Direct Mail and Effective Marketing
Keeping up with evolving marketing techniques is crucial to building your law firm and reaching your marketing objectives. Looking for the best marketing techniques is not easy, but also not impossible. Today, law firms benefit significantly from an excellent digital marketing strategy. But marketing online-and offline-require market research and knowledge on effective US law firm management.
Solo attorneys and small law firms will significantly benefit from marketing methods appropriate for their business needs. Keep in mind that the most effective marketing strategy you think through, test, and continuously improve. To achieve marketing success, get in touch with Richard James and avail of reliable consulting and marketing services.
Choosing Effective Marketing Techniques
Many attorneys are starting to make use of direct mail more and more. How do I know? Because I’m receiving more and more pieces to review, and I’m receiving more and more questions each month surrounding direct mail, and I’m hearing one success story after the next.
In general, our members are using direct mail to generate leads, convert leads, and create referral partners. I’ve seen this media used with success in every practice area and nearly every geography. And by far, the piece that succeeds follow basic rules.
- Ensure we have a solid headline
- Personalize the piece when possible
- Be sure the body of the message speaks to the benefits, not just the features of what we do.
- Make the copy about them, not about we
- Use pictures and captions
- Have a solid call to action with a deadline
- Use a lead magnet
- Ensure we are using a tracking phone number (and there is only one number and location on the piece)
Find yourself a list, put a direct mail piece together, and put it in the mail. The worst that can happen is that it performs less than expected. Then, we can go to work to fix it. As grandpa used to say, if you wait till all the lights are on the green before you leave the house, you’ll never leave the driveway.
Looking at Message, Market, and A.C.E
When it comes to direct mail, the three key components that marketers should look into are Message, Market, and A.C.E. While there are several sub-points to be made about direct mail, like frequency, teaser copy, the choice of the envelope, lumpy mail, etc., a vital first step is to look at these three things.
For instance, let us take a marketing team designing an ad for a magazine or newspaper that was going to be sent to a direct mail list every day. While the idea of a magazine being sent may, in itself, not work for all, other aspects, such as the URL and tracking number, should also be taken into account.
Essentially, a good ‘magazine ad' would make use of the following:
Direct response branding
Large advertisers invest the m-a-j-o-r-i-t-y of their marketing and advertising dollars on building a brand and completely forget about direct response. An excellent brand, however, can be combined with immediate response. The look on the person’s face on the ad, for instance, should ideally match the headline.
A deadline
Always remember, a direct response is not an immediate response if it doesn’t have a deadline! For example, for a criminal attorney, you can use the ten-day time period every DUI recipient has been issued as a hard deadline. Whenever possible, highlight the deadline and make it more dramatic.
Bonus
A bonus boosts response. If you have a book (which you should by now), as a freemium, akin to “gift with purchase.” You could either offer the reader a bonus consultation or a consultation with a book as a bonus. Each is looking for a different buyer, so try and test both.
A.C.E.
Whenever applicable, leverage the fact that you are an author. Promised that the recipient would meet with one of the authors, they were sure to point out that the book was award-winning. When you combine these things, it creates a powerful presentation.
Proprietary nomenclature
EVERY OTHER LAW FIRM uses the phrase, “Free Consultation.” Why not create your language? If you want to stand out and not be compared to your peers, change your language.
Created value
Give the “Free Consultation” (or the phrase you opt for) value by showing how much it is worth. This is VITAL. It gives the offer more power. It attracts those who understand this isn’t going to be a free lunch, but they are willing to waive the initial fee, further supporting their Authority. Authors and Celebrities rarely do things for free, and if they do, they are sure to tell you the value of their contribution.
Track, track, track
Please, if you’re going to invest in marketing and advertising, track your results. No, not all tracking is perfect, but you should at least give it your best effort. It’s so simple to do. It’s a business not to do it. Period.
Congruency/Ease
You must remember that the person has to enter the URL into the phone or computer whenever you are using printed advertising. If you make the URL complex to type, they are liable to get it wrong. If they do that, you likely lose their attention and the lead.
Inventing Your System
It is not necessarily “easy” to generate new leads and connect with potential customers. Working towards successful marketing, however, is not impossible. There are marketing campaigns that can give you ROI and a measurable increase in new customers. You need people who can provide the consulting and marketing solutions that your law firm business needs.
In the direct mail example above, the format in which the direct mail piece was delivered is not usually done. While a magazine ad can be questionable, a newspaper ad could work.
Working on direct mail
For one, a newspaper is much more widely read and has credibility that a magazine simply doesn’t. Additionally, the newspaper might be owned and produced by the firm that sent them with proper ad placement. So, my question is this, why can’t you do this on your own? You can.
You can create a direct mail piece that looks and feels like a newspaper, put in exciting articles relevant to your target market, apply advertising that uses direct response branding to support your A.C.E., and send it to your target market. Message, Media, Market, ACE, Match! It could help make the shift from clients asking, “Why should I hire your firm?” to “Will you take my case?”
Don’t wait for a service like this to come to your town. Invent it yourself. You’ll be happy you did.
Testing and beating the control
When direct marketing uses web marketing tools, a good landing page is congruent with the offer and ideally is a stand-alone page with no other navigation than to either call, sell schedule, or request more info via a webform. If it is merely a branch off the main website, the conversion could be somewhat lower than we’d like it to be.
Again, start, track, measure, change, track, measure, repeat. Whenever possible, ask for comments. Keep in mind that a critique is not designed to criticize, rebuke, or insult in any way. It is designed to help grow towards mastery in the art and science of marketing. Once you beat the control piece, keep testing and beat it again. That’s the name of the game.
The Need for a Legal Systems Expert
For marketing to be successful, it is vital to present your law firm as a reliable business. Show how clients can and why clients should get your law services. It is not enough to simply show potential customers the law services you provide.
If your law firm business needs a boost, make sure you do offline and online marketing right. Digital channels enable you to improve your online presence and credibility. Additionally, traditional marketing tactics can address other areas where you can reach more of your target audience.
Making the most out of internet marketing
If you want to grow your business online, you need to improve your digital marketing plan. This involves going through all the trouble of looking at different things to test, change, and test again. Any marketer can tell that pursuing marketing activities without tracking the numbers is a pointless venture. In no way will it allow you to get ahead of your competitor. We are in the arithmetic game, and changing our marketing funnel may affect the arithmetic in our favor.
For effective US law firm management, contact a trusted business consultant like Richard James.
Contact us at Richard James, Your Practice Mastered
Lawyers who are first-time business owners are often unaware of how to market or their marketing objectives. Finding appropriate marketing and business objectives for your firm is not easy, but it surely can be done. A legal systems expert can help you identify and reach your business goals in no time.
Digital market research is crucial if you want to build your firm and be more profitable. Know your target audience and start messaging them. No internet marketing plan can guarantee marketing success, but you can work on one that lets you effectively use US law firm management.
Contact our legal management consultant Richard James or schedule a 1-on-1 consulting today if you want to have your best month ever.
