The Ultimate (Unqualified) Midas Approved Money Making Marketing Guide For Law Firms (Christmas Special)!

For A Limited Time Only, An Intimate, Closed Door Insight Into What Is Really Going On Behind The Yellow And Red Of Sucessful Solicitors' Websites

Here is the 11 step guide:

1. Stop listening to some legal marketing experts who will only tell you what they have already told each and every one of their other clients. Successful legal marketing is about new, fresh ideas which will pleasantly surprise your targeted audience to the extent that they will decide to use your services to solve their problem, as opposed to the services of the law firm across the road.
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2. Change direction. Focus your copy (the content of your website, email or direct mail marketing) on the benefits of your services or products, rather than on the services or products themselves.
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3. Speak To Your Targeted Audience. They are real people. Direct your copy to your targeted audiences' desires rather than to their needs. Your targeted audience might have a NEED to buy or sell their property but they DESIRE to be contacted regularly by their lawyer, have their telephone calls returned, avoid stress and only pay a fair price for a good service. Most solicitors talk an awful lot about how they could satisfy needs, but pay little or no attention at all to the desires of their prospective clients.
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4. Identify Their Language. Every niche or section of society has its own unique language, jargon and clichés. Not all clients are the same and every area of law attracts a different niche or section of society. Speak to all your prospective clients in the same language and you will end up not being able to reach out to anyone of them.
5. Create Rapport Before You Even Meet with Your New Client. If you really understand your clients, their problems, their feelings, their fears and their desires, you should communicate this to them at the earliest opportunity and certainly as part of your marketing copy. Loosen up, don't be shy. Let them know that because you know how they feel, you are the most suitable person to solve their problem. I know in the LPC they teach a few techniques on how to create rapport during your first meeting with your client, but to put it gently, if one of your competitors can create a good rapport with a prospective client online, before the client has even met them, then chances are that these people will never show their face in your office because you have not given them a good enough reason to even call you for an appointment.
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6. Don't let some clever geek write the copy for your website. Some Search Engine Optimisation experts will always tell you that your copy has got to be written in a very specific, repetitive way to help it succeed with the search engines. They will then go on to write the most boring, nonsensical, repetitive, technical and off putting copy one could possibly imagine. Copy that will push away in seconds, any visitor who landed on your website. You might end up getting loads of visitors to your website but you will also struggle to keep them there. It would be as if you had just brought them to nowhere, just to tell them that your firm does litigation. Just as so many other firms do. You are much better off concentrating on the quality of the experience of the visitors to your website than on the quantity of the visitors.
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7. **Write a long, long, long copy**. Some legal marketing experts will tell you to keep it short because "people don't have a lot of patience on the internet". The truth of the matter is that people don't stay very long on websites because they have not been given a good reason to do so. Provided your copy is unique, interesting and relevant, a long webpage will substantially enhance your opportunity to be listed high by the search engines but more importantly it will help you develop rapport with your prospective clients , to the extent that when they do finally meet with you, they feel as if they have already known you for ages.
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8. Borrow And Mix (B&M) Ignore other solicitor's marketing. Don't even look at other solicitor's websites for ideas. Most of the good ideas have already been copied time and time again by your colleagues. Instead, start looking for new ideas at other, unrelated industries. Nick marketing ideas, concepts and styles from Tesco, Virgin, The Shopping Channel, Mercedes Benz or from whoever you want, provided they are not solicitors. Mix and match these ideas together, add some salt and pepper and a tiny bit of law and wit. You will end up with unique marketing ideas, most of which will be completely new to the legal industry. Be warned!!! Some well- intentioned people will try to knock you off and a few will even swear on their grandmother's life that they know you are taking the wrong path. My advice is simply not to listen to them.
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9. Get qualified visitors to your website. You can drive qualified leads to your website through Google or Bing pay per click programmes. If you keep your pay per click campaigns focused on your targeted audience you will be able to drive qualified leads to your website for less than £0.50 each. Each one of your web visitors could potentially earn your firm between several hundreds to several thousands of pounds depending on the nature of what your firm offers. If done properly, pay per click advertising could turn out to be a real bargain for law firms.
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10. Understand Sales. Every single person in your law firm needs to start thinking seriously about the role they play in the firm's marketing machine. You will need to go on a course or a seminar about sales, preferably not one which is organised by the law society and certainly not a CPD course. You want to learn from professional sales people something that you have not heard before. Find yourself a good quality sales seminar which is aimed at any trade within the retail industry. Go there and learn something new. You will be astonished at how much of the stuff is actually transferable to the legal industry.
11. Organise A Sales System In Your Firm. Fix a system which improves your callers' experience and which is more effective, more efficient and more attentive to the needs of your prospective clients than the one you currently have. Clearly define the roles of the receptionist, the trainees, the solicitors and the partners within the sales system. Each must have their own specific and limited role within the process and they must all respect each other's positions within it. Depending on the size and structure of your law firm, you can use this example as a general guide for a small or a medium size law firm:

The receptionist's role is to pass the calls as quickly as possible to the trainee who in turn, is responsible for booking the new client a consultation with a solicitor. The solicitor's role is to ensure that the client trusts the firm enough to instruct it to handle his matter. The PA or paralegal's role is to then act as a customer relations officer and contact the clients to discuss not their case, but rather their customer experience with your firm so far. With time, you will refine your system and will no doubt add to it many other elements such as an ‘after sales’ executive, a ‘networking co-ordinator and so on.

I wish all Defero Law members a happy prosperous year.

Yair Cohen

Internet Law Expert