Summer is here and you know what that means – sun’s out, guns/buns/fun’s out! It’s definitely time to get fit for the beach. As you run, yoga, or Zumba on, consider getting your firm into shape as well! You probably have a good system in place for acquiring new clients and following up with them, but it could be improved. The more fit your firm is, the more money you’ll see roll in.
Let’s begin lawyer bootcamp! We’ve identified three main areas that you can likely strengthen and the necessary five exercises for each of them.
Energize Your Email Marketing
In the legal industry, the average open rate for marketing emails is 26.82% and the average click-through rate (the percentage of people who click on a URL within an email pointing to your website) is 3.08%. Beat these statistics with the following drills:
1. Make your subject lines straightforward – “tell, don’t sell,” according to Mailchimp. You want your subscribers to click on your email and not assume it’s spam.
2. Speaking of spam, avoid bounces by getting past spam filters. To do this, update your email list to ensure that you’re actually emailing potential clients. Also, be recognizable by taking note of the name in your “from” and “subject” fields.
3. Timing is everything. Open rates tend to be higher between 8:30 AM – 10 AM, 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, or 8:00 PM - midnight, so try sending your emails during those times. However, these open rates may not be true for you, especially if your clients are Social Security disability applicants and are out of work. Track your average open rate by time sent and you’ll be able to pinpoint which times are best for you.
4. Improve your email content. Every company sends mass emails and newsletters, so show your subscribers that your email is relevant, personalized, and important, instead of more spam.
Personalized emails result in a six times higher transaction rate. Personalization can be as simple as adding the potential claimant’s name, or as complex as explaining exactly how you can help them with their case.
You can also achieve personalization through segmentation - separating your subscribers into various groups. For instance, suppose you practice Social Security disability and personal injury law. You can send unique emails to potential SSD and PI claimants, with information regarding their case type.
5. Just like everyone’s body and workout routine is different, your clients or potential clients will respond differently to content, format, subject lines, and timing of your emails. Therefore, conduct A/B tests to numerically see what works best for your firm and make the appropriate changes.
Workout Your Website
The legal industry has a median conversion rate (the percentage of users who complete a goal, which in your case would be to contact your firm) of 2.07%, but the top 10% of legal websites have a 6.46% conversion rate. Improve your site’s traffic and conversion rates through these exercises:
1. Track your traffic statistics. Before you train for a marathon, you need to assess your current fitness level. Likewise, before you optimize your website, you need to figure out your current baseline. Plus, if you make any changes, you’ll need to see whether they’re working or not. Therefore, set up Google Analytics to do that.
2. Just like with your emails, conduct A/B tests to determine what on your sites resonates with users. Although small changes, like colors, fonts, and layouts might not yield astronomical profits, they’re a good start. If you have the opportunity for very focused and strategic site optimization, try that to increase conversions and quality.
3. Keep your message simple. On average, users read only 20% of words on a webpage. Therefore, make sure your writing is concise, important, and interesting. Include a clear message and call to action that’s easy to find—what’s the point of improving your website if a claimant can’t reach your firm?
4. Be unique! Your legal website is not the only one out there, so make yours stand out. Other attorneys are also advertising a free case evaluation, so find a new angle that makes your case evaluation and services eye catching. Including creative attorney bios can be a great way to stand out from competing firms and create a personal brand for claimants to relate to.
5. Make the conversion process as easy as possible. If you have a call to action button, make it visible with an accent or contrasting color. More importantly, don’t set up barriers. Users shouldn’t have to jump through hoops and provide unnecessary information to get in touch with you or request a free case evaluation. The more questions you ask and require to be filled out, the more daunting the experience is for your potential clients. As a result, they’ll likely leave your page.
Flex Your Follow up Process
Most of our clients reach 75% of leads, and one intake person can resolve 20 leads per day. Can you do more?
1. Reach your claimants faster; this is the sprint part of your workout. Waiting for 5 minutes after receiving a lead reduces your chance of ever contacting a lead by ten times. Call the lead as soon as you receive it! If it’s outside of business hours, call the lead first thing on Monday morning.
If you’re receiving leads from eGen, we also offer a live transfer feature in which you have the opportunity to connect with a claimant on the phone seconds after he/she completes our webform. Contact your account manager today to set this up!
2. Besides sprinting, work on your endurance – reach out to your claimants more. Call back later that day, leave 3-4 voicemails the first week, call once a day for the next three weeks, and send an email per week. Our most successful clients find they sign far more clients with persistent follow ups.
3. Reduce your follow up time by having someone follow up for you. Train a paralegal or intern to make the outbound call and email attempts. That person can create a schedule for follow ups, use multiple follow up methods, and even screen leads for you. That way, you’ll know that the leads are followed up with efficiently, and you can focus your efforts on what matters most - winning the case.
4. Streamline your intake process with lead management software.
Your work will become more efficient as long as you stay organized. To do that, add fields in your software to keep track of when to contact someone, how many call and email attempts were made, who is a “high potential” lead but not necessarily a client, who is still pending, and who has outstanding paperwork.
Add automation to take care of the emailing and field updating for you. For instance, if you can’t reach a claimant after the fifth call attempt, have your software automatically send your claimant an email letting him/her know that you were unable to reach him/her. If you sent your claimant paperwork, let your software update your next scheduled contact field to a week from today to make sure you reach out to the claimant in regards to the paperwork whereabouts. All of our clients have complimentary access to eLuminate, our own lead and case management software.
5. Create email templates to expedite the email process. You shouldn’t have to rewrite the same template for your subscribers or clients. You can store your templates in eLuminate and likely other CRMs, and they’ll automatically fill in with claimant information when you send them. You can even send personalized mass emails!
Cooldown
The goal of lawyer bootcamp is to help you optimize your firm so you can sign up more clients and win more fees. Make time for the pushups and crunches of the attorney world mentioned above – after all, practice makes perfect. In both the workout and attorney worlds, changes don’t happen over night, but you should see results with a committed routine. If you find that you’ve optimized your firm and are ready to take on more clients, we can help! Give us a call at 617.800.0089 to learn more about our legal leads.
Sources: *Emails: https://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/statistics-sources-for-email-marketing/ * https://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/ * https://optinmonster.com/whats-a-good-email-open-rate-and-how-you-can-improve-yours/ * https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2018/02/mass-emails-email-blasts-things-past/ * https://www.egenerationmarketing.com/blog/3-email-marketing-ideas-for-attorneys * Sites: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/03/17/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate * https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/307007 * https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/ways-to-improve-your-website/ * https://www.egenerationmarketing.com/blog/reasons-users-leave-your-website * Follow up: https://www.egenerationmarketing.com/blog/lead-follow-up * https://www.egenerationmarketing.com/blog/client-management-software-improve-intake-process * https://www.egenerationmarketing.com/blog/tips-to-increase-packet-return-rate * https://www.egenerationmarketing.com/blog/client-management-software-improve-intake-process