It may seem like attorneys are always in demand. Yes, people need to hire a lawyer, but it’s a highly competitive field. There are over a million lawyers in the U.S. and there are now 15% more attorneys than in 2008.
What does that mean for your law firm? You have to be a smart marketer. You don’t want to always have to chase leads down. Ideally, your firm should be able to create attorney case leads on demand.
By putting your lead generation on automatic pilot, you have a steady stream of clients to serve without much effort. If this sounds like a dream, keep reading to learn the top lead generation tips for attorneys.
1. Have a Sharp Website
You have to consider your website to be like the entryway to your business. When people come into your office, they’re going to make an impression based on the design and appeal of the office.
A cluttered office with papers stacked up, old furniture, and trash everywhere will give people a bad impression of your law firm.
People do the same thing with your website. They form an impression of your law firm in less than a second.
The website of your law firm has to be designed to appeal to visitors. The design needs to be clean, and sharp. It needs to be fast and easy to use.
The website also needs to function well on mobile devices, since this is how people are likely to find you online.
2. Focus on Conversions
Your website has to look great, but it also has to drive action. What is the one thing you want people to do when they come to your site?
Since we’re talking about attorney lead generation, you want to have people become a lead. You can have them download a guide that explains how your area of law works. You can also have them book an appointment.
Your site’s design needs to drive action. You can strategically place sign up forms and appointment buttons on your site to drive those actions.
3. Set Marketing Goals
In any marketing campaign, you have to establish goals for the campaign. That starts by looking at your financials and reverse-engineering the process to find out how many leads you need.
For example, your firm needs to generate $20,000 a month. In order to reach that level of revenue, you need to have 5 new clients a month.
How many leads will it take to get 5 clients? It depends on the quality of leads and your close rate. You may need to generate 20 leads to get 5 clients. If you have quality leads and a good close rate, you may only need 10 leads to get 5 clients.
4. Use Pay Per Click Marketing
You have a wonderful website that’s ready to turn traffic into leads. How can you quickly get traffic to your site? You can do that by placing ads in search engines.
When someone is ready to hire an attorney, they’re probably turning to Google to search for “business attorney near me.”
You can appear at the top of search results by investing in pay per click ads for certain search terms. You have to keep in mind that these are highly competitive and expensive ads for attorneys.
It’s important to know how many of these clicks will turn into leads so you don’t throw money away. You may spend hundreds of dollars per lead, but if that lead becomes a client, they can bring thousands of dollars to your firm.
5. Remarketing is Advertising Magic
Most people are going to visit your firm’s website and then go away without becoming a lead. Remarketing or retargeting is a way to keep your firm in front of those visitors after they leave.
Have you ever visited a website, left, and saw a display ad for that same website a few minutes later? That’s remarketing.
You place a tracking cookie on your website, and you run an ad campaign that appears to those visitors. It’s a great way to keep your firm’s brand in front of those people and get them to visit your site again.
6. Organic Search Matters
Pay per click ads are a great way to reach potential clients. They’re also expensive to do month after month.
Organic search, or SEO, compliments your PPC campaigns.
SEO is also low-cost compared to pay-per-click ads. With SEO, you focus your content to reach the right people at the right time.
SEO requires that you understand how search engines work. Google’s algorithm uses hundreds of factors to determine search results. Plus, the algorithm always changes.
The best thing you can do is to make sure your website is technically sound. The site needs to have HTML code that tells Google what the content of your site is about.
It should be targeted towards certain search terms that people use to find legal information. Your website should have content that is relevant to searchers, too.
You should start a blog that shows off your expertise and legal awareness.
7. Look at the Metrics that Matter
There’s an attorney who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on billboard ads in New Jersey. They’re placed in high traffic areas such as along the New Jersey Turnpike, capturing the attention of hundreds of thousands of commuters every day.
The thing about this billboard is that it only has the attorney’s name. No phone number, nothing else. Just the name.
The thing is, the campaign seems to have worked. It has according to some metrics. The attorney gets hundreds of calls each week from people who have seen the billboard.
Is it a successful campaign? Not as a lead generation campaign. Out of hundreds of calls, how many became interested in the firm’s services? How many became actual clients?
It’s easy to think that getting hundreds of calls is good for business. It’s not if people are just calling to tell you that you need a phone number in your ad.
The metrics that you need to focus on are traffic, calls, qualified leads, and close rates. You should measure how many calls your firm gets and track how people found out about the firm.
You also need to measure your website traffic to find which leads are the best sources.
Tracking how much traffic and calls turn into appointments or consultations is another important measurement. That tells you the quality of your traffic and calls. A high conversion rate here tells you that you’re reaching the right people.
Track the percentage of appointments that turn into clients. This will give you a good indication of your sales skills and the quality of your leads.
8. Get Marketing Help
Let’s be honest, marketing is hard. It takes up a lot of time and energy. Once you have an increasing caseload, it’s harder to keep up with.
Consistency matters in marketing and if you don’t have the time to do it, you need to hand off lead generation. You can work with a marketing company that creates leads for attorneys.
That can make a huge difference in your business. You can focus on serving your clients, rather than trying to do everything yourself.
9. Know Your Audience
The most important thing to know about your audience is how they try to find lawyers. People go through various stages before they realize they need a lawyer.
This is called the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey helps businesses reach audiences with the right messages to guide them along the journey.
At the early stages of the buyers’ journey, a person or business may look up information online. For example, a business may look up “how to incorporate a business.”
They don’t realize that they should consult with a business attorney beforehand. You can provide content about the types of corporations and the advantages of each.
At the next stage of the journey, a business may decide what is a better option, a business attorney, or a tax attorney. An article that spells out the differences between the two would be very helpful.
You’re building trust with your audience by being useful. As they progress along the journey, you’re increasing your chances of getting a new client.
The Many Ways to Find Attorney Case Leads
There are dozens of ways to get attorney case leads. Which ways are right for you? It largely depends on who you’re trying to reach.
The place to start is online. You want to invest in a high-quality website that drives people to schedule a consultation.
You then need to drive the right kind of traffic to your website. The type of traffic you want is people that fit your ideal client’s profile. That traffic is much easier to convert and add more money to your firm’s bottom line.
Do you want more money tips? Head over to the Money section of this site for more useful content.
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