The perennial legal marketing question asked by firms irrespective of their size, is “how do I get more clients?”
Often the problem isn’t so much to do with the expertise of the firm, but rather how they manage and guide leads from one stage of the process to the next. As you would expect we are huge proponents of online as a means of not only attracting leads, but deploying a systemised approach to lead management, qualification and conversion.
Why?
Because there is such a plethora of research pointing to the fact that people who need legal help either search online or validate a referral by checking out the lawyer or law firm online.
The below graphic depicts the typical lead funnel.
Visits
These are visits to your firm’s website or if you’re conducting a PPC campaign, then your landing page. If you are running a Google, Facebook or Linkedin PPC campaign then this Legal Marketing and Adwords blog post will give you some excellent reasons why you need a landing page (as opposed to sending the visitor to your website’s homepage)
The best way to get some metrics on your visitors (users) to your website, is to consult your Google Analytics account that is tied (or should be) to your firm’s website.
Simply login to your Google Analytics account and look for the “user’ metrics.
In this client’s case, they have received 28,132 users (visitors) to their website in the last 30 days. These visitors are best described as “visits” when relating the metric to the lead funnel.
Leads
A lead in a legal marketing sense, derives from a visitor who has taken some action on your firm’s website that validates their interest in a specific area of practice. For example, a visitor downloads your family law guide or subscribes to your family law alert newsletter. This visitor has become a potential client, using the term “potential” very loosely.
Qualified Leads
A lead becomes qualified following both contact with your firm and your assessment as to whether or not the client fits either the legal help you’re able to provide the client and your “perfect client” model.
Qualified leads don’t necessarily jump out at you, they may take follow up to convert them from a “lead” or a “prospect” to becoming “qualified.”
This is typically where firms fail. They fail at first juncture in the lead phase by not adopting a strategy that lets you know they exist. What do I mean?
If your firm like most, has nothing to offer a visitor that will allow you to know who they are, then you’re relying solely on the strength of your online footprint and perhaps others forms of corroboration to manage this visitor into the lead funnel. By doing this, you’re leaving it to chance!
The other omission we see often, is when firms convert the visitor into a lead, but do not follow up with the lead to qualify it. For example, instead of following up a potential client who has downloaded your “Everything You Need to Know About Depuy Hip Litigation” guide, with either a confirmation that the potential client was able to download it and whether or not they had any questions emanating from the guide, they rest on the laurels waiting for the client to follow them up.
Sales Acceptance Leads
In the context of legal marketing, this is simply the step when you have qualified your lead as a “perfect client.”
Opportunities
Simply put, this is the process of ascertaining client need and matching your legal services to those needs. The opportunities that often lay on the table for many firms is not excavating enough at other legal issues that may be or may about to be prevalent.
A nice way of doing this in a non-threatening way, is to offer a free complimentary, “legal health check.” This process works really well as a triage approach where you bring in other lawyers from other practice areas to collaborate in the health check. For example, a qualified, “perfect” family law client may benefit from a legal health check that looks to ensure that their Will and other related instruments reflect their changed circumstance. It does not mean that you sign this client up for these additional services there and then, but what it does mean is that they have now entered a lead funnel for your Wills and Estates practice that someone in the firm is managing.
Customers (clients)
The client agreement has been signed, and your firm has another “perfect client.”
Conclusion
Law firms notoriously struggle with the notion of lead generation and management. The semantics of the term isn’t important but the methodology is. It’s a process that underpins all marketing strategy and is the aggregator that when done well, aligns everything with it. For example, if you’re losing potential clients at intervals during the process, then you have to plumb the leakage by taking action, often A/B testing particular offers and your content on specific calls to action pages or posts.
The other thing you can do if your firm is serious and wants to take it to the next level, is capture IP addresses and provide that lead a personalised online interaction with your law firm’s website and of course track their ongoing visits to your website. It’s a great way of both tracking and measuring depth of engagement by a visitor with your firm and of course informing subsequent action.
We offer this service to our clients.
