The success of your law firm depends on consistently getting new clients to walk through the door. How you make this happen is up to you, but it starts with having a lead generation strategy that’s tailored to your goals.
Tip and Techniques for Better Law Firm Lead gen
As a law firm, it’s helpful to think about building your business within the context of two overlapping strategies: (1) building brand awareness and (2) generating leads.
Brand awareness is the long-term play. It’s what you do when you want to make a name for your law firm in your niche or local market. The goal is to make people aware of your brand’s name and the services you provide. In doing so, you position your law firm as the go-to resource for personal injury law, criminal defense law, business law, etc.
Building brand awareness takes a lot of time and consistent effort. You can’t do it overnight. It requires months (if not years) of continued ad spend and exposure. Having said that, it’s something you should have always have simmering on the back burner.
Brand awareness campaigns can ultimately generate new clients, but it’s often hard to attach specific data to these clients. You won’t always know when or where they heard about you, but they’ll come to you when they need you.
The second major strategy is what you would call direct lead generation. This is where you proactively try to procure leads, regardless of whether or not they’ve heard about you in the past). This is typically done through paid measures, but can also tap into some other techniques (as we’ll discuss in this article).
A direct lead generation strategy is proactive and acute. When properly executed, you expect to see immediate and continued results.
The problem struggling law firms often have is that they’re so focused on building brand awareness that they don’t ever invest in direct lead generation. So when their results are slow, they assume that marketing and advertising don’t work. By correctly viewing lead generation through the lens of both overlapping strategies, you’ll enjoy more success.
As you think about direct lead generation for your firm, here are several tips and techniques you may find helpful:
- Leverage LinkedIn
LinkedIn may be the most underutilized lead generation platform on the web for lawyers and law firms. While most attorneys are busy sharing content on Facebook and Twitter (and seeing almost zero traction), LinkedIn is where your future clients are.
The key to winning with LinkedIn is to take an individualized approach. In other words, the goal isn’t to create a company page and start pumping out content. (People don’t care enough to “like” or engage with a company page.) Instead, you want to filter everything through your lawyers.
Each lawyer in your firm should conduct a profile makeover where they update their profile picture, banner, title, and about section. Instead of reading “attorney” or “lawyer,” the title should actually be a unique sales proposition (USP) that explains the specific value that attorney offers (i.e. I help car accident injury victims get the compensation they deserve without having to negotiate with insurance companies.)
Once your attorneys have their profiles cleaned up, you can use Sales Navigator to conduct outreach campaigns to look for the right prospects.
- Build an Email List
The long-term play is to build an email list over time. This allows you to gradually drip on people with high-value content that positions you as an authority in your niche.
The best way to build an email list is by creating a lead magnet (like a PDF, guide, or checklist) and serving it up on a simple landing page with an opt-in form. You can then run Facebook ads to this page.
- Try PPL Services (With Caution)
Pay-per-lead services (PPL) are hit or miss. Some of the most popular platforms are Lawyers.com, Nolo, Avvo, and FindLaw. Certain ones work really well for certain lawyers, while others can be a huge waste of money.
PPL services are a numbers game. You can’t always control the quality of the lead or the temperature. You’ll get some super-qualified white-hot leads, while you’ll also get plenty of cold leads who aren’t really sure why you’re calling.
If you have the ability to pursue these leads with plenty of follow-ups, you can usually turn a profit.
Architect the Right Strategy
Every law firm is going to need a unique strategy that’s tailored to their specific branding. And, as discussed earlier, it’ll need to complement the brand awareness component of the overarching strategy.
With that being said, use the tips and techniques highlighted above to get started.
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