Gaining clients in your startup law firm Whether you're a startup law firm or an enterprise-level organisation, any legal practice needs quality leads to grow. ...
Whether you're a startup law firm or an enterprise-level organisation, any legal practice needs quality leads to grow. In marketing speak, a "lead" refers to someone with the potential to become one of your clients. Leads are more than just website visitors; they're people who have demonstrated an interest in your services and thus should be pursued by your business development team.
"Lead generation" refers to targeted marketing activities designed to "convert" your audience into people who demonstrate an interest in your services. For example, a website visitor may become a lead by completing a contact form, downloading a piece of your content, or requesting pricing information.
If you're thinking in "sales funnel" terms, there are three points of contact in the buyer journey: awareness, consideration, and conversion. Potential clients become aware of who you are, explore what you do, and decide if you're the option they'll go with.
Strategic marketing needs to consider all aspects of the "sales funnel". Think of your marketing tactics in terms of where they fit into the funnel, at either the top-of-funnel (TOFU), middle-of-funnel (MOFU) or bottom-of-funnel (BOFU). For example:
Let's take a look at some of the lead generation tactics that small firms can use to grow their business.
Whether you're generating leads or building your brand, effective marketing always starts with stepping into your customer's shoes. What challenges do they face? What aspirations do they have? More importantly, how can your services deliver on these better than any of your competitors?
Asking yourself these key questions will help you to frame your lead generation efforts.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is designed to improve your website's visibility on search engines so your business appears high in search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, when a potential client searches for "personal injury lawyer" in your area, your website will ideally appear prominently on the search page, leading that person to click through and research your business.
You can improve your SEO by describing your services in detail on your website and publishing relevant, helpful content.
People are visual learners today, and technology is expediting that trend. Your legal firm could cater to this fact by promoting video advertisements on YouTube, creating helpful infographics that you share on social media, and publishing educational video content on your website.
Website design needs to be aimed at desktop and mobile devices. Think about it critically: if you're looking for a shop while "out and about", what do you do? You go to a search engine, type what you're looking for, then look at the map of locations. When you find one you like, you click it, and explore what's available.
If a potential customer clicks on a website that isn't mobile-optimised, then the lead won't even browse it. You need formats for your site that are optimised for mobile and desktop interaction.
Social media marketing has changed considerably in recent years by becoming more "pay to play", meaning results are harder to obtain without investing in advertising spend on the social platforms. However, social media can still play a part in lead generation by instilling social proof in your brand.
For example, your LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook pages may publish client success stories, which can be critical in the buying decisions of your audience.
Likewise, reviews should be featured prominently on websites. You can solicit these from satisfied clients, or you might even write reviews or testimonials for them, and ask them permission to publish in their name after they approve what you wrote.
Account-based marketing (ABM) takes a target-first approach to marketing. For example, instead of marketing to a broad audience, with ABM your business selects a handful of target clients and markets specifically to them with personalised content and sales outreach.
Lead generation takes time, and if you're like most small or startup law firms, time is hard to come by. Legal software like mattero has been designed to streamline the running of your small practice with intelligent features like matter management, document and email organisation, precedent automation, time tracking and more.
Simply put, mattero takes the heavy lifting off your practice management so you can focus on what matters most: growing your small firm.
Get an instant free trial of mattero today to experience for yourself how much time it can save you.
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