Often at this time of year solicitors come back to their practices re-energised and ready to take on the world. They decide that this year is the year when they will really get on top of running their solicitors practice and turn it into the one that they have always wanted. Often, to achieve this, the first thing they must do is to encourage more people to use their legal services, leading to the question in the title of this blog:
“How does a solicitor attract new clients?”
It’s a very easy question, and from where I am sitting it has some really easy answers, but I appreciate that this is not the case for most solicitors.
The main problem stems from the fact that most solicitors did not enter the law to become experts in client attraction. They entered to become experts in their specialist topic of legal service. However, whilst that used to be enough, with a changing economy and the internet, that really is no longer the case.
So how does a solicitor attract new clients?
If you are starting from a position of never having done any formal marketing, by that I mean more than just opening your office door and letting your clients do the rest, these areas should be your priority:
- Your website (not only is this the first place that prospective clients will go to check out your services when recommended, but when done well it will also attract new clients to you).
- Your client email newsletter (if you do not have one, start one today).
- Cross selling and referrals and recommendations (recording them and thanking those regularly referring to you is the bare minimum standard expected of you, otherwise the referrals will stop).
If you do not have all three of these in place, work through them in the order listed above ensuring that they are all absolutely as good as they can be before moving onto the next item on the list. For more help on each area click the topic of interest below:
What should solicitors to next to attract new clients?
If you already have in place the above three core solicitor marketing requirements, you can move on to adding some more automated marketing systems to your practice.
Why automated? Well, after more than 20 years of marketing solicitors services, I know that if the marketing is not totally automated, as soon as the solicitor becomes too busy the marketing is the first thing to be shelved, leading to problems a few months down the line when the current flow of clients drys up.
So it is vital that you automated your marketing to ensure that it happens with or without you. This can be achieved very easily in most cases by outsourcing each aspect of your marketing.
Why solicitors must outsource their marketing to attract new clients.
You might not immediately think this to be the case, but when it comes to marketing your legal services to attract new clients, you are in an incredibly fortunate position. Why? Well, your hourly rate modestly starts at £100 but often is very much more. In my experience of marketing solicitors’ services for the last 20 plus years, I know that you can find someone to manage each aspect of your marketing for no more than £50 per hour. So for less than half of your hourly rate you can find someone to take care of all aspects of your marketing. Do you realise how many business owners would be delighted to be in that position?
So if this is the case, why do so many solicitors fight this privileged position and actually insist on being far more ‘hands on’ in the marketing of their practice when they do not have the expertise required, thereby damaging the marketing in the process?
I believe it comes from their occupation and wanting to keep complete control of everything, which when it comes to the provision of your legal service is absolutely fine, but when it relates to the marketing, you really do have to learn to hand over to the experts. You still need to manage them, to check your Key Performance Indicators every month to ensure that they are working well and steadily improving, but otherwise you have to be hands off to allow them to generate more client instructions for you.
I hope that message comes across as intended, as if you can read it and accept it, I can guarantee that you will have a far more successful practice in a few years’ time than you do now, whilst most of your competitors will still be fighting rather than working with their marketing suppliers.
Other Good Marketing Methods For Solicitors To Attract New Clients
Once you have in place the three automated marketing systems above, you can move on to these other very effective methods for attracting new clients to your law firm:
- Adding regular new content to your website asking the questions already going on inside your prospects’ minds.
- Google adwords advertising (it works – I have dozens of case studies to prove this if you are not convinced (I know many solicitors are not initially)).
- Direct mail with follow up telephone calls (all outsourced and highly professional)
- Newspaper advertising (it can still be effective, but it must be properly considered – see more here: Solicitors Advertising
Summary
I hope this has given you some food for thought when it comes to how a solicitor can attract new clients. If you have any questions, please use the comments section below and I will be delighted to answer them for you.
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