Beginning a lead campaign for your law firm can be an effective way to increase your caseload and see an attractive return on your marketing investment. If successful, it can result in a number of new clients and a competitive cost per case. In order for the venture to be profitable for you and your firm, it is important to understand how to make the most of your lead campaign. In order for the venture to be profitable for you and your firm, it is important to understand how to make the most of your lead campaign. Here are the keys to success with a lead generation service:
1. Don’t Rush Through the Sales Process
While you are likely excited about the prospect of increasing your firms profitability and augmenting your caseload, make sure you spend enough time talking with your sales representative to understand how the service works and exactly what you are signing up for. Providing your sales rep with background about your firm and how you plan to handle the intake process will allow him or her to help you to choose a lead package that best fits your individual firm’s needs.
As an example, whether or not your firm takes childhood SSI cases is important for your sales rep to know in order to help you determine what sort of age screening – if any – you should have in place for your leads. Therefore, be sure that you spend time talking with your sales rep rather than rushing through the process and feeling unprepared at the start of your campaign.
2. Make Sure Everyone in Your Office is on the Same Page
Once you decide to move forward, make sure everyone involved with the lead campaign is on the same page. A great way to do this is to have everyone attend the initial orientation with your account representative. At this time, you will go over your account configuration, hear an overview of the service, as well as tips and suggestions for success. Even if you have used other lead generation services in the past, each service works differently, so it is important to still attend the orientation and pay attention to get the most out of the service.
You are also encouraged to ask questions to make sure that you have a deep understanding of how to make the most of your campaign. If anyone is unable to attend the orientation, your client services rep will be more than happy to schedule a separate time to get him or her up to speed!
3. Know Your Point of Contact
While you may have grown fond of your sales representative during the sign-up process, it is likely that you will have a new point of contact with the company once you become a client. Make sure that you know to whom you should reach out when you need help or have questions. Once you know who your account manager is, you can talk with him or her to make sure that you understand the basics, such as how to access the software, the refund policy and how to contest a lead, and how the billing works. Knowing the right person to get in touch with can make your campaign more efficient and allow you to easily make changes to your account configuration.
4. Have Clear Expectations and a Target CPC
Through the sales and sign-up process, make sure you develop clear expectations for the service. Take some time to calculate a target cost per case that will allow you and your firm to see an attractive return on investment. Before you begin receiving leads, discuss these with your account representative to ensure that they are realistic and in line with the results that other clients report. If a lead company is unable to provide you with clear expectations for their service, you may want to think twice before purchasing leads from them.
5. Keep Track of Statistics
Keep track of your leads to see exactly how you are doing with the campaign. This will allow you to compare your results to the clear expectations that you set. If you’re purchasing our Social Security, personal injury, or other legal leads, you can take advantage of the lead and case management software eLuminate to easily mark leads as “Desired” or “Signed” and run reports to see your desired and signed rates.
If you keep the status of your leads up to date, you can talk with your account representative about any trends in your data and options to potentially increase your conversion rate. Additionally, when the lead providers know which leads are converting into cases, they can then target those marketing campaigns that produce those leads. Therefore, when you keep track of your desired and signed cases within eLuminate, you can actually help to increase your lead quality and ensure that you are making the most of your marketing dollars!
6. Give Your Lead Campaign the Time and Effort it Deserves
Be sure to give your campaign enough time to accrue a sufficient sample size before jumping to conclusions and giving up. You could receive your first 20 leads and want to pursue 10 of them, or they could all be undesirable. Neither of these scenarios would be an accurate representation of the service because the sample size is so small. Before starting your campaign, commit to giving it your best shot. Plan to accrue a sample size of 100-200 Social Security disability leads or at least 50-100 personal injury leads before evaluating the success of the service. Try not to get discouraged if the campaign does not start off the way that you had hoped. Alternatively, if you are initially converting an extremely high percentage of leads, refer back to the target cost per case that you set to keep your expectations in check.
Always remember that your lead provider wants you to have a successful and positive experience just as much as you do. Therefore, do not ever hesitate to reach out to your account representative to discuss your campaign or to ask any questions you may have. If you keep all of these suggestions in mind when beginning your lead campaign, you will see why hundreds of attorneys across the country turn to our lead generation service to increase their firms’ profitability. If you want to increase your caseload with a lead campaign, give us a call today at 617-800-0089 to speak with one of our sales reps!