As any successful attorney knows, a crucial element of consistently retaining clients is prompt and persistent follow-up. If you’ve ever used a lead generation service, then that rule applies even further. You don’t want to have a staff member move on after 1 or 2 contact attempts without an answer, because you’ll lose a potential client without knowing how strong his or her claim was.

While we preach persistence, it’s important to toe the line between being persistent and irritating to your potential client. You don’t want to have someone check their phone and find 25 missed calls back-to-back, Not only will you be potentially damaging your future relationship with that claimant, but also you are not using your time efficiently. Since there are often heated debates on the proper ways to call and follow-up with your leads, let’s explore what our clients have found to be most successful.

Consider Your Claimant’s Temperature

It’s important to differentiate your strategies depending on the type of lead you received. For example, a “cold” lead is someone who you are proactively reaching out to sell them on your services. This person is not necessarily looking for representation, may not know who you are, and therefore also have less probability to answer the phone.

A “hot” lead would be the opposite—they’re proactively reaching out to your firm. Since they already expressed interest in your representation, this type of lead requires fewer follow-ups.

With a lead generation service, the leads you receive will generally be somewhere in the middle, often referred to as a “warm” lead. This implies the claimant is looking to be represented, but is in the beginning stages of finding an attorney and likely trying to get a free consultation on a case. These warm leads are claimants who come to our websites in difficult situations and do not tend to be extremely proactive, but know they need legal assistance nonetheless. We typically recommend our clients to call their leads about 10 times (or more) in the span of two weeks.

Keep Area of Law in Mind

Another aspect of variation in follow-up strategy comes with the potential claimants’ desired area of law. For example, say someone is looking for an employment law attorney. In this case it’s understandable to assume the lead is working standard office hours, and is more likely to answer calls in the morning or evening.

Someone looking for a Social Security attorney might be more likely to answer in the afternoon because Social Security claimants aren’t working. Overall, it’s best to have different calling strategies depending on the type of lead and area of law you are dealing with.

How Many Leads Can You Realistically Reach?

From what our clients report, a law firm or advocacy group that has a prompt and persistent follow up should be able to make contact with 70-80% of the leads they receive from eGenerationMarketing. You can increase your odds of successful contact by following the important steps laid out here. Without making the proper number of contacts, differentiating strategies for cold vs. warm leads as well as leads from different areas of law, that number will be even lower.

If you are potentially interested in receiving legal leads, or supplementing your current lead package with a second provider, consider calling us at 617.800.0089 to speak with our team about the personal injury, workers’ compensation, Social Security disability, and employment law leads we generate in your area.