Let me get right to the point. The 5 steps that generate new legal cases for our clients is a quick guide that was compiled through our experiences working with law firms since 2009.
From solo practitioners to large law firms, this formula has helped Inner Architect generate over $260,000,000 in new revenue for our clients since 2016.
Now it’s yours for free; all I ask is that you consider providing us with your feedback on these steps.
5 Steps That Generate New Legal Cases for Our Clients
Respond Immediately to Lead Inquiries!
It seems simple, yet most law firms of any size do not respond immediately to prospect questions. Firms that do not react rapidly to potential client inquiries will, and do, lose those potential clients to their closest rivals who cater to our instantaneous information culture.
“Companies are making big investments in order to obtain customer queries from the internet, and they should be responding at internet speed.” – Harvard Business Review
Under the pressure to respond in real time to client inquiries, what then constitutes an effective and appropriate response time? Although an older study, Harvard Business Review with InsideSales.com produced a crushing report on the shelf life of online sales leads and lack of response times.
How long does it take your firm to respond to an email, phone call, text, or social media question from prospective clients?
We provide a detailed guide on how to quickly respond to questions that lead to cases in Law Firm Marketing: How Long is Too Long to Respond to Prospect Inquiries?
Use a Professional Incoming Call and Live Chat Service
If dedicating staff to respond to leads is not an option, consider using a third-party service to field inquires and qualify leads.
High quality call-services offer trained agents whose job is to:
- Respond immediately to a question(s) by simply engaging with the prospect
- Assure the prospect that they can connect them with the right person(s)
- Capture a name, contact information but never attempt to answer any legal questions. The agent will never act as a consultant only a contact information resource
Live Chat
A Live Chat service provides your invisible website “drive-by” visitors, people who want to remain anonymous but are interested in information, a method of communication.
The live chat box is a graphic box that floats down each page of your website when a visitor is on that page. Your visitor can then type their question into the box, and the trained agent will begin engaging with them by:
- Responding immediately
- Building rapport
- Capturing a name, preferred method of contact, and asking if the person would like to speak with an attorney via phone, text, or email
Don’t let these potential clients leave your website to continue their search for another law firm.
Run Paid Ad Campaigns on Google
Among the most effective ways to introduce your firm to a potential new client is through search advertising on Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) program. This is one of the most effective of the 5 steps that generate new legal cases.
Why PPC?
Here are some of the incredibly important reasons many lawyers and firms utilize PPC advertising:
- Search Engine Indexing: Your firm does not have the organic search ranking in Google to show up for multiple prospects’ search queries. Essentially your competition has blocked your website from page 1 on Google searches for the most coveted keyword search terms your prospects are using to try to find representation
- Level the Playing Field: Your firm, if blocked out of the organic searches, can use Google PPC ads to show up on a page 1 search for the search terms you deem most critical to landing new clients.
- Targeting: PPC advertising allows your firm to target your best potential clients through keyword selections, relevant ads, geographic areas, and other filters. There’s no waste
- Set Your Own Daily Budget: You determine how much you want to spend over a certain period of time. You can also set the maximum price you are willing to pay for each click to your website, and you can pause a campaign at any time. There are controls set in place to protect you from ugly surprises
- Fast Results: Once your campaign is live, it has the potential to drive traffic to your website immediately. You will see data about how your ad is performing in near real time. By responding to this information, you can maximize the effectiveness of your pay per click marketing dollars
- Brand Awareness: Again, if your website and content is unable to break into the page 1 Google searches for the keywords your most interested in, PPC advertising will put you there. This allows potential clients to discover your firm’s name, logo, and website
Create Strategic Keyword Content for Your Website
Web pages and blog posts that support long-tail keywords may be found by potential clients in organic search results.
What does that actually mean? It means the following:
Your website web pages and blog articles act as signposts to Google (ranking purposes) and as proof to visitors that your firm has expertise.
“Organic search results” simply means non-PPC content that has been ranked and indexed by Google as authoritative and best suited to answer people’s search questions.
Long-tail keywords, the sentences or phrases used by potential clients when searching for legal answers, must be strategically utilized throughout your website.
Content Marketing
Law firms that focus on one practice area or firms that have multiple practice areas should begin writing content, making videos, using infographics, and producing case studies based on these areas.
Each practice area is a keyword. Knowing your keyword phrases means understanding how potential clients search for those services within Google. Here are a few tips to get started:
- If you have access to Google Keyword Planner, research the best keyword phrases for your practice areas
- Research your top competitor’s websites looking specifically for how they have set up their pages and blog articles. What are they writing about and how are their pages using keyword phrases?
- Seek out long-tail keyword phrases that are less common and more unique. Look at these phrases as potential growth search areas for your firm
Manage Leads in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool
Lead tracking and data management are key components for marketing intelligence and ensuring leads don’t fall through the cracks.
What is a CRM?
This is the platform that allows you to:
- House all data from your website, email campaigns, social media properties, phone calls, PPC ads and all marketing channels
- Organize contact information from prospective clients and current clients
- Analyze data compiled from your marketing campaigns in one place
- Use data to make intelligent decisions, based on consumer behaviors and your marketing campaigns, on future marketing budgets and where to spend your marketing dollars
Examples of CRM Platforms
- Salesforce
- Hubspot
- ZoHo
- Sugar
- Aptivo
Any Questions about the 5 Steps to Generate More Cases?
Any Questions?
If we can help answer a question or provide some detail, please reach out to Dean Guadagni dean@innerarchitect.com; Susan Hanshaw susan@innerarchitect.com, start a Live Chat on our website or give us a call at (415) 485.6961.
