Email Marketing for Law Firms
In the legal field, clients pay for expertise, information and problem-solving skills. If you hire the wrong person, the cost of making a mistake can be very high. Therefore, people do not make this choice overnight - they need time to understand whether a lawyer is suitable or not.
When it comes to building trust and customer retention, email newsletters come in handy. It is a channel that can reach many people and showcase the company's expertise. You don't need to go far to get content for mailings either: it can be interesting cases from practice, non-standard situations or unexpected court decisions.
Why email marketing is useful for law firms?
Email marketing helps you build and monetize customer relationships.
- Interested customers subscribe to the newsletter. It is easier for them to sell services than for those who do not know about the company at all.
- The status of an expert is growing. People get valuable content and professional comments and recommendations from you. This is how the image of an expert is formed in their eyes.
- Clients don't forget about you and come back again. By subscribing a client to the newsletter, you will not lose contact with him, but will be able to keep him constantly. The likelihood of repeated calls increases.
- Almost all clients have an email address. 3 billion people are registered in the mail - it is number 1 among all channels in terms of the number of users.
- Customers like to communicate with the company by email. According to Infogroup, 70% of users prefer to receive letters by mail, 23% are not against communication by phone, and only 6% are ready to communicate in social networks.
Correctly configured mailings go to the Inbox folder and remain there before and after reading (especially valuable mailings, are not deleted). For comparison, in social networks, subscribers see only those posts that the algorithm shows them.
How to Implement Email Marketing for a Law Firm
- Understand who the client is.The more detailed you describe the client, the easier it will be to attract new users and make engaging and useful mailings for them. Things to consider:
o Who do you provide services for: individuals or legal entities.
o What areas of law does the company work with?
o City / country of work.
o What questions do clients ask most often?
For example, if your clients are a business, then they will be interested in reading about tax optimization, the nuances of labor legal relations with employees and other legal aspects of doing business in the mailing list. If these are individuals, then they will receive advice on buying and selling real estate, insurance, recommendations of a lawyer “for every day”.
Collect a subscriber base
An article about mailing lists for lawyers, we hope, is not the place where you need to explain why you can't buy or take someone else's database and send mailings to it?
Here are some ways to quickly and legally build a subscriber base:
- Convenient form of subscription on the site. It can be static or popup form on different pages. You can do it in special services in the mailing list service editor, or manually, if you know HTML and CSS.
Regularly post helpful blog content
Under the articles or on the main blog, you can put a subscription form through which people will be sent to your mailing list.
Webinar on a hot topic
When registering, you will collect contacts, and you will be able to send a recording of the webinar to the participants and in that way continue communication with them by mail.
LeadMagnets
Distribute books and video courses for email. Serve awesome content to your users. These can be video courses, e-books, checklists, or advice books. Offer them in exchange for email.
Offline address collection
Participate in thematic offline events that are intertwined with the specifics of your business: exhibitions, trainings, conferences, master classes, forums. Exchange contacts with other participants, invite them to subscribe to the newsletter.
Brief / application for consultation on the website
The client buys / orders a service on the website. If you don't collect his contacts, then you will lose sales in the future. Complete the application form with the question: "Do you agree to receive our newsletter?"
Incoming calls processing
Offer to subscribe to your newsletter at the end of the conversation:
- Thank you for contacting us. Do you want to receive our special offers for subscribers only in the mail?
Then the client either agrees and gives his email, or refuses.
Register in the email newsletter service
This is a special application through which you can send letters. Mailing services guarantee high email deliverability and provide a set of useful tools: block mailing list constructor, access to statistics, creation of subscription forms, CRM system.Most mailing services can be combined with other platforms without programmers: site engine, third-party subscription forms or CRM system.
Set up a welcome chain
When the subscriber leaves an email, send him an email. Ideally, it should go off automatically as soon as a customer signs up for a newsletter.A series of letters that a user receives after subscribing to a newsletter is called a welcome letter. Its goal is to introduce a person to your company, provide links to useful materials, and show that you are truly an expert in your field. The welcome chain can be made in any mailing service.
Create a mailing schedule
In order for the newsletter to give the maximum number of customers, it must be done regularly, for example, once a week. The best frequency can only be determined empirically: send emails with different frequencies and monitor indicators (openings, clicks, unsubscriptions, leads).
What to write about in the mailing list of a law firm
The purpose of the legal mailing list is to demonstrate legal expertise in a form that is understandable to the layman. You must create easy-to-read, informative content that is relevant to your audience.A few examples of what you can write about in the legal mailing list.
- Practical cases
- People love stories. Tell your clients how you practice solving problems and relieving clients from pain. This will build confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
You probably answer the same questions every day. Collect them and include them in your newsletter. With this approach, you provide a free educational resource, demonstrate your value as an expert. The FAQ can also be used as a lead magnet when collecting a database of addresses.
List articles (Listicles)
Listicle presents content in a numbered list, a very popular format. It can be used for both entertaining content and serious articles.
Newsjacking
Draw attention to a brand or product by reacting to current events. Follow the news - life provides interesting and resonant news feeds that can be commented on from a legal point of view. Describe the situation and advise your readers on what to do if their interests are affected. You can offer free legal advice to those affected by this problem.
Changes in the law
If the change in the law affects your target audience, be the first to inform them about it through the mailing list. Explain the update as simply as possible. Make it easy to understand, without legal jargon and long sentences. Give specific examples of how this new law will affect your customers.
Contests and gifts
If your law firm is providing a scholarship, mailing it out is a great way to promote it. You can also run contests and give away gifts to grab the attention of your followers.
Manuals and Downloads
Post useful materials on the site and announce them in the mailing list. This will increase the number of clicks from the letter and traffic to the site.Also, with the help of these materials, you can segment the audience by interests and include users in automatic chains for selling services. For example, if someone downloads the How to Start a Business e-book, you can send a series of letters about the legal aspects of starting a business. In it you can talk about all the intricacies of the procedure and ask clients if they need help and advice.
Infographics
An excellent method of presenting information in a visual way, which helps to perceive large amounts of complex data simply and easily.
Humor and entertainment content
Include a funny story or joke that your audience will love. Surely you and your team have found themselves in funny situations at work. Share them with your subscribers - it will make them smile and show that there are real people behind the newsletter who you can trust.
Digest of articles or news
When you blog regularly, you will have a lot of great content over time. Digest the best articles and share them with subscribers.If you work with companies from different areas, then it is advisable to do separate digests for each of the areas.
CEO Letter
In a first-person email, you can welcome new subscribers, thank customers for their support, talk about the company's goals for the coming year, or introduce a new service.
Public affairs and charity
Another newsletter idea is to tell how you help people, participate in public life and positively influence your environment. Perhaps you devoted one day a month to helping people in a shelter, bought special equipment for a hospital, donated a wheelchair to a person with a disability, or took part in a donation. You can humanize your business and show how you care about people.Show pictures of your team that knows how to relax and improve society. This can have a significant impact on many readers.
Conclusion. What mistakes to avoid at the start
Try to avoid these mistakes, because of them, the email channel may disappoint you and you will be abandoned:
- Too many email marketing campaigns. Subscribers can leave if the benefits of the mailings are less than their commercial component or they are too frequent. Offer your services, but don't forget about useful content. Without it, subscribers will get bored and stop reading the newsletter.
- Rare publications. A person will quickly forget about the company if he does not receive the newsletter regularly. Reactivating a cooled subscriber is more difficult than just keeping them interested.
- Uninteresting materials, boring and incomprehensible presentation. From what is difficult to understand, most likely, they will unsubscribe.