Six Marketing Tips You Can Do Today
Whether your firm has been established for 15 years or 5 days, law firms need to market their services to stay top of mind with potential clients, referral sources and former clients. There are lots of free or low cost tools you can use to make sure that you are getting the word out. Of course, even with free tools there is some effort involved and time is money so make sure to pick a few things that will help you see the return on the investment of your time!
1. Use Your Email Signature Block
You correspond with many people via email every day. Most lawyers think about adding disclaimers and basic contact information. However, why not add a link to your website or blog, your social media profiles or pages, a tagline, or a logo? While you want to make it clean and not too long, you can add some of this information to market your firm. If you are going to add non-text elements, like a logo or social icons, be aware that your signature block may appear differently to different people depending on what they are using to read the email. That is where a service like WiseStamp comes in, so you create a beautifully designed and functional email signature block for yourself or the firm.
2. Assign Tasks and Deadlines
Marketing is often an afterthought for lawyers. Or they hire someone to manage it for them. However, there are some things that can’t be outsourced, like scheduling a virtual cup of coffee with a former law school classmate or sharing a personal thought on social media. Whether you are completely responsible for your own marketing or outsource some of it, you should track and assign activities for accountability. This can be as simple as a shared spreadsheet or a checklist that shows the who, what, when and how of firm marketing activities. You might miss a deadline but being intentional is the first step.
3. Automate!
Remove barriers to getting things done. For instance, if you have a blog you can use Dlvrit to automatically send a link to the new post to your social profiles or use it to drive social posts to your GoogleMyBusiness page. Set up an email autoresponse so when a potential client sends information via your website “Contact Us” form they get an immediate response. Take that one step further and add the person to your contacts list for your newsletter with MailChimp or ConstantContact. If you use a business text messaging service, you can set up autoresponses to text messages. Schedule a week or a month’s worth of social posts with Hootsuite or Buffer. Let potential clients schedule consultations with Calendly or Accuity (or Bookings). Possibilities abound! Think about your marketing efforts and where the flow of information may hit a bottleneck and explore automation to get things moving along.
4. Content in, content out
You need fresh ideas and content to share on your blog, your social media pages and in your newsletter. Email newsletters often find their way into a folder, never to be read. Be intentional with “feed readers”, tools that let you subscribe to blogs, email newsletters, news sites and more to get the headlines directed to one place. You can share, comment and save articles for later. Popular platforms include Feedly, Inoreader, and Feedbin.
5. Claim Your GoogleMyBusiness profile
If you have not claimed your GoogleMyBusiness profile you are missing one of the best ways to get some free marketing for your firm. If you already have a profile you might also be missing when people post reviews of the firm. The NC State Bar Ethics Committee continues to consider proposed 2020 FEO 1 (Responding to Negative Online Reviews). NCBA members get started with this tutorial video.
6. Start a Newsletter
A newsletter is an easy way to share information with your contacts. Tools like MailChimp have free tiers to get started for up to 2000 subscribers. Mass mailing services also help you track your success, manage subscribers and comply with CAN-SPAM. The hard part about a newsletter is coming up with a compelling message that makes people want to open and read it. Legal news and legislation that impacts your clients, community and local information, comings and goings at the firm, your blog posts, resources, deadlines, consumer protection tips, and more are all content types that can help you craft a compelling newsletter. Determine how frequently you can send it out and be consistent. You can start with your list of current and former clients, contacts, and referrals, and of course make it easy for people to subscribe.
Make marketing intentional and take small steps to see improvement. Focus on providing value and education instead of promotion and competition. Your message should include how you help your clients solve their problems. Show them that your firm is a perfect match for their needs, do not just tell them. Measure your success and seek ways to improve.