Who are the decision makers? You can identify them by:
   
   
   • Demographics: Specific characteristics including age, gender, marital status, occupation, income, education, and so forth.
     
     
   • Psychographics: Lifestyle characteristics including hobbies, interests, leisure activities, what prospects like, what they do in their free time, how they live, and so forth.
     
     
   • Geographic Location: Most likely, you will also narrow down your target market to where they live or work. Geographic location should serve as one qualifier to narrow down your target audience but you should also use another qualifier (either demographics or psychographics) in addition to further narrow your focus.

   Keep this simple. If you offer one type of service, consider offering it to 2-3 target audiences. If you decide to offer 2-3 types of services, pick one target audience for each. The more combinations of services + target audiences you have, the more complex and expensive your marketing will become because you need one marketing campaign for each service + target audience combination.
   
   

3. What marketing message will resonate with your target audience? The best marketing messages are specific and personal. They explain one type of service to one specific target audience. Given your target audience’s most pressing concern, what do you need to explain to them that will convey the value you provide? What are they most concerned with – effectiveness, speed, cost, efficiency, one-stop solution, etc?
   
   
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses? No matter which services you offer, you will have fierce competition. Know your own personal strengths and weaknesses compared to your competitors – including your experience, skills and knowledge, how well your services meet your clients’ needs, and how convenient your services are for your clientele. By understanding what you bring to the table, you can demonstrate confidence in your abilities to get the job done by explaining the advantages your prospect will experience by hiring you. If you can’t explain why you are different from your competitors, you will find yourself competing on price as a commodity.

Step 2: Develop Your Marketing Arsenal

Every solo law firm marketing program involves a combination of marketing materials and selling strategies to help educate prospects about their problems, the benefits of hiring you, the risks of waiting to solve their problems, what working with you will be like, and how you can help prospects solve their legal problems. In other words, your marketing materials must build a complete case for why prospects should choose you over every other option they have – including doing nothing.

Most advertising is a waste of money and has no value – especially if you are running a slick image with a catchy or cute slogan or just a blatant “Hire me by calling 1-800-555-5555” message. Your prospects see these types of ads and ignore them.

What catches their eye are marketing messages that are educational – ads and articles that focus on them, their problems and potential solutions. In other words, “What’s In It For Me?” They don’t care that you have 50+ years of combined experience or offer services within 16 practice areas. None of that is relevant to their biggest pressing legal concern – the embarrassing, costly, keeping-them-up-all-night-worrying one affecting them right now.

On the other hand, if your marketing materials are designed to address that one big problem, your prospects will sit up and pay attention. They’ll read your entire brochure, consume the articles on your website, and call you for that free consultation – because you *GET IT.* You get what’s affecting them, and your marketing materials have demonstrated that you might be able to help them solve that problem. Here are some ways to educate prospects:

1. Compile your expertise and advice into bite-sized articles and reports – You don’t need to overwhelm prospects with every last detail about what they should be concerned about. Rather, give them the big picture overview.

   - What is the problem they are facing?
   - Why is this something they should deal with now?
   - What are the risks of waiting rather than taking action?
   - What are potential solutions to this problem?
   - What solution do you recommend and why?
   - What are potential outcomes if they take this step?
   - How can you help them solve this problem?

   You can probably write these articles in just a few hours off the top of your head. Go with it. You don’t need to hire a marketing consultant. You don’t need to use legal jargon or cite court cases or impress your peers. Write in plain English as if you were explaining this problem to a high school class. You can make it juicier by adding tips, secrets, misconceptions, mistakes to avoid, and other key tidbits your prospects should know.

2. Distribute these articles and free reports wherever you can – Offer them on your website for download. Advertise them in all of your ads. Mention them on your business cards. Send copies to prospects that phone you. Have printouts ready for in-person consultations.
   
   

   You can request your prospects’ contact information in exchange for the information (email address on the web or mailing address for prospects that call) and ask permission to add prospects to your mailing list to follow up with them regularly. Most prospects won’t read everything you offer, but many will read a good portion of it and skim the rest if it is related to their problem.
   
   

3. Use advertising and direct mail to market your free information – The problem with most advertising and mailings is they try to get prospects who know nothing about you to pick up the phone and contact you. Your prospect sees this as a risky action. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know how you can help him. He doesn’t know what your experience is, or how you’ve helped others solve problems just like his, or how friendly you are, or what you will charge him. He doesn’t understand how you will work with him, whether he will be embarrassed to dig up his skeletons that will be exposed in court, or put together his entire financial history.
   
   

   But – he might be willing to visit your website and download a report on his problem. He might be willing to call your office and request articles be sent to him. He might be willing to attend a free seminar you are holding on his specific problem. These are far less risky and allow your prospect to check you out before he has to devote time and money to talking with you one-on-one.
   
   

4. Use audio, video and in-person events in your marketing – Always be educating, whether that’s through media publicity, holding free seminars, offering classes, conducting teleseminars or webinars, or just putting up YouTube videos. As your prospect sees you, hears your voice, and watches your mannerisms, he will become more comfortable with you – which will eventually lead to him contacting you for advice.
   
   
5. Follow up! – Collect all contact information into a prospect database, which will become one of your key business assets. This contact database should include any prospects that have requested information from you, your current and past clients, referral sources, and journalists and media contacts that write for your target audience. Ideally, you will want to send a regular newsletter to these people (provided they have given you permission to continue to contact you).

Step 3: Make Sure It’s Easy and Convenient to Contact You

Your marketing arsenal and educational marketing materials can only open the door and warm up leads. They won’t sell your services for you. People hire those they know, like and trust, so you won’t close the deal until you talk one-on-one with prospects. That said:

1. Make it easy to contact you – How available are you? Do you (or your assistant) answer the phone or does it go to voicemail? Do you have a direct number? A toll-free number? Can they email you directly through your website or contact you on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites?
   
   
2. Keep consultations focused on your prospect – People hate being pitched to but they love talking about themselves and their problems. Whenever you consult with a prospect, ask about the problem he wants to solve or what he wants to achieve and listen to what he tells you. What does he consider most important? What are his key fears and concerns? Based on what he tells you, what solutions can you recommend? What can you tell your prospect based on other clients you’ve worked with in similar situations?
   
   

   The more you focus on your prospect, the more likely you will establish credibility without any type of hard selling. Leave information about your background, qualifications, price and how you work together until the last part of the conversation and allow your prospect to draw his own conclusions.

Marketing is an ongoing process, but as you create your arsenal of educational materials and develop systems to deliver those materials to prospects, it becomes a lot easier, with much of it automated. Yes, you still have to write newsletters. Yes, you still have to give a seminar or two, or reach out to referral partners. Yes, you still have to conduct one-on-one consultations.

But you will have real world evidence for what works and what doesn’t, which ads work, which reports are most requested, which articles prospects refer to regularly, and so forth – so you can do more with what is working and eliminate those tactics that don’t work as well.

The post Solo Law Firm Marketing Made Simple appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

Do you want to improve the effectiveness and return on investment of your solo or small law firm marketing – but are hesitant to invest more time and money? Maybe you struggle with thoughts like these:

• If I provide excellent service, business should just come.
• I don’t like “tooting my own horn.”
• Marketing feels so manipulative to me.
• I hate being rejected.
• Nothing I try works as well as I would like.

If you run your own law firm, you are likely facing stiff competition from both large law firms and solo attorneys who can offer similar services – either for lower costs or with more experience – than you can provide.

In addition, your prospects and clients are better educated, more sophisticated and not nearly as loyal as they may have been in the past.

If you don’t put yourself out there – if you don’t market your services and face the possibility of rejection – you won’t be as successful as all the other attorneys who are already doing this.

Small Law Firm Marketing in 2 Easy Steps

The reality of running a successful law practice is: You can have the greatest location, offer the best service, have the most well-trained staff, demonstrate your proven track record of success – but none of that matters if you aren’t able to attract and retain enough clients to generate a steady income over time.

The #1 reason why your law firm will fail is because you aren’t attracting and retaining enough clients who want and/or need your legal services enough to exchange their hard-earned dollars for the services you sell.

So it stands to reason that the #1 most important business skill you can acquire is mastering how to cost effectively attract and keep profitable clients.

Small law firm marketing isn’t difficult. In fact, it can be summed up in two primary steps:

Offer a service that a large enough group of people want enough to pay for and then tell them about it in their terms – so they learn what you can offer and understand the benefits of the services you provide.<

Step 1: Provide A Legal Service People Want and Will Pay For

At the heart of any successful small law firm marketing campaign is what you are selling. This is standard economics 101 with the laws of supply and demand.

You may enjoy a particular area of law that only applies to 50 companies in the US, but you are going to have your work cut out for you to sell enough of those services to make a decent living.

Before you begin your marketing campaign, look at:

• who else offers the type of services you sell
• who is looking for/buying the type of services you sell

You can’t magically grow initial market demand unless you have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on a consumer awareness advertising campaign so pick a service to market that has a decent shot of success.

On the other hand, one of the biggest challenges lawyers have when marketing their services is focus. They want to provide a laundry list of options in hopes that one will catch the eye of their prospect.

This often backfires because your prospect isn’t looking to hire the general practice lawyer who only does two divorce cases each year. He wants the lawyer who specializes in divorce law and derives most of his business from those types of cases. In other words, he wants a specialist, not a jack of all trades.

Your marketing should focus on the specific types of services you provide and build a case for why you are the attorney to hire to deliver that service. Here are a few things to consider:

1. Do your services address prospects’ needs? Are you offering custom-tailored services that are specific to your prospects’ problems or concerns? Or do you offer cookie cutter services or a generic list of practice areas to try to drum up business however you can.
   
   
2. Do you explain how you can help prospects solve their problems? Your prospects aren’t legal experts. They probably don’t understand the law or what you do to solve their legal concerns. It’s on you to explain the range of your services, your processes, and how you conduct business in clear, non-legal terminology that your great grandmother or 10-year old niece could understand. Keep it simple – why should clients hire you to solve their problems?
   
   
3. Do you demonstrate your knowledge, skills and expertise? Your prospects want to know you’ve helped people just like them solve problems just like theirs. Each person believes their specific case is unique – and it’s causing them a lot of worry. They want to know what types of similar cases you’ve handled, that you have in-depth experience in that particular practice area, that you have the qualifications and skills to guide them to a successful outcome.
   
   
4. Do you empathize with clients? For many prospects, their legal concerns are embarrassing – a sign that they have morally failed – and they would prefer to sweep those issues under the rug as quickly as possible. When you talk with prospects, are you demonstrating that you sincerely understand their concerns and want to help them, or is this just another case for you? Take time to understand that the bigger your client’s perceived problem is, the greater your opportunity for winning a loyal, grateful client when you successfully solve their problem quickly and compassionately.
   
   
5. Do you make it easy for prospects to hire you? Some lawyers market their services with an eye on the big price – a multiple year contract or ongoing monthly retainer fee. However, prospects can view these types of services as risky and expensive. Are there introductory services you can offer to get your foot in the door, win initial business, and start building your attorney-client relationship? What can you offer on a small scale that can eventually lead to bigger projects?
   
   
6. Do you provide attractive fees? How you price your services plays a big part in how well your services will sell. If you say your standard rate is $300/hour and you have no idea how many billable hours the project will take, most people will be hesitant to hire you. They want an accurate estimate of your fee without hidden costs. Consider packaging your services into different option levels with flat-fees for each.

Step 2: Clearly Explain What You Do

Once you know what service you will be marketing, the next step involves creating a clear, consistent marketing message that explains to prospects the benefits of hiring you and why they should choose you over all other options they have available – including doing nothing.

Your prospect may have a pressing legal concern – or he may be contemplating preventative measures – but his two biggest concerns are

• why should I spend money to solve this now?
• why should I pay you to solve this for me?

If you don’t have answers to these two questions, you become a commodity. It doesn’t matter what service you offer, someone somewhere is offering something similar faster/better/cheaper.

Think about the service providers you keep patronizing. Why do you have a long term relationship with your doctor, dentist, accountant, etc? What is it about these people that keeps bringing you back to them? Is it their personality? That they know about your problems/history? That they’ve been helpful, empathetic, effective in the past? That they make you comfortable? That they offer you something special or unique you can’t get from competitors? That they are convenient?

Your marketing message needs to clearly communicate these types of benefits along with why you are the best choice to solve your prospects’ problems. For instance:

1. Does your message speak directly to your target audience? Marketing messages must be personalized to the type of audience they are addressing, whether that be blue-collar workers, doctors, housewives, first time home buyers, or entrepreneurs. You will need to craft a different marketing message for each target audience that addresses their specific problems, wants, needs and concerns. In addition, you will need a unique marketing message for each practice area you handle. The more you broaden your message, the more you dilute its effectiveness.
   
   
2. Is your message clear and easy to understand? People are busy and don’t have the time to try to decipher legal jargon, flowery messages or cute slogans. Prospects won’t pick up the phone if they are confused about what you offer or the benefits of hiring you.
   
   
3. Does your message make a complete case for why prospects should hire you? Your marketing campaign should present a complete and compelling case for why prospects should hire you to solve their legal problem. Approach your marketing as if you were going to trial to argue a case before a jury. To succeed, you have to tell them a story, present evidence, and be extremely clear about why jurists should believe you rather than your opponent. A complete marketing message includes identifying a key problem your prospects have, proving why this problem is causing your prospect harm and why it’s best to handle it sooner rather than later, explaining various solutions to this legal problem and what each might look like long-term, and building a case for why you have the knowledge, skills and experience to solve this problem.
   
   
4. Does your message include urgency? Most people don’t wake up one morning and think, “Today is a great day to hire a lawyer!” Rather, they usually wait until the last minute – after they’ve exhausted other options – before calling your office. In many cases, this can be problematic and cause setbacks, so your marketing message should explain the risks of allowing the problem to continue as is. You don’t need to use scare tactics, but if a prospect doesn’t think it’s urgent to solve his problem, he won’t take action. He’ll think about it, mull it over, read about it, and maybe one day, get around to doing something about it.
   
   
5. Does your message explain what prospects should do next? It may sound silly, but if you don’t tell prospects exactly what you want them to do, they are far less likely to take action. You may think just putting your website URL or phone number or address in your advertisement is enough. It’s not. Instead, tell prospects what, exactly, they should do, the benefits of taking that next step, and what they can expect if they call to set up a consultation or attend one of your seminars or visit your website for your free report.

Achieving success with small law firm marketing takes ongoing effort, time and resources. If you dabble or jump from one thing to the next, you likely will never have much success. This doesn’t mean you should stick with a program that doesn’t work – but it does mean it can take multiple trials and a few rounds of testing different tactics to see what works and what doesn’t before you find the right marketing mix for your specific law practice and target audience.

There are no cookie cutter marketing solutions – but if you want to create a successful law practice for the long-term, you have to spend time mastering the art of attracting and retaining clients.

Fortunately, it’s a skill anyone can learn with a bit of practice and patience.

The post 11-Point Checklist To Increase Your Small Law Firm Marketing ROI appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

What does it take to get more legal clients?

Any successful law firm marketing strategy includes a plan for encouraging prospective legal clients to contact you to learn about your solutions to their legal problems. It simply isn’t cost-effective to chase “anyone who might need your service” and try to convince them to hire you.

The more you chase potential legal clients, the less interested they will be.

Whenever you run an ad, send a mailing or call someone up to solicit business, you do so with the intention of interrupting whatever they are doing so they pay attention to you for a few moments. You hope that within those 2-3 seconds, they will suddenly realize all the benefits and advantages of doing business with you and will call you up for a consultation.

Rarely will one ad answer all of their questions sufficiently so they feel comfortable contacting you.

What Potential Legal Clients Want To Know

Instead, your prospect will be thinking a jumbled mess of questions that tie into his key problems and are often linked with his confusion, frustration and worry. He’s thinking:

1. Do I want or need this service? For prospects who have just been arrested or sued, there’s a good chance the answer is YES. But for lawyers offering ongoing, consulting, or preventative services, prospects may procrastinate because they don’t see all the benefits and advantages you can provide them. In other words, your services may not seem like a top concern or priority. They may not think they need or want what you offer – even if it would be for their own good to hire you right now.
   
   
2. Is this the right service for me? Even if your prospect recognizes he has a legal problem and categorizes it as a priority, he will research what types of solutions are available. Does he really need to hire an attorney, or can he hire another specialist, a paralegal, or even solve the problem himself? If he does decide to hire an attorney, you have plenty of competition from other lawyers who offer similar services.
   
   
3. Are you the right lawyer to hire? If your prospect decides to hire an attorney, why should he hire you instead of another lawyer? What makes you the best option? What success stories do you share? How well do you educate prospects on what makes you unique or special?
   
   
4. Can I afford this service? Price will always be a top concern for prospects. Lawyers have a reputation for charging high rates per hour, so prospects will wonder if they are getting a good value – and if they can get a better rate elsewhere. They will want to know all about your pricing options. What payment options do you accept? Do you charge in installments? Are there hidden charges to be aware of?
   
   
5. Is this the right time to hire an attorney? If your prospect doesn’t have an immediate need, he will wonder what might happen if he puts off his hiring decision for a month, six months, or longer. What are the pros and cons of taking action now vs. waiting?
   
   
6. What issues should I be aware of? Your prospect may fear he might make a mistake that makes him lose money or appear foolish, so educate him on the top mistakes people in his situation make and how he can avoid them. What can you do to put your prospect at ease that his case is in good hands with you?
   
   
7. What if I don’t get the results I want? While it is impossible to guarantee legal results, your prospect may worry about what if he doesn’t like working with you or if he doesn’t agree with the way you approach his case. What if you don’t come through or he thinks you dropped the ball? Managing your client’s expectations is a big part of providing superior client service – especially in complicated legal proceedings with a high rate of uncertainty.

Keep these questions in mind when you create your marketing materials. By understanding what problems and issues your prospect is most concerned with, you can craft marketing messages he might respond to.

7 Reasons Why Your Prospect Might Not Respond To Your Marketing Materials

Before you create your law firm’s marketing materials, take a few moments to put yourself in the head of your prospective legal client. Think about these 7 questions he is asking himself. The most effective marketing materials clearly explain:

• your prospect’s problem in his own words
• what benefits he will experience by solving his problem
• what might happen if he doesn’t take action
• what he should do next to solve his problem

If your marketing materials do this, but you still aren’t getting the results you are looking for, consider:

1. Have you adequately described your prospect’s problem or fear? Always start your marketing materials with an appeal to “What’s In It For Me?” If you don’t capture your prospect’s attention in the first 2-3 seconds, they don’t continue reading… but if you can explain their specific problem, what they’re going through, and how you can help them solve that problem, they will be interested.
   
   
2. Have you given your prospect a clear reason why they should solve their problem now? Most people are creatures of habit and don’t like change. Calling an attorney to solve a pressing legal problem can be a big step outside their comfort zone – especially when it means confronting an embarrassing or upsetting issue instead of continuing to avoid it. Your marketing message should clearly explain why your prospect should take action now rather than waiting – and what might happen if he continues to avoid the issue.
   
   
3. Have you educated your prospect about the benefits of working with you? Prospects are far more likely to contact you if they already know something about you, such as your reputation, what you’ve written, who else you work with, what you’ve done that is similar to their problems. They want to know how you can help them before they talk to you. The more they understand the way you do business, the more comfortable they will feel contacting you.
   
   
4. Have you built a case for why your prospect should contact you? Your marketing message should explain why you are the best lawyer to help him handle his legal problem. That you aren’t like the greedy “lawyer” stereotype he might be thinking of. That you are friendly, trustworthy, and happy to help. What will prospects receive from you that is above and beyond what other lawyers provide?
   
   
5. Does your prospect understand what the next step is? It may sound silly to explain the next step – shouldn’t they just know they should call? But people are busy. They don’t read your marketing materials with their full attention, so they may not think about what you are implying. Tell them directly.
   
   
6. Have you made it easy to take action? Give prospect several ways to contact you if they have questions such as connecting with you on social media, joining your newsletter, calling for a consultation, or emailing you specific questions. Make it as convenient and risk-free as possible so they feel comfortable contacting you.
   
   
7. Have you explained what will happen when your prospect takes action? Be clear about what, exactly, will happen once your prospect contacts you, including what information you will ask, what they can expect, and how you will use their information. Assure them they won’t receive a sales pitch and welcome any questions they might have.

If your marketing isn’t generating calls, you aren’t giving prospects a clear reason why they should contact you now. Either you aren’t addressing their current problem adequately or you aren’t overcoming their fears of taking action. Use your marketing materials to build a complete case for your legal services – so they know what to expect before they talk with you one-on-one.

The post 7 Questions Potential Legal Clients Will Ask Before They Hire You appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.

Running a successful law practice requires beefing up your lawyer communication skills to explain simply and clearly who you serve and what you do. Your clients may not understand all the legal jargon you use – but they do understand how well you treat them and whether you communicate the benefits and value of the services you provide.

Do you go above and beyond what other attorneys might? Do your legal clients feel welcome and free to ask questions? Do they feel confident to discuss their biggest legal challenges, obstacles and problems with you, knowing they’re in good hands?

Improving Lawyer Communication With Clients

Frequent communication is the cornerstone of building positive business relationships with clients. with each client communication, you create the opportunity to build trust and develop strong relationships where clients see you as a dear friend and trusted adviser. Here are 7 lawyer marketing tips to build client-focused relationships.

1. Show interest in their needs – Whether you work for individuals or businesses, the key to success is to focus on your clients’ interests, problems and concerns – not your own. Your clients don’t care how much you spend on marketing, how many clients you need to take on this month to meet your business goals, or how interesting you find this year’s changes in that new law. They care about solving their problems and making their life better. It’s your job to add value and support their goals. With each client interaction you have, consider how you can greater benefit their life. How can you explain why that new law will impact them or how your new service will save them time or money?
   
   
2. Provide an objective third-party opinion – Your clients want someone they can turn to who will tell them the truth – even if it’s something they don’t want to hear. They want someone who will put their needs and concerns first. That requires explaining all possible solutions – even the ones that don’t benefit you – so they have a big picture overview of all their options.
   
   
3. Be straightforward about bad news – No one likes receiving bad news, but it’s worse when they feel you are giving them the runaround, dodging their questions, or not addressing the elephant in the room. While it may be a difficult conversation, your clients will respect you more if you tell them the honest truth and offer them a few potential ways to handle it.
   
   
4. Explain concepts without legalese or jargon – You don’t have to presume your clients are “dumb,” but keep in mind that they didn’t go to law school and don’t read legal documents daily like you do. They may not understand all the terminology you use, so make sure your explanations are easy-to-understand. Make sure to check if everything is clear and encourage them to ask questions if they don’t understand.
   
   
5. Respond promptly – While you don’t have to respond within 5 minutes to every client interaction, have a response policy that lets your clients know when you check email/voicemail, and when they can expect a response (e.g. within 2 business hours).
   
   
6. Do the work – This should go without saying, but complete tasks quickly, on deadline, and right the first time. The more significant your client’s legal problem is, the more he will worry about its outcome, so provide regular updates and be as supportive as you can while assuring him everything is under control.
   
   
7. Tread carefully with billing – Billing can often be a sore spot in client interactions, so take care to explain each charge you include on your invoice. If you believe your final fee will go over your estimate, have a conversation with your client first, explaining why the extra costs have been incurred, and give them pricing options to complete the additional work.

Your clients are your law firm’s biggest asset, so continue to follow up with them every few months after your project is completed. Learn what they’ve been doing, ask for feedback, and treat them as valued friends. Happy clients are loyal, repeat clients.

The post 7 Lawyer Communication Tips To Improve Client Satisfaction appeared first on LawyerBizCoach.com.