How can I get more clients?
The legal industry has always been slow to adopt new technologies.
This means that lawyers are missing out on potential opportunities to increase their client base.
Lawyers are often reluctant to embrace new ways of working because they fear that they won’t be able to deliver high-quality services.
However, these fears are unfounded.
In fact, the adoption of new technologies has led to increased productivity, improved efficiency, and better customer service.
For law firms to be successful in attracting new clients, they must focus on developing high-quality lead generation processes to bring more visitors to their website. The goal is to convert these website visitors into new clients with engaging and persuasive content.
Of course, the process of lead generation and client acquisition can be complex and time-consuming. Yet in these difficult economic times, law firms must continue to search for new clients, so fine-tuning your lead generation processes is critical to your law firm’s continued success.
What is Lead Generation
Lead Generation for lawyers involves finding prospective clients through a variety of online channels. This involves bringing in new leads through sales funnels.
A “sales funnel” is a multi-step process that guides your leads closer to becoming actual legal clients. The main stages of a sales funnel are as follows:
- Awareness: The first step to converting a lead into a client is simply making them aware of your firm and your services.
- Interest: Once your lead is aware of your firm, you need to capture their interest. This means you must have something on your website that serves as a hook for potential clients and keeps them interested in what you can offer them.
- Decision: You must get your leads to make a decision to seek more information or work with you.
- Action: The “action” portion of a sales funnel is different for every type of business. For some businesses, it might be a sale. For a law firm, it might be a potential client submitting their contact information, scheduling a consultation or reaching out for more information about services.
Check out these tips on how you can create a successful sales funnel.
How to Generate Leads for Law Firms
1. Have a strong law firm website
Your website should be designed to attract visitors who are looking for legal services.
It should also provide useful information and resources to help visitors understand why they should choose your law firm over others.
These are some key ways to ensure you have a polished, effective law firm website:
- Professional design: Your website must look professional, be user-friendly, be optimised for search engines, and be compatible with both mobile and desktop devices.
- High-quality content: You should only use high-quality, high-resolution photos on your website. Any written content you have on your website should be client-centred, allowing you to showcase the benefits of using your firm’s services. Remember to include your law firm’s unique selling proposition.
- Personal: You should have content for the bio of every lawyer in your firm to help leads become more familiar with the actual people they will be working with. Lawyer bios and images also help increase potential clients’ trust in your firm and its lawyers.
- Calls-to-action: Include CTA buttons on each page of your website—but not too many.
Great tools to use for professional website design include WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix.
2. Use landing pages to capture client leads
Landing pages are web pages created specifically to convert visitors into leads.
They contain CTAs (such as “Call Us Now!”) and other forms of marketing material.
When someone visits your website, he/she may not immediately know whether they want to work with you.
A landing page helps solve this problem by providing an opportunity to collect personal data from visitors.
You may need to make tweaks to landing pages throughout your campaign to optimise them for maximum conversion opportunities.
Check out these landing page optimisation tips.
3. Transform cold leads into warm leads
Cold leads are those who haven’t expressed any interest in your services yet.
Warm leads are those who have shown interest in your services but haven’t made a purchase yet.
The goal of your lead generation strategy is to turn cold leads into warm leads.
This means that you need to find ways to connect with these leads so that they feel comfortable enough to share their contact details.
The best way to do this is by having a successful email marketing campaign.
4. Drive traffic to your site with social media
Social media is an outstanding opportunity to market your services while building stronger relationships with your audience and engaging in direct communication with current or potential clients.
You can purchase paid advertisements that will show up in people’s feeds, or you can use organic advertisements you post on your own page.
You can run social media contests, conduct polls, host Q&A sessions, or simply engage in conversation. We strongly recommend using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., because they provide better reach than most other platforms.
5. Increase brand awareness with display advertisements
Another great lead generation tool is pay-per-click advertisements (PPC) that show up in relevant Google searches and as ad displays on other websites.
The idea behind pay-per-click ads is just as it sounds—you pay for each click on an advertisement.
For PPC ads to be effective, you need to select the right keywords, organise the keywords into campaigns and ad groups, and have landing pages set up that capture the interest of your leads.
PPC advertising also allows you to engage in remarketing—a way to keep your firm at the top of your leads’ minds.
There are a lot of reasons why people might not convert the first time they see your ad, but maybe more interested if your ad pops up again.
We strongly recommend using Google Adwords to help you build a robust PPC advertising campaign that brings in leads.
6. Offer free initial consultations to generate leads for your firm
Free initial consultations are a great way to get prospects to interact with your business.
If you offer free initial consultations, then you should create a form where people can submit their information.
This tactic isn’t always feasible for every firm.
But if it is indeed possible for your firm to offer free consultations, you may find it beneficial as it can help encourage leads to take action and connect with you.
It’s a great way to get a new client in the door and meet with them one-on-one—in person or virtually—which makes converting the lead into a client a much more manageable task.
You should keep in mind that there will be a time investment as part of this promise.
You might find it worthwhile to hire someone to conduct those initial consultations if you do not have the time to take them on yourself.
If you are interested in offering free initial consultations, we recommend using Clio, a great tool designed specifically with law firms in mind.
To find lasting success in a crowded legal market, attorneys need to stay on top of their lead generation processes, constantly tweaking and updating them to get the best results possible.
Your lead generation and marketing efforts should have a consistent, integrated message.
No matter how your leads find you, the personality of your brand and the main messages they receive should feel consistent and true to your firm.
For many attorneys, the prospect of taking on lead generation can be overwhelming.
But with the right tools, strategies, and even some expert assistance, you can use lead generation to set your firm up for a healthy and successful future.
