How Lawyers Can Better Connect with Clients & Contacts
One of the most pressing challenges for law firms probably won’t come as much of a shock to you. Research shows that retaining recurring new clients is the biggest obstacle to legal firms, from small law firms to global, due to the very nature of legal services.
The goal of legal services is to mitigate and alleviate issues for clients, which often creates long stretches of clients not needing your help. That’s a great outcome for your clients and your personal record, but can leave you out of touch with your client base… who will hopefully remember you the next time they or a contact needs legal support.
So, how do you stay in touch with your client base and prospective clients? One of the easiest and simplest ways to stay top of mind with your referral sources, clients, and prospective clients is a no-brainer: email.
“I know I should be emailing my contacts, I just don’t know what to write.”
Sound familiar?
Most lawyers are brilliant and have a wealth of useful knowledge they could share in marketing emails; however, so many lawyers do this incorrectly…
While the lack of basics in legal marketing emails is painful for us, that’s exactly why we’re here, to address the issue and help legal and professional services firms right the wrong in their writing.
Let’s take a look at the four steps you need to take to start developing an email marketing campaign for your law firm‘s existing and prospective client base, while avoiding a few common pitfalls we see lawyers make.
1. Identify the Purpose of Your Email Marketing Efforts
Ever started out on a journey without first setting your destination? Probably not because that’s absurd (unless you just love a spinning your wheels on a wild goose chase).
Creating effective email marketing campaigns without first defining your end goal, your purpose, is just as silly.
Before you draft a single email message, it’s important to understand the purpose of your law firm email marketing.
So often, we see great lawyers spend so much time drafting email content for newsletters, client alerts, or other communications without having a clear purpose in mind as to what the goal of their email marketing efforts are.
We’re talking great content, helpful information, and details on continuing education or awards that position attorneys to be seen in the best light possible… if used correctly. The mistake comes when firms and attorneys do a massive brain dump of all of these types of communications in one email with no structure or purpose or as one long email that requires you to scroll endlessly to get through.
In most instances, we believe email marketing should be used as a nurturing strategy within a larger marketing strategy you develop. Typically, email is used to nurture your list.
To learn more about developing a robust marketing strategy, check out our article here: Law Firm Marketing: 3 Marketing Strategies for Law Firms & How to Implement Them
What do we mean by nurture?
We mean that email marketing is typically used to help your contact list learn more about your firm, your services, and its offerings.
However, some firms choose to use their email marketing efforts more like an e-commerce store – to send emails about promotions, discounts, or sending a backlog of 6 months-worth of client alerts. This approach is typically more focused on converting your list and is a very different strategy and approach than the typical law firm marketing.
Thus, before you start building your email marketing campaigns, it’s important to understand what the goal of your email marketing efforts is so you can align your content to your goals… slowly.
2. Know Who You’re Speaking To & Make it Relevant to Them
Now that you have a clear understanding of why you’re emailing list, it’s important to assess who’s actually on your list.
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it one thousand times…
Does the list of people you are emailing represent your past or existing clients, referral sources, and/or prospects? It matters…
Not only does it matter WHO your email list contacts are, but it matters how they got on your list. Are these contacts you met at a conference, referral sources you met through a networking event, prospects who sent you their email to learn more about your services, or someone who simply came to your website and downloaded a brochure?
Knowing who you are emailing and how they came to be on your list is key to emailing the right message to the right people.
Let’s think about a real world example of not reading the proverbial room, aka your email list.
Imagine how quickly you would unsubscribe from an email from your dentist about affordable and less visible Invisalign options for teens after your teenager just got his or her traditional, expensive braces removed.
Sending the wrong message to the wrong audience happens more than you think. So, it’s important to take the time to identify who is on your list, how they go there, and what category of contact they belong to.
This can all be done via list management and proper segmentation – something your marketing team or an experienced email marketing professional should be able to help you with. We’re always here with resources, and we’ve covered this one before, so check out the links.
3. Craft Your Timely and Relevant Content
So, we are clear on the purpose of your email marketing and the target audience to whom we are marketing, now let’s write some content. C’mon, this is where law firms and professional service firms SHINE!
Show them who you are and what you know… and why YOU are the one they need.
Ok, we might be overly-excited about diving into drafting the engaging content because that’s our wheelhouse, so let’s look at this step in parts A, B, C:
- Arrange your email content.
- Brainstorm your subject line.
- Compose the content of your email message.
Arrange your email content
Let’s start with arranging, or structuring, your email content. Depending on the length of your email communications, you may want to send out a digest-style email, a simple client alert, a newsletter-style email piece, or a combination of these types of communications.
Remember, all of these formats are dependent upon your purpose and your audience, and they all have unique compositions. It’s important to strategize this before you write any part of your email content, including your subject line.
There’s pros and cons to each type of email structure, but the key here is consistency. Whichever way you decide to arrange your email messages, make sure you can stick with it, especially if you want to make continuous email marketing efforts or series.
Brainstorming the perfect subject line.
Before you write any of the content in your email, you need to remember that nobody will read what is in the body of your email, if your subject line isn’t strong and captivating.
We can’t tell you how many emails we receive with misleading, confusing, or just plain boring subject lines.
If the subject line if your email is “Client Alert 2022” then you’re not likely going to get anyone to open that email unless they are super loyal readers or employees of the firm.
C’mon. We all know you’re more interesting than that.
Whereas, a subject line like,
- “U.S. Regulators Announce Major Shift to Oil & Gas Taxes” or
- “New Privacy Regulations Your Company May Be Subject To” or
- “Tips for Forming Your S-Corp”,etc.
will have your recipient racing to hit READ MORE.
These subject lines express value, and that’s why people click them. You have value to add – let them know it from the start!
Composing your content.
One of the BIGGEST mistakes we see lawyers make when composing email for their contacts is writing as if their message is going in a law journal, instead of for email.
Long-winded attorneys are a common trope, so don’t fall into temptation when using email marketing. You are not flexing prowess for a difficult professor or trying to get high peer reviews in a scholarly journal.
You want to reach your recipient and impart your value on them, meaning… they have to actually read your words.
Here are a few tips to remember when composing an email with high readability factor.
- Line breaks matters online because they create white space and what may feel like an unnatural break, may actually be what keeps your audience’s attention. Our minds and the way we process information are constantly evolving with tech, and we need some white space for comfort and comprehension.
- Bullets are your friend when it comes to drafting content in email, so use them. They organize and emphasize dense information.
- Keep your content concise, to the point, and clear. Your recipients shouldn’t feel like they survived your message, but retained it in actionable ways.
Don’t include all your content in an email, but rather to write short intro paragraphs or lead paragraphs that link to the content on your firm website. Using this method will allow you to track which content was most interesting to your email contacts and measure the amount of traffic that your email marketing drove to your website.
Clicks are our friends.
Remember those easy as A-B-C steps and few insider tips when composing, and you’ll be set to hit the 4th and final step to ensuring email marketing gold: optimization.
4. Measure and Optimize Your Email Campaigns
You’ve figured out why you’re emailing your list, who you’re emailing, and what you’re going to say. Now you need to know if all those efforts align with something measurable… metrics, anyone?
Now, before you run for the hills….hear us out.
As digital marketers, we LOVE data, but we know it can be a bit daunting for those unfamiliar with using email marketing metrics.
BUT. It’s impossible to know if something is working, if there is no way to measure it. Right?
It’s important you know how to measure your email marketing and that you know how to improve on the work you’ve done in the past. Otherwise, what’s the point of all the effort?
This is where optimization comes in.
This word is a scary sounding word, but optimization is not just a fancy word. It means looking at the email marketing you’re doing and seeing what is performing well and what isn’t – and adjust your plan accordingly. Simple as that.
To make this easy for you, we’ve put together some questions to help you assess the health of your email marketing.
How to Fix Low Open Rates on Your Email Campaigns
For example, if you noticed that very few people opened your email campaign, you’ll want to ask yourself: Why!?
● Did you send your email campaign to the right list of contacts?
● Did your subject line make a good case for why someone should open your email?
● What was the deliverability score of your email?
How to Fix Low Click Through Rates on Your Email Campaigns
Similarly, if your email was opened, but nobody clicked on a single article to read more, then you may ask these questions:
● Did the topics in my email relate to my audience?
● Were the topics covered in my email timely?
● Did I test my email to ensure all the links worked?
● Did I test my email to make sure the content was visible in HTML and plain text?
As you can see, these questions can uncover a lot about how to you might change, revise, or tweak your approach to your next email marketing campaign and/or cause you to resend your email campaign to everyone who didn’t open your initial email…
All of that info without insane spreadsheets or importing of data – just simple and easy metrics. This is optimization. See, not so scary after all, right?
That’s it. 4 steps to perfecting your email marketing efforts. You’re killing it!
We hope this overview has given you a good foundation for writing targeted and enticing email campaigns, and taken away a lot of the fear and mystery over improving your efforts.
Don’t forget to share this info and continue to follow your favorite digital marketing gurus for more tips on effectively reaching your clients and prospects (without losing your sanity) and reach out to us for help with your next big digital marketing endeavor!
