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Your Legal Website Design Does Not Work!

August 11th, 2010

Your legal website design does not work because:

  • It is too dark
  • It is too bright
  • It has too many colours
  • It does not have enough colours
  • It needs more pazazz
  • Your website designer says you need a widget
  • Your senior partner’s friends website is much nicer than yours
  • It does not have enough images
  • It has too many images
  • It needs more content
  • There is not enough content
  • Your senior partner knows someone that can rebuild it for only a few hundred pounds….

I could go on forever, and ever, and ever. Really I could. The point is, none of this matters. When it comes to your legal website desgn, absolutely the only thing that matters is that it brings you new leads, day after day and month after month. If it is not, change one thing and see if this makes a difference. Then change another and another. Test each change, give it time to settle and bed in. But test it slowly, bit by bit, then you will know what works because your clients will let you know!

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Posted in Law Firm Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »

Law Society Marketing Solicitors Brand?

July 14th, 2010

So the Law Society is once again spending hundreds of thousands of pounds promoting the brand of solicitor. Is it worth it?

Having reviewed their previous efforts, including the “Help, I need somebody” campaign based around the Beatles song of the same name, I think not. The problem with the Law Society model of advertising is that it is “brand advertising”. They are trying to promote the brand of solicitor and this type of marketing needs massive resources to be effective. It would require millions of pounds of advertising as opposed to hundreds of thousands of pounds. With a budget of this size the only advertising the Law Society should be undertaking (and this applies for all solicitors) is direct response advertising. This means creating an advertisement that requires one action to be taken immediately. It should be focused on one area of law (the Law Society are trying to promote every single area of law in one poster which will never happen) which allows you to be far stronger with your message and is more likely to lead to results.

When Tesco undertakes “brand advertising” it still has one simple message, which is usually that it is trying to save you money. It will present this message through packaged meal deals or specially reduced priced products. It does not advertise the fact that it supplies apples, bananas, baked beans, spaghetti hoops, shaving foam etc etc. It does not do this because it knows it would not work. If this is the case why is the Law Society spending your money in this way?

I would appreciate your comments below as to whether you think this would be good use of your practising certificate fees.

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Posted in High Street Solicitors, Law Firm Marketing (General) | 1 Comment »

Do Something Extra!

June 9th, 2010

What else can you do for your clients? Is just being their solicitor enough now? In this new economy it is the businesses that do something extra that are going to survive and thrive, so what extra are you doing for your clients?

I am always on the lookout for articles or businesses that can help my solicitor clients. If I find a product or service that I think will be helpful to a client I will let them know about it. For the cynical of you out there, 99% of the time this is not for a commission but just because it is something that I know will help my clients. It makes my client happy and it makes me feel content that I have helped someone else. We get one shot at this thing called life, helping someone else makes me feel that I have done something useful with my day and then, if it helps the client, automatically makes them think I am an ‘ok’ person to do business with.

This new business world is far more transparent and clients are more cynical, so if this is something you have not done before, do not be surprised if the reaction is a little wary. Do something helpful for a client for no other reason than you want to. The rest takes care of itself in time!

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General) | 2 Comments »

You Are Not Promoting Your Legal Services Enough Times!

May 25th, 2010

The old marketing adage is that you have to present a new product, service or business idea seven times before someone understands and embraces it. Does this still apply today? My experience in promoting my solicitor clients’ services and my own, both in terms of marketing for law firms and Loyalty Law is that the number is now far greater and I would like to explain why for your benefit.

If you think about how many interruptions your potential clients face in a day you can start to understand why. They might wake up in the morning to a commercial radio station or television and face many advertisements.

If they decide to read the newspaper again they are faced with many advertising messages, some obvious, others concealed as news items. All of them are vying for your client’s attention and your client is already under time pressure to leave the house to get to work.

Once they leave their house for work either on foot or by car they will again face the radio or a podcast with advertising, but also now billboards with more advertising and buses and vans plastered with advertising messages.

Arrival at work leads to the biggest time wasting exercise of your client’s busy day, checking email and Social Media websites (which now generally all have their own forms of advertising). Your client’s emails will contain spam advertising and requested advertising from trusted suppliers like Amazon, Tesco, or maybe even Co-Op offering you 200 club points if you make a will (yes I received this offer – de-regulation is already here really).

How do you cut through this clutter? How do you or I reach our clients with the message that we think is relevant and important to them? Well you certainly have to try at least seven times, yet now I think it is probably even more than that, maybe 10 or 20 times. Having a great product or service was never enough. This is even more the case now. You have to have a great product or service and shout it from the rooftops in as many ways as possible.

Take my own recent example. I know Loyalty Law is a going to be a great service for solicitors. Some solicitors immediately embraced it on the first mention of the service. Since then we have written letters, sent emails, run a webinar, joint ventures and promoted the service in probably around 10 or 20 other different ways to make sure we reach the right audience. We have then kept following up. The funny thing, and this still gets me after 20 years in the legal profession, is that it is often the 10th or 15th or 20th communication that suddenly prompts someone into action. We have people signing up now for Loyalty Law that first heard about the scheme two months ago.

Now of course if you promote your business or service effectively, as you must do now, you will from time to time upset someone. Embrace this, unless you are upsetting someone you are not promoting your message enough. For each person that I send another communication to them about Loyalty Law that complains about it, another two more will send back their application forms for Loyalty Law grateful that I have prompted them into action.

In my first legal practice I sent a letter to all Wills and Probate clients. It generated thousands of pounds worth of instructions. It also upset a family who had lost a loved one recently. That was not pleasant and could have been avoided had the database been correctly updated, but it allowed us to update our records so that it did not happen again and to send flowers and sympathy. The managing partner stopped the campaign for fear of upsetting anyone else, costing the business thousands more in lost revenue. You will upset people from time to time, hopefully not in this way. Do not let it stop you from promoting your services, but learn from it, put in place systems to ensure your database is always up to date, but keep telling people what you do or they will forget, walk away, or be consumed by another firm’s brighter and more frequent contacts.

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General) | 1 Comment »

You Don’t Need Legal Brochures!

May 10th, 2010

I was with one of my clients the other day and she said she had some news that would please me, and she was right. She had that morning received instructions from a new client who had obtained her details from……. a brochure in a friend’s house! Now for the negative people out there you might say the referral may have happened in any event. Possibly, but the brochure made it far more likely to happen.

The reason this story pleased me was because when I started working with the client they had no promotional materials aside from their website. I see this more and more with law firms and it always amazes me. Brochures were the marketing staple of a law firm for many years. Somehow though, I think maybe because of websites, less and less solicitors have brochures to promote their services. Now I know that this is completely insane, but clearly a lot of solicitors do not know this. Let me explain why you must have brochures.

The Cost Of Your Services

The cheapest proper legal service is probably around £100, for wills (any less then you should consider your options – it might be easier to sell 100 coffees a day than one under priced will so perhaps a coffee shop would be a better option (with a better margin too)). So if you expect your new clients to part with £100 plus, should they not be able to read about you and find out why you should be their firm of choice before contacting you?

Your Competitors

For the reasons I have stated above (insane as they are), most of your competitors do not have brochures to send to their prospects. This makes it even more compelling for you to do so.

Convert More Clients

If you receive any client enquiry I strongly advise you to send a printed letter (not just a lazy email) outlining the services that you discussed with the prospect on the telephone. This makes a MASSIVE difference in terms of improving your conversion rate for turning prospects into clients – Guaranteed. (This is why I have written my Sales Process ToolKit so if you need help converting more clients buy that). However, when you send your letter, if you enclose a brochure at the same time your client is even more likely then to choose your firm over your lazy competitor who has only sent an email and not included any brochure. This is how my client generated her new instruction.

One Referral Pays The Print Run

The next argument is that brochures cost money. Yes, there is no denying this point. However, if you treat brochures as you would any marketing activity, i.e. in terms of return on investment, this argument is soon removed. One new client from a print run of 1000 brochures covers the cost of your brochures. After that, any new clients put you in profit. Now if I were to say to you for every £1 you give to me I will give you £5 back, you would keep on giving me pound coins all day long would you not? This is what brochures do for you, but only if you have some and then only if you send them out regularly (get them out from that box in reception).

Excuses…

Many businesses will keep closing in these tough ongoing times. The recession may be over but with uncertain politics and people simply being far more cautious of spending these days (and debt being harder to obtain) it will be tight for some time yet. The solicitors that survive and prosper will be the ones that take more time marketing their services. The ones that close will be the ones bemoaning the changes that this industry faces and doing nothing except sitting in their quiet law firms waiting for clients to walk through the door. In my experience that is the two types of law firm out there at the moment. I urge you to choose the survivers option.

Promotional Paragraph Warning (Do Not Read If Offended By Someone Offering To Help You!)

You can see above that I believe brochures are essential for promoting legal services. The purpose of my business is to help solicitors to sell more of their services. This is why I created my LawKits range. Now I put the warning on this paragraph because I do not want you to discount what I say above. I really do not care whether you buy your brochures from me or elsewhere, but I do care that you have some asap. If that is from me, all well and good, but make sure you have brochures for your services. Tesco/Co-Op law will, so what does that tell you? Do they spend money if they think it does not work? Click To See LawKits Range.

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General), Marketing Products | 1 Comment »

Time For Government Not Solicitors To Change?

May 7th, 2010

So people were unable to vote, and it looks like we are heading for a hung parliament. What a surprise. All of the signs pointed to this and not one of the parties seems to have been able to change it. It strikes me that some radical change is needed to the whole system.

How can it be right, when I can send a payment across the internet from my bank to yours, or I can wirelessly connect my laptop pretty much wherever I am in the world, that to vote for my candidate of choice I have to walk into an MDF cupboard and put a cross on a piece of paper? Am I the only one that thinks that this is the most ridiculously archaic system ever known to man?

This is highlighted even more by the people who were unable to vote. They simply could not get into their voting stations before 10pm. Oops!

Now we are told that the second and third most popular parties in the election (using the current system of non proportional representation – don’t get me started on that one) may form together to oust the most popular party. Could that or should that be allowed to happen? It doesn’t seem very democratic to me.

Wouldn’t it all work much better if I was able to vote electronically (even if it is still at a polling station)? I walk in as usual, but this time I have a bar code on my polling card. I swipe this and then am given my choice of candidates. I press the button, I am asked to confirm my selection, and then my vote is cast. Automatically it is sent to be counted (sorry 6th formers and tellers you are all now redundant). During the day you could have hourly ‘live’ updates from your constituency telling you who was in the lead. Wouldn’t this be more likely to force people who were unsure whether to vote to get out and put down their mark? This would certainly lead to an increase in turnout. Then, at 10.01pm we would all know the results.

You could even build into the new system that if there is a hung parliament (which is clearly not good for our country), you go straight back the next day and do it all again, saving months of uncertainty.

For a Government that has spent years forcing radical, and often unecessary, change down the throats of unsuspecting solicitors, isn’t it about time they forced some change on themselves, whoever is finally in charge?

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General) | 2 Comments »

Finish One Marketing Action Today…

May 5th, 2010

What one thing could you finish today to make a new client walk through your door?

Who could you call that you have been putting off that might lead to new referrals?

Can you write that article that you know you should write to endorse your expertise?

Can you send that article to your clients as a newsletter using automatic software to make your life easier? (I use Aweber).

Can you finish that advertisement and place it. Then measure the results and improve it later rather than waiting for it to be perfect.. (always remember that perfection kills momentum).

Take some action, make mistakes but do something. Doing nothing is not an option anymore.

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General), perfection kills momentum | 2 Comments »

Center Parcs Or Bluestone Resort

April 20th, 2010

Over the Easter Holidays we paid a visit to Bluestone Resort in Pembrokeshire. This is the first time we have been to the two year old resort. We have been to Center Parcs several times before.

For those of you that do not know either of them, you stay in chalets or log style cabins, no cars are allowed on site when you have offloaded your luggage and you cycle or walk everywhere. Use of a large swimming pool with a wave machine and outdoor hot tubs is free to use. Center Parcs then encourages you to use their other facilities, all of which cost a lot of money. Once in Center Parcs they like you to stay on site and spend, spend spend.

However, Bluestone encourages you to visit the beautiful Pembrokeshire Coast and surrounding areas. It is a much smaller site and although it does have activities you are not constantly reminded about them or encouraged to try them. There is less to do, but because it is in such a beautiful setting, if you have the beautiful weather which we did, there is enough walking in woods, swimming and cycling to keep you entertained.

Center Parcs was the dominant force for many years if you wanted a holiday of this type. Now there is a second, and in my opinion far more enjoyable, option. Bluestone could have said that Center Parcs already exists, they do everything so well, what is the point of trying to compete with them? They could have bemoaned that someone else had got there first and launched the business that they wanted to launch.

This is the same in any business sector. If you are thinking of starting a service that is already offered by another firm, or starting a new law firm, don’t worry that you already have seemingly unbeatable competition. If your message is even slightly different it will appeal to a different market. The fact that other firms are already offering this service shows that there is a market for it. If you open with the right message you might convert clients from another firm to yours.

I am now a Bluestone Resort convert. If you like this sort of holiday, it is well worth a try. Who are going to be the converts to your new service or law firm?

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General) | 1 Comment »

Don’t Give Up On Your Law Firm Marketing: Go Chrome!

April 16th, 2010

I have always used Internet Explorer as my primary internet browser. I have used Firefox and Safari to test websites and make sure that they function properly, but pretty much every working day of my life, and most weekends too, I have searched the internet using Internet Explorer as my primary browser. Whilst it worked I had no reason to change. It did all that I asked it to and seemed to work very well.

At one of my regular legal marketing consultancy clients I had to use Firefox because Internet Explorer (IE) kept crashing their wireless network (oops)! However, I did not enjoy the experience and returned to IE as soon as I was back in my office or visiting other clients.

Then suddenly, for no reason I could find or understand, Internet Explorer kept freezing, not only on my computer but Megan and Samuel’s computer too. Now as Dad and household IT fixer this meant I was having to sort out my children’s computers at night as well as my own. I spend a lot of time on computers so this was not a welcome intrusion into my short evening. Enough was enough, IE was swiftly dumped and Google Chrome was tested for a few days.

It worked, did not keep crashing and it had a much bigger display than IE as it cut out a lot of the unecessary junk at the top of the page. So my browsing was much better because I could see more of the websites that I wanted to. Also, the best part, there was no need for a separate search box at the top of the page, you simply type in your search term into the URL address bar and Google knows you are trying to search so presents your results. Simple, yet brilliant.

I had used IE for all of my browsing life, at least 10 meaningful years and then in no time at all they lost me as a user. Google had kept mentioning Google Chrome to me everytime I browsed and searched on Google using IE. Subtly and not so subtly Google kept suggesting I try Chrome as my browser. For a long time I was happy to ignore their messages, UNTIL IE caused me pain and kept crashing. Then I was a Google Chrome convert.

Is this not the same approach you need to take to converting prospects into new clients of your firm? Particularly with commercial lawyers, if you are looking for new clients (and you always should be as if you are ‘Not moving forwards, you are moving backwards’) then when you find a potential client, you have to keep popping up under their noses. If you do not you are missing massive opportunities as it is only when they have a problem with their current solicitor that they will change. If you are not in front of them at that time you will not win their business.

If you have found a prospect that you know would be an excllent client, have kept in touch with that prospect by constantly sending useful information, press cuttings of interest and newsletters, you give yourself a chance of winning that new business. It might take one month, three months or three years. Some of my best clients that I work with on a regular basis first received my free marketing guide 18 months before they instructed me; others two years. I gave myself a chance of them using my services by constantly providing them with useful information. When they were ready to ask for some help with winning new business for their practice, who did they ask? A law firm marketing consultant that had once sent them an email, or one who practised what he preaches and kept in touch with them regularly and provided them with useful information that proved their expertise? Well they are my clients so we know the answer to that one.

It is no different for you. If you want to win a good client, or an excellent referrer, you have to keep going until they are unhappy with their current supplier and decide to find a new one. At that point, if you have done your job well, the only firm they are going to approach is your firm. Now in a race, would you rather be one in a field of 20, or one in a field of one? I know which race you are most likely to win.

Most firms I speak with that mention a prospect they would really love to work with, when I ask them what they have done to try and win their business they explain that they once tried calling them but they could not speak with the decision maker. Once! Once is never enough. Do you want to know the only test to use for deciding when you have made enough of an effort? When the prospect engages your services or tells you never to contact them again. Even on the second option you could try again a few months later as decision makers often change and someone else might be in the buying seat then.

Don’t give up on your law firm marketing, go Chrome and keep going until your prospects submit to your services!

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General) | 2 Comments »

I Agree Entirely, But This Doesn’t Apply To My Firm….

April 13th, 2010

The above phrase is one that I have heard so many times and causes me to tear my hair out (or what is now left of it). I usually here it when a solicitor has been provided with a new (to them) opportunity to promote their business which works very well, and they respond with:

"Well I can see how it would work for ABC & Co, Or DEF & Co, but it wouldn’t work for my firm. We are different."

In my experience, this answer is always untrue. The person offering the answer is not being deliberately awkward or obstructive, they genuinely believe that there answer is the correct one. Yet in most occasions, they are dismissing the idea out of hand with absolutely no information to back it up with.

When Do I Hear This?

"I am a niche legal practice so there is no way that I can keep in touch with my clients once a month after their matter is completed as I can only talk about one subject"

"Website marketing does not work for attracting new commercial clients"

"I can’t do a legal newsletter, I have nothing interesting to say"

"I can’t ask clients to recommend me to family and friends because that would seem too desperate"

Needless to say I have proved many solicitors wrong when provided with these answers. Are you using these answers to prevent your law firm from flourishing?

Why Do People Do This?

The good news is that this answer is not exclusive to solicitors. I have worked with many different types of businesses and I hear this answer in every sector. It is a "people thing" rather than specifically a "solicitor thing".

So why do people do this? In the legal world I mentioned that I normally hear this answer when offering a solicitor a new marketing opportunity to promote their business. Now if you bear in mind that I am usually only sitting with that firm because they need more clients (or I would not be invited in) this seems rather strange does it not? When you add to that the solicitor has accepted that they are not a marketing expert, again because they have invited me in, this seems even more strange.

I believe that on most occasions rather than “it wouldn’t work for my firm” what the solicitor usually really means is either:

"I don’t understand how this might work and because it is outside my area of expertise I am going to block the idea because I am not comfortable with it"; or

"This scares me and makes me feel uncomfortable so I am not going to do it"; or

"I am in this position with my law firm because I have certain limiting beliefs which are stopping me from moving to the next stage".

Now whichever of these answers is true (or even another variation of them) they are not a conscious answer. It is something from the subconscious stopping the firm from trying something new, something that might prove hugely successful. The trouble is that until you can recognise that you are saying these things you do not even know that you have a problem.

So please, if you hear your self saying "That sounds all well and good, but it doesn’t apply to my law firm", please stop, take check, and analyse why you are saying that.

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Posted in Law Firm Marketing (General) | 1 Comment »

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