Recently, our Marketing Director Branden Wawrzyniak co-hosted an online webinar with CosmoLex CRM’s Matthew Defrain.
The goal? To demystify legal marketing and help you grow your practice with simple, actionable tips that you can start implementing now.
Before you get started: finding the right CRM
If your practice hasn’t implemented Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software yet, now could be the perfect time to start.
As an attorney, you know how hard it can be to make time for billable hours, and it’s all too easy to lose out on clients because you were just too busy to follow up. And while it’s possible to handle intake, client communication, and marketing campaigns without a CRM, you’ll be throttling your team’s efficiency and starting off your law firm’s marketing efforts at a disadvantage.
That’s because a good legal CRM will combine intake management, customer relationship, and legal marketing automation tools to help you identify and guide qualified leads through your intake pipeline, and help your firm keep them happy throughout their time as your client.
Pro tip: Look for a legal CRM software that includes support for texting and voice calling.
Legal marketing is moving beyond email. Email-only responses, follow-ups, and marketing content can easily get lost in your leads and clients’ inboxes, but texts and phone calls have a higher response rate and tend to feel more personal and client-focused.
Your law firm’s CRM should also allow you to personalize responses, even when sending fully automated messages. Customizing a basic intake follow-up to include the person’s name, the details of their inquiry, and the name of the team member who will be handling intake goes a long way toward showing new leads you’re paying attention.
Tip #1: Streamline your client intake process
Many law firms fail to realize that intake is a vital part of your firm’s marketing and growth.
Leads who don’t hear back promptly from your intake team or encounter difficulties during the intake process are likely to move on with another firm, especially if they need answers fast. A streamlined intake and quick follow-ups are the best way to make a great first impression and avoid losing leads from your intake funnel.
The right CRM software will allow you to implement customized, logic-based intake forms that guide new leads through the client intake process more quickly. Rather than filling out fifty fields that may not be relevant to their needs, your new leads will be asked to answer only the questions that are absolutely necessary based on their previous responses.
These logic-based intake forms can even help your staff quickly assess whether or not a lead is qualified, so you waste less time pursuing leads who don’t have cases your firm wants to take.
The legal marketing automation tools included in a good CRM can also send personalized follow-ups by text or email almost instantly. Seeing a quick follow-up response in their inbox or on their phone makes a lead less likely to move on with another firm.
Tip #2: Increase touches to stay top of mind
As CosmoLex CRM Matthew Defrain points out, leads need between five and seven follow-ups on average before they become receptive to hiring an attorney.
That’s a lot of “touches” before a new lead will sign with your firm! And it’s probably more messages than your attorneys and intake staff have time to compose and send.
To help you stay top of mind with new leads and current clients, consider implementing automated marketing campaigns. Marketing automation not only frees up more time for your team but also gives you more touches with leads than you could realistically achieve otherwise.
Your law firm’s CRM software should allow you to create and send automated email drip campaigns, SMS campaigns, and pre-recorded voice calls while also saving more time for client matters.
As an added bonus, marketing automation tools can also help you track client response and conversion rates, so you can target your efforts and fine-tune your marketing spend.
Tip #3: Don’t forget about current client relationships
When it comes to marketing, too many law firms place all of their focus on bringing in new leads and forget to tend to their relationships with clients they already have.
But maintaining existing clients is not only less expensive than bringing in new leads, it’s also a cost-effective form of marketing in its own right.
Happy clients are far more likely to contribute to your law firm’s growth through referrals and positive testimonials, especially if you’re willing to give them a little nudge.
A good law firm CRM can make it easy to solicit positive reviews from satisfied clients. For example, you can send out surveys to ask how the client’s experience was and set an automated campaign to solicit reviews only from clients who gave your practice high ratings.
With the right setup, you can even target these satisfied clients with automated follow-ups or email drip campaigns encouraging them to recommend your practice to friends and family. And if your practice ever chooses to expand into a new service or practice area, you can automate campaigns to advertise your new services to clients who you know have been happy with you in the past.
A final tip: always stay client-focused
As you implement the tips above, remember that the end goal is to nurture your clients and leads. While marketing automation tools and a good legal CRM can make the process easier, nothing can replace thoughtful, substantive relationships with the people your law firm serves.
That means every one of your marketing campaigns should aim to make clients and leads feel valued and important to your firm. A client-first culture is the best way to build trust, keep prospective clients in the pipeline, and increase conversions.
For an even deeper dive into marketing for law firms, you can check out our full recorded webinar here. And if you’re wondering how a legal CRM like CosmoLex can integrate with our own practice management tools, reach out to our team to schedule a demo.